with a felt necessitie and want as a whetstone to make our prayers fervent When Seth called his son Enosh that is miserable or calamitous then men began to call upon the name of the Lord So that name expressed that they were sensible of their miserie and that felt miserie maketh men religious Next commeth the desire to have that thing which we want and that is the prayer it self For a ground we looke to Gods mercie and for price we looke to Christs merite Herein is the worke of faith to make the prayer faithfull as the preceding conscience maketh it fervent It specifieth our desire and maketh it supernaturall for it is the hand of our soul meeting Gods hand who offereth his blessings to us in the promise as a lively childe taketh the pap of his mother greedily and sucketh milk out of it largely So the faithfull soul opening wide the mouth of the desire taketh in the promise and sucketh the blessing of God out of it We present his promises as his owne handwrit and obligation And he deigneth by his promises to be debter to us to whom he forgiveth all debt True prayer is not so much in our words as our heart Words in publick prayer are necessary for others to heare and follow us And in privat prayers they serve to hold our mindes constant but the life of prayer standeth in faithfull desires For long speech is one thing and a strong affection is another and the worke of prayer is done more by groans than by words and by tears more than talk And the Lord careth not much for the cry of our flesh but for the crie of our heart For his eares are in our heart and he heareth us say nothing to him but what he hath first spoken to us Moses was silent at the red sea and yet God said to him why cryest thou His mouth was close but his heart was crying to the Lord he was grieved to see the peoples danger and yet beleeved God who promised to deliver them and was challenging God in his heart to keepe his promise Therefore one saith That the people cried but God heard them not Moses cried not and yet the Lord answered him And the reason is cleare because the crie of the people was in murmuring and fleshly reason which God misregardeth but the secret and heart-cries of Moses were the language of the holy Spirit And the Apostle seemeth to point at this when he telleth the worke of the spirit helping us to pray bringeth forth sighes and groans which cannot be uttered We call him then into our selves when we call upon him Light cares can speake but great cares doe stupifie with silence Weak desires are easily expressed but excessive desires cannot be equalled by speech A rod serveth a man in a small worke but in a greater he casteth it away and taketh him to stronger instruments So the tongue is a sufficient interpreter in other things but here wee leave it and take us to groans and sighs the best language of the heart Men may be neere and not heare us and yet our groans be heard in the heaven of heavens We cannot bide in our selves but would be at God and yet cannot win to him as we would therefore we groan under that restraint Gods suggestion to our heart is by inspiration of heavenly power making us capable of grace And by infusion powring in that grace he offereth So our best speach to him is by aspiring not of ambition but of affection in breathing to him as the chased hart doeth to the waters The kisses of Christ on our soul are better impressed and stamped by him than can be expressed by us So the best expressing of our soul to him is better by thrusting it on him than by uttering of words This excessive desire of God is wrought in the heart by himself he filleth it both with himâ—elf and a desire of him that he may make it sensible of both The more it is full of him it desireth him the more and the more it powreth out it selfe in that desire it is satiat the more and the more the desire increaseth And in this heavenly inebriation satiety provoketh our thirst The more we have of God we thirst him the more and are inflamed with new desires Superstitious worshippers thinke by their prayers as charmes to devocat and draw God out of heaven And the Idolater thinketh to command him but both separate themselves from him But the godly seek him in their heart and thrust their heart on him It is also a touch of that sicknesse of love when the soul burneth in a desire of God and that sicknesse is the health of the soul and God sensibly filling the heart is the cure of that sicknesse This prayer then is nothing else but a laying of his desirous heart open to the fountaine to drinke in happinesse Who so hath receaved this affectuous devotion and devout affection to God hath already conceaved the birth of happinesse and shall travell therewith now painfully now joyfully till he be delivered of it in his full deliverie from all miserie Thirdly hope of obtaining happinesse followeth our faithfull prayers for what faith beleeveth that hope expecteth It is as soone in our hope as it is in our faithfull desire and long before it be in our hand and yet as sure as it were in our hand though sometime interveen for he that is to come will come and not delay And behold I come and my reward is with me And the hope of the godly shall not perish Our hope is greatly confirmed by the tastes of happinesse we finde in prayer We may more firmely expect that that we finde begun already and these first fruits assure us of the fulnesse in due time Such faithfull desires powred out with a delightfull freedome are not only the Lords harbengers in our heart to tell that he is comming but the ushers of his entrie and tokens that he is already come He is in that heart that earnestly desireth him and with libertie powreth it selfe out on him Moreover this word containeth three properties of his prayer Humilitie Absolutenesse and Constancie Humilitie because it is an humble asking and not a proud exacting and so excludeth mans merite which cannot stand with the humilitie of prayer If he had merit for happinesse he would not beg it as a gift but exact it as a debt The Apostle cleareth this for when he hath said The wages of sinne is death if he had followed the rules of Logick he would have said that the reward of righteousnesse is life eternall But he knew that could not stand with Gods mercie and Christs merite therefore he calleth life eternall the free gift of God And to this truth God provided himselfe a witnesse even among the Cardinals The Apostle saith he saith not that the wages of righteousnesse
are life eternall but the gift of God is life eternall That we may understand that we obtaine eternall life not by our merits but by the free gift of God Therefore he subjoynes In Christ Iesus our Lord. Behold the merit behold the righteousnesse whose wages life eternall is But to us it is a free gift through Iesus Christ Reason also proveth this For all the good wee have whether naturall or spirituall is his gift Naturall goodnesse commeth by his providence both in it selfe and the right use And though they were both of our selves they have no proportion to deserve any grace No good deserveth another but farre lesse doeth naturall good deserve happinesse And all supernaturall goodnesse is his gift also and every degree of it is a native growth of his donation without the respects of merit or reward for that same mercie that giveth the beginning giveth also the increase and perfection of grace Our state also goes in two first we are miserable in our selves and then happy in God and what good can be in miserie to deserve the least happinesse While we are in miserie we can deserve no happinesse and when God beginneth happinesse in us that beginning is neither a reward of any preceding merit neither a merit of any following goodnesse But all is the worke and gift of grace Againe both the name and nature of grace excludeth merit for grace properly cannot be valued at any price neither hath miserable man any price to give for it Therefore the greatnesse of the giver the excellencie of the gift and povertie of the receaver make it to come freely Ho every one that is a thirst come to the waters come and buy without money without merit And he that is a thirst let him come and drinke of the water of the well of life freely That pride of the Pelagians is grounded upon the indifferencie of the will to ill and good and on a like furniture for both which deny flatly mans miserie and the grace of God In such a pride they cannot pray because they neither feel their miserie nor seek to mercie They are like the Pharisee that counted with God and put him in his debt and like sturdy beggars who boast of their birth and doe rather threaten than beg and deserve more to be thrust to a house of correction than to be helped with almes So God plagueth these proud Justitiaries with a judiciall pride that not subjecting themselves to the righteousnesse of God but seeking to establish their owne righteousnesse they cut themselves off from Christ and his grace It were better to them with the Public an humbly to beg mercie and with the blinde man at Jericho to cast away the menstruous clouts of their supposed righteousnesse that they may be cloathed with the righteousnesse of Christ. They are like the old Giants whom the fables said would take the heavens by force and for that end heaped mountains upon mountains So doe they adde Condignitie to congruitie and dignitie to condignitie Supererogation to dignitie and confidence in them all This is nothing but the old blinde cyclopick superarrogancie and will have the like successe with these Giants For we may say of them as Jovian said to Acesilas a Novatian disputing of the perfection of his followers Go to Acesila set that ladder to heaven and thou wilt finde it too short to carry thee thither They cast aside Jesus Christ the ladder of Jacob and make to them a ladder of pride to their owne ruine Heaven hath no open doore to the prayer of a proud Pharisee but all the gates of it are cast open to an humble supplicant David disclaimed merit Enter not into judgement with thy servant appealed only to mercie Have mercie upon me according to the multitude of thy compassions And the faithfull venture on that humilitie What I have saith one I have taken it of God and not presumed it of my selfe for what I am commendably it is not of my ingine neither of my merit but of his free gift And what merit can be in man whom the deliverer from sinne Iesus Christ himselfe found altogether a sinner Or how shall a man trust in himselfe to be happy who cannot guide his minde his best part from errour And if the Prophet saith truly Cursed is he who putteth his trust in man much more is he accursed who trusteth in himselfe for happinesse Next this prayer for happinesse must be absolute and not conditionall and that because happinesse is absolutely necessary We crave common blessings with this condition if God thinke it expedient as health libertie wealth c. But when we pray for remission of sins life eternall and happinesse we seeke them absolutely All things that we aske go in three ranks The first are good in themselves and yet better us not as riches and honour c. because they qualifie not our person with any good change The second are god in themselves and make us better but cannot beatifie us as learning wisedome prudence c. The third is both good maketh us better and beatifieth us and therefore is simply to bee craved of God This distinction setleth the godly in a great doubt they pray oft and earnestly for some things and yet are not heard and therefore thinke that God hath cast them off But here is a resolution for God neglecteth not their prayers but hath them written before they utter them And his refuse is not in anger but because he thinketh it not expedient and though he refuse one thing it is to give us a better as he refused to stay Sathans buffering to the Apostle yet gave him sufficient grace to indure it Besides we may plainly say that God heareth ever his owne although not to their will yet to their weale Our will that leadeth us in rebellion against his Commandments should not rule his hearing of our prayers For oftentimes God giveth us blessings that wee never sought and holdeth from us in that same mercie many things that we seeke As a wise father giveth his sonne nourishment though he seek it not but if that same childe cry and weepe for a knife he will refuse him because he foreseeth he may hurt him with it It had beene good for Israel that God had refused to give them flesh in the wildernesse and for Balaam that God had stayed him as well in his second as in his first desire But happinesse hath a more absolute course for God hath purposed it absolutely for his owne he hath promised it absolutely and what ever condition is required of faith or repentance he worketh it in us Christ hath purchased it and prayed for it absolutely and upon these grounds absolutely we seeke it of God Rachel said to Jacob Give me children or else I die How much more reason have we to crave of
heart of every beleever by a spiritual union God and we were more distant than heaven and hell and how should that fountain communicate its goodnes to us but by that chanell of our own nature in Christ we receive it both kindly and largely He is the fountain of grace as God one with his Father he hath deserved it by his obedience and dispenseth it to us as God-man So we receive grace by a kindly convoy This is better than Labans Well for none could drink of that till the stone was rolled off But this fountain is alway open to the house of David And the first shot of these over-running waters roll this stone of hardnes from our heart when his grace softneth our heart to receive more grace And though Jacobs Wel had water yet they who came to it had need of a bucket and coard to draw but this fountain furnisheth both the bucket of an earnest desire and the coard of a strong faith Even he who saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it doth open our heart with Lidia's and maketh us to receive his grace largely This is the sweet respect that this fountain of happinesse hath to our miserie to prevent us with exciting grace to draw us with effectuall grace and to communicate this happinesse to us that our miserie may be happie in him Before we loved him he made us when he kythed his love to us he renewed us and being beloved of us he shall perfect us I close this point with Solomon O fountain of the gardens O Well of living waters Arìse O north and come O south and blow on my garden that the spices thereof may flow out Let my welbeloved come to his garden and eat his pleasant fruit SECTION III. How to seek true happinesse I have sought that I will inquire THe first section of this doctrine hath told us that there is a happines one thing The second that God is the fountain of it Now followeth the third how to seek it And this is set down in two words of Praying and Inquiring and offereth to us two kinds of seeking The first is the Inquirie of happinesse among many things The second is the suiting of it from God by prayer after we have found it In this inquirie we shall consider the necessitie difficulty and the form The necessity is great because it is about this greatest necessar one thing We have it not by nature but must get it by grace so we are not born happy but made happy We are miserable in our selves and must be changed by happines and this change is furthered by inquirie Our life is short our death uncertain and when it approacheth if it finde us unprovided our misery shall be threefold What then should we do in a short life but cast off vanity and set us for the search of the truth Besides it is the main end wherefore we are brought into the world and if a new born childe could speak and were asked wherefore he is born He should answer To seek the happines that he lost in Adam We are not born to buy and build and heap riches and honour together but to enquire for salvation as a childe is not formed in the belly to bide there but to come forth and to be a perfect man in the free light It is a great good to seek the chief good The difficulty of this inquiry is first from the nature of happinesse It is hid manna the eye hath not seen it nor the eare heard it c. And this our life is hid with Christ in God Next from the multitude of false happinesses that deceive us For Satan hath filled the way of our inquiry with sundry baits to divert us from the right that on them we may stick as upon the chief good and embrace our own fancies Thirdly from our own disposition we are all born with a desire of happines and every life in it own kinde desires to be better If we ask any man though he were a fool would you be happy He would answer I would For every being is desirous of goodnesse or well being The desire of meat drink raiment are no more rooted in us than that desire of happines and these smallest desires serve the greatest The appetite of the wills sacietie which the schools call happines is common but few know the reason of that saciety so that many labouring to choose a particular happines which their common appetite desired have chosen misery for happines It is as hard to finde out true happines as it is easie to have the common desire of it the one hath need of a supernaturall grace as the other floweth from a naturall power Fourthly the practice of all ages proveth this difficultie for of the many millions that sought out happines none did finde it out except those whom God assisted by a speciall grace The Philosophers travelled painfully but brought out the winde they were confident that they had found it and yet found it not But that confidence was double miserie both in missing true happines and then in resting upon their own deceit They neither agreed with the truth nor among themselves nor any one of them with himself If we look to the universall desire rising from the common notion we shal be forced to say There is a happines if we look on their diversitie and contrarietie we shall wonder at Sathans craft abusing mans wit to erre so fouly about happines And Solomon himself thought this task both worthy of him and hard for him to finde out what was that good or happinesse of the sons of men Wee must think it an hard task whereon so many Philosophers have lost their labour their time and themselves The search it self goeth in two the refusing of ill and choosing of good The ill of sin must simply be refused whether it be originall or actuall inherent or adherent guiltinesse It is the cause of our misery and contrarie to good it cannot enter in happines but stayes it in us Our miserie began at it and our happines beginneth in turning from it Adam was tried by the tree of knowledge of good and ill which told him that so long as hee stood hee had a known good and was free from an unknown ill But when he fell he â—o und experimentall knowledge of a lost good and purchased ill That tree is yet our triall if we will eschew the ill of sin and follow the good of happines There can be no happines in ill neither can any man desire or love ill as ill and sathan whose malice is fed with it doth not love it as ill but as a good as a satisfaction of his malitious will And those men are most like to him who seek their happines in ill They make it their happines when they boast of it as Lamech of his tyrannie and Doeg of his calumnies
in our affection but we abhor it then God will assist us against it It may lessen the degrees of our happinesse but cannot destroy it In like manner there are degrees of good and we should love every good according to the degree till we ascend to the chief good and love him with all our heart and all our soul. These affections qualifie our person for the hatred of ill divideth us from that ill we hate and the love of good maketh us like that good we love And our love to the degrees of good maketh us grow in goodnesse and grace The wicked keep neither this order nor aseending They pervert all and chuse for their happinesse a lesser good then they refuse as worldly goods in place of heavenly That is both a transposing of their heart and a descending and so they prove the sons of Belial according to the Hebrew because they neither ascend in the Lords mountaine but are unthrifts neither take on them the Lords yoak and it is their naughtinesse or knaverie according to the Latines that they turn themselves to nothing for knaverie is the death of the life so called because it turneth to nothing But we must further distinguish these affections for though we should hate all sinfull ill yet we may not hate any good We may wisely neglect lesser goods for the chief but not hate them Though we count lesse of a lesser good then of a greater and comparatively neglect all in respect of God yet we should abhor none What ever is neglected is in comparison of a better It is not only sin to turn from good to ill but even among goods to decline from eternall to temporall things from visible to invisible from the creatour to the creature yea and to love any good too much that is lesse then our selves because it is ordered under us And that due love we give them is not to hold us on them but to send us away to the chief good for if these small goods be love-worthy with what a love should we adhere to the fountain-good The most part of men run on riches honour fame power and pleasure and yet true happinesse is not in any of them nor in all together Riches whether naturall in food and raiment or artificiall in money are but earth in their substance and worthlesse in themselves Though the wretch count greatly of them they are only for use wherein they perish Honour is not happinesse though the ambitious man count it so but a consequent of it neither hath it true worth but is a signe of it and that discerned and proclaimed by the multitude a blinde judge of worthinesse And though the supposed worth be in him that is honoured yet the offered honour is more in the honourer and at the best it is but a vanishing smoak Fame is happinesse to the vain-glorious man but at the best it is a fruit and not a cause thereof It is oftner false then true and can proclaim lowd where no happinesse is Sathan useth it as a miserable subsidie to the dead whom he hath killed with the hunger of vain-glorie and as a bait to their consorts to devoure that same angle Power seemeth happinesse to the stirring man that he may perform his own purposes and oppresse his enemies but it is rather an instrument then happinesse and more hurtfull to the abuser then to others and the abufe of it maketh more miserable then the possession of it can blesse As for pleasure the happinesse of beasts it is to be left to Epicures for though some of them pretended a pleasure of the minde yet when all is searched that is but a pretence to colour their beastly opinion of bodily pleasure They strove to purifie it with abstract explications but their life refuted their discourse and their grosse practice overthrew their subtill disputes Pleasure is the bodies happines but not the souls and if we speak properly the soul is rather the best thing of the body then any bodily thing Moreover all these idols of the world are cut off from happinesse because they are common as well to the wicked as to the godly which cannot fall in true happinesse the patrimonie of the saints Next happinesse bringeth contentment but the more we have of these the more we thirst Thirdly true happinesse is not in externall things but all these are externall The cause why so many seek these things for happinesse is they love them better then God and from their own fancie do conceit a worth which is not in them and alleadge a promise on them which they make not It is truly said that they who love fain dreams to themselves The wretch thinketh that riches cry on him saying Come to me I shall make thee happy The ambitious man thinketh honour cryes so to him so the epicure dreameth of pleasure c. But falshood riseth not of the things themselves but of our own deceiving and deceived hearts These things neither promise happinesse neither can performe the errour of their fansie turned into a strong desire maketh them father such promises on these things even as fools and babes do imagine that ringing bels do speak the thing that they think And it is our reproch that we beleeve things that neither promise nor can perform and hazzard our eternall happinesse on that credulitie But when God promiseth who is both truth and omnipotencie wee meet his word with infidelitie If these things could speake they would chide their lovers as the angels did the woman seeking Christ in the grave Why seek yee the living among the dead Why seek ye happinesse in us who have it not but are worse then your selves Some again who seem more perfect seek happinesse in the gifts of the minde as learning vertue wisedome c. These are better than the former and yet come not to true happinsse for these gifts are common and many wicked men have excelled in them and yet perished They are as the light to the eye without seeing a furnishing to seek it without fruit The Philosophers who excelled most in these things were most miserable The fleshly villanies of Socrates Plato and Aristotle equalled and exceeded their morall vertues Solomon found not happinesse in these morall vertues but in the fear and obedience of God All these erred foully in their search yet not alike The world is as a great mans house to whom many resort Some stay in the lower roomes with their companions but some go to the hall and yet stand there gazing on pictures or rich hangings but the wiser sort passe all these and stay not till they finde him in his cabinet So all men are busie for happinesse but the most part remain below on riches and pleasure Other that seem of greater spirits climb up to honour and are bewitched with the painted hangings of worldly glorie or adore the gifts of their
own minde But the godly pittie these men in their errours who are intised with such trifles They know that they are not called to a worldly felicitie but to a heavenly they passe from one good to another and urge pensively their inquirie till they come to God himself So the church in her search could not stay till she found him whom her soul loved God is above all whom if we follow we learn well if we apprehend we learn both well and blessedly his following is our appetite of happinesse his apprehending is happinesse it self Let us therefore in this inquirie lift our mindes above all things visible or created and seek true happinesse in God alone for none can make man blessed but God that made man Seek the thing that you seek sayeth one but not where you seek it You seek a blessed life in the region of death it is not there For how can there be a blessed life where there is no life And we may say Woe to that bold soul which hopeth if it depart from God that it can finde any thing better than God For the soul goes into fornication when it departeth from and seeketh not out of him these things pure and clean which it will never finde till it returne unto him The choice it self WE have heard of the search of happinesse followeth the choice it self I know school-divinitie speaketh otherwise and thinketh some of them at least with the Philosopher that election is not of the end but of the midst to it But I am content to speak rather with Christ than the Philosopher who commended Marie for chusing that one thing that was necessarie and Divines speak roundly What shall we chuse to love but that than which we finde nothing better There is formally a choice of the end This choice is the act of the will and goeth in foure speciall works Inclination Apprehension Retention and Rest. Inclination when the will inclineth and applieth it self to the sought and found happinesse The desire of our heart is unto theâ— We have naturally a desire of happinesse but when the truth hath particularly revealed it then we desire it more firmely And this hath not only the last judgement of the practicall understanding as some speak but more the finger of Gods spirit bowing the will to it for many in their reason do apprehend things to be good and yet their will followeth not The Creator of the will doeth bow it to good else that pointing of the minde were not sufficient All the time of our search the will stood in suspense but now being informed by the minde of the nature of happinesse and bowed by the spirit it inclineth to it willingly Our first sin began at a declining from God and our first good disposition beginneth at the inclining of our will to him againe 2. Apprehension is when the will embraceth that greatest good with greatest power I layed hold on him whom my soul loved In griping other goods it abideth in it self and gripeth them slenderly as inferiour goods but it goeth out of it self gladly to this chief good and quitting that proud title of mistresse of her own actions is glad to go out of her self and to be taken up in that chief good For the pure and perfect soul subjecteth it self unto happinesse 3. Retention is our firme keeping of happinesse I would not let him go till I brought him in the house of my mother This keeping is his keeping of us for as inclination is by his power our apprehension by his griping of us so this retention is by his holding of us The stock beareth us and not we the stock 4. A sweet rest on this good followeth which is the sweeter the greater our search hath been As Scripture hath some mysteries otherwise men would neither seriously search nor sweetly finde out the truth So in the search of happinesse the more labour the sweeter rest If Adam had painfully laboured for his happinesse he had kept it better than he did Easie finding maketh slack keeping but a painfull conquest is carefully preserved It is but the continuance of one care and that with more joy in the preservation than was in the purchase This choice is accompanied with a conscience of it self for our conscience goeth along all this work and maketh us conscious both of our seeking and finding God hath joyned it to the reasonable soul as a witnesse of all actions yea even of the least motion of our affections We both know that they are and we know that we know The conscience making us sensible of the own consciousnesse So that it is a comfortlesse religion that involveth men in the confusions of an implicite faith towards God and holdeth them in senselesnesse of their own estate as not being conscious of that they do They destroy the image of the Trinity in us which is knowen by conscience Our being to know that our being and to love both Our being in him hath no death our knowledge hath no ignorance and our love no offence but they confound all He is senselesse who feeleth not the work of his own affections when he hateth or feareth or rejoyceth so here if we love God we need no more doubt that we are beloved of him than that we love him By this I know that it is true that is said And again I know that I know these things and when I love God I can no more doubt that I am beloved than that I love But the experience of the Saints will clear this practick point of the search and finding of happinesse And first in Solomon He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes than which the world hath nothing more perfect of this purpose Therein he expresseth his consultations ending in just sentences His counsell-house for this inquirie was his heart I said in my heart where gathering all his thoughts in the presence of God he pondered things deeply Next he proponeth the purpose for consultation that he might see what was that good for the sons of men which they should do uuder the heaven all the dayes of their life Thereafter he bringeth in all these common places of worldly happinesse as riches honours wisedome possessions c. and sentenceth every one of them This also is vanitie and vexation of spirit Moreover in the beginning of the sixt Chapter he gathereth Paradoxes adjudging rather happinesse to the contrary of these things than to themselves That it is better to be in the house of mourning than of laughing That the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit And in the end he closeth with the sum of all that to fear God and keep his commandments is the duty of man If we look to the beginning of his discourse Vanitie of vanities all is vanitie it is like a program affixed on the entrie of a citie
Not fully because in their greatest fall they have both the Spirit and the seed of God in the habits of faith love c. albeit the worke of the Spirit and of these habits doe cease during the time of their impenitencie So David desireth the restoring of the joyes of salvation while in the meane time he craveth a retaining of the spirit That retaining imported that the spirit was still with him and that restoring imported his wonted joyes werâ— stayed Neither can they fall finally because thâ— Lord in his owne time raiseth them by repentance as Peter and David c. But Scripture and reason prove the same clearely I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will never turne away from them to doe them good but I will put my feare in their hearts that they shall not depart from mee So Christ telleth It is impossible that the elect can be seduced and the Apostle Peter telleth That we are preserved by the power of God to that heavenly inheritance so that God his preserving power maketh our perseverance And no man saith Christ shall pull my sheepe out of my hand And because they except slyly It is true that none can pull his sheep out of his hand yet what if the sheep depart from him of their owne will The Apostle meeteth That neither life nor death nor any creature shall separate us from his love If no creature then not we our selves since we are a creature And the new heart and the new spirit doe promise the contrarie If God be for us who is against us For none can hurt us but he that over commeth God and who can overcome the Almightie Reasons also taken from the persons of the Godhead prove the same For the Father delivereth us to the Sonne to be kept and presented blamelesse at the last day The Sonne committeth us to the Father and prayed for us that we perish not The Father and Sonne commit us to the Spirit to be led in our wayes who dwelleth in us and in our seale which cannot be broken But in our time God gave a fearefull document in this question For when one pressed to destroy the grace of perseverance God let him fall from such grace as he had to turne Papist and of a professour of divinitie to become a lecturer of humanitie Our late Libertines mock this doctrine They professe a perfection in this life and so deny the necessitie of a graduall increase They affirme that the justified man cannot sinne and that God neither seeth nor hateth sinne in them That they need not repent nor mourne for sinne nor incite themselves to the obedience of God That they need not pray but praise continually This is a refined extract of Sathan who as by the Pelagians he oppugneth grace by nature so in them he destroyeth it in the name of grace And under a conceit of singular grace maketh them singularly gracelesse They have carved to themselves an easie way to heaven by laughing and mirth whereas Gods best children find it a valley of teares But their pretended perfection is found to be a presumptuous colour of libertie to their flesh for they are knowne to be more licentious in their wayes than they who groan under the sense of their imperfections The last degree commeth at death Not that our happinesse is suspended till then for we are here preparing happines though we cannot possesse it till death Solons speach cannot abide an exact triall for wee are called to happinesse even in this life It is called a valley of miserie and craveth some solace by a begun happinesse And the scripture pronounceth in the present some men happie Blessed is he whose sinnes are forgiven And happinesse is here begun in us faith gripeth it in the promise hope waiteth on it in the fulnesse our desire longeth for it and the beginnings of it selfe begin our profession But after death all shall be perfected This was the weaknesse of the wisest Pagans when they had pleased themselves with their discourses of happinesse they could not indure the thoughts of death but called it of fearfull things the most fearefull They trembled at that where they should finde most comfort and their thoughts of eternitie were as confused as their doctrine of happinesse was false And therefore could finde no comfort in their evanishing But the truth telleth us that at death we end the valley of miserie and enter in everlasting happinesse At death then our perfect happinesse beginneth and that in two First in removing all miserie or what ever imperfection The other in compleating happinesse in it selfe Our first miserie is sinne originall which God cutteth off by perfect sanctification In our effectuall calling that cutting off beginneth and goeth on by degrees till death when our last breath hath the last act of mortifying grace in the full abolishing of sinne Secondly the abolishing of all guiltinesse whatsoever that wee may be presented pure and blamelesse to him Thirdly wee shall be freed from all tempters and tentations Sathan shall molest us no more There shall be no need of an hedge to Job neither shall wicked men by their example pervert us or by their violence injure us neither shall a deceitfull heart deceive us any more Fourthly we shall be freed of all affliction we shall not desert God in sinne and he shall not desert us in his anger to punish us for sinne There shall be no more sorrow nor feare nor crying out because these first things shall be ended and God shall wipe away all teares from our eyes Lastly the mortalitie of this bodie shall end It is so fraile now that hardly can we fit it to serve us in actions naturall or spirituall and is a daily burthen to us to keepe it from sickenesse and inconvenients And when it is under them a greater burthen to make it free But when it shall be made a spirituall bodie these things shall cease Christs death hath killed death and his life is our life This is the consumption of the ills of our miserie Followeth the consummation of good things that perfecteth our happinesse and these are first the ceasing of the meanes of grace which are now necessary for the way then they shall end as having neither further worke nor use in us So prophesying shall cease and praying shall turne in praise On our part faith shall end in sight hope in fruition desire in delight and the beginnings themselves in their due perfection 2. All goodnes shall be perfected in us according to our measure our light perfect without ignorance or error our love perfect without slacking our will obsequious without rebellion our affections straight without perversenes and righteousnes holines in our last breath shal be accomplished and that last act of our regeneration shall bring forth the new man and send him in a