Adoption could give a like interest he puts both together My Father and your Father my God and your God His mercy vouchsafes to stile us Brethren yet the distance is unmeasureable betwixt him the Son of his eternal Essence and us the naturally-wretched sons of his gracious Election yet as if both he and we should be coheirs of the same blessedness though not in the same measure he says My Father and your Father First my Father then yours and indeed therefore ours because his It is in him that we are elected that we are adopted Without him God were not onely a stranger but an enemy It is the Son that must make us free It is the Son that must make us sons If we be his the Father cannot but be ours O the unspeakable comfort and happiness of a Christian In respect of his bodily nature he cannot but say with Job to the worm Thou art my mother and my sister in his spiritual right God the Son hath here authorized him to say to the Almighty Thou art my Father And if nature shall in regard of our frail and dying condition whiningly say I descend to the grave Faith makes abundant amends in him and can as cheerfully say I ascend to my Father And what son that is not altogether graceless would not be glad to go to his father though it were to a meaner house then his own and therefore is ready to say I will descend to my Father How much more when his many Mansions are infinitely glorious and when all our happiness consists in his blessed Presence must we needs say with a joy unspeakable and glorious I ascend to my Father C. God made man the lord of his Creatures he made him not a Tyran he gave the Creatures to man for his lawful use not for his wanton cruelty Man may therefore exercise his just soveraignty over the beasts of the field and fowls of the air and fishes of the sea not his lawless will to their needless destruction or torment Had man made the Creature he could but challenge an absolute dominion over that work of his hands but now that he is onely a fellow creature to the meanest worm What an insolent usurpation is this so licentiously to domineer over his fellow dust Yea that great God who gave a Being to the creature and therefore hath a full and illimited power over his own workmanship takes no pleasure to make use of that power to the unnecessary vexation and torture of what he hath made That all-wise and bountiful Creator who hath put into the hands of man the subordinate Dominion over all the store of these inferior Elements hath made the limit of his command not necessity onely but convenience too but if man shall go beyond these bounds and will destroy the creature onely because he will and put it to pain because it is his pleasure he abuseth his soveraignty to a sinful imperiousness and shall be accountable for his cruelty When the Apostle upon occasion of the Law for not muzzling the mouth of the Ox asks Doth God take care for oxen Can we think he meant to question the regard that God hath to so useful a Creature Do we not hear the Psalmist say He giveth to the beast his food and to the young ravens that cry Do we not hear our Saviour say That not a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father And of how much more value is an Ox then many thousands of Sparrows Is not the speech therefore both comparative and typical Is the main care that God takes in that Law for provision to be made for the beast and doth he not rather under that figure give order for the maintenance of those spiritual Oxen that labor in the husbandry of the Almighty Doubtless as even the savage creatures The young lyons seek their meat from God so they finde it from him in due season He openeth his hand and filleth every creature with good Is God so careful for preserving and shall man be so licentious in destroying them A righteous man saith Solomon regardeth the life of his beast he is no better therefore then a wicked man that regardeth it not To offer violence to and to take away the life from our fellow-creatures without a cause is no less then tyranny Surely no other measure should a man offer to his beast then that which if his beast with Balaams could expostulate with him he could well justifie to it no other then that man if he had been made a beast would have been content should have been offered by man to him no other then he shall make account to answer to a common Creator Justly do we smile at the niceness of the foolish Manichees who made scruple to pull an herb or flower and were ready to Preface apologies and excuses for the reaping of their Corn and grinding the grain they fed upon as if these Vegetables were sensible of pain and capable of our oppression but surely for those creatures which enjoying a sensitive life forgo it with no less anguish and reluctation then our selves and would be as willing to live without harm as their owners they may well challenge both such mercy and justice at our hands as that in the usage of them we may approve our selves to their Maker Wherein I blush and grieve to see how far we are exceeded by Turks and Infidels whom meer nature hath taught more tenderness to the poor brute creatures then we have learned from the holier rules of charitable Christianity For my part let me rather affect and applaud the harmless humor of that mis-called Saint who in an indiscreet humility called every Woolf his brother and every Sheep yea every Ant his sister fellowing himself with every thing that had life in it as well as himself then the tyrannical disposition of those men who take pleasure in the abuse persecution destruction of their fellow-creatures upon no other quarrel then because they live Supernumeraries I. THere is a satiety in all other even the best things that I either have or doe I can be easily apt to complain of being wearied or cloyed with the same objects but in the thoughts of spiritual things mee thinkes I can never have enough For as there is infinite scope and variety of matter wherein to employ my meditations so in each one of them there is such marvellous depth that I should in vaine hope after all my exquisitest search to reach unto the bottome Yea the more I look upon the incomprehensible Deity in any one of his glorious attributes or any one of his omnipotent works of creation government redemption the more I long to see and the less am I satisfied in seeing and now I finde cause to bless that unspeakable goodness that he hath vouchsafed to give leave to his unworthy creaturs to contemplate those excellent glories and those saving mysteries and think my self happy in so
which her insulting rival might not see On the contrary there are many whom we pity as miserable that laugh in their sleeve and applaud themselves in their secret felicity and would be very loath to exchange conditions with those that commiserate them A ragged Cynick likes himself at least as well as a great Alexander The mortifyed Christian that knows both worlds looks with a kinde of contented scorn upon the proud gallant that contemns him as feeling that heaven within him which the other is not capable to believe It is no judging of mens real estate by their semblance nor valuing others worth by our own rate And for our selves if we have once laid sure grounds of our own inward contentment and happiness it matters not greatly if we be mis-known of the world XLI For one man to give titles to another is ordinary but for the great God to give titles to a poor wretched man is no less then wonderful Thus doth the Lord to Job There is none like him in the earth a perfect and upright man O what must he needs be in whom his maker glories Lo who would have looked for a Saint in so obscure a corner of the east and in so dark a time before ever the Law gave light to the world yet even then the land of UZ yields a Job no time no place can be any bar to an infinite mercy Even this while for ought I see the Sun shined more bright in Midian then in Goshen Gods election will be sure to finde out his own any where out of hell and if they could be there even there also Amongst all those idolatrous heathen Job is perfect and upright his religion and integrity is so much the more glorious because it is so ill neighbored as some rich Diamond is set off by a dark foyl O the infinite goodness of the Almighty that picks out some few grains out of the large chaff-heap of the world which he reserves for the granary of a blessed immortality It is not of him that willeth nor in him that runneth but of God that hath mercy We might well imagine that such a sprig must sprout out of the stock of faithful Abraham what other loyns were likely to yield so holy an issue And if his Sarah must be the mother of the promised seed yet why might he not also raise a blessed seed from Keturah The birth doth not always follow the belly even this second brood yields an heir of his fathers faith it is said That to the sons of the Concubines Abraham gave gifts and sent them away to the East Surely this son of the Concubine carries away as rich a legacy of his fathers grace as ever was enjoyed by the Son of the promise at home The gifts that Abraham gave to Midian were nothing to those gifts which the God of Abraham gives to this son of Midian who was perfect and upright one that feared God and eschued evil I perceive the holy and wise God meant to make this man a patern as of patience so of all heavenly vertues he could not be fit for that use if he were not exquisite and what can be wanting to that man of whom God holily boasts that he is Perfect And now what mettal is so fit to challenge the fire of affliction as this pure gold and who is so fit a match for the great Adversary as this Champion of God Never had he been put upon so hard a combat if God had not well known both the strength that he had given him and the happy success of his conflict little doth that good man know what wager is laid on his head but strongly incounters all his tryals The Sabeans have bereft him of his Oxen the Chaldees of his Camels the fire from Heaven of his sheep the tempest of his children Satan of his health and had not his wife been left to him for his greatest cross and his friends for his further tormentors I doubt whether they had escaped Lo there sits the great Potentate of the East naked and forlorn in the ashes as destitute of all comforts as full of painful boyls and botches scraping his loathsome hide with a potsheard yet even in that woful posture possessing his soul in patience maintaining his innocence justifying his Maker cheering himself in his Redeemer and happily triumphing over all his miseries and at last made the great miroir of divine bounty to all generations Now must Job pray for his freindly persecutors and is so high in favor with God that it is made an argument of extream wrath against Israel that though Noah Daniel and Job were in the land they should deliver none but their own souls O God this Saint could not have had this strength of invincible patience without thee thou that rewardest it in him didst bestow it upon him it is thy great mercy to crown thine owne works in us thy gifts are free thou canst fortifie even my weak soul with the same powers strengthen me with the same grace and impose what thou wilt XLII As it shall be once in glory so it is in grace there are degrees of it The Apostle that said of his auditors they have received the holy Ghost as well as we did not say they have received the holy Ghost as much as we We know the Apostles had so much as to give it to others none besides them could do so It is an happy thing to have any quantity of true sanctifiying grace at all every drop of water is water and every grain of gold is gold every measure of grace is precious But who is there that when he is dry would take up with one drop of liquor when he might have more or if covetously minded would sit down content with one dram of gold in such cases a little doth but draw on a desire of more it is strange to see that in all other commodities we desire a fulness If God give us fruit of our bodies it contents us not to have an imperfect childe but we wish it may have the full shape and proportion and when God hath answered us in that we do not rest in the integrity of parts but desire that it may attain to a fulness of understanding and of stature and then lastly to a fulness of age We would have full dishes full cups full cofers full barns a fulness of all things save the best of all which is the holy Ghost Any measure of spiritual grace contents us so as we are ready to say with Esau I have enough my brother There is a sinful kinde of contentation wherewith many fashionable Christians suffer themselves to be beguiled to the utter undoing of their souls for hereupon they grow utterly careless to get what they think they have already who cares to eat that is full cramed and by this means they live and die graceless for had they ever tasted how sweet the Lord is in the Graces of his
sight of our God whiles we have Christ put on upon us What ever therefore become of the outward man let it be my care that my soul be vested with my Lord Jesus so shall I be sure to be safe rich amiable here and hereafter glorious It was part of our Saviours charge upon the mount Take no care what to put on but it must be the main care of our lives how to put on Christ upon our souls This is the prime stole wherewith the father of the Prodigal graceth his returned son the heaven of heavens is not worth such another when I have once got this on my back I shall say though in a contrary sense with the Spouse in the Canticles I have put on my coat how shall I put it off I have washed my feet how shall I defile them XIIII With how devout passion doth the Psalmist call to all the works of the Almighty to praise him as well supposing that every creature even those that have no tongues to speak for themselves yet have a tongue to praise their Maker The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledg There is no speech nor language where their voyce is not heard neither is the very earth defective in this duty Every plant sayes look on me and acknowledg the life colour form smell fruit force that I have from the power of my Creator every worm and flie sayes look on me and give God the praise of my living sense and motion every bird sayes hear me and praise that God who hath given me these various feathers and taught me these several notes every beast whiles he bellows bleats brays barks roars sayes It is God that hath given me this shape this sound yea the very mute fishes are in their very silence vocal in magnifying the infinite wisdom and power of him that made them and placed them in those watery habitations Let every thing that hath breath saith the Psalmist praise the Lord. Yea the very winds whistle and the sea roars out the praise of the Almighty who both raises and allays them at pleasure what a shame were it for man to whom alone God hath given an understanding heart a nimble tongue and articulate language wherein he can express his rational thoughts to be wanting to this so universal devotion and to be as insensible of the great works of God as the ground that he treads upon If others shall be thus unthankfully dumb Yet praise thou the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name whiles I live will I praise the Lord I will sing praises to my God whilest I have any being But alas Lord thou knowest I cannot so much as will to praise thee without thee do thou fill my heart with holy desires and my mouth with songs of thanksgiving XV. It may seem a strange errand upon which our Saviour tells us he came into the world I am come to send fire on the earth When the two fervent Disciples would have had fire sent down from Heaven upon but a Samaritan Village our Saviour rebuked them and told them they knew not of what spirit they were yet here he makes it his own business to send fire on the earth Alas may we think we have fire too much already how happy were it rather if the fire which is kindled in the world were well quenched and what is the main drift of the Prince of darkness but fire If not to send fire down from Heaven upon the inhabitants of the earth yet to send the inhabitants of the earth down to the fire of hell As then we finde divers kindes of material fire Celestial Elementary Domestique Artificial Natural so there is no less variety of spiritual fires It was in fiery cloven tongues wherein the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles in their Pentecost and even this fire did our Saviour come to send down on the earth Thy word was in mee as fire saith the Prophet and did not our harts burn within us said the two Disciples in their walk to Emaus whiles he talked with us This fire he also came to send Heavenly Love and holy Zeal are fire Many waters cannot quench love My zeal hath consumed me saith the Psalmist and these fires our Saviour came to send into the hearts of men holy thoughts are no other then the beams of celestial fire My heart was hot within me whiles I was musing the fire burned and these we know he sends He maketh his Angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire These he sends forth to the earth to minister for them that shall be heirs of of salvation Besides these afflictions and persecutions are fire We have passed through fire and water Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery tryal which is to try you as if some strange thing had happened to you and even these are of his sending The Lord hath kindled a fire in Zion and it hath devoured the foundations thereof There is no evil in the city but the Lord hath done it The Lord hath done that which he had devised he hath thrown down and not pitied But this expression of our Saviour goes yet deeper and alludes to the effect of Separation which follows upon the fire of our tryal When the lump of Oar is put into the furnace the fire tryes the pure mettal from the dross and makes an actual division of the one from the other so doth Christ by his Word and Spirit even he that is the Prince and God of Peace comes to set division in the world Surely there are holy quarrels worthy of his engagement for as the flesh lusteth and warreth against the spirit so the spirit fighteth against the flesh and this duel may well beseem God for the Author and the Son of God for the setter of it these second blows make an happy fray Nothing is more properly compared then discord to fire this Christ the first thing he does sets in every heart there is all quietness secure ease and self-contentment in the soul till Christ come there How should it be other when Satan sways all without resistance but when once Christ offers to enter there are straight civil wars in the soul betwixt the old man and the new and it fares with the heart as with an house divided in it self wherein the husband and the wife are at variance nothing is to be heard but unquiet janglings open brawlings secret opposition the houshold takes part and professes a mutual vexation This Spiritual self-division where ever it is though it be troublesom yet it is cordial it puts the soul into the state of Rebeccaâ—s womb which barren yielded no pain but when an Esau and Jacob were conceived and strugling within yielded for the time no ease
Lord What should I wait on the Lord any longer If my respects to my Saviour be for the loaves and fishes my heart is carried away with those baskets of fragments but if I can love God for his goodness sake this love shall out-last time and over-match death LVI What a wretched narrowness of heart is this which I finde in my self that when I may have all things I take up with nothing and when I may be possessed of an infinite good I please my self in grasping a little thick clay It was a large word that the Apostle said to his Corinthians Whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come all are yours What shall we think they were richer then their neighbors or is not this the condition of all those of whom he can say in the next words ye are Christs There there comes in all our right to this infinite wealth of our selves we are beggars in him who is Lord of all we are feoffed in all things for whiles he saith All are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods he doth in effect say Christ is yours and in him God is yours for this right is mutual How else should all things be ours if God were not ours without whom all is nothing and how should God the Father be ours without that Son of his love who hath said All things that the Father hath are mine Thou O Father art in me and I in thee No man cometh to the Father but by me If then Christ be mine all is mine and if I have so oft received him and so often renued my union with him how is he but mine O Saviour let me feel my self throughly possest of thee whether the world slide or sink I am happy LVII God will not vouchsafe to allow so much honor to wicked instruments as to make them the means of removing publike evils The Magicians of Egypt could have power to bring some plagues upon the Land but had not the power to take them away Certainly there needed a greater power to give a being to the frogs then to call them off yet this latter they cannot do who prevailed in the first Moses and Aaron must be called to fetch off that judgment which the Sorcerers have brought upon themselves neither is it otherwise still Wicked men can draw down those plagues upon a nation which onely the faithful must remove The sins of the one make work for the others intercession Do we therefore smart and groan under heavy calamities we know to whom we are beholden Thus saith the Lord to this people thus have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore he will now remember their iniquity and visit their sins When they fast I will not hear their cry and when they offer burnt offrings and an oblation I will not accept them but I will consume them by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence Do we desire to be freed from the present evils and to escape an utter desolation They are Moses and Aaron that must do it He said that he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them When our quarrel is with Heaven it is not our force or our policy that can save us Every faithful man is a favorite of the King of glory and can do more then command Legions Then is a people in some good way towards safety when they have learned to know their friends Whiles we have good mens prayers to grapple with wicked mens sins there may be hopes of recovery LVIII The ayming at a good end can be no just excuse for an unlawful act or disposition but if contentment did consist in having much it were a sore temptation to a man to be covetous since that contentation is the thing wherein the heart of man is wont to place it 's chief felicity neither indeed can there be any possible happiness without it but the truth is abundance is no whit guilty so much as of ease much less of a full joy how many have we known that have spent more pleased and happy hours under an house of sticks and walls of mud and roof of straw then great Potentates have done under marbles and cedar And how many both wise Heathen and mortified Christians have rid their hands of their cumbersome store that they might be capable of being happy Other creatures do naturally neglect that which abused reason bids us dote upon If we had no better powers then beast or fowls we should not at all care for this either white or red earth and if our graces were as great as the least of Saints we should look carelesly upon the preciousest and largest treasures that the earth can afford now our debauched reason in stead of stiring us up to emulate the best creatures draws us down below the basest of them moving us to place our happiness in those things which have neither life nor true worth much less can give that which they have not It is not for the generous souls of Christians to look so low as to place their contentment in any thing whether within the bowels or upon the face of this earth but to raise their thoughts up to the glorious region of their original and rest looking not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things that are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal LIX The holy Psalmist knew well what he said when he called the thunder in the clouds The voyce of the Lord a voyce powerful and full of Majesty The very Heathens made this the most awful act of their Jupiter which the Spirit of God expresses in a more divine language The God of glory thundreth upon this dreadful sound it is that the Psalmist calls to the mighty ones to give unto the Lord glory and strength to give unto the Lord the glory due to his name as it were advising the great Commanders of the world when they hear it thunder to fall down on their knees and to lift up their hands and eyes to that great God that speaks to them from Heaven No man needs to bid the stoutest heart to fear when this terrible sound strikes through his ear which is able to drive even Neroes and Caligulaes into bench-holes But this mighty voyce calls for an improvement of our fear to the glory of that Almighty power whence it proceeds Perhaps the presumption of man will be finding out the natural causes of this fearful uproar in the clouds but the working by means derogates nothing from the God of nature neither yet are all thunders natural That whirlwind and thunder wherein God spake to Job that thunder and lightning wherein God spake to Moses and Israel
by the ministery of Angels be received up to those everlasting habitations Here is an Assumption therefore true and happy though not as yet total And why should I not therefore have my heart taken up with the assured expectation of this receiving up into my glory Why do I not look beyond death at the eternally-blessed condition of this soul of mine which in my dissolution is thus crowned with immortality So doth the Sea-beaten Marriner chear up himself with the sight of that Heaven which he makes for So doth the Travailer comfort himself when after a tempestuous storm he sees the Sun breaking forth in his brightness I am dying but O Saviour thou art the resurrection and the life he that beleeves in thee though he be dead yet shall he live Awake and sing ye that dwel in the dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord for they rest from their labors and their works follow them LXVII What need I be troubled that I finde in my self a fear of Death what Israelite is not ready to run away at the sight of this Goliah This fear is natural and so far from being evil that it was incident into the Son of God who was heard in that which he feared Christianity serves not to destroy but to rectifie nature Grace regulates this passion in us and corrects the exorbitances of it never intended to root it out Let me therefore entertain this fear but so as that I may master it if I cannot avoyd fear let it be such as may be incident into a faithful man Whiles my fear apprehends just terror in the face of Death let my faith lay fast hold on that blessed Saviour who hath both overcome and sweetned it on that blessed estate of glory which accompanies it my fear shall end in joy my death in advantage LXVIII It is too plain that we are faln upon the old age of the world the last times and therefore nearest to the dissolution and if time it self did not evince it the disposition and qualities would most evidently do it For to what a cold temper of charity are we grown what meer Ice is in these spiritual veins the unnatural and unkindly flushings of self-love abound indeed every where but for true Christian love it is come to old Davids pass it may be covered with clothes but it can get no heat Besides what whimsies and fancies of dotage do we finde the world possessed withal beyond the examples of all former times what wilde and mad opinions have been lately broached which the setled brains of better ages could never have imagined Unto these how extreamly cholerick the world is grown in these later times there needs no other proof then the effusion of so much blood in this present age as many preceding centuries of years have been sparing to spill What should I speak of the moral distempers of diseases the confluence whereof hath made this age more wickedly-miserable then all the former for when ever was there so much prophaneness atheism blasphemy schism excess disobedience oppression licentiousness as we now sigh under Lastly that which is the common fault of age loquacity is a plain evidence of the worlds declinedness for was there ever age guilty of so much tongue and pen as this last were ever the Presses so cloyed with frivolous work Every man thinks what he lists and speaks what he thinks and writes what he speaks and prints what he writes Neither would the world talk so much did it not make account it cannot talk long What should we do then since we know the world truly old and now going upon his great and fatal Climacterical but as discreet men would carry themselves to impotent and decrepit age bear with the infirmities of it pity and bewail the distempers strive against the enormities and prepare for the dissolution LXIX There cannot be a stronger motive to awe and obedience then that which Saint Peter enforceth That God is both a Father and a Judg The one is a title of Love and Mercy the other of Justice What ever God is he is all that he is all Love and Mercy He is all Justice He is not so a Judg that he hath waved the title and affection of a Father He is not so a Father that he will remit ought of his infinite justice as a Judg He is he will ever be both these in one and we must fasten our eyes upon both these at once and be accordingly affected unto both He is a Father therefore here must be a loving awe He is a Judg and therefore here must be an awful love and obedience So must we lay hold upon the tender mercies of a Father that we may rejoyce continually so must we apprehend the Justice of a righteous Judg that we do lovingly tremble Why then should man despair God is a father All the bowels of mortal and humane love are straight to his Can a woman forget her sucking childe that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee saith the Lord. That which is the title of his personality in divine relation is also the title of his gracious relation to us Father neither can he be other then he is styled And contrarily how dare man presume since this Father is a Judg It is for sinful flesh and blood to be partial foolish parents may be apt to connive at the sins of their own loyns or bowels because theirs either they will not see them or not hate them or not censure them or not punish them The infinite justice of a God cannot wink at our failings There is no debt of our sin but must be paid in our selves or our surety If then we call him Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work why do we not pass the time of our sojourning here in fear LXX How terrible a motion was that which was made by the two Disciples of commanding fire to come down from Heaven and consume the inhospital Samaritans Me thinks I could tremble but at the imagination of so dreadful a judgment as they did not fear to sue for Yet if we look to the offence it was no positive act of indignity offered to Christ but the meer not lodging of his train and that not out of a rude inhumanity but out of a religious scruple what could they have said if these Samaritans had pursued them with swords and staves and stones Whom shall we hope to finde free from cruelty of revenge when even the Disciple of Love was thus over-taken What wonder is it if natural men be transported with furious desires when so eminent Domesticks and followers of our Saviour were thus faulty Surely nature in man is cruel neither is there any creature under Heaven so bloody to
freely enjoy his presence but of those straglers who care not to live without God so they may be befriended by Mammon How ill a match these poor men make for themselves I send them to their Saviour to learn What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul God forbid I should give their souls for lost but I must say they are hazarded for herein doubtless they tempt God who hath not promised to keep them in any other then their just wayes and they do in a sort tempt and challenge Satan to draw them on either to a love of error and impiety or at least to a cooling of their care and love of truth How unlike are these men to that wise merchant in the Gospel He sold all that he had to buy the pearl of great price they sell the pearl to buy a little worthless merchandize As the greatest part of their trafick stands upon exchange so I heartily wish they would make this one exchange more of less care of their wealth for more care of their souls LXXXVIII Even when Joseph was a great lord in Egypt second to none but Pharaoh and had the command of that richest countrey of the world yet then his old Father Jacob thought his poor parcel of Shechem worthy to be bequeathed to him and embraced of him as a noble patrimony because it was in the promised land and the legacy of a dying Father How justly do I admire the faith both of the father and son in this donation Jacob was now in Goshen Shechem was in Canaan neither was the father now in the present possession nor were the sons in some ages to enjoy it It was four hundred and thirty years that Israel must be a sojourner in a strange countrey ere they shall enter into the promised Land yet now as foreseeing the future possession which his posterity should take of this spot of earth so long after Jacob gives Shechem to Joseph and Joseph apprehends it as a rich blessing as the double portion of the divided primogeniture Infidelity is purblinde and can see nothing but that which is hard at hand Faith is quick-sighted and discerns the events of many centuries of years yea of ages to come Abraham saw his Saviours day and rejoyced to see it a thousand nine hundred and fourty years off and Adam before him almost four thousand years As to God all things are present even future so to those that by a lively faith partake of him Why do I not by that faith see my Saviour returning in his Heavenly magnificence as truly as now I see the Heaven whence he shall come and my body as verily raised from the dust and become glorious as now I see it weak and decrepit and falling into the dust LXXXIX True knowledg causeth appetite and desire For the will follows the understanding whatsoever that apprehends to be good for us the affective part inclines to it No man can have any regard to an unknown good If an hungry man did not know that food would refresh and nourish him or the thirsty that drink would satisfie him or the naked that fire would warm him or the sick that Physick would recover him none of these would affect these succors And according to our apprehension of the goodness and use of these helps so is our appetite towards them For the object of the will is a known good either true or appearing so And if our experience can tell us of some that can say with her in the Poet I see and approve better things but follow the worse It is not for that evil as evil much less as worse can fall into the will but that their appetite over-carries them to a misconceit of a particular good so as howsoever in a generality they do confusedly assent to the goodness of some holy act or object yet upon the present occasion here and now as the School speaketh their sensitive appetite hath prevailed to draw them to a perswasion that this pleasure or that profit is worthy to be imbraced Like as our first parents had a general apprehension that it was good to obey all the commands of their Creator but when it came to the forbidden fruit now their eye and their ear and their heart tell them it is good for them both for pleasure and for the gain of knowledg to taste of that forbidden tree So then the miscarriage is not in that they affect that which they think not to be good but in that they think that to be good which is not for alass for one true good there are many seeming which delude the soul with a fair semblance As a man in a generality esteems silver above brass but when he meets with a rusty piece of silver and a cleer piece of brass he chooses rather the clear brass then the silver defaced with rust Surely it is our ignorance that is guilty of our cool neglect of our spiritual good if we did know how sweet the Lord is in his sure promises in his unfailing mercies we could not but long after him and remain unsatisfied till we finde him ours would God be pleased to shine in our hearts by the light of the true knowledg of himself we could not have cause to complain of want of heat in our affections towards his infinite goodness Did we but know how sweet and delectable Christ the Heavenly Manna is we could not but hunger after him and we could not hunger and not be satisfied and in being satisfied blessed XC Those which we mis-cal goods are but in their nature indifferent and are either good or evil as they are affected as they are used Indeed all their malignity or vertue is in the minde in the hand of the possessor Riches ill got ill kept ill spent are but the Mammon of iniquity but if well The Crown of the wise is their riches How can it be amiss to have much when he that was the richest man of the East was the holiest Yea when God himself is justly stiled the possessor of Heaven and Earth How can it be amiss to have little when our Saviour sayes Blessed are ye poor And if from that divine mouth we hear a wo to the rich himself interprets it of them that trust in riches If our riches possess us in stead of our possessing them we have changed our God and lost our selves but if we have learnt to use our wealth and not enjoy it we may be no less gracious then rich If a rich man have a large and humble heart and a just hand he inherits the blessing of the poor If a poor man have a proud heart and a theevish hand he carryes away the wo from the rich Riches saith wise Solomon make themselves wings they fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven So as we may use
happy an issue we are delivered and must applaud it or abide a contestation and expect a challenge The fairest paradoxes cannot pass without a contradiction it were strange if some as bold and forward wits as our own should not take up the gantlet now the fray is begun the multitude is divided sides are taken the world is in an uproare from skirmishes we grow to pitcht fields the Church bleeds on both parts and it were marvel if kingdoms could be free But that which most notably evinceth the deceitfulness of mans heart in this behalf is that this pride is too often lodged in those brests which are professedly devoted to a godly and mortified lowliness for as for those persons which are meer flesh they are carelesly indifferent to error or truth neither are at all moved with the success of either but the religious minde when it is once possessed with the conceit of some singular and important truth revealed to it and hid from the rest of the world is ready to say with the Samaritan Lepers I do not well this day is a day of good tidings and I hold my peace and therefore makes it matter of conscience to trouble the Church with a mis-grounded novelty Come we to the Test Let me ask these mis-guided souls that are no less confidently perswaded of their own humility then Truth Can it be any other then an height of pride for a man to think himself wiser then the whole Church of God upon earth wiser then the whole Church of God that hath been upon earth ever since the Apostles of Christ inclusively in all successions to this present time Can they without much pride think they can look deeper into the great mysteries of Godliness then those blessed attendants of our Saviour and their gracious successors the holy martyrs the godly and religious guides of Gods Church in all the following ages Had not they then the same God the same Scriptures the illuminations of the same Spirit Can they imagine it less then insolent to attribute more to their own private opinion then to the constant judgment and practise of the whole Christian world in all successions of Generations Can they suppose themselves in their single capacity though neither Prophets nor Prophets sons meet Judges or Questionists of those matters of Faith which the general Councils of the purer times have unanimously agreed upon as the main principles of Christianity can they think themselves priviledged by the liberty of prophesying to coyn new articles to deface old Surely if the hand of pride be not in all this I shall never desire to be acquainted with humility so as it is too plain that a man may be exceeding proudly and not know it this vicious habit lurks close in the soul and unless it discover it self by some scarce discernable effects which break out now and then especially upon occasions of opposition is rather more concealed from the owner then from the eyes of a stranger But if ever it bewrays it self in the affectation of undue eminence scornful under-valuation of others merits obstinacy in opinion sharpness of censures and impatience of contradiction Of all these the world is commonly no less guilty then all these are guilty of the common miseries Lord deliver us from our pride and our contentions will dye alone V What a strange praise and priviledge is that which is given to Enoch above all those generations of men that peopled the first world of whom the Spirit of God saies Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him Doubtless amongst all those successive families of the sons of Seth there were many religious and well-affected souls yet there was no one of them that had this character set upon him that he walked with God but he Whether it were that God did in a more open and entire way reveal himself to that exemplary Saint or whether that holy man did in a more close and familiar fashion converse with the invisible Deity the presence was certain and the acknowledgment mutual neither was this walk short for a turn and away but constant and continual even for the space of three hundred years And what did the blessed man retire to some desart far from all humane society that he might enjoy this heavenly company alone Did he this-while cast off all secular thoughts and abdicate all the care of his family Neither this nor that for in this space wherein he walked with his God he both begat sons and daughters and bred them like the children of such a father as one that knew to make the world subordinate not opposite to it's maker and had learn'd to reconcile the use of the creature with the fruition of the Creator What then were the steps of this walk but pious thoughts heavenly affections fervent love reverential fear spiritual joy holy desires divine ravishments of spirit strict obediences assiduous devotions faithful affiances gracious ingagements firme resolutions and effectual indeavors of good and whatsoever might work a dearness of respect betwixt the soul and the God of Spirits O God that which thou promisedst as a reward to those few Saints of Sardis that had not defile their garments thou hast before hand fully performed to this eminent worthy of the first world he walked with thee in white in the white of innocence here and in the shining robes of glory above so thou hast told us He was not for God took him Lo being and good were wont to pass for convertible but here Enochs not-being is his blessedness he was not at all here that he might be perfectly above The best being on earth is but miserable even Enochs walk with God cannot exempt him from sorrows he must cease to be that he may begin to be happy He was then happy not for that he was not a meer privation of being can be no other then the worst of evils but for that God took him The God with whom he walkt so long upon earth takes him away from the earth to himself for eternity Here below though he walk't with God yet withall he conversed with sinful men whose wickedness could not but many a time vex his righteous soul now he is freed from all those spiritual annoyances enjoying onely the glorious presence and vision of the Divine majesty the blessed Angels and the Saints co-partners of the same immortality There can be no doubt but that the souls of his holy predecessors Adam Abel Seth returned to the God that gave them but had not Enoch been blessed with a peculiar conveiance to his glory it had not been said That God took him were onely the spirit of Enoch yeilded up in the way of an ordinary death the man had not been taken now whole Enoch body and soul is translated to an heavenly life His father Jared and his son Methuselah went to God in the common way of men by a separation of the spirit from the
with the desire of them and let that desire never finde it self filled XXIX How comfortable a style is that O God which thine Apostle gives to thine Heaven whiles he cals it the inheritance of the Saints in light None can come there but Saints the roomes of this lower world are taken up commonly with wicked men with beasts with Devils but into that heavenly Jerusalem no unholy thing can enter Neither can any Saint be excluded thence each of them have not only a share but an entire right to thy glory And how many just titles are there O Saviour to that region of blessedness It is thy Fathers gift it is thy purchase it is thy Saints inheritance theirs only in thy right by thy gracious adoption they are sons and as sons heires co-heirs with thee of that blessed Patrimony so feoffed upon them so possessed of them that they can never be disseized And Lord how glorious an inheritance it is An inheritance in light In light incomprehensible in light inaccessible Lo the most spirituall of all thy visible creatures is light and yet this light is but the effect and emanation of one of thy creatures the Sun and serves only for the illumination of this visible world but that supernal light is from the Al-glorious beams of thy Divine Majesty diffusing themselves to those blessed spirits both Angels and Souls of thy Saints who live in the joyful fruition of thee to all eternity Alas Lord we do here dwell in darkness and under an uncomfortable opacity whiles thy face is clouded from us with manifold temptations there above with thee is pure light a constant noon-tide of glory I am here under a miserable and obscure wardship Oh teach me to despise the best of earth and ravish my soul with a longing desire of being possessed of that blessed inheritance of the Saints in light XXX What outward blessing can be sweeter then civill peace What judgment more heavy then that of the sword Yet O Saviour there is a peace which thou disclaimest and there is a sword which thou challengest to bring Peace with our corruptions is warr against thee and that war in our bosomes wherein the spirit fighteth against the flesh is peace with thee O let thy good Spirit raise and foment this holy and intestine war more and more within me And as for my outward spirituall enemies how can there be a victory without war and how can I hope for a crown without victory O do thou ever gird me with strength to the battle inable thou me to resist unto bloud make me faithfull to the death that thou maist give me the crown of life XXXI O Lord God how subject is this wretched heart of mine to repining and discontentment If it may not have what it would how ready it is like a froward child to throw away what it hath I know and feel this to be out of that naturall pride which is so deep rooted in me for could I be sensible enough of my own unworthinesse I should think every thing too good every thing too much for me my very being O Lord is more then I am ever able to answer thee and how could I deserve it when I was not but that I have any helps of my wel-beeing here or hopes and means of my being glorious hereafter how far is it beyond the reach of my soul Lord let me finde my own nothingness so shall I be thankfull for a little and in my very want blesse thee XXXII Where art thou O my God whither hast thou withdrawn thy self it is not long since I found thy comfortable presence with my soul now I misse thee and mourn and languish for thee Nay rather where art thou O my soul my God is where he was neither can be any other then himself the change is in thee whose inconstant disposition varies continually and cannot finde it self fixed upon so blessed an object It will never be better with me O my God until it shall please thee to stablish my heart with thy free Spirit and to keep it close to thee that it may not be carried away with vain distractions with sinful temptations Lord my God as thou art alwaies present with me and canst no more be absent then not be thy self so let me be alwaies with thee in an humble and faithful acknowledgment of thy presence as I can never be out of thine all-seeing eye so let mine eyes be ever bent upon thee who art invisible Thou that hast given me eyes improve them to thy glorie and my happiness XXXIII My bosome O Lord is a Rebeccaes womb there are twins striving within it a Jacob and Esau the old man and the new whiles I was in the barren state of my unregeneration all was quiet within me now this strife is both troublesome and paineful so as nature is ready to say If it be so why am I thus But withal O my God I bless thee for this happy unquietness for I know there is just cause of comfort in these inward struglings my soul is now not unfruitful and is conceived with an holy seed which wrestles with my natural corruptions and if my Esau have got the start in the priority of time yet my Jacob shall follow him hard at the heele and happily supplant him And though I must nourish them both as mine yet I can through thy grace imitate thy choice and say with thee Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Blessed God make thou that word of thine good in me That the elder shall serve the younger XXXIV Alas my Lord God how small matters trouble me every petty occurrence is ready to rob me of my peace so as me thinks I am like some little cock-boat in a rough Sea which every billow topples up and down and threats to sink I can chide this weak pusillanimity in my self but it is thou that must redress it Lord work my heart to so firme a setledness upon thee that it may never be shaken no not with the violent gusts of temptation much lesse with the easie gales of secular mis-accidents Even when I am hardest pressed in the multitude of the sorrows of my heart let thy comforts refresh my soul but for these sleight crosses oh teach me to despise them as not worthy of my notice much less of my vexation Let my heart be taken up with thee and then what care I whether the world smile or frown XXXV What a comfort it is O Saviour that thou art the first fruits of them that sleep Those that die in thee do but sleep Thou saidst so once of thy Lazarus and maist say so of him again he doth but sleep still His first sleep was but short this latter though longer is no less true out of which he shall no less surely awake at thy second call then he did before at thy first His first sleep and waking was singular this latter is the same with ours