God Sanctification is a great thing What is the body until Sanctification comes but an untamed monster as a wilde beast O with what numberless outragious passions doth it blind and carry away the Soul Until it be sanctified it puts a man into an incapacity of conversing with God it lies not only open to all temptations but it snatcheth after them it 's a weight that lies upon the spirit of a man Pray for Sanctification which is the sequestration of the spirit of a man from vanity and the consecration of it unto God it is the putting of it into his possession the planting in it a new disposition to move towards God and to converse with God this the Apostle calls the renewing of the mind CHAP. XI Advantages that come by minding of God are to be duly considered The more we mind God the more we may Those which eye God most know themselves best Those which eye God most have most of God Forgetfulness of God cuts the nerves of Holiness Forgetfulness of God betrays to Apostacy NOw let me add another Help Weigh well with a deep sense the high Advantages which a due discharge of this work doth bring upon you this will facilitate the work The more you mind God the better you may Men cry out the work is hard It is good and sweet but hardest to those that do it least easiest to those that do it most Living in this work doth advantage and enlarge your spiritual strength and put you into more meetness and fitness into more proportion of ability for the discharge of it That as the Apostle speaks of the sinful use of the eye and of the sinful effusions of the spirit in way of evil that it works unto a necessity of sinning so that they have eyes full of adultery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cannot cease to sin 2 Pet. 2.14 So the more you live in mindfulness of God the more are you wrought into a most excellent and sweet necessity of living in this course Gods entertainment is very gracious unto a friend that minds him that he cannot long have God out of his eye De coelo descendit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This advantage you will also have by it the discovery of your self and truly that is a great matter for a man to know himself We are therefore so little our selves because we know our selves so little all that monstrous pride and self-love that foolish indulgence that is usual toward our selves is because we know not what we are This will make you know your selves more for when your eye is on God it is upon your Rule the Rule of all perfection the most absolute Pattern of all spiritual beauty therefore you may see what proportion and similitude there is between God and you This will breed a self abhorrency because of that infinite disagreement that is in the spirit of a man and his ways to the holy God Job in the sight of God abhor'd himself in dust and ashes Job 42.4 Here you may see how your hearts and the Rule agree Now also you may observe what impressions the sight of God leaveth upon you You say you mind God Well and I pray what comes of it what fear what faith what hope what tenderness What watchfulness is there wrought in your spirits by your minding of God What a hard heart is that which is layd under the very beams of the Sun of Righteousness and melts not What an obdurate spirit is that which in the sight of God yields no more We should come to see better what we are if we were more in this work This advantage too you shall have you shall be filled more with God What is the moaning of your Souls O saith the Saint that I might enjoy him O that God might be my God! and that his presence might be with me where ever I am All spiritual life hath its birth and growth in this work the first sight of God lays the foundation all after-sights do superstruct The first sight of God is the planting of holiness in the Soul after-sights are waterings unto more encrease and fruitfulness at the first sight of God God enters into the Soul but the after-sights of God fills and fills until they fill up the Soul If therefore it be so great an advantage consider it and let it provoke you unto this work One Rule more to help unto this work Possess your selves deeply with the apprehensions of the great sinfulness of the neglect of this Therefore men and their sins are so near together because they see not their sins more sinful When sin appears out of measure sinful then it sets the heart at the greatest distance from it Look on the sinfulness of it in the Cause of it Whence is it thou wandering Soul thou sleeping spirit thou man possessed with the world that thou sayst thou breathest after God and yet shuttest thy eye from him It is from a most woful frame of spirit Faith is dead and love dead all principles of life are put into a state of astonishment it is deep night all the spiritual powers are asleep bound up hence it is thou mindest God no more Poor Creature thou art not thy self thy heart is gone other things have born it away thou art like the Prodigal until God brings thee unto thy wits and right mind again Now see what the state of that man is by the true original of the sin of neglecting to remember God and look a little further into this matter to see it in the Effect of it Forgetting of God dissolves the bond between the Soul and God and sets it free from God It is the minding of God that doth beget and preserve a capacity of him and propensity toward him then forgeting of God shuts up thy heart from him and doth byass thy Soul unto a contrary motion to a departing from him puts thee into a state wherein thou canst not be according to the calling whereunto thou art called Thou canst not walk in the place of a servant toward thy Lord for how canst thou do his Will whom thou rememberest not If all the Reason of holy walking lies in this then the nerves and sinews of Holiness are cut in sunder when forgetfulness of God raigns in men There is this evil also thou betrayest thy Soul as much as in thee lies into the state of the Devils themselves What makes Hell but want of God and what makes the unhappiness of Devils but separation from God And this thou dost practise upon thy own self I could give a notorious and sad Instance of this truth to every one that doth voluntarily forget God in an Apostate Professor whom I knew who said The turning point and first beginning of his declining from God was his neglect of communion with Jesus Christ Therefore when you give your selves to a voluntary forgetfulness of God you betray your selves into a state of Apostacy and backsliding from
other life appointed for Saints The fulness beauty and satisfaction of this life How Christians offer violence to their relation IN this Chapter I would make Exhortation to all that have Interest in God to live upon it Only first I will shew what it is to live upon God as our God And it is First To cleave to God with joy of heart to live in the affectionate embraces of God in Christ and delightful conversings with him to have God for our life as it is said of Jacob concerning Benjamin His Soul his life was bound up in the life of the child Gen. 44.13 that is they had one lot if one lived the other lived their joys were the same they could not be severed or parted they were but as one So we should be towards God our lives should be so bound up in him we should be one with him Secondly To live upon God is to contract all our desires into God to have none but what are for him and according to him This is the way of life indeed when God is a mans all when the language of his Soul is Whom have I in Heaven but Thee Thus to have desires to God that he rests not in any thing beneath God nor seek any thing besides God that is to live in God Thirdly To live in a faithful real resignation of ones self unto God If you be his you know that he hath taken chosen and set apart the good man for himself Psal 4. And so must we live as sequestred persons as those that are his that as the holy things of the Temple were for no other use so must we be only for God In Hos 3.3 't is said Thou shalt abide with me many days thou shalt not play the harlot thou shalt not be for another man but shalt be unto me so will I also be for thee God will stand close to that spirit and be the comfort stay and life of it that reserves it self for him Fourthly It is to contract and draw all your expectations upon God to lay all your weight there If there be any thing thou promisest thine own heart let it be from the bosom of God if there be any answer that thou makest to the fears doubts and troubles of thy spirit let it be from the voyce of the Lord. Thus David in Psal 62.2 He only is my Rock and my Salvation he is my defence I shall not be greatly moved And he saith at vers 5. My Soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him He tells you what God is to him and what indeed he looks for from God What God is to him He is my Rock and my Salvation in God is my Salvation and my Glory he is the Rock of my strength He tells you also what he expects from God My Refuge is from him so that if I need safety or refreshing and supply of any good mine eye is upon him and from him I look for all This is to live upon God Having expressed in a few words what it is to live upon God Now take those Considerations which perswade to live such a life as this First There is no other life for you This is appointed for you to this you are called for this you are fitted Fishes may as well live in the ayr as you live in the world You may try and weary out your selves in vain but God is your life This be sure of if you neglect this life either dulness and benumedness will fall upon you so that you will grow sensual brutish and earthly strangers to the joy activity and tenderness of holy Christians or you shall fall into a dis-rest an unsufferable unquietness of spirit while you are as a rouling thing in the wind having no consistence because you are out of your place You shall be afflicted within and this will be your great evil that you lived not in God And now because you seek life in other things you shall dig for your own death And if you have any reason it will work to your own affliction vex and torment your Souls night and day because you did not walk in the counsels of the Most high and the embracements of his Love Your sweetest enjoyments will be all sowred like the waters of Jericho bitterness will be in them not to be endured Secondly This is a life that should be most pleasing and amiable unto our spirits and certainly we are dead and alienated from God if there be not an incomparable sweetness to us in it For 1. It is the fullest life The life of all other things hath something mixed with it the life of your enjoyments your pleasures and relations is a mixt life there is death in all your comforts and you taste it and are sick of it many times you know it well It is true there is nothing that God hath made and appointed for our use but brings in some portion of life our garments give a little and our food a little and friends give something but how little do all these give But now this life is all life the life you have from other things is a short poor narrow life but this life is more compleat Take the life of a man that hath whatsoever his heart can wish his comforts strike but upon his sense or at best have but some light touch upon his spirit Alas the Souls of men cannot drink at these Cisterns Life that comes from these things hath not immortality in it such things are as far from immortality as they are from sufficiency The wisest the richest and most honorable that have the fullest life dye because the life they have by such things cannot hold pace with the Soul nor communicate a life of consistency But the life we have with God extends to the whole course and capacity of the Soul it fills up every corner and leaves no want 2. It is a life that gives perfect satisfaction he can ask no more that hath it 3. It is a life that beautifies the Soul Mens complexions usually are as their dyet is Oh he that feeds on God what a rare complexion is his Soul of It makes him like to God it reduceth a Soul from a miserable separation into a blessed and orderly union Our life being in one God one Good which is all Good he that lives this life would dye ten thousand deaths rather then part with it Thou well knewest Peter what thou saidst in Joh. 6. When Christ said to his Disciples Will ye also go away then Simon Peter answered To whom shall we go Lord Thou hast the words of eternal life Whither dost thou think we can go when we knew thee not we could indeed be without thee but now we know thee whither shall we go When Nature comes to a state of Consistency it rests it seeks no more That man is in such a state that is in God that enjoys him and his Love and rests in him
Child that hath the brest doth not enjoy it when he cannot draw the milk A Garden is not enjoyed by him whose it is that hath neither flowers nor fruits from it That which we have of God here though it be more then we had reason to look for and is that which the Angels wonder at yet it is very little to that which we look for in Heaven it 's called the first fruits it is but the infancy of that blessed state whereto we are adopted All the enjoyment we have of God in this world is not effectual to the removing of its contrary that is to cast out all fear and heaviness all sorrow and dejection out of the mind That enjoyment of God which Christ himself had here on Earth did not keep out all fear and sorrow Fulness is reserved for Heaven 2. A second thing is A mind enlightened and enabled to a just comprehension of the excellency of God and of the sweetness of the presence and love of God By comprehensive I mean as much as the faculty can reach and extend unto But now the mind cannot have an observation of all the emanations of divine Love more then a Child can count the drops of milk which it sucks We may as well tell the drops of rain in a showre as tell the particulars of the love of God poured forth upon us Our minds cannot extend to a just comprehension of that sweetness and love that is in God It is with us as 't is with a child that hath a Jewel put into his hand of exceeding great value for the matter of it and of greater worth for the signification being the Seal of a Crown to him but the child knows it not So the mercies of God are more in their nature and in their end then we can comprehend they are far above our reach Our minds are so straitened that we cannot have a full enjoyment of God here but if in this life we find so much sweetness in what we do enjoy what will it be when our Light shall be like the Sun at noon-day 3. There is requisite a lively sense of the presence of God The Soul hath its sense as well as the body nay more for it 's the fountain of sense to the body In Phil. 1.9 the Apostle prays that they may abound in all knowledg and sense of the things of God As the body receives its life from things by the senses so doth the Soul also receive its life in the sweetness and comfort of the presence of God by its spiritual sense Take away sense and a man is as a dead thing and all things are dead to him and the presence of God would be a dead thing to the Soul if it were not for the Souls sense of it I mean the spiritual sense which the Church speaks of Cant. 2.3 I sat under his shadow and his fruit was pleasant to my taste But now the sense of the Soul hath here a dulness upon it it 's short of that quickness to which it was appointed therefore we cannot have that full enjoyment of God here as hereafter But if what we do enjoy now be so sweet what will the enjoyment be when the Soul shall be so full of sense 4. A perfect love of God is required to a full enjoyment of God Love must be in its utmost height and heat if the Soul have a compleat and full enjoyment of God Take two persons never so qualified and furnished to make the life of both comfortable if there be not love there cannot be a happy enjoyment of these two As a man loves a thing so he enjoys it when he hath it So as a man loves God so he will cleave to him and pour out himself in a blessed fruition of him As our love is so is our life and enjoyment Though our enjoyment of God here be imperfect and weak yet it 's of that strength that it conquers and bears up the heart against all afflictions whatsoever Therefore there must needs be a far greater sweetness in the fulness of this Enjoyment Thirdly A third Consideration is this Let our enjoyment here be what it will it is mixt with many sorrows many wants many straits both within and without our life is such here that our afflictions many times seem to out-weigh our enjoyments they strike quick upon the sense and come too near the spirit Hence it is that you sometimes find good men complain more of one affliction then they mention a thousand mercies Our life here is mix'd 1 Thes 1.6 You have received the Word with much affliction and with joy they are mingled Now I say If the Consolations of God from that little enjoyment of him here in the midst of many sufferings be so sweet and precious that it bears the Soul up above all what then will the full enjoyment of God be in that Land of Rest where is light and no darkness life and no death all good and no evil Fourthly The enjoyment of God here is subject to many interruptions Sometimes by our sinful diversions from God the Soul goes out from the bosom of the Father minding other things and so our hearts are taken and brought into an estrangedness from God to a poor kind of delight in other things As a bird that wanders from her nest so is a man that is out of his place Prov. 27.8 Surely a man is never more out of his place then when he goes out from God and then he is like a bird that is gone from her nest she knows not where to rest but is troubled to find the way home again and to recover the loss that she hath brought upon her self by her foolish wandering Sometimes there is an interruption by the appointment of God God will not always have you lie at the brests of Consolation nay saith God when his people are sitting by the Well of the Water of Life This must not be all your work I 'le have you about this business and that employment Now these interruptions do lessen our life and our happiness but the time will come when we shall always live in the presence of our Father and our minds shall be encumbred with nothing else but we shall be filled and blessed with the vision of God Sometimes this interruption is caused by Gods going out from us there be recesses and retreats of God he sometimes out of his wisdom shadows his love and favour but in Heaven there will be always a full visible and clear presence Fifthly The enjoyment of God must needs be sweet because it is such as fills the whole capacity of the Soul and when there is fulness there is rest When a man hath what he can wish he can go no further At thy right hand are Rivers of pleasure and in thy presence is fulness of joy for evermore Psal 16. ult The Apostle in Acts 2.28 something alters the expression that is used in the Psalms
is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Redire faciam ad cor and in the Margin This I made return to my heart Things are apt to be gone with most men they are apt to lose the sight of God but he did recall again the thoughts that were vanisht and sunk This then is one thing that belongs to the work That Eying of God is not onely a turning of the minde towards God and setting it upon God but a fastening and holding it towards him 2. Minding of God is a willing work the will is in it there be many thoughts fly at random they get out of the Mind but are not sent out The Mind of a Man is a most profuse thing and nothing in the world spreadeth it self into so many actings as the Mind doth The Sun is not so full of beams as the Mind is full of thoughts which spreads it self more then a thousand Suns But these acts of the Mind which flow forth as Bees from their hive are not this work but when the Mind is sent out upon this errand the heart putting forth the understanding upon advice and makes it mind God when the heart puts the mind upon the wing to fly upwards within the vail to see him that fits upon the Throne this is somewhat And it 's a chearful minding of God a man is pleased in it when he is himself It 's good for me to draw near to thee Psal 73. ult Good how good better then perfume My meditation of him shall be sweet Psal 104.34 My meditation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or my word of thee is sweet it signifies a word secretly spoken the heart speaks of God and those words are musick in the Soul the word imports a sweetness with mixture like compound Spices or many flowers such a sweetness this thought of God yields to him whose heart is towards him every thought is pleasant and the whole working of the Mind makes up a sweet delight Again It 's better then wine Cant. 1.4 We remember his love more then wine There is more content in contemplating on God more refreshing to the spirit then wine gives to the body Psal 63.5 My Soul is filled as with marrow and fatness when or if I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches When I do this I am as one satisfied with marrow and fatness Psal 139.17 David tells you there is a preciousness in the thoughts of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifieth to be of weight authority or in honor that word signifies precious in every sence Look in what kind soever you account a thing precious so precious are the thoughts of God to a man whose heart is in a right frame Some thoughts are driven out toward God as a messenger sent and driven out upon an unwelcome message in a way and to a person whom he loves not Many cast an eye sometime upon God because they think they must not always live in forgetfulness of him they do it as a duty not a refreshment to them as a work not wages because they must do it not because they love it Yet by some men God will be thought on though they would not The Devils cannot forget God God hath made such a stamp of himself upon their natures that they cannot forget him that 's their unhappiness they wish they could be out of Gods sight and God out of theirs and if it could be their misery would be the less So God will be in the eyes of some men that they cannot cast him out of their thoughts but the impression of God fastens and abides upon their Souls so the sight of God followed Judas to a continual amazement and distraction of his mind But the more a man that is right finds a conjunction of God and his mind the more sweet it is to him he reckons this like the gate of Heaven such a day is as one of the days of Heaven When the Soul is thus taken with God it loves every glance of God the more it sees the more it loves Abraham saw my day afar off and was glad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It signifies a rejoycing with gesticulation as much as Luke 6.13 Rejoyce and leap or highly rejoyced Joh. 8.56 This work then of eying and minding of God is a willing work not a work whereto the heart is drawn and driven and wherein it hath no content but such a work that is both work and wages CHAP. III. Holy thoughts of God are mixed with awful love leave deep impressions transform the spirit and are the Trade of good Souls IT 's not only a serious setling of the mind toward and upon God but a holy pointing and fastening of the mind upon him holy in the manner and holy in the end of it 1. In the manner not like the bold practise of men that know not God who cast an eye upon him with as little regard as upon a post or pillar This minding of God must be according to the nature of God You cannot look upon a friend a stranger and a Prince with one and the same eye You cannot look upon God as he is god but you will love him nor as powerfl but you will fear him nor as he is excellent but you will admire him c. These things will work with you either in a way of assimilation or delectation or admiration c. 2. Holy in the end of it a man may do think much of God and yet do no work of holiness There is a meditation of God that we may call the meditation of a Student who studies God as he studies other things by which means he heaps together many notions concerning God but hath no impression of the holiness of God upon his heart but is a stranger to God and hath no communion with him But this work is holy in the end of it A man eyes God that he may have more of God He that minds God truly hunts and seeks after something of God he would have more of his presence light favor and Image he is seeking the beloved of his Soul and the love of his beloved therefore would fain be near him and looks toward him that he may receive that from him which his Soul so much prizeth he minds God and as one that desires to present as an offering to him those fruits of his love which by the love of God are begotten in his heart so that this work is holy 4. This minding of God is a work of course not to be done now and then and layd down again but it 's the trade of that man that doth it right It is his every days work and his constant employment to be mindful of God David describes the good man thus Psal 1.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et adhuc His meditation is in the Law of the Lord day and night Psal 139.17 When I awake I
to God but as it 's not their dayly course so they do it not with strength but weakly and faintly Slight visions leave but very shallow impressions These men live according to the sight they have of God Slight men are of poor spirits because they do not enoble themselves in a vigorous beholding God A third fault which is worst of all when men send out their thoughts and lay out their understandings in an ill way when the matter of their thoughts and imaginations is evil There are thoughts of good that are evil thoughts and thoughts of evil that are good When a mans mind looks on God but the heart withdraws when it looks upon God with contradictions and quarrellings at him these are evil thoughts of God There are thoughts of evil that are good as when a man looks on evil but his end is the separation of his heart from it and that he may destroy it But when a man looks upon evil with affections and desires after it when his mind is employed 〈◊〉 the bellows to the fire when he is conâ—â—â—ing and devising how he may compass 〈◊〉 â—vil this is most notorious wickedness 〈◊〉 doth mightily habituate and root the Soul in a deplorable elongation from God He that thinks and deviseth evil makes haste to it with all the strength he hath Prov. 24.8 He that deviseth evil shall be called a mischievous person a Master of evil * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so some read it this is the fruit a man by employing his understanding in a sinful way he becomes to be a sinner in grain a Master sinner a Leader of others a man transcendent going beyond others as Saul was higher then the people by the head and shoulders David describeth such an one Psal 36.3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit he hath left off to be wise and to do good He deviseth mischief upon his bed he sets himself in a way that is not good he abhors not evil that is he loves it as those phrases import verbs negative are put for their contrary affirmative Prov. 30.32 If thou hast thought evil lay thy hand upon thy mouth for as the churning of milk brings forth butter and the wringing of the nose brings forth blood so the forcing of wrath brings forth strife It 's but to shew what degrees sin hath When a man hath thought an injurious thought against another it 's time for him to lay his hand upon his mouth and stifle it there for if the thought be entertained it inflameth the tongue and then much evil comes into act As the churning of milk brings forth butter and the wringing of the nose blood so saith Solomon the Forcing of wrath brings forth strife As Vipers dye by the young ones bred in them so do men dye by the evil thoughts bred in their minds The Apostle Peter speaks of some men 2 Pet. 2.14 so sunk in sin by the exercise of their understanding and senses about it that they could not cease from sin * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This I am sure of the more you wander from God the more you run into sin and every thought you have of evil this way is a step from God Stop betimes before you go so far that there can be no return that you be not held in the cords of your own iniquity pray that the thoughts of thine heart may be forgiven thee which was the Apostle's counsel to Simon Magus Acts 8.22 Men come to be in a remediless state by giving way to evil thoughts Isa 44.20 it is said of Ephraim A deceived heart hath turned him aside that he cannot deliver his Soul nor say Is there not a lye in my right hand Now a man is in a woful state when he is so turned aside by his deceitful heart that he cannot extricate himself You have a power and may do something and by how much more you are enabled to it by so much the greater your sin is if you neglect it When God calls on you for this work if you can be profuse on other things in a great expence of your minds and thoughts towards them and you will not mind him in all your ways your sin is the greater 2 Argu. 2. This work is a work of the noblest power and faculty you have and as any thing is more excellent so it stands in the greater obligation towards God for as a man receives so he owes we owe much that receive much Seeing then you have received so noble a faculty from God you are more engaged to lay it out when called for according to the Will of him that gave it You have other faculties that are not under such a tye you have a power of breathing a power of motion in all your members you have many powers but these lie not under that obligation as this because this excels all the more careless and unfaithful you are in improving it for God the greater your sin and fault is This faculty is as one calls it Divinae particulam aurae a divine breath a beam of the immortal Light the very Image of God Nothing comes nearer unto God then the mind of Man and Angels When you suffer therefore your understandings to run from God you debase your glory your excellency is now deflowred and dishonored It 's recorded as a reproach upon Domitian the Emperor that he would be spending his time to catch and kill flies too childish a work for a man in so high a place It is much worse for you to employ that excellent faculty your understanding about flies and trifles that was made to behold God and in beholding him to be filled with him It 's the most excellent and highest faculty and the workings of it are so much the more easie The works of the Soul are more easie then those of the body therefore you should be encouraged to put your selves on the exercise of it The eyes of the body can by one glance reach the stars and see further in a moment then the body can move in all its time The mind is quicker then the eye and in a moment can glance into Heaven to the beholding of God therefore this should be a motive to prevail with you to the practise of this Duty because it 's a thing whereunto you are so enabled O dulcis confabulatio Dei in anima cum anima quae sine linguae labiorum formatur strepitâ— sine aure percipitur subsilentio solus qui loquitur cui loquitur audit illum omnis alienus excluditur Ber. Opusc c. 5. Vita contemplativa incipit in hoc seculo perficitur in futuro Bern. It 's a most excellent power conducing most to your life the actions of the body do more weakly and remotely conduce to your life This faculty is spiritual and herein differs much from the actions of the body which have their seasons their proper time and
place but the acts of the Soul may be done in any place at any time you may start into Heaven when no eye sees you you may be on the wing towards God though among a croud of men no business is such but you may be with God and yet your business not suffer Again It 's an eternal faculty and the work of it is everlasting A contemplative life is the life of Heaven it 's that which Angels do they ever behold the face of your Father in Heaven If you like not this work how will you live in Heaven The dislike of it is a bar against your entrance The life of blessedness is a life of Vision and seeing God which if you take no delight in Heaven is no place for you Again It 's a faculty very active your minds must be somewhere else if they be not with God and if they be not on God they are upon something of less concernment Why should you follow after drops and neglect the Fountain Why should you fly after shadows and neglect him who is the true Substance Truly if the mind have its current from God towards other things these things are not only of less concernment but destructive and from whence you will reap nothing but corruption and depravation and defilement of spirit you will grow worse and worse into the form of the Devil by how much your minds stray from God and pitch upon other things Jer. 2.5 They are gone far from me and have walked after vanity and are become vain Again It 's a faculty that hath received in the Saints a tendency towards God You do extreamly wrong your selves when you make not use of that propensity and put not forth your selves to have communion with God whereby you might bless your selves in the enjoyment of him See how David expresses the propensity of his spirit towards God Psal 63.1 O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my Soul thirsts for thee my flesh longeth for thee When shall I come and appear before thee to behold thy Glory as I have seen it in the Sanctuary This is the course of the spirits of the children of God in whom that propensity which was natural is now in part restored so that they are bent towards God they thirst after God as a man thirsts for water in a dry and thirsty Land Again There is a blessing in this work God blesseth what he likes as he curseth what he hateth He likes it well Mal. 3.16 Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and thought on his Name He will be sure to mind those that mind him and be a friend to those that seek after him When you are bid to look upon him it is but to receive from him Is it any thing else but to call and invite you to look on the most pleasing and delightful Object that in the beholding of it it may convey it self unto you and you be delighted and filled with it It is all one as if he should bid you sit down by a Well of Life and drink and to be as Christ and the Angels are who are blessed in the beholding of him as if he should bid you come and pluck Apples off that Tree of Life that is in the midst of Paradise God loves this work Cant. 2.14 Let me see thy face my Beloved and hear thy voyce for thy voyce is sweet and thy countenance comely In one act you may do that which pleaseth God and makes you blessed Set your eye towards him and his eye will be more towards you and he will refresh you as with Manna there is enough in him come and take freely Reflect upon your own experience have you ever found this way like a wilderness If it be a blessed work why will you unbless your selves If the work will exalt you why will you debase your selves in not closing with it And if you might live above in Heaven why will you live below Let all the sweetness you have ever found in this work provoke you to enlarge your self toward it When thoughts of God are moving in you God himself is not far off he will come and enter too and how sweet is it for God to come and take up his habitation in the Soul CHAP. IX Jesus Christ a Pattern of Eying the Father Greatest mindfulness of God due God our best Friend All we have is in his hands and of his gift All Religion founded upon a due mindfulness of God Anguish awails wandering hearts ANother Argument is from the Example of our Lord Jesus whom we are to mind and imitate He is your Pattern What saith Christ Learn of Me And Be you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect How can you follow Christ the Captain of your Salvation if you mind him not When the Apostle perswades them in Heb. 12. to run the race that is set before them he bids them look to Jesus the Author and Finisher of their Faith Mariners at Sea that they may run a right course keep an eye on that ship that bears the light Your course cannot be right when your eye is not upon Jesus Christ your Pattern Would it be with us as it is when the forgetfulness of God lodgeth in our hearts if we did more mind Christ We should say in our selves Is this the course that he steered David tells us of Christ Psal 16.8 that he set the Lord always before him or as Luke expounds it applying those words to Christ Acts 2.25 I foresaw the Lord always before my face The Father was Ever in his eye whatsoever came into his sight he ey'd him first and fix'd upon him Now Christ is not only appointed to be our Pattern in this thing but he takes notice of us whether we imitate or no His eye is upon us to see whether our eye be upon the Father as his was and is for ever It was the counsel of Seneca that when men are about to do evil they should think on Plato or some such eminent man as present to behold them Certainly if Christ were more minded as such a Pattern God would be more the object of our most affectionate thoughts Again If we consider the Object it is the greatest reason in the world that our eye should be upon God God is our friend he loves us he bears us in his heart and shall not he be in our thoughts This is ill requiting of him whose eye is always on us seldom or never to eye him This is a great contradiction to the Law of Friendship which consists in reciprocation of loves Jer. 29.11 I know my thoughts toward you saith the Lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected end Oh that we could say so I know my thoughts towards God are thoughts of love and care to please him Job 19.14 See how hainously
but the perfecting of our freedom Take it in this Similitude A poor woman that lives in rags hath the honor and happiness of being wife to a great Prince offered her for her now to give up her self is no way to straiten her freedom or diminish her happiness for she will enjoy her self better as a Queen then as a Begger So by resigning our selves unto God we lose no liberty nor any thing that is good but enjoy our selves in greater amplitude and fulness of all happiness So that for a man to give himself to God is self-love in the height of it and there is no true self-love but this for a man to think to love himself in ways of separation from God or in opposition to God is to hate himself in the appearance of love but this is true self-love that makes me give my self to God and be subject to him 3. Resigning of our selves to God is an act of the greatest joy and the greatest grief Of the greatest joy and contentment for when once the Soul is blest with such a life from above as over-powers a man and makes him surrender himself to God now he is in his first and proper Center The whole state of men out of God is nothing but a constant course of confusion and restless motion who by reason of darkness and want of judgment by reason of hardness and want of sense may think they are well may think they are at home when they are not but are like men fallen asleep in a strange place so is every man that is out of God But when the heart is brought home to God it is in its place Do you think the Prodigal had not more rest in his Fathers house then among the Swine Now a man sees what a blessed change is wrought in his condition that he is come now into a state of Reconciliation with God and of unspeakable advancement of his nature that he is advanced to the greatest freedom to the greatest honor and riches to the best life every way and so this Resignation is an act of the greatest Joy It 's likewise such a work as is with the greatest grief These two will stand together neither can they be parted every mans grief is as his joy is Consider these two things 1. That when a man is brought to God he is put into a state of Judgment and Ingenuity so that now he sees things as they are and looks upon the wrongs he hath done against God with another eye an ingenuous spirit can no more forbear mourning then a stone can forbear falling to the Center 2. Think on this also that Gods end in bringing back the creature is such as cannot be accomplished without this mourning For his end is the Exaltation of his Grace Grace is no grace to an unbroken spirit Sermons of mercy are but empty sounds to a man that knows not what sorrow is God intends to make Christ precious but what is a salve a plaister though the best in the world to a man that is whole Christ came indeed to save the miserable but that man that is not brought to see his misery and mourn over it cares not for Christ Gods end is the engaging of the Creature to himself but that man will never think himself beholding to God that knows not what he hath done against God But when he sees what a wretch he hath been and his heart is stricken within him and he lies melting in sorrow and clothed with shame before God now he thinks body and Soul too little for God now if he had a thousand lives they should all go for God now he saith What can I render to the Lord c. Gods end is to bring his people in so that they may be fast when they are in that they may not go forth again But he that thinks himself off from sins that he never mourn'd for and thinks he hath escaped evil courses that he hath not been broken for will return again A mourning spirit makes a Christian stedfast in his course and this will be a bar between him and his lust He that knows not to mourn knows nor to stand fast Certainly where there is not a spirit of mourning that man hath not resign'd himself to God to this day For that which is the principle of such self-resignation doth by its vertue also work mourning abasement and brokenness of heart If the sight of God in all his goodness be that which moves and draws the Soul as with a cord unto God that very goodness of God which is so apprehended will also break and melt the Soul In Jer. 8.6 saith God I harkened and heard but they spake not aright no man repented of his wickedness saying What have I done Every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel This people made many promises that they would walk better with God but being not touch'd with an effectual sense of their injurious dealings with God they repented not Therefore they returned every man to his own ways c. If any one now should say I have little of this sorrow and therefore do suspect my self I answer 1. There is a passionate mourning which lies in weeping crying and howling and this every one hath not 2. There is a mental mourning where a man sees the things to be mourned for and where he hath such a spirit that carries him against his way and against himself and is full of wishes O that I had never been so against God and O that I might never do so again and makes the Soul walk humbly it cannot be proud now nor lift up it self because it remembers what it hath been and done against God Canst thou find these things in thy self 3. Again There is a mourning of pure necessity not willingly and contentfully but so as a man cannot avoyd it God presents himself angry and shews sin in its colour and then not an Ahab nor a Judas can forbear mourning but this mourning is bitterness But true mourning is sweet sweeter then all the comforts in the world A right spirit puts the sweetness of Heaven in mourning God cannot please him better with any thing then by touching his spirit and laying it low before him If then thine heart be touched of God and thou love him and feel some meltings thou rejoycest and purst not off this sorrow but bids it welcome and when God as a Father rebukes thee thou blessest him and lovest him 4. There is a mourning that is by fits not habitual The veriest hypocrite in the world you may find sometimes in his closet before God and he will be weeping and mourning and taking on heavily by fits but take him a while after and he is like the dry ground after a Land flood hard as a stone True mourning is another frame of spirit wherein the spirit in an usual course is carried with abasement and a secret lamenting within O
wretch that I am how have I lived thus and thus have I done He mingles the comforts of this world with these sorrows and will have place for this mourning in the midst of all things and cannot but oftentimes have his eye upon himself like Paul I was a Persecuter and a Blasphemer c. 5. Again There is a mourning that is afflicting but not changing Many trouble and vex themselves upon the remembrance of their ways a fire burns in their bowels that they cannot extinguish but it doth not purge them from their dross their tears be salt and brinish but not healing they hang down their heads and walk sadly but carry the same spirit still against God so Ahab so they in 1 Sam. 7.6 Upon Samuels counsel to them they gathered together at Mizpeh and drew water and poured out before the Lord and fasted and said We have sinned against the Lord. They drew water It 's conceived that this drawing of water is an expression of their mourning and their exceeding mourning and they fasted which is an addition and confessed saying We have sinned against the Lord But it came to little as you may see in the eighth Chapter Thou mournest aright when thine heart is changed and when thy mourning tends to the killing of thy sin A fourth thing concerning this Resignation is that it is but in part and yet is certainly in the whole It is in part for no man hath actually perfectly given himself to God in this very gift and holy act of Resignation there is imperfection and something wanting and much more in the execution of this engagement all along Yet notwithstanding this Resignation is whole and entire partly in Gods acceptance God is pleased to take it so to take a part for the whole as much as man can do as if all were done And it is whole and entire in mans intention and desire Though the desire be not perfect and the intent not perfect as to the degree yet both reach to the extent of of that which God calls for Less then this cannot be in a good man and a man beloved of God A man cannot say I am thine if he come not to this For consider God treating with man about this work when he comes to plead for a Resignation he treats not for part but for all Besides when man comes to plead with God he pleads not for part but for all he would be saved not in body alone but in Soul too he would be perfectly saved And take this also that God gives himself wholly unto man if he did not give him his Wisdom and Power and Love man could not love him for how could we love him if his Wisdom Power or any of his glorious Attributes were against us God gives himself to man wholly Again God cannot take less then all for to accept of a partial resignment and to indulge a man a right and power over himself to live according to his own will is to act against those very Laws of his which Nature cannot dispense with As to take that which is the first and fundamental Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy Soul and with all thy might If any now upon the apprehension of the truth of this should say This makes me fear and suspect my self because I do not find that this giving up of my self is so entire and compleat I would have such consider that Resignation lies not so much in doing and being all that God requires as in willingness to be and to do all It is necessary to be and to do all that God requires and we are obliged to this but this Resignation lies chiefly in this in being willing to be and to do so that is a speech methinks that falls pat with the condition of the people of God Neh. 1.11 O Lord let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy Name But let there be no mistake for when I say Resignation lies chiefly in a willingness to be and to do all that God requires mark what kind of willingness it is it must be such as is vigorous as puts on to endevors so that it sets the Soul down mourning when it finds shortness of power I add this lest any as the world oftentimes doth should hurt himself by such an excuse as this I confess I do not but I would do well my ways are not good but I like them not my heart is better The world will one day see how destructive and fallacious these pleas are Again There is a great difference between sin dwelling in us and sin entertained by us between sin remaining and sin reserved Reservation of sin is against the nature of this absolute Resignation but a man that truly resigns himself may and doth want power to cast forth of doors every sin and every degree of it No man that hath resigned himself to God doth entertain it he doth not like it nor comply with it he doth not plot conspire or devise how he may save and enjoy his sin he lives not in the purposes of it this is against the nature of resigning our selves to God 5. This work of Resignation is a work once done and yet always doing When God hath so wrought upon the heart by effectual perswasions and his mighty power God saith I am thy God and the Soul answers in truth And I am thine Now is the Resignation actually made But though this be done yet it is still always doing while we are in this world nay to Eternity for it 's a thing that consists of an iteration of multiplied acts As Wedlock is not one single act of giving of persons each to other but if they live like married persons as they should there is a dayly giving of themselves each to other their hearts go out every day with complaceney and delight rejoycing in renewing the bond and making the league yet firmer and firmer It 's so between God and us 6. This Resignation is such a thing as when 't is once done is never undone Herein this Contract of man with God differs from all others in the world for all other Contracts have a time to cease By Contract one becomes another mans servant for a time The most durable Contract is that of Marriage yet it admits of a double breach by death or by divorce But here neither of these take place there 's no divorce after marriage with God and no death comes unto that Soul which becomes his for these two things hold such a man 1. The infinite goodness of God with which the Soul is so satisfied and contented that it cannot in any constant course and stay continue and give up it self to any other thing no more then a man can be willing to leave the light of the Sun to go to live where there is no light but of a Candle or to forsake Paradise if he were