satisfaction and blessedness of the expecting soul. And wherein it may do so is not altogether unapprehensible Admit that a Spirit had it never been imbodied might be as well without a body or that it might be as well provided of a body out of other materials 't is no unreasonable supposition that a connate aptitude to a body should render humane souls more happy in a body sufficiently attempered to their most noble operations And how much doth relation and propriety endear things otherwise mean and inconsiderable or why should it be thought strange that a soul connaturallized tâ— matter should be more particularly inclined to a particular portion thereof So as that it should appropriate such a part and say 't is mine And will it not be a pleasure to have a vitalitâ— diffused through what even more remotely appertains to me to have every thing belonging to the Supposition perfectly vindicated from the Tyrannous dominion of death The returnâ—ing of the Spirits into a benumb'd or sleeping toe or finger adds a contentment to a maâ— which he wanted before Nor is it hence neâ—cessary the Soul should covet a re-union wiâ—â— every effluvious particle of its former body A desire implanted by God in a reasonable soul will aim at what is convenient not whâ— shall be cumbersome or monstrous And how pleasant will it be to comtemplatâ— and admire the wisdom and power of thâ— great Creatour in this so glorious a change when I shall find a Clod of Earth an Heaâ— of Dâ—st refined into a Celestial purity anâ— brightness when what was sown in corruptiâ—â— shall be raised in incorruption what was sown 〈◊〉 dishonour is raised in glory what was sown in weakness is raised in power what was sown a natural body is raised a Spiritual body When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal an immortality and death be wholly swallowed up in victory So that this awaking may well be understood to carry that in it which may bespeak it the proper season of the Saints consummate satisfaction and blessedness But besides what it carries in it self there are other more extrinsical concurrents that do further signalize this season and import a great increase of blessedness then to Gods holy ones The body of Christ is now compleated the fulness of him that filleth all in all and all the so nearly related parts cannot but partake in perfection and reflected glory of the whole There is joy in Heaven at the conversion of one sinner though he have a troublesome Scene yet to pass over afterwards in a tempting wicked unquiet world how much more when the many sons shall be all brought to glory together The designes are all now accomplished and wound up into the most glorious result and issue whereof the Divine Providence had been as in travel for so many thousand years 'T is now seen how exquisite wisdom govern'd the world and how steady a tendency the most intricate and perplexed Methods of Providence had to one stated and most worthy end Specially the constitution administration and ends of the Mediatours Kingdom are now beheld in the exact aptitudes order and conspicuous glory when so blessed an issue and success shall commend and crown the whole undertaking The Divine Authority is now universally acknowledged and adored his Justice is vindicated and satisfied his Grace demonstrated and magnified to the uttermost The whole assembly of Saints solemnly acquitted by publique sentence presented spotless and without blemish to God and adjudged to eternal blessedness 'T is the day of solemn triumph and jubilation upon the finishing of all Gods works from the creation of the world wherein the Lord Jesus appears to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all that believe Upon which ensues the resignation of the Mediatours Kingdome all the ends being now attained that the Father â—imself may be immediately all in all How aptly then are the fuller manifestations of God the more glorious display of all his Attributes the larger and more abundant Effusions of himself reserv'd as the best Wine to the last unto this joyful day Created perfections couldnot have been before so absolute but they might admit of improvement Their capacities not so large but they might be extended further and then who can doubt but that divine communications may also have a proportionable increase and that upon the concourse of so many great occasions they shall have so CHAP. XI An Introduction to the use of the Doctrine hitherto proposed The Use divided into Inferences of Truth Rules of Duty 1. Inference That Blessedness consists not in any sensual injoyment 2. Inference The Spirit of man since 't is capable of so high a Blessedness a Being of high excellency AND now is our greatest work yet behind the improvement of so momentous a truth to the affecting and transforming of hearts That if the Lord shall so far vouchsafe his assistance and blessing they may taste the sweetness feel the power and bear the impresse and image of it This is the work both of greatest necessity difficulty and excellency and unto which all that hath been done hitherto is but subservient and introductive Give me leave therefore Reader to stop thee here and demand of thee ere thou go further hast thou any design in turning over these leaves of bettering thy Spirit of getting a more refined heavenly temper of soul art thou weary of thy dross and earth and longing for the first fruits the beginnings of glory dost thou wish for a soul meet for the blessedness hitherto described What is here written is designed for thy help and furtherance But if thou art looking on these pages with a wanton rolling eye hunting for novelties or what may gratifie a prurient wit a coy and squeamish fancy Go read a Romance or some piece of Drollery know here 's nothing for thy turn and dread to meddle with matters of everlasting concernment without a serious Spirit read not another line till thou have sighed out this request Lord keep me from trifling with the things of Eternity Charge thy soul to consider that what thou art now reading must be added to thy account against the great day 'T is amazing to think with what vanity of mind the most weighty things of Religion are entertained amongst Christians Things that should swallow up our souls drink up our Spirits are heard as a tale that is told disregarded by most scorned by too many What can be spoken so important or of so tremendous consequence or of so confessed truth or with so awful solemnity and premised mention of the sacred name of the Lord as not to find either a very slight entertainment or contemptuous rejection and this by persons avowing themselves Christians We seem to have little or no advantage in urging men upon their own principles and with things they most readily and professedly assent to Their hearts are as much untouch't and void of impression by the
the view and contemplation of the glorified mind 1. A sensible glory to begin with what is lower is fitly in our way to be taken notice of and may well be comprehended as its lesse-principal intendment within the significancy of the expression the Face of God So indeed it doth evidently signifie Exod. 33. 11. And if we look to the notation of the word and its frequent use as applied to God it may commodiously enough and will often be found to signifie in a larger and more extended sense any aspect or appearance of God And though it may be understood verse 23. of that Chapter to signifie an overcoming spiritual glory as the principal thing there intended such as no soul dwelling in flesh could behold without renting the vail and breaking all to pieces yet even there also may such a degree of sensible glory be secondarily intended as it was not consistent with a state of mortality to be able to bear And supposing the other expression Thy likeness to signifie in any part the objective glory Saints are to behold it is very capable of being extended so far as to take in a sensible appearance of glory also which it doth in these words The similitude of the Lord shall he behold yet even that glory also was transformative and impressive of it self Moses so long converst with it till he became uncapable for the present of converse with men as you know the story relates Such a glory as this though it belong not to the being of God yet it may be some â—mbrage of him a more shadowy representation as a mans garments are of the man which is the allusion in that of the Psalmist Thou art cloathed with Majesty and Honour Thou coverest thy self with Light as with a Garment And in as much as that spiritual Body the House not made with hands wherewith the blessed are to be cloth'd upon must then be understood to have its proper sensitive Powers and Organs resined to that degree as may be agreeable to a state of Glory so must these have their suitable objects to converse with A faculty without an object is not possible in Nature and is altogether inconsistent with a state of Blessedness The bodies of Saints will be raised in glory fashioned like Christs glorious body must bear the image of the heavenly and this will connaturalize them to a Region of glory render a surrounding sensible glory necessary and natural to them their own element they will as it were not be able to live but amidst such a glory Place is conservative of the body placed in it by its suitableness thereto Indeed every created being inasmuch as it is not self-sufficient and is obliged to fetch in continual refreshings from without must alwayes have somewhat suitable to it self to converse with or it presently languishes By such an harmony of actives and passives the world consists and and holds together The least defect thereof then is least of all supposeable in the state of blessedness The rayes of such a glory have often shone down into this lower World Such a glory we know shewed it self upon Mount Sinal afterwards often about the Tabernacle and in the Temple Such a glory appeared at our Saviours Birth Baptism and Transfiguration and will do at his expected appearance which leaves it no unimaginable thing to us and shewes how facile it is to God to do that which will then be in some sort necessary creat a glory meet for the entertainment and gratification of any such faculty as he shall then continue in being But 2. The intellectuall glory That which perfected Spirits shall eternally please themselves to behold calls for our more especial consideration This is the glory that excelleth hyperbollical glory as that expression imports such as in comparison whereof the other is said to be no glory as the Apostle speaks comparing the glory of the Legal with that of the Evangelical dispensation where the former was we must remember chiefly a sensible glory the glory that shone upon Mount Sinai the latter a purely spiritual glory and surely if the meer preludes of this glory The primordia the beginnings of it The glory yet shining but through a glass as he there also speaks of this glory were so hyperbollically glorious what will it be in its highest exaltation in its perfected state The Apostle cannot speak of that but with hyperbole upon hyperbole in the next chapter as though he would heap up words as high as heaven to reach it and give a just account of it Things are as their next Originals This glory more immediately rayes forth from God and more neerly represents him 'T is â—is more genuine production He his stiled â—he Father of Glory every thing that is glorious is some way like him and bears his â—mage But he is as well the Father of Spirits â—s the Father of Glory and that glory which 〈◊〉 purely spiritual hath most in it of his naâ—ure and image as beams but in the next â—escent from the body of the Sun This is â—is unvailed face and emphatically the divine â—â—keness Again things are as the Faculties which â—hey are to exercise and satisfie this gloâ—y must exercise and satisfie the noblest â—aculty of the most noble and excellent creaâ—ure Intellectual nature in the highest imâ—rovement t is capable of in a creature must â—ere be gratified to the uttermost the most â—nlarged contemplative power of an imâ—ortal Spirit finds that wherein it terminates â—ere with a most contentful acquiescence T is true it must be understood not totally to exceed the capacity of a creature but it must fully come up to it Should it quite transcend the Sphere of created nature and surpass the modell of an humane understanding as the divine glory undoubtedly would did not God consider us in the manner of exhibiting it to our view it would cofound not satisfie A creature even in glory is still a Creature and must be treated as such After the blessed God hath elevated it to the highest pitch he must infinitely condescend it cannot otherwise know or converse with him He must accommodate this glory to the weaker eye the fainter and more langâ—id apprehensions of a poor finite thing I had almost said nothing for what is any creature yea the whole creation in it's best state compared with the I AM the being as he justly appropriates to himself that name the All in All. We must be careful then to settle in our own thoughts such a state of this glory in forming that indeterminate notion we have now of it as may render it though confessedly above the measure of our present understandings as to a distinct knowledge of it not manifestly incompetent to any created understanding whatsoever and as may speak us duly shy of ascribing a Deity to a worm of affixing any thing to the creature which shall be found agreeing to the blessed God himself
or lose the disposition by which it is contempered and made proportionable thereto Hence no weariness can ensue What a soul in which the love of God is perfected grow weary of beholding him The Sun will sooner grow weary of shining The touch'd Needle of turning its self to its wonted point every thing will sooner grow weary of its centre and the most fundamental Laws of Nature be sooner antiquated and made void for ever The eye of the fool Solomon tells us is in the ends of the earth his only is a rolling wandring eye that knows not where to fix wisdom guides and fixes the eye of the holy soul determines it unto God only I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reines â—â—so instruct me I have set the Lord alwayes â—efore me Surely heaven will not render it less capable of dijudication of passing a right judgment of the excellency worth of things And here a rational judgment will find no want an irrational will find no place Therefore as permanent glory will certainly infer a perpetual vision perpetuated vision will as certainly perpetuate thesouls satisfaction and blessedness 4. 'T will be a possessive intuition as 't is an appropriate glory which it pitches upon 'T will be the language of every look this glory is mine The Soul looks not upon it shily as if it had nothing to do with it or with slight and careless glances but the very posture of its eye speaks its interest and proclaimes the pretentions it hath to this glory With how different an aspect doth a stranger passing by and the owner look upon the same house the same lands A mans eye layes his claim for him and avowes his right A grateful object that one can say is his own he arrests it with his eye So do Saints with appropriative looks behold their God and the Divine Glory Even with such an eye as he was wont to behold them To this man will I look c. that is as the place of my rest mentioned before he designes him with his eye which is the import of that expression The Lord knows who are his His eye markes them out owns them as his own As concerning others whom he disowns the phrase is I know you not And how vastly different is such an intuition from that when I look upon a thing with an hungry lingring eye which I must never enjoy or never expect to be the better for This vision is fruitive unites the soul with the blessed object Which kind of sight is meant when actual blessedness is so often exprest by seeing God We see then what vision the sight of Gods face contributes to the satisfaction of blessed souls CHAP. VII Wherein assimilation the likeness or glory of God imprest contributes unto satisfaction Where is particularly propounded to be shewn what pleasure it involves what it disposes to What it involves in the esse of it what in the cognosci 1. The pleasure of being like God discovered 1. Shewing concerning the Image of God generally considered that it is the souls health and soundness restored that it is a vital an intimate a connatural a perfect image OUr next business is to discover what assimilation or the impressed likeness of God may further add to this satisfied state or what satisfying pleasure the blessed soul finds in this that it is like God And here we are distinctly to enquire into The pleasure which such an assimilation to God involves in it self tends and disposes to 1. The pleasure it involves in it self or which is taken in it abstractly considered which we may more particularly unfold by shewing The pleasure involved 1. In being like God 2. In knowing or reflecting upon the same The Esse Cognosci Of this assimulation 1. The pleasure in being like God which may be discovered both by a general consideration hereof and by instancing in some particulars wherein blessed souls shall be like him 1. It is obvious to suppose an inexpressible pleasure in the very feeling the inward sensation the holy soul will have of that happy frame in general whereinto it is now brought That joyful harmony that intire rectitude it finds within it self You may as soon separate light from a Sun-beam as pleasure from such a state This likeness or conformity to God is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perfect temperament an athletique health ness a strong sound constitution of soul Do but imagine what it is to a mans body after a wasting sickness to find himself well Frame a notion of the pleasure of health and soundness when both all the parts and members of the body are in their proper places and proportions a lively active vigour a sprightly strength possesses every part and actuates the whole how pleasant is this temper If we were all body there could be no greater felicity than this But by how much the more noble any creature is so is it capable of more exquisite paines or pleasures Sin is the sickness and disease of the soul infeebles all its powers exhausts its vigour wasts its strength You know the restless tossings the weary rollings to fro of a diseased languishing body such is the case of a sinful soul. Let it but seriously bethink it self and then speak its own sense but here is the malignity of the disease it cannot be serious it always raves what will it be O I can take no rest The way of wickedness is called a way of pain Sinners would find it so if the violence of the disease had not bereft them of sense Nothing savors with me I can take comfort in nothing The wicked is as a troubled Sea as their name imports that cannot rest Whose waters c. The Image of God renewed in holiness nad righteousness is health restored after such a consuming sickness which when we awake when all the drowsiness that attends our disease is shaken off we find to be perfect The fear of the Lord an ordinary paraphrase of holiness or piety is said to be health to the navel and marrow to the bones Our Lord Jesus invites wearied sinners to come to him to take his yâ—ke on them to learn of him that is to imitate him to be like him and promises they shall finde rest to their souls How often do we find grace and peace in conjunction in the Apostles salutations and benedictions We are told that the wayes of divine wisdom i. e. which it prescribeth are all pleasâ—ntness and peace That in keeping the Commandments of God is great reward That they are not grievous i. e. for there seems to be a Meiosis in the expression are joyous pleasant And what are his Commandments but those expresses of himself wherein we are to be like him and conform to his will The Kingdom of God that holy order which he settles in the spirits of men his Law transcribed and imprest upon
here to be understood by it which indeed sleeping would more aptly signifie than awaking but what is co-incident therewith in the same period the exuscitation and revival of the soul. When the body falls asleep then doth the Spirit awake and the eye-lids of the morning even of an eternal day do now first open upon it 1. Therefore we shall not exclude from this season the introductive state of blessedness which takes its beginning from the blessed souls first entrance into the invisible state And the fitness of admitting it will appear by clearing these two things 1. That its condition in this life even at the best is in some sort but a sleep 2. That when it passes out of it into the invisible Regions 't is truly said to awake 1. It s abode in this mortal body is but a continual sleep its senses are bound up a drowsie slumber possesses and suspends all its faculties and powers Before the renovating change how frequently doth the Scripture speak of sinners as men a sleep Let not us sleep as do others Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead c. They are in a dead sleep under the sleep of death They apprehend things as men asleep How slight obscure hovering notions have they of the most momentous things and which it most concerns them to have thorough real apprehensions of All their thoughts of God Christ Heaven Hell of Sin of Holiness are but uncertain wild guesses blind hallucinations incoherent phansies the absurdity and inconcinnity whereof they no more reflect upon then men asleep They know not these things but only dream of them They put darkness for light and light for darkness have no senses exercised to discern between good and evil The most substantial realities are with them meer shadowes and chemaera's Phansied and imagined dangers startle them as 't is wont to be with men in a dream real ones though never so near them they as little fear as they The creature of their own imagination the Lion in the way which they dream of in their slothful slumber affrights them but the real roaring Lion that is ready to devour them they are not afraid of And conversion doth but relax and intermit it doth not totally break of this sleep It as it were attenuates the consopiting fumes doth not utterly dispel them What a difficulty is it to watch but one hour There are some lucid and vivid intervals but of how short continuance how soon doth the awakened soul close its heavy eyes and fall asleep again how often do temptations surprize even such in their slumbring fits while no sense of their danger can prevail with them to watch and pray with due care and constancy least they enter thereinto Hither are most of the sins of our lives to be imputed and referr'd not to meer ignorance that we know not sin from duty or what will please God and what displease him but to a drowsie inadvertency that we keep not our spirits in a watchful considering posture Our eyes that should be ever towards the Lord will not be kept open and though we resolve we forget our selves before we are aware we find our selves overtaken Sleep comes on upon us like an armed man and we cannot avert it How often do we hear and read and pray and meditate as persons asleep as if we knew not what we were about How remarkable useful providences escape either our notice or due improvement amidst our secure slumbers How many Visits from heaven are lost to us when we are as it were between sleeping and waking I sleep but my heart waketh and hardly own the voice that calls upon us till our beloved hath withdrawn himself Indeed what is the whole of our life here but a dream The entire scene of this sensible world but a vision of the night where every man walks but in a vain shew where we are mockt with shadows our credulous sense abus'd by impostures and delusive appearances nor are we ever secure from the most destructive mischievous deception further than as our souls are possest with the apprehensions that this is the very truth of our case and thence instructed to consider and not to prefer the shadows of time before the great realities of eternity Nor is this sleep casual but even connatural to our present state the necessary result of so strict an union and commerce with the body which is to the in-dwelling Spirit as a dormitory or charnel-house rather than a mansion A soul drench't in sensuality a Leâ—â—e that hath too little of fiction in it and immur'd in a sloathful putid slesh sleeps as it were by fate not by chance and is only capable of full relief by suffering a Dissolution which it hath reason to welcome as a jubilee and in the instant of departure to sacrifice as he did with that easie and warrantable change to make a Heathen expression Scriptural Jehovae liberatori to adore and praise its great Deliverer At least accounts being once made up and a meetness in any measure attained for the heavenly inheritance c. hath no reason to regret or dread the approaches of the eternal day more than we do the return of the Sun after a dark and long-some night But as the sluggard doth nothing more unwillingly than forsake his bed nor bears any thing with more regret than to be awak't out of his sweet sleep though you should intice him with the pleasures of a Paradise to quit a smoky loathsome Cottage so fares it with the sluggish soul as if it were lodg'd in an inchanted Bed 't is so fast held by the charms of the body all the glory of the other world is little enough to tempt it out than which there is not a more deplorable Symptome of this sluggish slumbring state So deep an oblivion which you know is also naturally incident to sleep hath seiz'd it of its own Countrey of its alliances above its relation to the Father and world of Spirits It takes this earth for its home where 't is both in exile and captivity at once And as a Prince stoln away in his infancy and bred up in a beggers shed so little seeks that it declines a better state This is the degenerous torpid disposition of a soul lost in flesh and inwrapt in stupifying clay which hath been deeply resented by some Heathens So one brings in Socrates pathetically bewailing this oblivious dreaming temper of his soul which saith he had seen that pulchritude you must pardon him here the conceit of its pre-existence that neither humane voice could utter nor eye behold But that now in this life it had only some little remembrance thereof as in a dream being both in respect of place and condition far removed from so pleasant sights prest down into an earthly station and there encompast with all manner of dirt and filthiness c. And to the same purpose Plato often speaks
supreme desire till it attain to the fulness thereof We have here a plainly-implyed description of the posture and tendencies of such a soul even of a sanctified holy Soul which had therefore undergone this blessed change towards this state of blessedness I shall saith he be satisfied with thy likeness q. d. I cannot be satisfied otherwise We have seen how great a change is necessary to dispose the Soul to this blessedness which being once wrought nothing else can now satisfie it Such a thing is this blessedness I speak now of so much of it as is previous and conducing to satisfaction or of blessedness materially considered the Divine Glory to be beheld and participated 'T is of that nature it makes the Soul restless it lets it not be quiet after it hath got some apprehension of it till it attain the full enjoyment The whole life of such a one is a continual seeking Gods face So attractive is this glory of a subject rightly disposed to it While others crave Corn and Wine this is the summe of the holy Souls desires Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance c. The same thing is the object of its present desires that shall be of its eternal satisfaction and enjoyment This is now it s one thing the request insisted on to behold the beauty of the Lord c. and while in any measure it doth so yet 't is still looking for this blessed hope still hoping to be like him see him as he is the expectation of satisfaction in this state implies the restless working of desire till then for what is this satisfaction but the fulfilling of our desires the perfecting of the souls motions in a complacential rest Motion and rest do exactly correspond each to other Nothing can naturally rest in any place to which it was not before naturally inclin'd to move and the rest is proportionably more compos'd and steady according as the motion was stronger and more vigorous By how much the heavier any body is so much the stronger and less resistible is its motion downward and then accordingly it is less moveable when it hath attained its resting place 'T is therefore a vanity and contradiction to speak of the Souls being satisfied in that which it was not before desirous of And that state which it shall ultimately and eternally acquiesse in with a rest that must therefore be understood to be most composed and sedate towards it must it needs move with the strongest and most unsatisfied desire a desire that is supreme prevalent and triumphant over all other desires and over all obstructions to it self least capable of diversion or of pitching upon any thing short of the terme aimed at Ask therefore the holy Soul What is thy Supreme desire and so far as it understands it self it must answer to see and partake the divine glory to behold the blessed face of God till his likeness be transfused through all my powers and his entire image be perfectly formed in me present to my view what else you will I can be satisfied in nothing else but this Therefore this leaves a black note upon those wretched souls that are wholly strangers to such desires that would be better satisfied to dwell always in dust that shun the blessed face of God as Hell it self and to whom the most despicable vanity is a more desirable sight then that of divine glory Miserable souls consider your state can that be your blessedness which you desire not or do you think God will receive any into his blessed presence to whom it shall be a burden methinks upon the reading of this you should presently doom your selves and see your sentence written in your breasts compare your hearts with his holy mans See if there be any thing like this in the temper of your Spirits and never think well of your selves till you find it so 5. The knowledge of God and conformity to him are in their own nature apt to satisfie the desires of the soul and even noâ— actually do so in the measure wherein they are attained Some things are not of a satisfying nature there is nothing tending to satisfaction in them And then the continual heaping together of such things doth no more towards satisfaction then the accumulating of Mathematical Points would towards the compacting of a solid body or the multiplication of Ciphers only to the making of a summe But what shall one day satisfi hath in it self a Power and aptitude thereto The act when ever it is supposes the power Therefore the hungry craving soul that would sain be hâ—ppy but knows not how needs not spend its dayes in making uncertain guesses and fruitless attempts and trials It ma◠〈◊〉 â—ts hovering thoughts and upon afâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 given say I have now found at 〈…〉 satisfaction may be had and have 〈◊〉 this to do to bend all my powers hither and intend this one thing the possessing my self of this blessed rest earnestly to inâ—e 〈◊〉 and patiently to wait for it Happy discovery welcome tidings I now know which waâ— to turn my eye and direct my pursuit I shall no longer spend my â—â—if in dubious toilsome wandrings in anxious vaâ—n inquiries I have found I have found blessedness is here If I can but get a lively efficacious sight of God I have enough Shew me the Father and it suffices Let the weary wandring soul bethink it self and retire to God he will not mock thee with shadows as the world hath done This is eternal life to know him the onely true God and Jesâ—â— Christ whom he hath sent A part from Christ thou canst not know nor see him with fruit and comfort but the Gospel revelation which is the Revelation of God in Christ gives thee a lovely prospect of him His Glory shines in the face of Jesus Christ and when by beholding it thou art changed into the same likeness and findest thy self gradually changing more and more from glory to glory thou wilt find thy self accordingly in a gradual tendency towards satisfaction and blessedness That is do but seriously set thy self to study and contemplate the Being and Attributes of God and then look upon him as through the Mediatour he is willing to be reconcil'd to thee and become thy God and so long let thine eye fix and dwell here till it affect thy heart and the proper impress of the Gospel be by the Spirit of the Lord instamp't upon it till thou find thy self wrought to a compliance with his holy will and his image formed in thee and thou hast soon experience thou art entring into his est and wilt relish a more satisfying 〈◊〉 in this blessed change then all thy 〈◊〉 sensual injoyments did ever afford thee before Surely if the perfect vision and perception of his glorious likeness will yield a compleat satisfaction at last the initial and progressive tendencies towards the former will proportionably infer the latter 'T is obvious hence to
glory of God Your hearts being bent thitherward and made willing to run through whatsoever difficulties of life or death to attain it Do not think that Christ came into the world and dyed to procure the pardon of your sins and so translate you to heaven while your hearts should still remain cleaving to the earth He came and returned to prepare a way for you and then call not drag you thither That by his Precepts and Promises and Example and Spirit he might form and fashion your Souls to that glorious state And make you willing to abandon all things for it And low now the God of all grace is calling you by Jesus Christ unto his eternal Glory Direct then your eyes and hearts to that marke the Prise of the High calling of God in Christ Jesus 'T is ignominious by the common suffrage of the civiliz'd world not to intend the proper business of our Callings To your Calling to forsake this world and mind the other make hast then to quit your selves of your entanglements of all earthly dispositions and affections Learn to live in this world as those that are not of it that expect every day and wish to leave it whose hearts are gone already 'T is dreadful to dye with pain and regret To be forced out of the Body To dye a violent death and go away with an unwilling refluctant heart The wicked is driven away in his wickedness Fain he would stay longer but cannot He hath not power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death He must away whether he will or no. And indeed much against his will So it cannot but be where there is not a previous knowledge and love of a better state where the Soul understands it not and is not effectually attempered and framed to it O get then the lovely Image of the future glory into your minds keep it ever before your eyes Make it familiar to your thoughts Imprint daily there these words I shall behold thy face I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And see that your souls be inrich't with that righteousness Have inwrought into them that holy rectitude that may dispose them to that blessed state Then will you dye with your own consent and go away not driven but allur'd and drawn You will go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon their heads As those that know whether you go even to a state infinitely worthy of your desires and choice and where 't is best for you to be You will part with your souls not by a forcible separation but a joyful surrender and resignation They will dislodge from this earthly Tabernnacle rather as putting it off then having it rent and torn away Loosen your selves from this body by degrees as we do any thing we would remove from a place where it sticks fast Gather up your spirits into themselves Teach them to look upon themselves as distinct thing Inure them to the thoughts of a dissolution Be continually as taking leave Cross and disprove the common maxime and let your hearts which they use to say are wont to dye last dye first Prevent death and be mortifi'd towards every earthly thing beforehand that death mave have nothing to kill but your body And that you may not die a double death in one hour and suffer the death of your body and of your love to it both at once Much less that this should survive to your greater and even incurable misery Shake off your Bands and Fetters the terrene affections that so closely confine you to the house of your bondage And lift up your heads in expectation of the approaching Jubilee the day of your redemption when you are to go out free and enter into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God When you shall serve and groan and complain no longer Let it be your continual song and the matter of your daily praise that the time of your happy deliverance is hastening on that ete long you shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That he hath not doom'd you to an everlasting imprisonment within those closs and clayie walls wherein you have been so long shut up from the beholding of his sight and glory In the thoughts of this while the outward man is sensibly perishing let the inward revive and be renewed day by day What Prisoner would be sorry to see the walls of his Prison House so an Heathen speaks mouldering down and the hopes arriving to him of being delivered out of that darkness that had buried him of recovering his liberty and injoying the free air and light What Champion inur'd to hardship would stick to throw off rotten rags rather expose a naked placid free body to naked placid free air The truly generous soul to be a little above never leaves the body against its will Rejoyce that it is the gracious pleasure of thy good God thou shalt not always inhabit a Dungeon nor lie amid'st so impure and disconsolate darkness that he will shortly exchange thy filthy Garments for those of Salvation and Praise The end approaches As you turn over these leaves so are your days turned over And as you are now arrived to the end of this Book God will shortly write Finis to the Book of your Life on Earth and shew you your names written in Heaven in the Book of that Life which shall never end FINIS Senec. * Pruritus disputandi scobies Ecclesia * Ut ulcera quaedam nocituras manus apoetunt tactu gaudent faedam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid â—xâ—sperâ—t Non alitè◠dixerim his mâ—ntibus in quas voluptates velut mala ulcera crupê unt voluptati esse laborem vexâ—tionemque Sâ—n. de tranquillitate anâ—â—â— Sen de Brev. vit * Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfectè bonus c. Apul. de Deo Soâ—â—atis * Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est conciliante virtute amicitiam dico etiam necessitudâ— similitudâ— c. Sca de prov * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Minâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dyonys Halicar Antiq. Rom. lib. 8. Rom. 2 6 7 8 9. * Rom. 16 18. Phil. 3. 19. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vâ—lgar Latine Eâ—oautem 〈…〉 appaâ—câ—o â—oâ—spectui 〈◊〉 satiabo◠〈◊〉 â—â—pâ—â—uâ—riâ— gloâ—ia tua Exactly following the Seventy as doth the Ethiopique the Chaldee Paraphrase disagrees little the Arabique lesse the Syâ—iâ—ck mistook it seem◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so read that word saith which we read likenesse Hieronymus juxta Hebr. reads the words exactly as we do Ego in justiâ—iâ viâ—â—bo faciâ—m tuam implebor cum evigilavero similitudine tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seems best to be rendered here by or through righteousness as by the condition
he would much less have made a difficultie to concede such bodies also to humane souls after they had lost their terrestial ones as his sectators do not who hold they then presently become Daemons In the mean time 't is evident enough the doctrine of the separate souls present blessedness is not destitute of the patronage and suffrage of Philosophers And 't is indeed the known opinion of as many of them as ever held its immortality which all of all Ages and nations have done a very few excepted for in as much as they knew nothing of the resurrection of the bodie they could not dream of a slâ—epiâ—g interval And 't is at least a shrewd presumption that nothing in reason lies against it when no one instance can be given among them that professedly gave up themselves to its only guidance of any one that granting the immortality of the soul and its separableness fâ—om its terrestrial body ever denied the immediate blessedness of good souls in that state of separation Nor if we look into the thing it self is it at all more unapprehensible that the soul should be independent on the body in its operations then in its exist 〈◊〉 If it be possible enough to form an unexceptionable notion of a spiritual being distinct and separable from any corporeal substance which the learned Doctor More hath sufficiently demonstrated in his Treatise of the immortalitie of the Soul with its proper attributes and powers peculiar to it self what can reasonablely with-hold me from assenting that being separate from the body it may as well operate alone I mean exert such operations as are pâ—oper to such a being as exist alone That we find it here de facto in its present state acting only with dependence on a bodie will no more infer that it can act no otherwise then its present existence in a body will that it can never exist out of it neither whereof amounts to more then the trifling exploded argument à non esse ad non posse and would be as good sense as to say such a one walks in his clothes therefore out of them he cannot move a foot Yea and the very use it self which the soul now makes of corporeal organs and instruments plainlie â—vinces that it doth exert some action wherein they assist it not For it supposes an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them Nothing can be the instrument which is not first the subject of my action as when I use a pen I act upon in order to my acting by it i. e. I impress a motion upon it in order whereunto I use not that or any other such instrument And though I cannot produce the designed effect leave such characters so and so figured without it my hand can yet without it perform its own action proper to it self and produce many nobler effects When therefore the soul makes use of a bodily organ its action upon it must needs at last â—e without the ministry of any organ unless you multiply to it bodie upon bodie in infiniâ—um And if possibly it perform not some meaner and grosser pieces of drudgerie when out of the body wherein it made use of its help and service before that is no moâ—e a disparagement or dimunution then it s to the Magistrate that law and decency permit him not to apprehend or execute a Malefactor with his own hand It may yet perform those operations which are proper to it self that is such as are more noble and excellent and immediately conducive to its own felicitie Which sort of actions as Cogitation for instance and Dilection though being done in the body there is conjunct with them an agitation of the Spirits in the brain and heart It yet seems to me more reasonable that as to those acts the Spirits are rather subjects then instruments at all of them that the whole essence of these Acts is antecedent to the motion of the Spirits and that motion certainly but accidentally consequent only by reason of the present but soluble union the soul hath with the body And that the purity and refinedness of those Spirits doth only remove what would hinder such acts rather than contribute positively thereto And so little is the alliance between a thought and any bodily thing even those very finest Spirits themselves that I dare say whoever sets himself closely and strictly to consider and debate the matter with his own faculties will find it much more easily apprehensible how the acts of intellection and volition may be performed without those very corporeal Spirits then by them However suppose them never so indispensably necessarie to those more noble operations of the soul it may easilie be furnisht with them and in greater plentie and puritie from the ambient aire or aether than from a dull torpid body with some part of which air if we suppose it to contract a vital union I know no rational principle that is wronged by the supposition though neither do I know any that can necessarily infer it As therefore the doctrine of the souls activitie out of this earthly body hath favour and friendship enough from Philosophers so I doubt not but upon the most strict and rigid disquisition it would be as mâ—ch befriended or rather righted by Philosophie it self And that their reason would afford it as direct and more considerable defence then their Authority In the mean time it deserves to be considered with some resentment that this Doctrine should find the generality of Learned Pagans more forward Advocates then some learned and worthy Patrons of the Christian Faith which is only imputable to the undue measure and excess of an otherwise jâ—st zeal in thâ—se latter for the resurrection of the body so far transporting them that they became willing to let go one Truth that they might hold 〈◊〉 the â—â—ster and to ransome this at the too deare and unnecessary expence of the former Accounting they could never make sure enough the resurrection of the bodie without making the souls dependence on it so absolute and necessarie that it should be able to do nothing but sleep in the mean while Whereas it seems a great deal more unconceiveable how such a being as the soul is once quit of the entanglements and encumbrances of the body should sleep at all then how it should act without the body * See Dr. Hammonds annot in loc Dan 12 2 Joh. 14 12. 2 Cor. 15. 2 Thes. 4. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil 3. 20 21. 1 Thes. 4. 14 15 16. Chap. 14. 14. 1 Cor. 15. 2 Thes 1. 1 Cor. 15. Use. Dissoluti est hominis in rebus sâ—riis quaerere voluptatem Arnob. â—cientiam qui â—idicit faâ—enda viâ—nda percepit â—â—dum sapiens 〈◊〉 nisi in ea quae â—dicit transfiâ—ratus est aniâ—â—s Sen. Ep. â—4 Non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit qui statim sumptus emittitur Sen Epist. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitlet Psal. 49. *