folly But to distrust our selves we have great cause So that if we will make sure of Heaven it must be by giving all diligence to make firm our Title our Calling and our Election here on Earth If we fear Hell we must fear being prepared for it And it is great and difficult work that must be here done It 's here that we must be cured of all damning sin That we must be Regenerate and new Born that we must be pardoned and justified by Faith It 's here that we must be united to Christ made wise to Salvation renewed by his Spirit and conformed to his likeness It 's here that we must overcome all the temptations of the Devil the World and the Flesh and perform all the duties toward God and Man that must be rewarded It 's here that Christ must be believed in with the Heart to Righteousness and with the Mouth confessed to Salvation It 's here that we must suffer with him that we may reign with him and be faithful to the Death that we may receive the Crown of Life Here we must so run that we may obtain III. Yea we have greater work here to do than meer securing our own Salvation We are 〈◊〉 of the World and Church and we must labour to do good to many We are trusted with our Masters Talents for his Service in our places to do our best to propagaâ—e his Truth and Grace and Church and to bring home Souls and Honour his cause and edifie his Flock and further the Salvation of as many as we can All this is to be done on Earth if we will secure the end of all in Heaven Use I. It is then an errour though it is but few I think that are guilty of it to think that all Religion lieth in minding only the Life to come and disregarding all things in this present life All true Christians must seriously mind both the End and the Means or way If they mind not believingly the End they will never be faithful in the use of means If they mind not and use not diligently the Means they will never obtain the End None can use Earth well that prefer not Heaven And none come to Heaven at Age that are not prepared by well using Earth Heaven must have the deepest esteem and habituated love and desire and joy But Earth must have more of our daily thoughts for present practice A Man that travelleth to the most desirable home hath a habit of desire to it all the way But his present business is his travel And Horse and Company and Inns and Waies and Weariness c. may take up more of his sensible Thoughts and of his Talk and Action than his Home Use II. I have oft marvelled to find David in the Psalms and other Saints before Christ's coming to have expressed so great a sense of the things of this present life and to have said so little of another To have made so great a matter of Prosperity Dominions and Victories on one Hand and of Enemies Success and Persecution on the other But I consider that it was not for meer Personal Carnal interest but for the Church of God and for his Honour Word and Worship And they knew that if things go well with us on Earth they will be sure to go well in Heaven If the militant Church prosper in Holiness there is no doubt but it will triumph in Glory God will be sure to do his part in receiving Souls if they be here prepared for his receipt And Satan doth much of his damning work by men If we escape their temptations we escape much of our danger If Idolaters prospered Israel was tempted to Idolatry The Greek Church is almost swallowed up by Turkish Prosperity and Dominion Most follow the powerful and Prosperous side And therefore for God's cause and for heavenly everlasting interest our own state but much more the Churches must be greatly regarded here on Earth Indeed if earth be desired only for Earth and Prospirity loved but for the present welfare of the Flesh it is the certain Mark of damning carnality and an earthly mind But to desire Peace and Prosperity and Power to be in the hands of wise and faithful men for the sake of Souls and the increase of the Church and the Honour of God that his Name may be hallowed his Kingdom come and his Will done on Earth as it is in Heaven this is to be the chief of our Prayers to God Use III. Be not unthankful then O my Soul for the Mercies of this present life for those to thy Body to thy Friends to the Land of thy Nativity and specially to the Church of God I. This Body is so nearly united to thee that it must needs be a great help or hinderance Had it been more afflicted it might have been a discouraging clog like a tired Horse in a Journey or an ill Tool to a Workman or an untuned Instrument in Musick A sick or bad Servant in an House is a great trouble And a bad Wife much more But thy Body is nearer thee than either and will be more of thy concern And yet if it had been more Strong and Healthful Sense and Appetite would have been strong and Lust would have been strong and therefore danger would have been greater and Victory and Salvation much more difficult Even weak Senses and Temptations have too oft prevailed How knowest thou then what stronger might have done When I see a thirsty Man in a Feaver or Dropsie and specially when I see strong and healthful youths bred up in fulness and among temptations how mad they are in sin and how violently they are carried to it bearing down God's rebukes and Conscience and Parents and Friends and all regard to their Salvation it tells me how great a Mercy I had even in a Body not liable to their case And many a bodily deliverance hath been of great use to my Soul renewing my time and opportunity and strength for Service and bringing frequent and fresh reports of the Love of God If bodily Mercies were not of great use to the Soul Christ would not so much have shewed his saving love by healing all manner of diseases as he did Nor would God promise us a Resurrection of the Body if a congruous Body did not further the welfare of the Soul 2. And I am obliged to great thankfulness to God for the Mercies of this life which he hath shewed to my Friends that which furthers their joy should increase mine I ought to rejoice with them that rejoice Nature and Grace teach us to be glad when our Friends are well and prosper Though all in order to better things than bodily welfare 3. And such Mercies of this life to the Land of our Habitation must not be undervalued The want of them are parts of God's threatned Curse and godliness hath the Promise of this life and of that which is to come and so is profitable to
see in the brutish Politicks of Benedictus Spinosa in his Tractat. Theolog. Polit. whither the Principles of Infidelity tend If sin so overspread the Earth that the whole world is as drowned in wickedness notwithstanding all the hopes and fears of a life to come what would it do were there no such hopes and fears § 10. 3. And no Mercy can be truly known and estimated nor rightly used and improved by him that seeth not its tendency to the End and perceiveth not that it leadeth to a better Life and useth it not thereunto God dealeth more bountifully with us than worldlings understand He giveth us all the mercies of this life as helps to an immortal state of Glory and as earnests of it Sensualists know not what a Soul is nor what Soul-mercies are and therefore not what the Soul of all bodily mercies are but take up only with the carkass shell or shadow If the King would give me a Lordship and send me a Horse or Coach to carry me to it and I should only ride about the fields for my pleasure and make no other use of it should I not undervalue and lose the principal benefit of my Horse or Coach No wonder if unbelievers be unthankful when they know not at all that part of God's mercies which is the life and real excellency of them § 11. 4. And alas how should I bear with comfort the sufferings of this wretched life without the hopes of a life with Christ What should support and comfort me under my bodily languishings and pains my weary hours and my daily experience of the Vanity and Vexation of all things under the Sun had I not a prospect of a comfortable end of all I that have lived in the midst of great and precious mercies have all my life had something to do to overcome the temptation of wishing that I had never been born and had never overcome it but by the belief of a blessed Life hereafter Solomon's sense of Vanity and Vexation hath long made all the business and wealth and honour and pleasure of this world as such appear such a dream and shadow to me that were it not for the End I could not have much differenced men's sleeping and their waking thoughts nor have much more valued the waking than the sleeping part of life but should have thought it a kind of happiness to have slept from the birth unto the death Children cry when they come into the world and I am often sorry when I am wakened out of a quiet sleep especially to the business of an unquiet day We should be strongly tempted in our considering state to murmure at our Creator as dealing much hardlier by us than by the Brutes if we must have had all those cares and griefs and fears by the knowledge of what we want and the prospect of death and future evils which they are exempted from and had not withal had the hopes of a future felicity to support us Seneca and his Stoicks had no better Argument to silence such murmurers who believed not a better life than to tell them that if this life had more evil than good and they thought God did them wrong they might remedy themselves by ending it when they would But that would not cure the repinings of a Nature who found it self necessarily aweary of the miseries of life and yet afraid of dying And it is no great wonder that many thought that pre-existent Souls were put into these bodies as a punishment of something done in a former life while they foresaw not the hoped End of all our fears and sorrows O how contemptible a thing is man saith the same Seneca unless he lift up himself above humane things Therefore saith Solomon Eccles 2. 17. when he had glutted himself with all temporal pleasures I hated life because the work that is wrought under the Sun is grievous to me For all is vanity and vexation of spirit § 12. II. I have often thought whether an Implicit belief of a future happiness without any search into its nature and thinking of any thing that can be said against it or the searching trying way be better On the one side I have known many godly women that never disputed the matter but served God comfortably to a very old Age between 80 and 100 to have lived many years in a chearful readiness and desire of death and such as few Learned studious men do never attain to in that degree who no doubt had this as a Divine Reward of their long and faithful service of God and trusting in him On the other side a studious man can hardly keep off all Objections or secure his mind against the suggestions of difficulties and doubts and if they come in they must be answered seeing we give them half a victory if we cast them off before we can answer them And a Faith that is not upheld by such evidence of Truth as Reason can discern and justifie is oft joyned with much secret doubting which men dare not open but do not therefore overcome And its weakness may have a weakening deficiency as to all the graces and duties which should be strengthened by it And who knoweth how soon a temptation from Satan or Infidels or our own dark hearts may assault us which will not without such evidence and resolving Light be overcome And yet many that try and reason and dispute most have not the strongest or most powerful Faith § 13. And my thoughts of this have had this issue 1. There is a great difference between that Light which sheweth us the Thing it self and that artificial skill by which we have right Notions Names Definitions and formed Arguments and Answers to Objections This Artificial Logical Organical kind of Knowledge is good and useful in its kind if right like Speech it self But he that hath much of this may have little of the former And unlearned persons that have little of this may have more of the former and may have those inward perceptions of the verity of the Promises Rewards of God which they cannot bring forth into artificial reasonings to themselves or others who are taught of God by the effective sort of Teaching which reacheth the Heart o◠Will as well as the Understanding and is a Giving of what is taught and a Making us such as we are told we must be And who findeth not need to pray hard for this effective Teaching of God when he hath got all Organical Knowledge and Words and Arguments in themselves most apt at his fingers ends as we say When I can prove the Truth of the Word of God and the Life to come with the most convincing undeniable Reasons I feel need to cry and pray daily to God to increase my Faith and to give me that Light which may satisfie the Soul and reach the end § 14. 2. Yet man being a Rational wight is not taught by meer Instinct and Inspiration And therefore this
Effective Teaching of God doth ordinarily suppose a Rational Objective Organical Teaching and Knowledge And the foresaid unlearned Christians are convinced by good evidence that God's Word is true and his Rewards are sure though they have but a confused conception of this evidence and cannot word it nor reduce it to fit notions And to drive these that have fundamental evidence unseasonably and hastily to dispute their Faith and so to puzzle them by words and artificial Objections is but to hurt them by setting the Artificial Organical lower part which is the body of Knowledge against the real Light and Perception of the Thing which is as the Soul even as carnal men set the Creatures against God that should lead us to God so do they by Logical Artificial Knowledge § 15. But they that are prepared for such Disputes and furnished with all artificial helps may make good use of them for defending and clearing up the Truth to themselves and others so be it they use them as a means to the due end and in a right manner and set them not up against or instead of the real and effective Light § 16. But the Revealed and Necessary part must here be distinguished from the unrevealed and unnecessary To study till we as clearly as may be understand the certainty of a future happiness and wherein it consisteth in the sight of God's Glory and in perfect holy mutual Love in Union with Christ and all the blessed this is of great use to our Holiness and Peace But when we will know more than God would have us it doth but tend as gazing on the Sun to make us blind and to doubt of certainties because we cannot be resolved of uncertainties To trouble our heads too much in thinking how Souls out of the body do subsâ—sâ— and act sensitively or not by Organs or without how far they are one and how far still individuate in what place they shall remain and where is their Paradise or Heaven how they shall be again united to the body whether by their own emission as the Sun beams touch their Objects here and whether the body shall be restored as the consumed flesh of restored sick men aliunde or only from the old materials A hundred of these Questions are better left to the knowledge of Christ lest we do but foolishly make snares for our selves Had all these been needful to us they had been revealed In respect to all such curiosities and needless knowledge it is a Believer's wisdom implicitly to Trust his Soul to Christ and to be satisfied that he knoweth what we know not and to fear that vain vexatious knowledge or inquisitiveness into good and evil which is selfish and savoureth of a distrust of God and is that sin and fruit of sin which the Learned world too little feareth § 17. III. That God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him and that holy Souls shall be in blessedness with Christ these following Evidences conjoyned do evince on which my Soul doth raise its Hopes § 18. I. The Soul which is an Immortal Spirit must be immortally in a Good or Bad condition But Man's Soul is an Immortal Spirit and the good are not in a bad condition Its Immortality is proved thus A spiritual or most pure invisible substance naturally endowed with the Power Virtue or Faculty of Vital-Action Intellection and Volition which is not annihilated nor destroyed by separation of Parts nor ceaseth or loseth either its Power Species Individuation or Action is an Immortal Spirit But such is the Soul of Man as shall be manifest by parts § 19. I. The Soul is a substance For that which is Nothing can do Nothing but it doth move understand and will No man will deny that this is done by something in us and by some substance and that substance is it which we call the Soul It is not Nothing and it is within us § 20. As to them that say It is the Temperament of several parts conjunct I have elsewhere fully confuted them and proved 1. That it is some one part that is the Agent on the rest which all they confess that think it to be the material spirits or fiery part It is not bones and flesh that understand but a purer substance as all acknowledge 2. What part soever it be it can do no more than it is Able to do And a conjunction of many parts of which no one hath the power of Vitality Intellection or Volition formally or eminently somewhat as excellent can never by contemperation do those acts For there can be no more in the effect than is in the cause otherwise it were no effect The vanity of their Objections that tell us a Lute a Watch a Book perform that by cooperation which no one part can do I have elsewhere manifested 1. Many strings indeed have many motions and so have many effects on the Ear and Phantasie which in us are sound and harmony But all is but a percussion of the Air by the strings and were not that motion received by a sensitive Soul it would be no Musick or Melody so that there is nothing done but what each part had power to do But Intellection and Volition are not the conjunct motions of all parts of the body receiving their form in a nobler Intellective nature as the sound of the strings maketh melody in man If it were so that Receptive Nature still would be as excellent as the Effect importeth 2. And the Watch or Clock doth but move according to the action of the spring or poise but that it moveth in such an order as becometh to man a sign and measure of Time this is from Man who ordereth it to that use But there is nothing in the motion but what the parts have their power to cause And that it signifieth the hour of the daies to us is no Action but an object used by a rational Soul as it can use the shadow of a Tree or House that yet doth nothing 3. And so a Book doth nothing at all but is a meer objective ordination of passive signs by which Man 's active Intellect can understand what the Writer or Orderer did intend so that here is nothing done beyond the power of the Agent nor any thing in the effect which was not in the cause either formally or eminently But for a company of Atoms of which no one hath sense or reason to become sensitive and rational by meer conjunct motion is an â—ffect beyond the power of the supposed cause § 21. But as some think so basely of our noblest Acts as to think that contempered agitated Atoms can perform them that have no natural intellective or sensitive virtue or power in themselves so others think so highly of them as to take them to be the Acts only of God or some universal Soul in the body of Man and so that there is no Life Sense or Reason in the World but God himself or such
an universal Soul And so that either every man is God as to his Soul or that it is the Body only that is to be called Man as distinct from God But this is the Self-ensnaring and self-perplexing temerity of busie bold and arrogant heads that know not their own capacity and measure And on the like reasons they must at last come with others to say that all passive matter also is God and that God is the Universe consisting of an Active Soul and Passive Body As if God were no cause and could make nothing or nothing with Life or Sense or Reason § 22. But why depart we from things certain by such presumptions as these Is it not certain that there are baser creatures in the World than Men or Angels Is it not certain that one Man is not another Is it not certain that some men are in torment of body and mind And will it be a comfort to a man in such torment to tell him that he is God or that he is part of an universal Soul Would not a man on the Rack or in the Stone or other misery say Call me by what name you please that caseth not my pain If I be part of God or an universal Soul I am sure I am a tormented miserable part And if you could not make me believe that God hath some parts which are Serpents Toads Devils or wicked or tormented men you must give me other senses and perceptive powers before it will comfort me to hear that I am such a part And if God had wicked and tormented parts on Earth why may he not have such and I be one of them hereafter And if I be a holy and happy part of God or of an universal Soul on Earth why may not I hope to be such hereafter § 23. We deny not but that God is the continued first cause of all Being whatsoever and that the branches and fruit depend not as effects so much on the causality of the Stock and Roots as the creature doth on God and that it is an impious conceit to think that the World or any part of it is a Being independent and separated totally from God or subsisting without his continued causation But cannot God cause as a Creator by making that which is not himself This yieldeth the self-deceiver no other honour nor happiness but what equally belongeth to a Devil to a Fly or Worm to a Dunghill or to the worst miserablest man § 24. II. As Man's Soul is a SUBSTANCE so is it a Substance differenced formally from all inferiour Substances by an Innate indeed Essential Power Virtue or Faculty of Vital-Action Intellection and Free-will For we find all these Acts performed by it as Motion Light and Heat are by the Fire or Sun And if any should think that these Actions are like those of a Musician compounded of the Agents principal and organical several parts could he prove it no more would follow but that the lower powers the Sensitive or Spirits are to the higher as a Passive Organ receiving its operations and that the Intellectual Soul hath the power of causing Intellection and Volition by its Action on the inferiour parts as a man can cause such motions of his Lute as shall be melody not to it but to himself And consequently that as Musick is but a lower operation of man whose proper acts of Intellection and Volition are above it so Intellection and Volition in the Body are not the noblest Acts of the Soul but it performeth them by an Eminent Power which can do greater things And if this could be proved what would it tend to the unbelievers ends or to the disadvantage of our hopes and comforts § 25. III. That man's Soul at death is not annibilated even the Atomists and Epicurians will grant who think that no Atom in the Universe is annihilated And we that see not only the Sun and Heavens continued but every grain of matter and that compounds are changed by dissolution of parts and rarefaction or migration c. and not by Annihilation have no reason to dream that God will annihilate one Soul though he can do it if he please yea and annihilate all the World It is a thing beyond a rational expectation § 26. IV. And a destruction by the dissolution of the parts of the Soul we need not fear For 1. Either an Intellectual Spirit is divisible and partible or not if not we need not fear it if it be either it is a thing that Nature tendeth to or not But that Nature doth not tend to it is evident For 1. There is naturally so strange and strong an inclination to unity and averseness to separation in all things that even Earth and Stones that have no other known natural motion have yet an aggregative motion in their gravitation But if you will separate the parts from the rest it must be by force And Water is yet more averse from partition without force and more inclined to union than Earth and Air than Water and Fire than Air so that he that will cut a Sun-beam into pieces and make many of one must be an extraordinary Agent And surely Spirits even Intellectual Spirits will be no less averse from partition and inclined to keep their Unity than Fire or a Sun-beam is so that naturally it is not a thing to be feared that it should fall into pieces 2. And he that will say that the God of Nature will change and overcome the Nature that he hath made must give us good proofs of it or it is not to be feared And if he should do it as a punishment we must find such a punishment somewhere threatened either in his Natural or Supernatural Law which we do not and therefore need not fear it § 27. 3. But if it were to be feared that Souls were partible and would be broken into parts this would be no destruction of them either as to their substance powers form or action but only a breaking of one Soul into many For being not compounded of Heterogeneal parts but as simple Elements of Homogeneal only as every Atom of Earth is Earth and every drop of Water in the Sea is Water and every particle of Air and Fire is Air and Fire and have all the properties of Earth Water Air and Fire so would it be with every particle of an Intellectual Spirit But who can see cause to dream of such a partition never threatened by God § 28. V. And that Souls lose not their formal Powers or Virtues we have great reason to conceive because they are their Natural Essence not as mixt but simple substances And though some imagine that the Passive Elements may be attenuation or incrassation be transmuted one into another yet we see that Earth is still Earth and Water is Water and Air is Air and their conceit hath no proof And were it proved it would but prove that none of these are a first or proper Element
that were it not for the work and higher ends of life I had little Reason to be much in love with it or to be loath to leave it And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary unavoidable sensitive Love of the Body and of Life as he puts into the Mother and into every Bruit a love of their young Ones how unclean and impotent and troublesome soever for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth Had God but left it to meer Reason without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is whether this life should be loved and desired and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born A wish which I have had much a do to forbear even when I have known that it is sinful and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it as few have had 6. Yea to depart from such a Body is but to be removed from a very foul uncleanly and sordid Habitation I know that the Body of Man and Bruits is the curious wonderful work of God and not to be despised nor injuriously dishonoured but admired and well used But yet it is a wonder to our Reason that so noble a Spirit should be so meanly housed And we may call it Our vile Body as the Apostle doth Phil. 3. 21. It is made up of the Airy Watery and Earthly parts of our daily food subacted and actuated by the fiery part as the instrument of the Soul The greater part of the same food which with great cost and pomp and pleasure is first upon our Tables and then in our Mouths to day is to morrow a fetid loathsom excrement and cast out into the draught that the sight and smell of that annoy us not which yesterday was the sumptuous fruit of our abundance the glory of that which is called great housekeeping and the pleasure of our Eyes and Taste And is not the rest that turneth into Blood and Flesh of the same general kind with that which is turned into loathsom filth The difference is that it is fitter for the Soul by the fiery Spirits yet longer to operate on and keep from corruption Our blood and flesh are as stinking and loathsom a substance as our filthiest excrements save that they are longer kept from putrefaction Why then should it more grieve me that one part of my food which turned into flesh should rot and stink in the Grave than that all the rest should daily stink in the draught Yea while it is within me were it not covered from my sight what a loathsom mass would my Intestines appear If I saw what is in the Guts the Mesentery the Ventricles of the Brain what filth what bilious or mucous matter and perhaps crawling Worms there are in the most proud or comely Person I should think that the cover of a cleaner Skin and the borrowed Ornaments of Apparel make no great difference between such a Body and a Carkass which may be also covered with an adorned Coffin and Monument to deceive such Spectators that see but out-sides the change is not so great of corruptible Flesh repleat with such fetid Excrements into corrupted Flesh as some Fools imagine 7. Yet more to Depart from such a Body is but to be loosed from the Bondage of Corruption and from a Clog and Prison of the Soul I say not that God put a pre-existent Soul into this Prison Penally for former faults I must say no more than I can prove or than I know But that Body which was an apt Servant to Man's Soul is become as a Prison to him now What alteration sin made upon the Nature of the Body as whether it be more terrene and gross than else it would have been I have no reason to assert Of Earth or Dust it was at first and to Dust it is sentenced to return But no doubt but it hath its part in that dispositive depravation which is the fruit of sin we find that the Soul as sensitive is so imprisoned or shut up in Flesh that sometimes it is more than one Door that must be opened before the Object and the Faculty can meet In the Eye indeed the Soul seemeth to have a Window to look out at and to be almost itself viâ—ible to others And yet there are many interposing tunicles and a suffusion or winking can make the clearest sight to be as useless for the time as if it were none And if sense be thus shut up from its Object no wonder if Reason also be under difficulties from coporeal impediments and if the Soul that is yoaked with such a Body can go no faster than its heavy pace 8. Yet further To Depart from such a Body is but to be separated from an accidental Enemy and one of our greatest and most hurtful Enemies Though still we say That it is not by any default in the work of our Creator but by the effects of sin that it is such What could Satan or any other Enemy of our Souls have done against us without our flesh What is it but the Interest of this Body that standeth in competition against the Interest of our Souls and God What else do the prophane sell their heavenly Inheritance for as Esau his Birthright No Man loveth evil as evil but as some way a real or seeming good And what good is it but that which seemeth good for the Body What else is the Bait of Ambition Covetousness and Sensuality but the Interest and Pleasure of this Flesh What taketh up the Thoughts and Care which we should lay out upon things Spiritual and Heavenly but this Body and its Life What Pleasures be they that steal away mens Hearts from the heavenly Pleasures of Faith Hope and Love but the Pleasures of this Flesh This draweth us to sin This hindereth us from and in our duty This Body hath its interest which must be minded and its inordinate Appetite which must be pleased or else what murmurings and disquiet must we expect Were it not for Bodily Interest and its Temptations how much more innocently and holily might I live I should have nothing to care for but to please God and to be pleased in him were it not for the care of this Bodily life What Employment should my Will and Love have but to Delight in God and Love Him and his Interest were it not for the Love of the Body and its concerns By this the mind is darkened and the Thoughts diverted By this our wills are perverted and corrupted and by Loving things Corporeal contract a strangâ—ness and aversation from things Spiritual By this Heaâ—â— and Time are alienated from God our Guilt is increased and our heavenly desire and hopes destroyed Life made unholy and uncomfortable and Death made terrible God and our Souls separated and Life eternal set by and in danger of being utterly lost
I know that it is the sinful Soul that is in all this the chief cause and agent But what is it but Bodily Interest that is its temptation bait and end What but the Body and its Life and Pleasure is the chief Objective alluring cause of all this sin and misery And shall I take such a Body to be better than Heaven or be loth to be loosed from so troublesom a Yoak-fellow on to be separated from so burdensom and dangerous a Companion § 3. Obj. But I know this Habitation but the next I know not I have long been acquainted with this Body and this World but the next I am unacquainted with Ans 1. If you know it you know all that of it which I have mentioned before you know it to be a burden and snare I am sure I know by long experience that this Flesh hath been a painful lodging to my Soul and this World as a tumultuous Ocean or like the uncertain and stormy Region of the Air. And well he deserveth bondage pain and enmity who will love them because he is acquainted with them and is loth to leave them because he hath had them long and is afraid of being well because he hath been long sick 2. And do you not know the next and better Habitation Is Faith no knowledge If you believe God's Promise you know that such a state there is And you know in general that it is Better than this World And you know that we shall be in Holiness and Glorious happiness with Christ And is this no knowledge 3. And what we know not Christ that prepareth and promiseth it doth know And is that nothing to us if really we Trust our Souls to him He that knoweth not more Good by Heaven than by Earth is yet so earthly and unbelieving that it is no wonder if he be afraid and unwilling to depart § 4. II. In Departing from this Body and Life I must depart from all its ancient Pleasures I must taste no more sweetness in meat or drink or rest or sport or any such thing that now delighteth me House and Lands and Goods and Wealth must all be left and the place where I live must know me no more All my possessions must be no more to me nor all that I laboured for or took delight in than if they had never been at all And what though it must be so Consider O my Soul 1. Thy ancient Pleasures are all past already Thou losest none of them by Death for they are all lost before if immortal Grace have not by sanctifying them made the benefits of them to become immortal All the sweet draughts and morsels and sports and laughters all the sweet Thoughts of thy worldly Possessions or thy Hopes that ever thou hadst till this present Hour are past by dead and gone already All that Death doth to such as these is to prevent such that on Earth thou shalt have no more 2. And is not that the Case of every Bruit that hath no comfort from the prospect of another Life to repair his loss And yet as our dominion diminisheth their pleasure while they live by our keeping them under fear and labour so at our will their lives must end To please a Gentleman's Appetite for half an hour or less Birds Beasts and Fishes must lose life itself and all the pleasure which life might have afforded them for many Years yea perhaps many of these Birds and Fishes at least must die to become but one Feast to a rich Man if not one ordinary Meal And is not their sensual pleasure of the same Nature as ours Meat is as sweet to them and ease as welcome and lust as strong in season And the pleasure that Death depriveth our Flesh of is such as is common to Man with Bruits Why then should it seem hard to us to lose that in the Course of Nature which our Wills deprive them of at our Pleasure When if we are Believers we can say that we do but exchange these delights of Life for the greater delights of a Life with Christ which is a comfort which our fellow Creatures the Bruits have not 3. And indeed the Pleasures of Life are usually embittered with so much pain that to a great part of the World doth seem to exceed them The Vanity and Vexation is so great and grievous as the pleasure seldom countervaileth It 's true that Nature desireth Life even under Sufferings that are but tolerable rather than to die But that is not so much from the sensible Pleasure of life as from meer Natural Inclination which God hath laid so deep that free will hath not full power against it As before I said that the Body of Man is such a thing that could we see through the Skin as men may look through a Glass Hive upon the Bees and see all the parts and motion the filth and excrements that are in it the Soul would hardly be willing to actuate love and cherish such a mass of unclean matter and to dwell in such a loathsom place unless God had necessitated it by Nature deeper than Reason or sense to such a Love and such a labour by the Pondus or Spring of Inclination Even as the Cow would not else lick the unclean Calf nor Women themselves be at so much labour and trouble with their Children while there is little of them to be pleasant but uncleanness and crying and helpless impatiency to make them wearisom had not necessitating Inclination done more hereto than any other sense or reason Even so I now say of the pleasure of Living that the sorrows are so much greater to Multitudes than the sensible delight that life would not be so commonly chosen and endured under so much trouble were not men determined thereto by Natural necessitating Inclination or deterred from Death by the fears of misery to the separated Soul And yet all this kept not some counted the best and wisest of the Heathens from taking it for the Valour and Wisdom of a Man to make away his life in time of extremity and from making this the great answer to them that grudge at God for making their lives so miserable If the misery be greater than the good of life Why dost thou not end it Thou maist do that when thou wilt Our Meat and Drink is pleasant to the healthful but it costeth poor men so much toil and labour and care trouble to procure a poor Diet for themselves and their families that I think could they live without eating and drinking they would thankfully exchange the pleasure of it all to be eased of their care and toil in getting it And when sickness cometh even the pleasantest Food is loathsom 4. And do we not willingly interrupt and lay by these Pleasures every Night when we betake our selves to sleep It 's possible indeed a Man may then have pleasant Dreams But I think few go to sleep for the pleasure of Dreaming
intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
out a Prayer Book on my Heart He giveth me desires and he loveth to be importuned by them His Spirit is first a Spirit of supplication and after of Consolation and in both a Spirit of Adoption so far is he from being loth to be troubled with my importunity that he seeketh to me to seek his grace and is displeased with me that I will ask and have no more All this is true But how then cometh my Soul to be yet so low so dark so fond of this wretched Flesh and World and so backward to go home and dwell with Christ Alas a taste of Heaven on Earth is a Mercy too pretious to be cast away upon such as have long grieved and quencht the Spirit and are not by diligent and patient seeking prepared to receive it He that proclaimeth a general Peace will give Peace only to the Sons of Peace If after such unkind neglects such wilful sins as I have been guilty of I should expect to be suddenly in my Saviours Armâ— and to be feasted presently with the first Fruits of Heaven I should look that the Most Holy should too little manifest his hatred of my sin My Conscience remembreth the follies of my Youth and many a later odious sin and telleth me that if Heaven were quite hid from my sight and I should never have a glimpse of the Face of glorious eternal Love it were but just I look upward from Day to Day I groan to see his pleased Face and better to know my God and my home I cry to him daily My God this little is better than all the pleasures of sin My Hopes are better than all the Possessions of this World Thy gracious looks have oft revived me and thy mercies have been unmeasurable to my Soul and Body But O how far short am I of what even Fourty Years ago I hoped sooner to have attained Where is the Peace that passeth Understanding that should keep my Heart and Mind in Christ O where is the seeing the longing the rejoicing and triumphing Faith Where is that pleasant familiarity above that should make a Thought of Christ and Heaven to be sweeter to me than the Thoughts of Friends or Health or all the Prosperity and Pleasure of this World Do those that dwell in God and God in them and have their Hearts and Conversations in Heaven attain to no more clear and satisfying perceptions of that blessed state than I have yet attained Is there no more acquaintance above to be here expected No livelier sense of future joyes No sweeter foretast Nor fuller silencing of doubts and fears I am not so loth to go to a Friend nor to the Bed where I oft spend the Night in restless pains and rolling as I have too often been to come to thee Alas how many of thy Servants are less afraid to go to a Prison than to their God! and had rather be banished to a Land of Strangers than sent to Heaven Lord must I that am called Thy Child and an Heir of Heaven and a Co-heir with Christ have no more acquaintance with my glorified Lord and no more love to Thee that art my portion before I go hence and come before thee Shall I have no more of the heavenly Life and Light and Love Alas I have scarce enough in my Meditations to denominate them truly heavenly Meditations I have scarce enough in a Prayer to make it indeed a heavenly Prayer or in a Sermon to make it a heavenly Sermon And shall I have no more when I come to die Must I go hence so like a stranger to my home Wilt thou take Strangâ—â—â— into Heaven know them as thine that do no better know thee here O my God vouchsafe a Sinner yet more of his Spirit that came down on Earth to call up earthly minds to God and to open Heaven to all Believers O what do I beg for so frequently so earnestly for the sake of my Redeemer as the Spirit of Life and Consolation which may shew me the pleased Face of God and unite all my affections to my glorified Head and draw up this dark and drowsie Soul to love and long to be with thee But alas though these are my daily groans how little yet do I ascend I dare not blame the God of Love He is full and willing I dare not blame my blessed Saviour He hath shewed that he is not backward to do good I dare not accuse the holy Spirit It is his work to sanctifie and comfort Souls If I knew no reason of this my low and dark Estate I must needs conclude that it is somewhat in my self But alas my Conscience wants not matter to satisfie me of the cause Sinful resistance of the Spirit and unthankful neglects of Grace and Glory are undoubtedly the cause But are they not a cause that Mercy can forgive That grace can overcome and may I not yet hope for such a Victory before I die Lord I will lie at thy doors and groan I will pour out my moans before thee I will beg and whatever thou wilt do with me Thou describest the kindness of the Dogs to a Lazarus that lay at a rich Man's Doors in Sores Thou commendest the neighbourly pitty of a Samaritan that took care of a wounded Man Thou condemnest those that will not shew mercy to the poor and needy Thou biddest us Be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful If we see our Brother have need and shut up the Bowels of our compassion from him it is because thy love dwelleth not in us And shall I wait then at thy Doors in vain and go empty away from such a God when I beg but for that which thou hast commanded me to ask and without which I cannot serve thee or come to thee live or die in a habit beseeming a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Hâ—ir of Heaven O give me the wedding Garment without which I shall but dishonour thy bounteous Feast Let me wear a Livery which becometh thy Family even a Child of God! How oft hast thou commanded 〈◊〉 to Rejoice Yea to rejoice with exceeding and unspeakable joy And how fain would I in this obey thee O that I had more faithfully obeyed thee in other preparatory duties in ruling my Senses my Phantasie my Tongue and in diligent using all thy Talents Then I might more easily have obeyed thee in this Thou knowest Lord that Love and Joy are duties that must have more than a Command O bid me do them with an effecting word How can I Rejoice in Death and Darkness When the Bridegroom is absent I must fast and mourn While I look towards Heaven but through the crevises of this dungeon Flesh my Love and Joy will be but answerable to my Light How long is it since I hoped that I had been translated from the Kingdom of Darkness and delivered from the power of the Prince of Darkness and brought into that Light which is the
more impossible for Moses to assume such a Body as he appeared in on the Mount for that occasion than for Angels to appear in humane shapes and departed Souls too as many Apparitions have told men And if bad Souls can do it why not good ones when God will have it The Tradition seemeth but a Jewish Dream that God kept the Body of Moses uncorrupted in the Grave and that this was it that the Devil is said to strive for against Michael that the Body might be corrupted And say others that at this Transfiguration it rose again There need no such conceits to our satisfaction The Soul of Moses could assume a Body § 8. But still the dissimilitude of Henoch and Elias from all the Saints in Heaven is an unresolved difficulty If we knew that God would have it so it might satisfie us But there is a symmetry in the Body of Christ And it 's like that the same Region hath Inhabitants of the same Nature What shall we think then That Henoch and Elias at their entrance into those Regions laid by their Bodies and became such as Abraham and other holy Souls Why are they taken up to be so laid by The corruptibility no doubt they did lay by God knoweth but it s much unknown to us Or shall we think as all those Fathers cited by Faustus Regiensis and as Dr. More and some of late that all Spirits are Souls and animate some Bodies and so that all in Heaven have some Bodies If so what Bodies are they And how differ they from the Resurrection state As the Soul here operateth in and by the Igneous Spirits in our Bodies it may be so lodged in these as to take some of them with it at Death as the life of a dying Plant yet dieth not in the Seed And a Man may be said to go unclothed to Bed though he put not off his shift or nearest Garment and to be clothed again when he puts on the rest And at the Resurrection as there will be a New Heaven and Earth so Spirits now in Heaven may have much more delightful business on the New and Righteous Earth than now they have and therefore may have use for an additional Body as much differing from what they have now in Heaven as the New Earth and their employment there require and as the Seed doth differ from the Plant. And Spirits being communicative will be more happy by more communication As God delighteth to do good to all his works so the Souls now confined to Heaven will delight to be employed in doing good to the New Earth and to animate the Bodies suited to such work Though now they have use for no other than such Spiritual lucid Receptacles as are fit for the Regions where they dwell And it will be no debasement or dejection for a Spirit now in Heaven to animate a Body at the Resurrection fit for the New Earth no more than it was to Angels to speak to Adam and to Moses to Abraham Jacob Manoah and others or then it is to the Sun to enlighten and enliven things on Earth It is a foolish thing to think as some do that departed Souls will be as dormant and unactive as in Apopletick or Sleeping Persons for want of Organized Bodies to act in Spirits are Essentially Active Intellective and Volitive And will God continue such Essential Powers in vain Moses and Elias wanted not Bodies And those in Heaven can praise Jehovah and the Lamb with holy concordant Love and Joy whether in any sort of ethereal Bodies or without we shall shortly know § 8. It is said that Moses and Elias talked with Christ This sheweth that Christ hath familiar communion with the Blessed He that would come into Flesh on Earth and live with Man in an humbled state and refused not familiar converse with poor men and women and would eat and drink with Publicans and Sinners will not refuse everlasting near familiarity with the glorified If the Church be his dearly beloved Spouse and as it were one with him as his Body surely he will be no stranger to the least and lowest Member of it § 9. But what was it that they talkt about Luk. 9. 31. saith They appeared in Glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem This was not to make it known to Christ who came into the World to die for sin What then was it for Did Christ tell them of it as not knowing it before That is not likely neither Did he need their comfort as Angels in his trials ministred to him and strengthned him The particular uses of this speech we know not But in general we know it was somwhat preparatory to his great Sufferings and Death And must Christ's Sufferings and Death have such preparation and must not mine have much premeditation and do I not need the consolatory messages of God Carnal men would rather have chosen pleasanter discourse than the talk of Sufferings and Death But that which must be undergone and requireth greatest strength must be forethought of and requireth the most preparing Thoughts It 's worse than madness to be surprized with Sufferings and Death before it 's seriously forethought of So sharp a trial and so great a change require the greatest preparation He that can refuse to suffer and die may refuse to talk or think of it If Christ must have men from Heaven to talk with him of his Cross what cause have we to study the Cross Even all our lives to foresee it and by obedient consent to submit unto it and take it up to follow Christ and even to determine with Paul to know nothing in the World but Christ and him Crucified that is to take this for the only needful and excellent Learning But alas how senslesly is Death and Suffering talkt of till it comes We are to learn how to suffer when suffering is upon us and to learn how to die till Nature or the Physician pass the sentence of Death on us at hand And it is God's Mercy to some of us to make our sufferings long that we may have a competent time of learning As we learn to write by writing and to discourse by discoursing and every Art and Trade by practice even so by suffering we learn to suffer And the Lesson is very hard Malefactors suffer without Learning whether they will or not but to suffer Obediently with Child-like affections is the Lesson to be learnt O little too little do many honest Christians think how much of their most excellent Obedience consisteth in Child-like holy Suffering Therefore they little expect it and provide for it And then they are overwhelmed with the unexpected surprizal when it comes Even in the sufferings which men bring on the Faithful for Righteousness sake how many shrink and shift off their duty or venture on forbidden things for safety because they were not prepared for it The loss of goods or imprisonment and want seem
and ease a Man's Faith is not tried to the uttermost by actual forsaking all And yet an easy Death alone doth not fully try a Man For they that know that all must die may submit to this who cannot bear long pains before it But great and long pains and the Sentence of Death together are the trial And if God will so try me why should I repine Flesh will groan but the Mind may obediently submit It is but Flesh that Flesh that hath tempted and imprisoned my Soul I have too much loved it and am too loth to leave it And is it not Mercy from God to make me weary of it God is engaged against Idols that is all that is loved and pleased before him and if any thing that 's likest to be this Flesh It 's corruptibility tells us that both its pleasure and its pain will be but short Long pain is usually tolerable And intolerable pain will conquer Nature and not be long The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us and his strength is manifested in our weakness when he will not take the Thorn out of our Flesh though as Christ and Paul did we pray thrice or oftner And to be impatient with Death is to repine that we are born Mortal men and to fly from Heaven and all true Hopes and all the Felicity purchased by Christ And is this renouncing the World and trusting Christ for Life everlasting And why fear we that which endeth all our pains and fears A true Believer never suffereth so much but his Mercies are far more and greater than his sufferings His Soul is united to Christ His hopes of Heaven have a sure Foundation He is sealed up to Glory Rest and Joy are near at hand And former Mercies should not be forgotten And should not such men patiently endure O what a shameful contradiction is it to choose Heaven as our only Portion to believe in Christ for it and to seek it as the business of all our lives and yet to be loth to die that we may obtain it and to fly with fear from that which we so seek and hope for What a contradiction is it to call God our God and Father the God of Love and to call Christ our Gracious glorified Redeemer and yet to Fly from his presence with distrustful fear Almighty love may correct us may kill us but it cannot finally hurt true Believers So much of Moses and Elias discourse of the Sufferings and Death of Christ § 13. Sure it is not true that the Souls of the Fathers before Christ's coming did not enter into Heaven but lay in some inferiour Limbus For Moses and Elias came from Heaven their shining glory shewed that and their discourse with Christ and the Voice and glory that went with them And it is not to be thought that they were separated from the rest of the Souls of the Faithful and with Henoch were in Heaven by themselves alone and the rest elsewhere Though it 's said that God's House hath many Mansions and there are various degrees of Glory yet the blessed are all Fellow-Citizens of one Society and Children in one Family of God And they that came from East and West shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the believing Thief with Christ in Paradise § 14. It seems that Moses and Elias appeared thus to fore shew the Resurrection of Christ and of the Faithful and to make it easier to the three Disciples to believe it Why should they doubt whether Christ should rise when they saw Moses that was risen before him And why should they doubt of the Resurrection of the Faithful and the Glory following when they saw these glorified Saints Some think that this Apparition was for the strengthening of Christ himself whose humane Nature had use for such Ministry also of Angels But it 's more certain that it was for the strengthening of the Disciples Faith and of ours by their Testimony As it 's said Joh. 12. 30. This Voice came not because of me but for your sakes § 15. It is much worth our noting in what a Communion this Specimen of the Kingdom of Heaven was represented in the holy Mount Here was a Voice of God and a glimpse of his Glory Here was our Redeemer in a glimpse of his Glory Here was a Moses and Elias in a glimpse of their Glory And here were three beloved Disciples yet in the Flesh and in weakness of Faith which needed such confirmation God our Father and our Saviour the Saints of Heaven and those on Earth are all of one Society or Kingdom there is a near relation and a near communion among them all When the Eternal Word disdained not so wonderful condescension as to come to us in the form of a Servant even of a poor despised Crucified Man it 's less wonder that Moses and Elias should come down as his Witnesses and Servants Heb. 12. 23 c. The heavenly Jerusalem and City of the Living God of which we are Enrolled Burgesses or Heirs hath many parts There is the Assembly of the first Born and innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covâ—nant and God the Judge of all O what holy glorious joyful Company shall we have above Christ and his Angels will not despise the least of Saints § 16. But what was the Introduction to this Apparition and Transfiguration It was Christ's praying Luk. 9. 28 29. He went up into a Mountain to pray and as he prayed he was transfigured Surely this is written to invite and encourage us to pray We are in greater need than Christ It 's folly in Unbelievers to think Prayer vain because God is unchangeable We are not unchangeable And the exercise of Faith dependance on God and true desires being the Conditions required in a due Receiver maketh those Blessings become ourâ—s which else we had been uncapable of God who commandeth fervent Prayer hath promised to answer it Though we must not think to be the Rulers of the World nor have whatever our Flesh or solly doth desire because we ask it earnestly yet true Prayer is the appointed way for obtaining what we need and is best for us and we are fitted to receive And as Christ had this wonderful return to his Prayers his Servants have experience that their choicest Mercies for Soul and Body have come this way § 17. Though the three Disciples were admitted to this glorious Society how different was their case from that of Christ and Moses and Elias In the beginning of the heavenly concourse they were asleep with heaviness Even while this glorious Company stood near them Alas such is our infirmity in Flesh and such a Clog are these earthly Bodies to us that when God is present and Heaven is before us and we have the greatest cause to watch and pray a heavy weary sluggish Body even
misery make them intollerable to themselves But it is not because they have seen a glimpse of Heaven on Earth or tasted the sweetness of Holy society and work but because their Bodies are in Health their Purses full their Appetites pleased and their inferiours do their wills and honour them This is all the Heaven that they love and to leave all this is the Death which they abhor and fear And they will not hear God and the experience of all Mankind befooling them till near the Night that their Souls shall be required and then Whose will all their Treasure be § 28. But yet it was a greater part of Peter's dotage to think of Tabernacles for Christ Moses and Elias and of detaining of heavenly Inhabitants upon Earth If you should offer the lowest Saint in Heaven an earthly Kingdom in exchange for his Condition with what disdain would he despise the offer Christ's Kingdom was not of this World nor would Moses and Elias change their lot with Alexander or Caesar Poor trifles allure us and seem somwhat to us as toys to Children while we are dreaming in the Flesh but if once we be delivered and see what the Celestial Glory is what a change will it make upon our judgments We fear now in the dark to go unto that World of Light and are loth to put off the rags of Flesh and to depart from a known though a dirty falling habitation But if we get to Heaven we shall be loth to return to Earth again and to be so coursly cloathed When once we are there a World would not hire us to come back into this corruptible Body till God will make it Spiritual and Incorruptible Our Friends whose Death we passionately lamented would be loth now to change their company for such as we are or their abode for such a wicked World as this or their work for the best of ours on Earth No wonder that departed blessed Souls appear not to their friends on Earth Most Apparitions are of Devils or miserable Souls to whom it is no loss or condescension Were I once in Heaven could I possibly be willing to be turned again into a Bedlam World and laid under the Feet of blinded pride and raging madness and live among Sodomites called Christians whose God is their Belly and who glory in their filthiness and shame and mind nothing with love but earthly things and are bitter Enemies not only to the Cross but to the Government of Christ Would I be again among Dogs and Swine Yea Devils in Flesh who hate and persecute the Regenerate Seed and all that will not receive their mark and be as mad bad as they would I again be groaning here in pain or tired with a weary Body and more with a feeble sinful Soul weak in Faiâ—h Cold in Love of doubtful Hope and imperfect Duty Would I be here again in the prospect of a Grave with fear of dying as strange as now to the heavenly Felicity Lazarus will not come from Abraham's bosom for the rich Man's Wealth and Belly-pleasure no not to warn his sensual Brethren Had Peter seen Heaven as he saw the Glory on the Mount he would never have made so blind a motion for Christ Moses and Elias to continue there who have so much better a habitation § 29. But this glorious Apparition was but short As the Glory of God's back parts to Moses which did but pass by Presently a cloud cometh and separateth the company and ends the pleasant sight When Christians receive some extraordinary sense of the Love of God some sweet foretasts of promised happiness they must not look that this should be ordinary or always so When some fervent Prayer is extraordinarily answered and a Sacrament sweetned with unusual drops of heavenly sweetness or a holy Discourse or Meditation hath raised us higher than ever before we must not expect that this should be our constant diet and God should thus feast us all the Year The times of fasting also have their turn Moses did not dwell on Mount Horeb nor Mount Nebo or Pisgah from whence he saw the Land of Promise God's Children do not always laugh and sing while they have their sinning times they will have their suffering and crying times How suddenly doth the Lark come down to the Earth who before was soaring out of sight and singing pleasantly in the higher Air as if it had been aspiring towards the Sun A luscious diet is not best for such as we that have so many corruptions to be cured by cleansing means Cordials must not be all our Physick unwarrantable expectations of greater or more continued Joys then we are meet for is injurious both to God and to our selves Desires of more we may and must have But those desires must look up to Heaven where indeed they may be satisfied 30. The joy of these Spectators was turned into Fear saith the Text when they entered into the Cloud No wonder The change was sudden and great from a sight of the Kingdom of God in Power unto a dark Cloud Just now they seemed almost in Heaven and presently they knew not where they were From glorious Light to a kind of Prison of obscurity Such changes here we are liable to The same Soul that lately tasted of transporting joy may lie in terrour hardly resisting temptations to despair The same Person that was confident of the Love of God may be quickly not only doubting of it but sinfully denying it The same that had assuring evidence of sincerity may shortly conclude that all was but Hypocrisie The same that was triumphing in the sense of Love may cry out O miserable Man that I am And the same that magnified the Grace of Christ may say The day of Grace is pastâ— Especially if either the Tempter get the advantage of a Melancholy Body or of casting the Soul in to renewed guilt of some wounding sin or into impatient discontents with the things that befal it in the World There is a stability in the Essentials of Holiness It 's Life eternal that is here begun But alas the degrees of Grace the exercise of it the evenness and integrity of our obedience and accordingly our Comforts are lamentably liable to change Even as all worldly things are mutable to the ungodly though their harden'd Hearts are too little changeable Expecting nothing but joy from God or expecting more than we are meet for maketh our dejections the greater and more grievous None are cast lower with terrour trouble and almost despair than some that have been most transported with joy When some other Christians of an even conversation have an evenness and constancy of Holy Peace though no such joys § 31. The Cloud separated the Company Moses and Elias are seen no more no nor the Glory of Christ But yet Christ is not separated from them His ordinary presence still abideth with them Christ doth not leave the Soul when extraordinary joys do leave it It loseth not
his saving Grace nor the presence of his Spirit as oft as it loseth heavenly delight Desire sheweth Love to him and to his Holiness And he never forsaketh those that love him As long as the Soul breatheth after Christ and after more communion with God and conscious of its imperfection would fain be perfect and resolveth to continue waiting for increase of Faith and Holiness in the use of the means which Christ hath appointed it is not forsaken Christ by his Spirit dwelleth and worketh in that Soul It may enter into a Cloud and Christ may be unseen and seem quite lost but the Cloud will vanish and he will appear and he will first find us that we may seek and find him If he appear to us but as in his humiliation and as crucified and thereby humble us and crucifie to us the World and the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof and cause us but to seek first his Kingdom and Righteousness he will raise us higher and shew us his Glory when Grace and Conquest and Perseverance have prepared us We are in a cloudy World and Body and our sins are yet a thicker Cloud between God's glorious Face and us But as God is God and Heaven is Heaven so Christ is Christ and Grace is Grace when we see it not but fear that we are undone and entring into outer darkness And at Sun rising all our darkness all our doubts fears will vanish § 32. Luke 9. 15. There came a Voice out of the Cloud This is my beloved Son hear him Had I heard such a Testimony from Heaven would it not have set my Faith above all doubts and unbelief For the Voice that thus owned Christ and his Word might embolden me fully to trust all his Promises as it bindeth me to obey his Precepts God's Love is effective and communicative and as his Life and Light cause Life and Light so his Love causeth Love and Christ that is called his Beloved Son is likest him in Love None loveth us so much as God our Father and his Beloved Son who is also as God Essential Love And shall I think with cold or little Love of such a God and such a Saviour It is as unreasonable to fly from God or Christ as fearing that he wanteth Love to a capable Soul as to fly from the Sun as wanting heat or light O what an unruly froward thing is the corrupted Soul of Man When we think of God's judgment and how we are in his hands as to all our hopes for Soul Body we fear and are uncomfortable lest he have not so much Love and Mercy as should cause us confidently to trust him We could trust some Friends with Life and Soul were we in their power but infinite love itself and a loving Saviour we can hardly trust so far as to quiet us in Pain or Death And yet when Christ to cure this distrust hath manifested his Love by the greatest Miracles that ever God shewed to mortal men even by Christ's Incarnation his Life his Works his Death Resurrection Intercession and the advancement of humane Nature in him above Angels the greatness of this Incomprehensible Love occasioneth the difficulty of our believing it as if it were too great and wonderful to be credible Thus dark and guilty Sinners hardly believe our Fathers Love whether it be exprest by ordinary or by the most wonderful effects § 33. As Christ is called the Son of God so also are all his Members We have so far the same title that we might partake of the same comforts He is God's only Son by Eternal Generation and the hypostatical union upon his miraculous conception But through him we are Sons by Regeneration and Adoption And shall not the love of such a Father be trusted and the presence and pleasing of such a Father be desired If Manoah's Wife could say If he would have killed us Re would not have accepted a Sacrifice of us I may say If he would have damned me or forsaken my departing Soul he would not have Adopted me nor made and called me his Son Christ was made his Incarnate Son that we might be made his Adopted Sons And we are made his Adopted Sons for the sake and by the Grace of Christ his Natural Son § 34. The Command Hear him is Relative as to Moses and Elias 1. Hear him whom the Law and the Prophets typified and foretold and were his Servants and Preparatory Instructors to lead us to him 2. Hear him before Moses and the Prophets where his Coming and Covenant abrogateth the Law of Moses and as a greater Light he obscureth the less He hath revealed more than they revealed and the same more clearly Life and Immortality is more fully brought to light by him His Gospel is as the Heart of the Holy Bible We use the Old Testament Books especially as the Witnesses of Christ § 35. And whom should we hear so willingly so obediently as Christ Abraham sent not Dives's Brethren to the King or to the High-priest to know what Religion he should choose or what he should do to escape Hell torments But it was Moses and the Prophets that they must hear But God from Heaven hath sent us yet a better Teacher and commanded us to hear Him Moses was faithful in God's House as a Servant but Christ as a Son His Authority is above Kings and High-priests and they have no Power now but from him and therefore none against him or his Laws All commands are null to Conscience which contradict him The examples in Da. 3. 6. and of the Apostles tell us whether God or Man should be first obeyed Therefore it is that the Bible is more necâ—ssary to be searcht and learned than the Statute Book or Canons Were Man to be heard before Christ or against him or as necessarily as he why have we not Law Preachers every Lord's day to expound the Statutes and Canons to all the People And why are they not Catechized out of the Book of Canons or Law as well as out of the Bible And sure if we must hear Christ and his Gospel before Priests or Princes or before our dearest friends much more before our fleshly Lusts and Appetites and before a profane and foolish Scorner and before the temptations of the Devil O had we heard Christ warning us when we hearkned to the Tempter and to the Flesh how safely had we lived and how comfortably might we have died § 36. But this word Hear him is as comfortable as obligatory Hear him Sinner when he calls thee to repent and turn to God Hear him when he calleth thee to himself to take him for thy Lord and Saviour to believe and trust him for Pardon and Salvation Hear him he when calleth Come to me all ye that are weaty and heavy laden Ho every every one that thirsteth come whoever will let him drink of the Water of Life freely Hear him when he commandeth and hear
all the rest particularly promised And we know in general that we have a heavenly City and Inheritance and shall see God and be with Christ in everlasting Happiness Loving and Praising God with Joy in the perfected glorious Church of Christ All this therefore we must explicitely believe But it 's little that we know distinctly of the consistence and operations of Spirits and separated Souls as to a formal or modal conception a great deal about the place state and mode their acting and fruition is dark to us but none of it is dark to Christ Here therefore an implicite Trust should not only bound and stop our selfish and over bold enquiries but also quiet and comfort the Soul as well as if our selves knew all O my Soul abhor and mortifie thy selfish Trust and unbelieving thirst to have that knowledge of Good and Evil thy self which is the Prerogative of thy Lord and Saviour This was the sin that first defiled humane Nature and brought calamity on the World God hath set thee enough to learn know that and thou knowest enough If more were possible it would be a perplexity and a snare and he that encreaseth such knowledge would encrease sorrow But when it is both unprofitable and impossible what a sin and folly is it to wast our time and tire and deceive our Minds in long and troublesom searches after it and then disquietly to murmur at God and the Holy Scripture and die with sad distrustful fears because we attain it not When all this while we should have understood that this part of knowledg belongs to Christ and the heavenly Society and not to sinful Mortals here and that we have without it as much as may cause us to live and die in Holiness Safety Peace and Joy if we can but Trust him who knoweth for us Christ perfectly knoweth what Spirits are and how they act and whether they have any corporeal Organ or Vehicle or none and what 's the difference between Henoch and Elias and those that left their Bodies here and what a Resurrection will add to Souls and how it will be wrought and when and what is meant by the Thousand year previous Reign and who they be that shall dwell in the New Earth and how it will be renewed All the dark passages of Scripture and Providence he can perfectly resolve He knoweth why God leaveth the far greatest part of the World in Satan's slavery darkness and wickedness and chooseth so few to real Holiness And why he maketh not men such as he commandeth them to be and why he leaveth serious Christians to so much weakness error scandal and division These and all other difficulties are fully known to Christ And it is not the Child but the Father that must know what food and cloathing he should have and the Physician that must know what are the ingredients of his Medicines and why Lord open my Eyes then to see what thou hast revealed and help me willingly to shut them to the rest and to believe and trust in Thee for both Not to stagger at thy sealed Promises nor selfishly to desire particular knowledge which belongs not to me as if I could trust my self and my own knowledge and not Thine Lord teach me to follow Thee even in the dark as quietly and confidently as in the Light having the general Light of thy Promise of Felicity I knew not the Mystery of thy Conception Incarnation or the way of the workings of thy Spirit on Souls No wonder if much of the Resurrection and unseen World be above my reach much more that thy Infinite Majesty is Incomprehensible to me How little do the Bruits that see me know of my thoughts or me I have no adequate knowledge of any one thing in the World but somewhat of it is unknown O blessed be that Love and Grace that hath given me a glorified Head in Heaven to know all for me which I know not Hear and Trust Him living and departing O my Soul who hath told thee that we shall be with him where he is and shall behold his Glory and that a Crown of Salvation is laid up for us and we shall Reign with him when we have conquered and suffered with him and hath bid us live in joyful Hope of our exceeding eternal heavenly Reward and at our Death to commend our Spirits into his hand Receive us Lord according to thy Promises Amen SHORT MEDITATIONS ON ROM 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad God's Love on the Heart by the Holy Ghost EXperience of the want of this Effusion of God's Love and some small tast of its Sweetness make me think the thoughts of this very suitable to one expecting Death The words contain a golden Chain of highest Blessings on all true Christians I. They are supposed to have Faith that is both a general Trust to God's Revelations and Grace and a special Trust in Jesus Christ as given by the Father's Love to be the Redeemer to Justifie Sanctifie and Glorifie his People I have oft proved this justifying Faith to be no less then our unfeigned taking Christ for our Saviour and becoming true Christians according to the Tenor of the Baptismal Covenant As to the Acts it is formally Trust One in three The Understandings Assenting Trust the Wills consenting Trust and the executive Powers Practical Venturing Obeying Trust II. All true Believers are justified Even all that consent to the Baptismal Covenant and choose God to be their God and Christ to be their Saviour and the Holy Ghost to be their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him by true resolution as their only Ruler Hope and Happiness though this be done with so great weakness as endeth not all doubts nor quieteth the Mind To be justified is not to be accounted such as have no sin but 1. To be made such by Pardon through Christ's Merits and by true Faith as God will take by special love and favour unto life 2. To be accounted such by God 3. To be virtually Sentenced such by the Law of Grace and Faith and to be just in Lawseâ—ce 4. At last we shall be judged such by publick Sentence 5. And be used as such Not justified by the Law of Innocency or of Moses but by Christ's Law of Grace Not justified perfectly till the time of Perfection Much punishment on Soul and Body is yet to be taken off And more sins daily to be pardoned and we before the World to be sentenced as just to life everlasting III. The justified have Peace with God They are reconciled and in a state of love and friendship It signifieth mutual Peace but with great inequality God's Love and favour to us is the stable constant part Our consent also and acceptance of his terms of Peace is constant in its truth But our sense of God's Love which is the Peace possessed by the Soul is weak and unconstant and too oft quite lost or obscured by ignorance mistake and
Nos quâ—que floruimus sed flos fuit ille 〈◊〉 Flâ—mmaque de stipula nostra brepusque fuiâ— Oâ— VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OPâ— ET PATâ— FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS AN O 168â— AETAT SUAE â—8 Farewell Vaine World as thou hast bin to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Life-Light-Love to it The Leavs Fruit are dropt for soyle Seed Heavens heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Râ—st BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS UPON PHIL. 1. 23. Written for his own Use in the latter Times of his corporal Pains and Weakness LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons at the Three golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Have no other use for a Preface to this Book but to give you a true excuse for its Publication I wrote it for my self unresolved whether any one should ever see it but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my Executors to publish or suppress it when I am dead as they saw cause But my Person being seized on and my Library and all my Goods distrained on by Constables and sold and I constrained to relinquish my House for preaching and being in London I knew not what to do with multitudes of Manuscripâ—â— that had long lain by me having no House to go to but a narrow hired Lodging with strangers Wherefore I cast away whole Volumes which I could not carry away both Controversies and Letters practical and Cases of Conscience but having newly lain divers Weeks Night and Day in waking torments Nephritick and Colick after other long pains and languor I took this Book with me in my removal for my own use in my further sickness Three Weeks after falling into another extream fit and expecting Death where I had no Friend with me to commit my Papers to meerly lest it should be lost I thought best to give it to the Printer I think it is so much of the work of all mens lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort that the same Thoughts may be needful for others that are so for me If any mislike the Title as if it imported that the Author is Dead let him know that I die daily and that which quickly will be almost is It 's suited to my own use They that it is unsuible to may pass it by If those mens lives were spent in serious preparing Thoughts of Death who are now studying to destroy each other and tear in pieces a distressed Land they would prevent much dolorous Repentance R. B. THE CONTENTS Doct. 1. THat the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ I. The necessity of believing this proved pag. 1 c. II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the difficulties or proofs p. 7. III. The certainty of it manifested 1. From the Immortality of the Soul which is proved p. 11. 1. The Soul is a substance 2. It is a substance formally differenced from lower substance by the Virtue of special Vital Activity Intellect and free will p. 14 3. It is not Annihilated at Death 4. Nor destroyed by dissolution of parts 5. Nor loseth its formal Power or Virtue p. 15. 6. Nor doth sleep or cease to act p. 16. 7. To cease to be Individuate by Vnion with any other common Spirit is not to be feared were it true p. 19. But it is not like to be true p. 31 c. II. The second proof It is a natural notice p. 33. III. From the duty of all men to seek a future happinessm p. 34. IV. From Man's capacity of knowing God c. as differenced from Bruits p. 37. V. From Godâ—s governing Justice p. 38. VI. From Revelation supernatural p. 39. VII From God's answering Prayers p. 42. VIII From our present communion with Angels p. 44. IX From Satan's temptations Witches Apparitions c. p. 45. X. Specially from the Operations of God's Spirit on our Souls preparing them for Glory p. 47. Faith excited and Objections answered in the Application The proofs summed up in Order p. 65. Why this Happiness is described by our being vvith Christ 1. What is included in our Being vvith Christ 1. Presence with Christ's glorified Body and Soul and God-head p. 66. 2. Vnion with him in each p. 73. Too near Vnion not to be feared as destroying individuation 3. Communion with him in each active and passive opened p. 74 c. We must DEPART that we may be with Christ I. From what p. 75. 1. From this Body and Life Yet it is far better so to do p. 76. 2. From all the fleshly Pleasures of this Life p. 83. Yet best 3. From the more manly delights of Study Books Friends c. considered 1. Of Knowledge and Books the vanity 2. Of Sermons p. 87. 3. Of Friends and Converse p. 95. 4. Of God's Word and Worship p. 98. Of Theology p. 99. Of my own labours herein p. 103. 6. Notice of the Affairs of the World p. 109. 7. From our Service to the Living p. 112. The Application to my self p. 115. To DEPART and to BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER or rather to be chosen p. 120. I. Simply better and properly at it is the fulfilling of God's will p. 122. II. Analogically better as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Vniverse and the Church III. Better to my self as to my own felicity p. 124. proved 1. By general Reasons from the efficients and means 2. The final Reasons 3. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect as to the Iuâ—uitive manner of knowledg and as to the matter Both opened 1. I shall know God better p 144. 2. And God's Works the Vniverse 3. And Jesus Christ 4. And the Church 5. And the Church triumphant the heavenly Jerusalem 6. And all God's Word for Matter and Method 7. God's present Works of Providence 8. The nature and worth of Mercies 9. And my self Body and Soul 10. And my fellow Creatures 11. And what the evil was from which I was delivered enemies dangers sins c. 4. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will I. Negatively p. 163. 1. Freed from Temptations of the Flesh World and Devil 2. There will nothing be in it that is against God my Neighbours or my self II. Positively 1. It will be conform to God's will The benefits of this p. 165. Fruition A fixed will The Object 1. God To love him and beloved of him is our end p. 169. He is a suitable full near Object II. The next Object God's golorius Image in the Perfection of the Vniverse p. 171. III. The Church Triumphant p. 174. 1. Jesus Christ 2. Angels 3. Holy Souls The Wills Reception in Glory p. 175. 1. What it is to be loved of God Excitations 179. 2. How
that is every where but by a peculiar operation and relation And so holy Souls being under a more felicitating operation of God may well be said to have a Nearer Union with him than now they have § 35. 〈◊〉 And I observe that as is aforesaid all things have naturally a strong inclination to Union and Communion with their like Every clod and stone inclineth to the Earth Water would go to Water Air to Air Fire to Fire Birds and Beasts associate with their like And the noblest natures are most strongly thus inclined And therefore I have natural reason to think that it will be so with holy Souls § 36. 3. And I find that the inordinate Contraction of Man to himself and to the interest of this Individual-Person with the defect of Love to all about us according to every creatures goodness and specially to God the Infinite good whom we should love above our selves is the very sum of all the pravity of man And all the injustice and injury to others and all the neglect of good works in the world and all our daily terrours and self-distracting self-tormenting cares and griefs and fears proceed from this inordinate Love and Adhesion to our selves Therefore I have reason to think that in our better state we shall perfectly Love others as our selves and the selfish Love will turn into a common and a Divine Love which must be by our preferring the common and the Divine Good and Interest § 37. And I am so sensible of the power and Plague of selfishness and how it now corrupteth tempteth and disquieteth me that when I feel any fears lest individuation cease and my Soul fall into one common Soul as the Stoicks thought all Souls did at death I find great cause to suspect that this ariseth from the power of this corrupting selfishness For Reason seeth no cause at all to fear it were it so § 38. 4. For I find also that the nature of Love is to desire as near a Union as is possible And the strongest Love doth strongliest desire it Fervent Lovers think they can scarce be too much One. And Love is our Perfection and therefore so is Union § 39. 5. And I find that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit they had the ferventest Love and the nearest Union and the least desire of propriety and distance § 40. 6. And I find that Christs prayer for the felicity of his disciples is a prayer for their Unity Joh. 17. 22 23. And in this he placeth much of their Persection § 41. 7. And I find also that man is a sociable nature and that all men find by experience that conjunction in societies is needful to their Safety strength and Pleasure § 42. 8. And I find that my Soul would fain be nearer God and that darkness and distance is my misery and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my Soul Why then should I fear too near a Union § 43. I think it utterly improbable that my Soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God though it be of the same kind with other Souls and infinitely below God For God is as near me as I am to my self I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause And that not as the fruit upon the Tree which borroweth all from the Earth Water Air and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit but as a creature on its Creator who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God by constant communication Hence Autonine Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter as Man of Soul and body Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World GOD and sometime calling the whole World God But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God or of the Body of God or Accidents at least § 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense such as Benedict Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis approved by many Doctors who placeth much of his Supereminent Life in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God and Living accordingly Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God but are to God as the Beams are to the Sun and as the Heat is to the Fire which really is it self And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good as being nothing but Gods essential will which is himself resolving even our sins and Imperfections accordingly into God so that they are Gods or None § 45. And all these men have as fair a pretence for their conceits of such a Union with God now as for such an Union after death For their Reason is 1. That God being Infinite there can be no more Beings than his own But God and the smallest Being distinct would be more Entity than God alone But Infinity can have no addition 2. Because Ens Bonum Convertuntur But God only is good And if we are notwithstanding all this distinct Beings from God now we shall be so then For we shall not be Annihilated and we shall not be so advanced as to be deified and of creatures or distinct Beings turned into a Being infinitely above us If we be not Parts of God now we shall not be so then But if they could prove that we are so now we should quickly prove to them 1. That then God hath material divisible parts as the Stoicks thought 2. And that we are no such parts as are not distinct from one another but some are tormented and some happy And 3. That as is said it will be no abatement of the misery of the tormented nor of the felicity of the blessed to tell them that they are all parts of God For though the manner of our Union with him and dependance on him be past our comprehension yet that we are distinct and distant from each other and have each one a joy or misery of his own is past all doubt Therefore there is no Union with God to be feared by holy Souls but the utmost possible to be highliest desired § 46. And if our Union with God shall not cease our Individuation or resolve us into a Principle to be feared we may say so also of our Union with any common Soul or many If we be Unible we are Partible and so have a distinct though not a divided substance which will have its proper Accidents All Plants are parts of the Earth really united to it and radicated in it and live and are nourished by it And yet a Vine is a Vine and an Apple is an Apple and a Rose is a Rose and a Nettle is a Nettle And few men would be toiled Horses or Toads if it were proved that they are animated by a common Soul § 47.
the wicked to prosecure his Servants to the Death and make duty costly and give no after recompence 6. If he let the most wicked on the Earth pass unpunished or to scape as well hereafter as the best and to live in greater pleasure here The Objections fetcht from the intrinsecal good of Duty I have elsewhere answered § 1. VI. But God hath not left us to the Light of meer Nature as being too dark for men so blind as we The Gospel Revelation is the clear Foundation of our Faith and Hopes Christ hath brought Life and Immortality to Light One from Heaven that is greater than an Angel was sent to tell us what is there and which is the way and to secure our hopes He hath risen and conquered death and entered before us as our Captain and Forerunner into the Everlasting habitations And he hath all power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is committed to him that he might give Eternal life to his Elect he hath frequently and expresly promised it them that they shall live because he liveth and shall not perish but have Everlasting life And how fully he hath proved and sealed the Truth of his Word and Office to us I have so largely opened in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and unreasonableness of Infidelity and in my Life of Faith c. and since in my Houshold Catechizing that I will not here repeat it § 2. And as all his Word is full of promises of our future Glory at the Resurrection so we are not without assurance that at Death the departing Soul doth enter upon a State of Joy and Blessedness For 1. He expresly promised the penitent crucified Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 2. He gave us the Narrative or Parable of the damned sensualist and of Lazarus Luk. 16. to instruct us and not to deceive us 3. He tells the Sadduces that God is not the God of the Dead as his Subjects and Beneficiaries but of the Living Mat. 22. 32. 4. Henoch and Elias were taken up to Heaven and Moses that died appeared with Elias on the Mount Mat. 17. 5. He telleth us Luk. 12. 4. that they that kill the Body are not able to kill the Soul 6. And Christ's own Soul was commended into his Father's hands Luk. 23. 46. and was in Paradise when his Body was in the Grave to shew us what shall become of ours 7. And he hath promised that Where he is there shall his Servant be also Joh. 12. 26. And that the life here begun in us is Eternal life and that he that believeth in him shall not die but shall live by him as he liveth by the Father for he dwelleth in God and God in him and in Christ and Christ in him Joh. 17. 3. 6. 54. 3. 16 36. 6. 47 56 57 50. 1 Joh. 4. 5. 13. Luk. 17. 21. Rom. 14. 17. 8. And accordingly Stephen that saw Heaven opened prayed the Lord Jesus to receive his Spirit Act. 7. 5. 59. 9. And we are come to Mount Sion c. to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the Just made perfect Heb. 12. 22 23. 10. And Paul here desireth to depart and be with Christ as far better And to be absent from the Body and be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. 11. And the dead that die in the Lord are blessed from henceforth that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them 12. And if the disobedient Spirits be in Prison and the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the vengeance of eternal Fire 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude 7. then the Just have eternal Life And if the Jews had not thought the Soul immortal Saul had not desired the Witch to call up Samuel to speak with him The rest I now pass by We have many great and precious promises on which a departed Soul may trust 13. And Luk. 16. 9. Christ expresly saith that when we fail that is must leave this World we shall be received into the Everlasting habitations § 1. VII And it is not nothing to encourage us to hope in him that hath made all these Promises when we find how he heareth Prayers in this life and thereby assureth his Servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour We are apt in our distress to cry loud for Mercy and deliverances and when humane help faileth to promise God that if he now will save us we will thankfully acknowledg it his work and yet when we are delivered to return not only to security but to ingratitude and think that our deliverance came but in the course of common Providence and not indeed as an answer to our Prayers And therefore God in Mercy reneweth both our distresses and our deliverances that what once or twice will not convince us of many and great deliverances may This is my own case O how oft have I cryed to him when men and means were nothing and when no help in second Causes did appear and how oft and suddenly and mercifully hath he delivered me What sudden ease what removal of long afflictions have I had such extraordinary changes and beyond my own and others expectations when many plain-hearted upright Christians have by Fasting and Prayer sought God on my behalf as have over and over convinced me of Special Providence and that God is indeed a hearer of Prayers And wonders I have seen done for others also upon such Prayer more than for my self Yea and wonders for the Church and publick Societies Though I and others are too like those Israelites Psal 78. who cried to God in their troubles and he oft delivered them out of their distress but they quickly for got this Mercies and their Convictions Purposes and Promises when they should have praised the Lord for his Goodness and declared his works with thanksgiving to the Sons of Men. And what were all these Answers and Mercies but the fruits of Christ's Power Fidelity and Love the fulfilling of his Promises and the earnest of the greater blessings of Immortality which the same Promises give me Title to I know that no Promise of hearing Prayer setteth up our wills in absoluteness or above God's as if every will of our must be fulfilled if we do but put it into a fervent or confident Prayer But if we ask any thing through Christ according to his will expressed in his Promise he will hear us If a sinful love of this present life or of Ease or Wealth or Honour should cause me to pray to God against Death or against all sickness want reproach or other Trials as if I must live here in Prosperity for ever if I ask it this sinful desire and expectation is not the work of Faith but of Presumption What if God will not abate me my last or daily pains What if he will continue my life no longer who ever pray for
of God and therefore nearest him and above all others how could I think that I am under the Influence of no second Cause but have either Grace or Glory from God alone 20. So far am I from such arrogancy as to think that I shall be so near to God as to be above the need and use of Christ and his Communications as that I dare not say that I shall be above the need and help of other subordinate Causes As I am now lower than Angels and need their help and as I am under the Government of my Superiors and as a poor weak Member am little worth in comparison of the whole Body the Church of Christ and receive continual help from the whole So how far it will be thus in Glory I know not but that God will still use second Causes for our Joy I doubt not and also that there will not be an equality and that it will be consistent with God's Allsufficiency to us and our felicity in Him that we shall for ever have use for one another and that to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and to be in Abraham's Bosom and sit at Christ's Right and Left hand in his Kingdom and to be Ruler over ten Cities and to join with the heavenly Host or Chore in the joyful Love and Praise of God and of the Lamb and many such like are not false nor useless notes and notions of our Celestial Glory § 21. And certainly if I be with Christ I shall be with all that are with Christ Even with all the heavenly Society Though these Bodies of gross passive Matter must have so much room that the Earth is little enough for all its Inhabitants and those at the Antipodes are almost as strange to us as if they were in another World and those of another Kingdom another Province or County and oft another Parish yea another House are Strangers to us so narrow is our Capacity of Communion here Yet wâ—â—ave great cause to think by many Scripture expressions that our heavenly Union and Communion will be nearer and more extensive and that all the Glorified shall know each other or at least be far less distant and less strange than now we are As I said before when I see how far the Sun beams do extend how they penetrate our closest Glass and puzzle them that say that all Bodies are impenetrable when I see how little they hinder the placing or presence of other Creatures and how intimately they mix themselves with all and seem to possess the whole Region of the Air when yet the Air seemeth it self to fill it c. I dare not think that glorified Spirits no nor Spiritual Bodies will be such Strangers to one another as we are here on Earth § 22. And I must needs say that it is a pleasant Thought to me and greatly helpeth my willingness to die to think that I shall go to all the Holy ones both Christ and Angels and departed blessed Souls For 1. God hath convinced me that they are better than I each singly and therefore more amiable than my self 2. And that many are better than one and the whole than a poor sinful part and the New Hierusalem is the Glory of the Creation 3. God hath given me a Love to all his Holy Ones as such 4. And a Love to the work of Love and Praise which they continually and perfectly perform to God 5. And a Love to the Celestial Jerusalem as it is compleat and to his Glory shining in them 6. And my old acquaintance with many a holy Person gone to Christ doth make my Thoughts of Heaven the more familiar to me O how many of them could I name 7. And it is no small encouragement to one that is to enter upon an unseen World to think that he goeth not anâ— â—â—trodden Path nor enters into a solitary or singular state but followeth all from the Creation to this day that have passed by death to endless life And is it not an emboldening consideration to think that I am to go no other way nor to no other place or state than all the Believers and Saints have gone to before me from the beginning to this time Of this more anon TO DEPART § 1. But I must be Loosed or Depart before I can thus be with Christ And I must here consider I. From what I must depart II. And How or in what Manner And I must not refuse to know the worst § 2. I. And 1. I know that I must Depart from this Body itself and the Life which consisteth in the animating of it These Eyes must here see no more this Hand must move no more these Feet must go no more this Tongue must speak no more As much as I have loved and overloved this Body I must leave it to the Grave There must it lie and rot in darkness as a neglected and a loathed thing § 3. This is the Fruit of Sin and Nature would not have it so I mean the Nature of this compound MAN But what though it be so 1. It is but my Shell or Tabernacle the cloathing of my Soul and not it self 2. It is but an elementary Composition dissolved and Earth going to Earth and Water to Water and Air to Air and Fire to Fire into that Union which the elementary Nature doth incline to 3. It is but an Instrument laid by when all its work is done and a Servant dismissed when his Service is at an end And what should I do with a Horse when I shall need to ride or travel no more or with a Pen when I must write no more It is but the laying by the Passive receiver of my Souls Operations when the Soul hath no more to do upon it As I cast by my Lute or other instrument when I have better employment than Musick to take up my time 4. Or at most it is but as Flowers die in the fall and Plants in Winter when the retiring Spirits have done their work and are undisposed to dwell in so cold and unmeet a Habitation as the Season maketh their former matter then to be And its retirement is not its annihilation but its taking up a fitter place 5. It is but a separation from a troublesome Companion and putting off a Shoe that pinched me many a sad and painful Hour I have had in this frail and faltring flesh Many a weary Night and Day What cares what fears what griefs what groans hath this Body cost me Alas how many Hours of my precious time have been spent to maintain it please it or repair it How considerable a part of all my life hath been spent in necessary sleep and rest And how much in eating drinking dressing physick And how much in labouring or using means to procure these and other necessaries Many a hundred times I have thought that it costeth me so dear to live yea to live a painful weary life
great Realities to the Logical and Philological game at Words and Notions it was Socrates his wisdom to call them to more concerning Studies and Pauls greater Wisdom to warn men to take heed of such vain Philosophy and to labour to know God and Jesus Christ and the things of the Spirit and not to overvalue this ludicrous dreaming worldly Wisdom And if I have none of this kind of Notional childish knowledge when I am absent from the Body the Glass and Spectacles may then be spared when I come to see with open Face or as face to Face Our future knowledge is usually in Scripture called SEEING Mat. 5. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God 1 Cor. 13. 12. We shall see Face to Face 1 Joh. 3. 2. We shall see him as he is Joh. 17. 24. Father I will that those which thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me c. An Intuitive knowledge of all things as in themselves immediately is a more excellent sort of knowledge than this by similitudes Names and Notions which our Learning now consisteth in and is but an Art acquired by many acts and use § 3. If the Sun were as the Heathens thought it an Intellective Animal and it s emitted rayes were vitally visive and when one of those rayes were received by prepared seminal matter as in Insects it became the Soul of an inferiour Animal in this case the said ray would operate in that Insect or Animal but according to the Capacity of the recipient matter whereas the Sun itself by all it s emitted rays would see all things Intellectually and with delight and when that Insect were dead that Ray would be what it was an Intellective Intuitive emanation And though the Soul in Flesh do not know itself how it shall be united to Christ and to all other holy Souls and to God himself nor how near or just of what sort that union will be yet united it will be and therefore will participate accordingly of the the universal Light or understanding to which it is united The Soul now as it is or operateth in the Foot or Hand doth not understand but only as it is and operateth in the Head And yet the same Soul which is in the Hand understandeth in the Head and the Soul operateth not so selfishly or dividedly in the Hand as to repine there because it understandeth not there but it is quiet in that it understandeth in the Head and performeth its due Operation in the Hand But this diversity of Operations seemeth to be from the Organs and the Bodies use or need But Souls dismissed from the Body seem to be as all Eye or Intuitive Light Therefore though it might content us to say that our Head seeth all things and we are united to him yet we may say further that we our selves shall see God and all things that are meet for us to see § 4. And seeing it is most certain that the Superior glorious Regions are full of blessed Spirits who do see God and one another having much more perfect Operations than we have whose effects we Mortals find here below why should I that find an Intellective Nature in my self make any doubt of my more perfect Operations when I am dismissed hence being satisfied that a Soul will not lose its simple Essence Either those superiour Spirits have ethereal Bodies to act in or are such themselves or not If they are or have such why should I doubt of the like and think that my Substance or Vehicle will not be according to the Region of my abode If not why should I think that my departed Soul may not know or see without an igneous or ethereal Body or Vehicle as well as all those worlds of Spirits And the certainty of Apparitions Possessions and Witches do tell us not only that there are such Inhabitants of other Regions Ordinarily invisible to us but also that we are in the way to that Happiness or Misery which is in our invisible state § 5. These things reviewed being partly mentioned before assuring me that I shall have actual Intellection in my separated state the Region with the Objects but above all the Holy Scriptures will tell me as much as it is meet that I should here know what it is that I shall intuitively understand The Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. doth distinguish our knowing in part and knowing Perfectly knowing as a Child and as a Man knowing darkly and enigmatically as in a Glass and knowing Face to Face as we are known The great Question is When this Time of Perfection is Whether he mean at Death or at the Resurrection If Dr. Hammonds observation hold that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture when The Flesh or Body is not joined with it signifies that Life which the Soul doth enter upon immediately after our Death and so that the Soul hath that after living which is sinified by the very word which we Translate Resurrection then it will lead men to think that there is less difference between Mansstate at his first departure and at his last Resurrection than most think even than Calvin himself thought But the difference between our first and last state of after life or Resurrection cannot be now distinctly known What difference there is now between Henoch Elias and those who rose at Christs Resurrection and the rest of the Saints even the Spirits of the perfected Just and whether the first have as much greater Glory than the rest as it is conceived that we shall have at the Resurrection above that which immediately followeth Death what mortal Man can tell I am past doubt that Flesh and Blood formally so called and not only ab accidente as sinful shall not inherit the Kingdom of God vid. Hammond in loc but that our Natural Bodies shall be made Spiritual Bodies And how a Spiritual Body differeth from a Spirit or Soul I pretend not well to understand but must stay till God by experience or fuller Light inform me But surely the difference is not like to be so great as that a Soul in Flesh shall know in part and a Soul in a Spiritual Body shall know perfectly and a Soul between both shall not know at all If it be Perfection which we shall have in our Spiritual Body it is like that we are nearer to that Perfection in Knowledge and Felicity while we are between both than we are in the Flesh § 6. And sure a Soul that even Solomon saith goeth upward and to God that gave it is liker to know God than that which is terminated in Flesh and operateth ut forma according to its capacity and state And a Soul that is with Christ is liker to know Christ and the Father in him than that which is present with the Body and absent from the Lord. What less can the Promise of being with him signifie § 7.
inclination and such as is agreeable to the nature of his Faculties And therefore our love and delight in all things is that uniting inclination in Man § 14. III. And I shall have a special Love to the Holy Society the triumphant Universal Church consisting of Christ Angels and Saints as they are specially amiable in the Image and Glory of God God himself loveth them more than his inferiour works that is his Essence which is Love and hath no degrees or change doth send forth fuller streams of good upon them or maketh them better and happier than the rest And my love will imitate the love of God in my Capacity And if Societies on Earth more holy and wise than others though imperfectly are very amiable what then will the heavenly Society be Of this I spake before of knowing them § 15. 1. Think here O my Soul how sweet a state unto thee it will be to Love the Lord Jesus thy glorâ—fied Head with perfect love When the glory of God which shineth in him will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure The highest created Perfection of Power Wisdom and Goodness refulgent in him will not give leave to thy Love to cease or intermit or abate its fervour When thou shalt see in the glorified Church the precious fruits of Christ's Redemption Grace and Love this also will feed thy love to him from whom this heavenly Glory cometh And when thou shalt feel thy self possest of perfect happiness by his Love to thee will not this also do its part Yea the remembrance of all his former Love what he did for thee and what he did in thee here on Earth how he called thee with a Holy calling how he washed thee in his Blood from all thy sins how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect Glory how he renewed thy Nature how he instructed and guided and preserved thee from thy Childhood and how many and how great sins enemies dangers and sufferings he saved thee from all this will constrain thee Everlastingly to love him Thus though he give the Kingdom to the Father as ceasing his Mediatory healing saving work of acquisition he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition God in him will be accessible and condescend to a suitable communion with us Joh. 17. 24. And as Christ is thy Life radically and efficiently as he is the giver of Grace and the Spirit of Love so he will be Objectively thy Life as he is Lovely and it will be formally thy Life to Love him and God in him for ever § 16. 2. Think also O my Soul how delectable it will be to Love as well as to know those Angels that most servently love the Lord They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee and more as they have been Lovers and Benefactors to the Church and to Mankind but far more as they are so many refulgent Stars which continually move and shine and burn in purest love to their Creator O blessed difference between that amiable Society of holy Spirits and this dark mad distracted wicked World Here Devils tempt me within and Devils incarnate persecute me without Blaspheming of God reviling godliness deriding the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred exercises malignant slandering of the Servants of God hating persecuting silencing and saying all manner of evil falsly of them for their Righteousness sake while such Crimes are pretended as they once falsly charged on Christ himself this is the Conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this World Atheism Infidelity Papal Church tyranny bloody Wars destroying the Righteous oppressing the Poor Adultery and Fornication Stigmatizing-Perjury Ambition Violence Covetousness deceit sottish Ignorance wilfulness in Sin hatred of Reproof revengeful Malice these and such like are the fruits of the Soil where I have long sojourned Though through the Grace of Christ among the faithful there have been better fruits And is not the Company of Holy Angels better than this With whom God is all who are even made up of shining Wisdom and holy Lovâ— and beneficent activity who are the blessed Choâ—e that melodiously sing forth the high Praises of their Maker Among whom God dwelleth as in his presence Chamber or his Temple and in whom he taketh his great delight With these I shall see or hear no evil No mixture of fools or wicked Ones do pollute or trouble their Society There will be no false Doctrine no evil Example no favouring Wickedness no accusing Goodness no hurtful Violence but holy powerful operative Love will be all and do all as their very Nature Life and Work And is it not better be a Door-keeper there than to dwell in the Pallaces of Wickedness And is not a Day with them better than a Thousand here § 17. 3. And with the holy Angels I shall love holy Souls that are made like unto them and joined with them in the same Society and it is likely with them Judge that is Rule the World All their infirmities are there put off with the Flesh they also are Spirits made up of holy Life and Light and Love There is none of their former ignorance errour imprudence selfishness contentiousness impatience or any other troubling hurtful thing When I think with what fervent love to God to Jesus Christ and to one another they will be perfectly united there alas how sad and how shameful is it that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions and hardly agree to call each other the Servants of God or to worship God in the same Assembliâ—â— But the remnants of dividing Principles viz. Pride Errour and Uncharitableness will be all left behind Society with imperfect Saints is sweet The imperfect Image of God upon them is amiable But their frailties here are so vexatious that it is hard to live with some of them in Peace But perfect Love will make them one and O how delightful will that communion of Saints be I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my Pilgrimage by the fragrancy and usefulness of his Servants graces How sweet have my bosom Friends been though mutable How sweet hath the Neighbourhood of the godly been How sweet have the holy Assemblies And how many hours of comfort have I there had How profitable have their Writings their Conference and their Prayers been What then will it be to live in the union of perfect Love with perfect Saints in Heaven for ever and with them concordantly to love the God of Love § 18. III. And as the Act and the Object of LOVE will constitute my felicity so will my Reception from the Love of God and his Creatures be sweeter to me than my own activity can be For it is Mutual Love that makes it up I shall not be the Fountain of my own delights nor can I act till I am acted nor offer any thing to God but what I have first received from him And Receive I shall abundantly
yet Man's internal Sense is far more excellent than the Bruits and thereby is an advantage to our Intellection Volition and Joy here in the Flesh And that in Heaven we shall have not less but more even more excellent Sense and Affections of Love and Joy as well as more excellent Intellection and Volition but such as we cannot now clearly conceive of § 13. Therefore there is great reason for all those Analogical collections which I have mentioned in my Book called The Saints Rest from the present operarations and pleasures of the Soul in Flesh to help our Conceptions of its future pleasures And though we cannot conclude that they will not unconceivably differ in their manner from what we now feel I doubt not but feel and rejoice we shall as certainly as Live and the Soul is Essential Life and that our Life and Feeling and Joy will be unconceivably better The Concluding Application § 1. I am convinced that it is far better to depart and be with Christ than to be here But there is much more than such conviction necessary to bring up my Soul to such desires Still there resisteth 1. The natutural averseness to Death which God hath put into every Animal and which is become inordinate and too strong by sin II. The remnants of Unbelief taking advantage of our darkness here in the Flesh and our too much familiarity with this visible World III. The want of more lively fortasts in a heavenly mind and love through weakness of Grace and the fear of Guilt These stand up against all that is said and words will not overcome them what then must be done Is there no remedy § 2. There is a Special sort of the Teaching of God by which we must learn so to number our Days as to apply our Hearts to Wisdom Without which we shall never effectually practically and savingly learn either this or any the most common and obvious easie Lesson When we have read and heard and spoken and written the soundest Truth and certainest Arguments we know yet as if we knew not and believe as if we believed not with a slight and dreaming kind of apprehension till God by a special Illumination bring the same things clearly to our Minds and awaken the Soul by a special suscitation to feel what we know and suit the Soul to the Truth revealed by an influx of his Love which giveth us a pleasing sense of the Amiableness and Congruity of the things proposed Since we separated our selves from God there is a hedge of separation between our Senses and our Understandings and between our Understandings and our Wills and Affections so that the communion between them is violated and we are divided in our selves by this Schism in our Faculties All men still see the demonstrations of Divine Perfections in the World and every part thereof and yet how little is God known All men may easily know that there is a God who is Almighty Omniscient Goodness itself Eternal Omnipresent the Maker Preserver and Governour of all who should have our whole Trust and Love and Obedience and yet how little of this knowledge is to be perceived in mens Hearts to themselves or in their Lives to others All men know that the World is Vanity that Man must die that Riches then profit not that time is precious and that we have only this little time to prepare for that which we must receive hereafter And yet how little do men seem to know indeed of all such things as no Man doubts of And when God doth come in with his powerful awakening Light and Love then all these things have another appearance of affecting reality than they had before as if but now we began to know them Words Doctrines Persons Things do seem as newly known to us All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life are but as the New-formed Body of Adam before God breathed into him the Breath of Life It is he that must make them Living Reasons To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up and for his Light and Love I must still wait as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten which must concoct it into my living substance Arguments will be but undigested Food till God's effectual influx do digest them I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar when I have thought and thought a Thousand times I must beg thy Blessing Lord upon my Thoughts or they will all be but dulness or self-distraction If there be no Motion Light and Life here without the Influx of the Sun what can Souls do or receive or feel without thy influx This World will be to us without thy Grace as a Grave or Dungeon where we shall lie in Death and Darkness The eye of my Understanding and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me without thine illuminating Beams O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love and then he will willingly come to thee § 3. 1. And why should I strive by the fears of Death against the common course of Nature and against my only hopes of Happiness Is it not appointed for all men once to die Would I have God to alter this determinate Course and make sinful Man immortal upon Earth When we are sinless we shall be immortal The love of life was given to teach me to preserve it carefully and use it well and not to torment me with the continual troubling foresight of Death Shall I make my self more miserable than the Vegetatives and Bruits Neither they nor I do grieve that my Flowers must fade and die and that my sweet and pleasant Fruits must fall and the Trees be uncloathed of their beauteous leaves until the Spring Birds and Beasts and Fishes and Worms have all a self-preserving fear of Death which urgeth them to fly from danger But few if any of them have a tormenting fear arising from the fore-thoughts that they must die To the Body death is less troublesom than sleep For in sleep I may have disquieting pains or dreams And yet I fear not going to my bed But of this before If it be the misery after Death that 's feared O what have I now to do but to receive the free reconciling Grace which is offered me from Heaven to save me from such misery and to devote my self totally to him who hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise cast out § 4 But this cometh by my selfishness Had I studied my duty and then remembred that I am not mine own and that it is God's part and not mine to determine of the duration of my life I had been quiet from these fruitless fears But when I fell to my self from God I am faln to care for my self as if it were my work to measure out my Days and now I trust not God as I should do
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
fettereth an active Spirit and we sleep or turn away in wandering Thoughts when we should seriously converse with Christ and Heaven Alas what unworthy Servants hath our Lord Are such as these meet for his work his Love his Acceptance or his Kingdom But O how merciful a Saviour have we who taketh not his poor Servants at the worst but when they after served him thus in his Agony he gently rebuketh them Could you not watch with me one Hour and that with an excuse The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak § 18. It is a matter of great Moment to understand in what cases this excuse will hold and our weakness will not make the willingness of the Spirit unacceptable to God If a Drunkard Fornicator or other Sensualist should say My Spirit is willing to leave my sin but my Flesh is weak and in temptation doth prevail Video meliora proboque c. This excuse would not prove God's forgiveness If a Man live in known sin which he could forbear were he truly willing and say To will is present with me but to do I am unable it is not I but sin that dwelleth in me this would be but a frivolous excuse And yet to the sleepy Disciples it was a good excuse and I think to Paul Rom 7. where then is the dâ—fference There are some acts of Man which the will hath not power to rule and some that it can rule The will hath not power always to keep a sleepy Man awake This sleep might be of the Flesh without any will at all And this excuseth from all guilt There are some acts of Man which the will cannot rule but by a great degree of power and endeavour As perhaps with much ado by preventing and resisting diligence the Disciples might have kept awake In this case their sleep is a fault but a pardoned fault of weakness Some Persons are liable to inordinate Fear and Grief which so surprizeth them by the Constitution of their Bodies that the greatest unwillingness would not hinder them And some could do more to resist these passions than they do but very hardly with the greatest diligence These are accordingly excusable in degree Paul would have perfectly obeyed God's Law and never have sinned But there is no Perfection in this Life Meer Imperfection of true Grace which is predominant in the will doth not damn men But there are acts which are so subject to the will that a sincere will though imperfect can command them He that doth these or doth the contrary it is not because he sincerely would and cannot but because he hath but uneffectual wishes and is not sincerely willing if he know them to be what they are Especially if they be materially great sins which he yieldeth to which true Grace more strongly resisteth than it doth an idle word or thought or action In short all omissions or commissions in which the will is positively or privatively guilty are sinful in some degree but only these do damn the Sinner which are inconsistent with the predominant Love of God and Heaven and Holiness in the Soul § 19. When the Disciples awaked they saw these glorious ones in converse Did they hear what they said or did Christ after tell them The later is most probable Doubtless as Moses tells us how God made the World which none could tell him but by God's telling them first so the Apostles have written many things of Christ which they neither saw nor heard but from Christ that told it them by Word or Inspiration How else knew they what Satan said and did to him in his Temptations in the Wilderness and on the Pinacle of the Temple How knew they what his Prayer was in his Agony And so in this instance also But Christ's own testimony was enough to put them out of Doubt to them that daily saw his confirming Miracles § 20. How great a difference was there between Mount Sinai and this Mount When God delivered the Law to Moses that Mount was terrible in Flame and Smoak and Thunder so that the People trembled and fled But now here is nothing but Life and Light and Love from Heaven A merciful Redeemer whose Face shined as the Sun with heavenly Company appearing nearly to the Disciples pittying and bearing with their heaviness and infirmity strengthning their Faith and Hope and proving to them a Resurrection and a heavenly Kingdom by a visible Apparition of some of its Possessors This was not a frightful but a confirming delectable sight The Law in terrour was by Moses but Grace and Truth Peace and Pleasure are by Christ This was an inviting and delighting and not an affrighting Apparition Was it not a shameful infirmity and a sin that Peter should deny Christ after such a sight as this and the rest of the Disciples forsake him and fly What! after they had seen the Kingdom of God come in Power and Christ's Face shine as the Sun in its brightness Could they forget all this Or could they doubt whether he or his Persecutors were the stronger and liker to prevail at last O how frail how uncertain how bad a thing is depraved Man But though Christ found them asleep and though he foreknew that they would forsake him he forsook not them nor used them as they deserved but comforted them with a glimpse of Heaven For he died for his Enemies § 21. But this was but once in all the time of his abode among them It was an extraordinary Feast and not their daily Bread They had Christ still with them but not transfigured in Glory nor Moses and Elias in their sight We are too apt to think that if God give us a joyful extraordinary glimpse of Heaven we must have it always or that he forsaketh us and castus off when he denieth it us O that we were as desirous of Holiness and Duty as we are of the Joy which is the reward But our Father and not we must be the chooser both of our Food and Feast Moses did not dwell on Mount Nebo that he might still see the Land of Promise It was enough to have one sight of it before his death As Flesh and Blood cannot enter into Heaven so it 's little of Heaven that entereth into it § 22. When the Disciples awake they see his Glory and the two men that stood with him It must not be a sleeeping but an awakened Christian that will have a sight of heavenly Glory As we must love God with all the Heart and Soul and Might all must be awakened in seeking him and in attending him before we can have a joyful foretast of his Love Carnal security supine neglect and dull contempt are dispositions which render us uncapable of such delights Heavenly joys suppose a heavenly disposition and desires Angels sleep not nor are clogged with Bodies of Clay Earth hath no Wings It must be holy vivacity that must carry up a Soul to God notwithstanding the fetters of Flesh
and such as will fully convince the Communicants Without such a miraculous glimpse of Glory God sometime giveth some of his Servants such a Mental illustration and inward glimpse and taste of Heaven as greatly overcometh all the fears of Pain and Death such many old and later Martyrs have had It was a strange word of the godly Bishop of St. Davids Mr. Farrar to his Neighbours If I stir in the Fire believe not my Doctrin and accordingly he stirred not If he had not had some Prophetical Inspiration this could not have been justified from being a presumptuous tempting God And Mr. Baynam's case was a meer wonder who in the Flames called to the Papists to see a Miracle professing to them that in the Fire he felt no more pain than if he had been laid in a Bed of Down or Roses I am just now reading in Adam's Lives of the German Philosophers the Life of Olympia Fulvia Morata which ended with some such experience In many Ages there hath been some one rare Woman who hath excelled men in the Languages Philosophy and other humane Learning Such a one was this Olympia Fulvia Morata of Ferrarrie She married Andr. Gundler a Physician She removed with him into Germany being by the way convinced of the Guard of Angels by her young Brothers falling out of a high Window on cragged Stones without any more hurt than if it had been on the soft ground In Germany she thus wrote to Anna Estensis a Guisian Princess As soon as by the singular goodness of God I was departed from the Italian Idolatry and came with my Husband into Germany it is incredible how God changed my Soul or mind which being formerly most averse or abhorring to the Divine Scriptures am now delighted in them alone and place in them all my Study Labour Care and Mind And as much as possible contemn all the Riches Honours and Pleasures which formerly I was wont to admire But the Cross presently following in God's usual Method her Husband and She were by Souldiers stript naked save the shift next the Body and narrowly scaping with life were put so to wander from place to place none daring to entertain them even when she was sick of a Feaver till at last they found liberal entertainment in which she shortly fell into a mortal Disease of which she died And in her last Sickness and after much torment of Body near Death she pleasantly smiled Her Husband asked her the Cause who said I saw a certain place which was full of a most clear and beauteous Light Intimating that she should be quickly there and saying I am wholly full of Joy And spake no more till her Eye-sight failing she said I scarce know any of you any more But all things else about seem to be full of most beauteous Flowers which were her last words having a long time professed that nothing seemed more desirable to her than to be dissolved and to be with Christ in all her sickness magnifying his Mercies to her Many have thus joyfully laid down the Flesh to go to Christ What wonder then if Peter was loth to lose the pleasure of what he saw Two things are necessary to great and solid joy First That the Object be truly and greatly amiable and delectable and Secondly That the apprehensions of it be clear and strong As to the first we have so great and glorious things to delight us as would feast our Souls with constant Joy were not the Second alas much wanting What Man could choose but be even in Peter's rapture continually if he had but ascertained heavenly Glory apprehended by him in as satisfactory a manner as these sensible things are If I lay in Prison yea or in torment of Colick Stone or any such Disease and had but withal such apprehensions or sight of assured Glory surely the pain would not be able to suppress my joy What a mixture what a discord would there be in my expressions Torment would constrain my Flesh to groan and the sight of Heaven would make me triumph I cannot but think how this great discord would shew the difference between the Spirit and the Flesh What a strange thing it would be to hear the same Man at the same time crying out in pain with groans and magnifying the love of God with transporting joy But we are not yet fit for such joyful apprehensions our weak Eyes must not see the Sun but through the allaying Medium of a humid Air at a vast distance and by the Chrystalline humour and organical parts of the Eye Fain we would get nearer and have sight or clearer apprehensions of the Spiritual Society and glorious World We study we pray we look up we groan under our distance darkness and unsatisfying conceptions But yet it must not be We must be ripened before the Shell will break or the dark Womb will deliver us up to the Glorious Light But Christ vouchsafed that to his three Apostles which we are unworthy of and yet unfit for O happy sight O happy men It is incongruous to say What would I not give for such a sight Lest it should savour of Simon Magus folly And I have nothing to give But it is not incongruous to say What would I not do And what would I not suffer for such a fight Yea Christ puts such kind of Questions to us O that I had better answered them in the Hour of Duty and in the Hour of Temptation When he asked Can ye drink of the Cup that I drink of and be Baptized with the Baptism that I am Baptized with I have been ready with James and John to say I can but when the trial comes as they after in his suffering forsook him and fled how insufficient is my own strength to perform my promise When he imposeth on me the denying of my self forsaking all and taking up the Cross and following him I yielded and covenanted by Vow to do it but it was By the help of the Holy Spirit which he promised to give me I stand Lord to my Covenant Help me to perform it and give me though not his present sight yet some of Peter's Mental apprehensions and a glimpse a taste of that which transported him with delight Let who will or who Thou wilt take the Riches and Grandeur of the World O give me some delightful taste of that which I am made for redeemed for and which thy Spirit hath long taught me to seek and hope for as my All. § 25. Peter was not weary with the sight of this heavenly Apparition Why should I be weary of the believing contemplation of greater things Though sight affect us more sensibly than meer believing and thinking yet these have their happy Office which may be effectual And Christ who thus appeared in Glory to Peter hath said Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed And Peter himself saith of them that see not Christ that They rejoice with joy unspeakable
not how erroneously they think The sensible souls of Bruits are substance And therefore are not annihilated at death But God put them under us and made them for us and us more nearly for himself Bruits have not Faculties to know and love God to meditate on him or praise him or by moral agency to obey his Precepts They desire not any higher felicity than they have God will have us use their service yea their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us He tells us not what he doth with them after death But whatever it is it is not annihilation and it 's like they are in a state still of service unto Man Whether united or how individuate we know not Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superiour Regions where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here where the Spirits of Bruits are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies to those low rational Spirits that inhabite the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh But it 's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know love praise and obey him and trust him for Glory which he never gave to them because they were not made for things so high Every Creatures Faculties are suited to their use and ends And Love tells me that the blessed God who giveth to Bruits that life health and pleasure which they are made and fitted for will give his Servants that heavenly delight in the fulness of his Love and Praise and and mutual joyful Love to one another which Nature fundamentally and Grace more immediately hath made them fit for Blessed Jehovah for what tasts of this effused Love thou hast given me my Soul doth bless thee with some degree of gratitude and joy And for those further measures which I want and long for and which my pained languid state much needs and would raise my joyful hopes of Glory I wait I beg from day to day O give me now at the Door of Heaven some fuller taste of the heavenly Felicity Shed more abroad upon my Heart by the Holy Ghost that Love of thine which will draw up my longing Soul to thee rejoicing in hope of the Glory of God FINIS This is the true mean between George Keith the Quakers Doctrine of Continued Inspiration Intuition and that on the other extream Matth. 28. 18. Joh. 5. 22. Joh. 17. 2. Joh. 12. 26. Joh. 3. 16. Rom. 8. 35 36 37 30. * 1 Pet. 4. 6. They that died to or in the Flesh according to Men do live in the Spirit according to God * Indeed if the Soul were not Immortal the Resurrection were impossible It might be a new Creation of another Soul but not a Resurrection of the same if the same be annihilated It 's certain that the Jews believed the Immortality of the Soul in that they believed the Resurrection and future life of the same Man * Psal 34. 7. 91. 11 12. Luk. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 11. 10. Heb. 1. 14. 12. 22. 13. 2. Mat. 18. 10. 25. 31. 13. 39 49. Act. 5. 19. 8. 26. 12. 7. 23. * Of this see the Second Edition by Dr. More of Mr. Glanvile's Book of Apparitions called Atheismus Triumphatus †For the truth of this read Mr. Fairclough's Life * See what I have said of particular Testimonies in my Saints Rest and unreasonableness of Infidelity * 1 Joh. 5. 9 10 11. Gal. 5. 17. Rom. 7. Phil. 3. 7. to the 15. * Eph. 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 23. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Eph. 1. 13. 4. 30. 1 Joh. 5. 9 10. Heb. 10. 15. * This one Truth will give great Light into the Controversies about God's gracious Operations on the Soul For when he useth second Causes we see he Operateth according to their limited aptitude And Christ's humane Nature and all other second Causes are limited and operate variously and resistibly according to the Recipients capacity * Treat of Infidelity Luke 15. 10. And Mr. Beverly in his Great Soul of Man ☞