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A45250
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The great mystery of godliness laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling meditation : also the invisible world discovered to spirituall eyes and reduced to usefull meditation in three books / by Jos. Hall.
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Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.
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1659
(1659)
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Wing H384; ESTC R28688
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24,922
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96
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The Great MYSTERY of GODLINESS Laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling MEDITATION Also the INVISIBLE WORLD Discovered to Spirituall Eyes and reduced to usefull Meditation IN THREE BOOKS By JOS HALL D. D. B. Norwich London Printed by E. Cotes â—or John Place at Furnivals Inne-gate 1659. To all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Grace and Peace Dear Brethren IF I have in a sort taken my leave of the world already yet not of you whom God hath chosen out of the world and endeared to me by a closer interest so as ye may justly expect from me a more speciall valediction which I do now in all Christian affection tender unto you And as dear friends upon a long parting are wont to leave behind them some takens of remembrance where they most affect so have I thought good before my setting forth on my last journey to recomend unto you these my two finall Meditations then which I suppose nothing could be more proper for me to give or more likely to merit your acceptation For if we were half way in heaven already what can be a more seasonable imployment of our thoughts then the great Mysterie of Godlinesse which the Angels dâ—sire to look into And now when our badily eyes are glutted with the view of the things that are seen a prospect which can offord us nothing but vanity and vexation what can be more meet then to feed our spirituall eyes with the light of Invisible glories Make your use of them both to the edisying of your selves in your most holy faith and aspire with me towards that happiness which is laid up above for all those that love the appearance of our Lord Jesus Withall as the last words of friends are wont to bear the greatest weight and to make the deepest impression so let these lines of holy advise wherewith after many well-meant discourses I shall close up the mouth of the Presse find the like respect from you Oh that I might in the first place effectually recommend to you the full recovery of that precious Legacy of our blessed Saviour Peace peace with God Peace with men next to Grace the best of all blessings Yet wo is me too too long banished from the Christian world with such animosity as if it were the worst of enemies and meet to be adjudged to a perpetuall mitrnatit ion Oh for a fountain of tears to bewaile the slain of Gods people in all the coasts of the Earth How is Christendome become an universall Aceldama How is the earth every where drenched with humane bloud â—oured out not by the hands of cruell Infidels but of brethren Men need not go so farre as Euphrates for the execution of Turks and Pagans Christians can make up an Armageddon with their own mutuall slaughter Enough my dear brethren enough yea more then too much hath been the effusion of that bloud for which our Saviour hath shed his Let us now at the last dry up these deadly issues which we have made and with soveraigne balms bind up the wounds we have given Let us now be not more sparing of our tears to wash off the memory of these our unbrotherly dimications and to ppease the anger of that God whose offended justice hath raised war out of our own bowels As our enmity so our peace begins at heaven Had we not provoked our long suffering God we had not thus bled and we cannot but know and beleeve him that said When a mans wayes please the Lord he maketh his enemies to be at peace with him Oh that we could throughly reconcile our selves to that great and holy God whom we have irritated by our crying sins how soon would he who is the commander of all hearts make up our breaches and calme and compose our spirits to an happy peace and concord In the next place give me leave earnestly to exhort you that as we have been heretofore palpably faulty in abusing the mercies of our God for which we have soundly smarted so that now we should be so much the more carefull to improve the judgments of God to our effectuall reformation we have felt the heavie hand of the Almighty upon us to purpose Oh that our amendment could be no lesse sensible then our sufferings But alas my brethren are our wayes any whit holyer our obedience more exact our sins less and fewer then before we were thus heavily afflicted 〈…〉 our God too justly 〈…〉 that complaint which he made once by his Prophet Jeremiah Ye have transgressed against me saith the Lord In vain have I smitten your children they received no correction Far be it from us that after so many sad and solemne mournings of our Land any accuser should be able to charge us as the Prophet Hosea did his Israel By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adulterie they break out and blood toucheth bloud We be to us if after so many veins opened the blood remaining should not be the purer Let me have leave in the third place to eâ—cite you to the practise of Câ—â—â—stian charity in the mutuall constructions of each others persons and actions which I must tell you we have heedlesly violated in the heat of our holy intentions whiles those which have varied from us in matter of opinion concerning some appendances of Religion and outward forms of administration we have been apt to look upon with such disregard as if they had herein forfeited their Christian profession and were utter aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel though in the mean time sound at the heart and endeavouring to walk close with God in all their wayes whereas the father of all mercies allows a gracious latitude to his children in all not-forbidden paths and in every nation and condition of men he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him Beware we my dear brethren lest whiles we follow the chase of Zeal we out-run charity without which piety it self would be but unwelcome As for matter of opinion in the differences of Religion wherewith the whole known world not of Christians only but of men is wofully distracted to the great prejudice of millions of souls let this be our sure rule Whosoever he be that holds the faith which was once delivered to the Saints agreeing therefore with us in all fundamentall Truths let him be received as a brother For there is but one Lord one Faith one Baptism And other foundation can no man lay then that which is laid which is Jesus Christ Let those which will be a devising a new Creed look for a new Saviour and hope for another heaven for us we know whom we have beleeved If any man be faulty in the doctrines of superstructure let us pity and rectifie his errour but not abandon his person The Communion of Saints is not so sleight that it should be violated by weak mistakings If any man through ignorance or simplicity shall strike
of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth Yet so wert thou made flesh as not by conversion into flesh but as by assumption of flesh to thine eternall Deity assumption not into the nature of the Godhead but into the person of thee who art God everlasting O mystery of Godlinesse incomprehensibly glorious Cease cease O humane curiosity and where thou canst not comprehend wonder and adore SECT. III. BUt O Savior was it not enough for thee to be manifested in flesh Did not that elementarie composition carry in it abasement enough without any further addition since for God to become man was more then for all things to be redacted to nothing but that in the rank of miserable manhood thou wouldst humble thy self to the lowest of humanity and become a servant Shall I say more I can hear Bildad the Shuhite say Man is a worm and I hear him who was a noble Type of thee say as in thy person I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised of the people O Saviour in how despicable a condition do I find thee exhibited to the world lodged in a stable cradled in a manger visited by poor shepheards imployed in an homely trade attended by mean fishermen tempted by presumptuous Devils persecuted by the malice of envious men exposed to hunger thirst nakednesse wearinesse contempt How many sclaves under the vassalage of an enemie fare better then thou didst from ingratefull man whom thou camest to save Yet all these were but a mild and gentle preface to those thy last sufferings wherewith thou wert pleased to shut up this scene of mortality there I find thee sweating blood in thine agonie crowned with thorns bleeding with scourges buffeted with cruell hands spat upon by impure mouths laden with thy fatall burden distended upon that torturing crosse nailed to that tree of shame and curse reviled and insulted upon by the vilest of men and at last that no part of thy precious bloud might remain unshed pierced to the heart by the spear of a late and impertinent malice Thus thus O God and Saviour wouldst thou be manifested in the flesh that the torments of thy flesh and spirit might be manifested to that world which thou camest to redeem thus wast thou wounded for our transgressions thus wast thou bruised for our iniquities thus were the chastisements of our peace upon thee and thus with thy stripes are we healed O blessed but still incomprehensible mystery of Godliness God thus manifested in the flesh in weakness contempt shame pain death Once only O blessed Jesus whiles thou wert wayfaring upon this globe of earth didst thou put on glory even upon Mount Tabor in thy heavenly transfiguration then and there did thy face shine as the Sun and thy raiment was white as thy light How easie had it been for thee to have continued this celestiall splendor to thy humanity all the whole time of the so journing upon earth that so thou mightest have been adored of all mankinde How would all the Nations under heaven have flockd to thee and fallen down at the feet of so glorious a Majesty What man in all the world would not have said with Peter Lord it is good for us to be here Or if it had pleased thee to have commanded Moses and Elias to wait upon thee in thy mediatorie perambulation and to attend thee at Jerusalem on the Mount of Sion as they did in the Mount of Tabor whom hadst thou not in a zealous astonishment drawn after thee But it was thy wil and the pleasure of thy heavenly Father that this glorious appearance should soon be over shadowed with a cloud And as those celestiall guests now in the midst of thy glory spent their conference about thy bitter sufferings and thine approaching departure out of the world So wert thou for the great work of our Redemption willing to be led from the Mount Tabor to Mount Calvarie from the height of that glory to the lowest depth of sorrow pain exinanition Thus vile wert thou O Saviour in the flesh but in this vilenesse of flesh mannifested to be God how did all thy Creatures in this extremity of thine abasement agree to acknowledge and celebrate thine infinite Deity The Angels came down from heaven to visit and attend thee the Sun pulled in his head as abhorring to look upon the sufferings of his maker the Earth was covered over with darkness and quaked for the horror of that indignity which was offered to thee in that bloody passion the rocks rent the graves opened themselves and sent up their long-since putrefied Tenants to wait upon thee the Lord of life in thy glorious Resurrection so as thou in thy despised and crucified flesh wert abundantly manifested to be the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth SECT. 4. O blessed Saviour thou the true God manifested in the flesh be thou pleased to manifest unto the soul of thy servant the unspeakable riches of thy love and mercie to mankind in that great work of our Redemption Vouchafe to affect my heart with a lively sense of that infinite goodnesse of thine towards the wretcheddest of thy creatures that for our sake thou camest down and cloathedst thy self in our flesh and cloathedst that pure and holy flesh with all the miseries that are incident to this sinfull flesh of ours and wast content to undergo a bitter painfull ignominous death from the hands of man that by dying thou mightest overcome death and ransome him from that hel to which he was without thee irrecoverably forfeited and fetch him forth to life liberty and glory O let me not see only but feel this thy great mysterie of Godlinesse effectually working me to all hearty thankfulnesse for so inestimable a mercie to all holy resolutions to glorifie thee in all my actions in all my sufferings Didst thou O Saviour being God eternall take flesh for me and shall not I when thou callest be willing to lay down this sinfull flesh for thee again Wert thou content to abridge thy self for the time not onely of thy heavenly magnificence but of all earthly comforts for my sake and shall not I for thy dear sake renounce all the wicked pleasures of sin Didst thou wear out the dayes of thy flesh in poverty toil reproach and all earthly hardship and shall I spend my time in pampering this flesh in wanton dalliance in the ambitious and covetous pursuit of vain honours and deceivable riches Blessed Lord thou wert manifested in the flesh not only to be a Ransome for our souls but to be a Precedent for our lives Far far be it from me thus to imitate the great pattorn of holiness O Jesu the author and finisher of my faith and salvation teach me to tread in thy gracious steps to run with patience the race that is set before me to endure the cross to despise the shame to be crucified to the world to work all righteousnesse