the wicked to prosecure his Servants to the Death and make duty costly and give no after recompence 6. If he let the most wicked on the Earth pass unpunished or to scape as well hereafter as the best and to live in greater pleasure here The Objections fetcht from the intrinsecal good of Duty I have elsewhere answered § 1. VI. But God hath not left us to the Light of meer Nature as being too dark for men so blind as we The Gospel Revelation is the clear Foundation of our Faith and Hopes Christ hath brought Life and Immortality to Light One from Heaven that is greater than an Angel was sent to tell us what is there and which is the way and to secure our hopes He hath risen and conquered death and entered before us as our Captain and Forerunner into the Everlasting habitations And he hath all power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is committed to him that he might give Eternal life to his Elect he hath frequently and expresly promised it them that they shall live because he liveth and shall not perish but have Everlasting life And how fully he hath proved and sealed the Truth of his Word and Office to us I have so largely opened in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and unreasonableness of Infidelity and in my Life of Faith c. and since in my Houshold Catechizing that I will not here repeat it § 2. And as all his Word is full of promises of our future Glory at the Resurrection so we are not without assurance that at Death the departing Soul doth enter upon a State of Joy and Blessedness For 1. He expresly promised the penitent crucified Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 2. He gave us the Narrative or Parable of the damned sensualist and of Lazarus Luk. 16. to instruct us and not to deceive us 3. He tells the Sadduces that God is not the God of the Dead as his Subjects and Beneficiaries but of the Living Mat. 22. 32. 4. Henoch and Elias were taken up to Heaven and Moses that died appeared with Elias on the Mount Mat. 17. 5. He telleth us Luk. 12. 4. that they that kill the Body are not able to kill the Soul 6. And Christ's own Soul was commended into his Father's hands Luk. 23. 46. and was in Paradise when his Body was in the Grave to shew us what shall become of ours 7. And he hath promised that Where he is there shall his Servant be also Joh. 12. 26. And that the life here begun in us is Eternal life and that he that believeth in him shall not die but shall live by him as he liveth by the Father for he dwelleth in God and God in him and in Christ and Christ in him Joh. 17. 3. 6. 54. 3. 16 36. 6. 47 56 57 50. 1 Joh. 4. 5. 13. Luk. 17. 21. Rom. 14. 17. 8. And accordingly Stephen that saw Heaven opened prayed the Lord Jesus to receive his Spirit Act. 7. 5. 59. 9. And we are come to Mount Sion c. to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the Just made perfect Heb. 12. 22 23. 10. And Paul here desireth to depart and be with Christ as far better And to be absent from the Body and be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. 11. And the dead that die in the Lord are blessed from henceforth that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them 12. And if the disobedient Spirits be in Prison and the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the vengeance of eternal Fire 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude 7. then the Just have eternal Life And if the Jews had not thought the Soul immortal Saul had not desired the Witch to call up Samuel to speak with him The rest I now pass by We have many great and precious promises on which a departed Soul may trust 13. And Luk. 16. 9. Christ expresly saith that when we fail that is must leave this World we shall be received into the Everlasting habitations § 1. VII And it is not nothing to encourage us to hope in him that hath made all these Promises when we find how he heareth Prayers in this life and thereby assureth his Servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour We are apt in our distress to cry loud for Mercy and deliverances and when humane help faileth to promise God that if he now will save us we will thankfully acknowledg it his work and yet when we are delivered to return not only to security but to ingratitude and think that our deliverance came but in the course of common Providence and not indeed as an answer to our Prayers And therefore God in Mercy reneweth both our distresses and our deliverances that what once or twice will not convince us of many and great deliverances may This is my own case O how oft have I cryed to him when men and means were nothing and when no help in second Causes did appear and how oft and suddenly and mercifully hath he delivered me What sudden ease what removal of long afflictions have I had such extraordinary changes and beyond my own and others expectations when many plain-hearted upright Christians have by Fasting and Prayer sought God on my behalf as have over and over convinced me of Special Providence and that God is indeed a hearer of Prayers And wonders I have seen done for others also upon such Prayer more than for my self Yea and wonders for the Church and publick Societies Though I and others are too like those Israelites Psal 78. who cried to God in their troubles and he oft delivered them out of their distress but they quickly for got this Mercies and their Convictions Purposes and Promises when they should have praised the Lord for his Goodness and declared his works with thanksgiving to the Sons of Men. And what were all these Answers and Mercies but the fruits of Christ's Power Fidelity and Love the fulfilling of his Promises and the earnest of the greater blessings of Immortality which the same Promises give me Title to I know that no Promise of hearing Prayer setteth up our wills in absoluteness or above God's as if every will of our must be fulfilled if we do but put it into a fervent or confident Prayer But if we ask any thing through Christ according to his will expressed in his Promise he will hear us If a sinful love of this present life or of Ease or Wealth or Honour should cause me to pray to God against Death or against all sickness want reproach or other Trials as if I must live here in Prosperity for ever if I ask it this sinful desire and expectation is not the work of Faith but of Presumption What if God will not abate me my last or daily pains What if he will continue my life no longer who ever pray for
inclination and such as is agreeable to the nature of his Faculties And therefore our love and delight in all things is that uniting inclination in Man § 14. III. And I shall have a special Love to the Holy Society the triumphant Universal Church consisting of Christ Angels and Saints as they are specially amiable in the Image and Glory of God God himself loveth them more than his inferiour works that is his Essence which is Love and hath no degrees or change doth send forth fuller streams of good upon them or maketh them better and happier than the rest And my love will imitate the love of God in my Capacity And if Societies on Earth more holy and wise than others though imperfectly are very amiable what then will the heavenly Society be Of this I spake before of knowing them § 15. 1. Think here O my Soul how sweet a state unto thee it will be to Love the Lord Jesus thy glorâ—fied Head with perfect love When the glory of God which shineth in him will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure The highest created Perfection of Power Wisdom and Goodness refulgent in him will not give leave to thy Love to cease or intermit or abate its fervour When thou shalt see in the glorified Church the precious fruits of Christ's Redemption Grace and Love this also will feed thy love to him from whom this heavenly Glory cometh And when thou shalt feel thy self possest of perfect happiness by his Love to thee will not this also do its part Yea the remembrance of all his former Love what he did for thee and what he did in thee here on Earth how he called thee with a Holy calling how he washed thee in his Blood from all thy sins how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect Glory how he renewed thy Nature how he instructed and guided and preserved thee from thy Childhood and how many and how great sins enemies dangers and sufferings he saved thee from all this will constrain thee Everlastingly to love him Thus though he give the Kingdom to the Father as ceasing his Mediatory healing saving work of acquisition he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition God in him will be accessible and condescend to a suitable communion with us Joh. 17. 24. And as Christ is thy Life radically and efficiently as he is the giver of Grace and the Spirit of Love so he will be Objectively thy Life as he is Lovely and it will be formally thy Life to Love him and God in him for ever § 16. 2. Think also O my Soul how delectable it will be to Love as well as to know those Angels that most servently love the Lord They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee and more as they have been Lovers and Benefactors to the Church and to Mankind but far more as they are so many refulgent Stars which continually move and shine and burn in purest love to their Creator O blessed difference between that amiable Society of holy Spirits and this dark mad distracted wicked World Here Devils tempt me within and Devils incarnate persecute me without Blaspheming of God reviling godliness deriding the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred exercises malignant slandering of the Servants of God hating persecuting silencing and saying all manner of evil falsly of them for their Righteousness sake while such Crimes are pretended as they once falsly charged on Christ himself this is the Conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this World Atheism Infidelity Papal Church tyranny bloody Wars destroying the Righteous oppressing the Poor Adultery and Fornication Stigmatizing-Perjury Ambition Violence Covetousness deceit sottish Ignorance wilfulness in Sin hatred of Reproof revengeful Malice these and such like are the fruits of the Soil where I have long sojourned Though through the Grace of Christ among the faithful there have been better fruits And is not the Company of Holy Angels better than this With whom God is all who are even made up of shining Wisdom and holy Lovâ— and beneficent activity who are the blessed Choâ—e that melodiously sing forth the high Praises of their Maker Among whom God dwelleth as in his presence Chamber or his Temple and in whom he taketh his great delight With these I shall see or hear no evil No mixture of fools or wicked Ones do pollute or trouble their Society There will be no false Doctrine no evil Example no favouring Wickedness no accusing Goodness no hurtful Violence but holy powerful operative Love will be all and do all as their very Nature Life and Work And is it not better be a Door-keeper there than to dwell in the Pallaces of Wickedness And is not a Day with them better than a Thousand here § 17. 3. And with the holy Angels I shall love holy Souls that are made like unto them and joined with them in the same Society and it is likely with them Judge that is Rule the World All their infirmities are there put off with the Flesh they also are Spirits made up of holy Life and Light and Love There is none of their former ignorance errour imprudence selfishness contentiousness impatience or any other troubling hurtful thing When I think with what fervent love to God to Jesus Christ and to one another they will be perfectly united there alas how sad and how shameful is it that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions and hardly agree to call each other the Servants of God or to worship God in the same Assembliâ—â— But the remnants of dividing Principles viz. Pride Errour and Uncharitableness will be all left behind Society with imperfect Saints is sweet The imperfect Image of God upon them is amiable But their frailties here are so vexatious that it is hard to live with some of them in Peace But perfect Love will make them one and O how delightful will that communion of Saints be I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my Pilgrimage by the fragrancy and usefulness of his Servants graces How sweet have my bosom Friends been though mutable How sweet hath the Neighbourhood of the godly been How sweet have the holy Assemblies And how many hours of comfort have I there had How profitable have their Writings their Conference and their Prayers been What then will it be to live in the union of perfect Love with perfect Saints in Heaven for ever and with them concordantly to love the God of Love § 18. III. And as the Act and the Object of LOVE will constitute my felicity so will my Reception from the Love of God and his Creatures be sweeter to me than my own activity can be For it is Mutual Love that makes it up I shall not be the Fountain of my own delights nor can I act till I am acted nor offer any thing to God but what I have first received from him And Receive I shall abundantly
Nos quâ—que floruimus sed flos fuit ille 〈◊〉 Flâ—mmaque de stipula nostra brepusque fuiâ— Oâ— VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OPâ— ET PATâ— FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS AN O 168â— AETAT SUAE â—8 Farewell Vaine World as thou hast bin to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Life-Light-Love to it The Leavs Fruit are dropt for soyle Seed Heavens heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Râ—st BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS UPON PHIL. 1. 23. Written for his own Use in the latter Times of his corporal Pains and Weakness LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons at the Three golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Have no other use for a Preface to this Book but to give you a true excuse for its Publication I wrote it for my self unresolved whether any one should ever see it but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my Executors to publish or suppress it when I am dead as they saw cause But my Person being seized on and my Library and all my Goods distrained on by Constables and sold and I constrained to relinquish my House for preaching and being in London I knew not what to do with multitudes of Manuscripâ—â— that had long lain by me having no House to go to but a narrow hired Lodging with strangers Wherefore I cast away whole Volumes which I could not carry away both Controversies and Letters practical and Cases of Conscience but having newly lain divers Weeks Night and Day in waking torments Nephritick and Colick after other long pains and languor I took this Book with me in my removal for my own use in my further sickness Three Weeks after falling into another extream fit and expecting Death where I had no Friend with me to commit my Papers to meerly lest it should be lost I thought best to give it to the Printer I think it is so much of the work of all mens lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort that the same Thoughts may be needful for others that are so for me If any mislike the Title as if it imported that the Author is Dead let him know that I die daily and that which quickly will be almost is It 's suited to my own use They that it is unsuible to may pass it by If those mens lives were spent in serious preparing Thoughts of Death who are now studying to destroy each other and tear in pieces a distressed Land they would prevent much dolorous Repentance R. B. THE CONTENTS Doct. 1. THat the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ I. The necessity of believing this proved pag. 1 c. II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the difficulties or proofs p. 7. III. The certainty of it manifested 1. From the Immortality of the Soul which is proved p. 11. 1. The Soul is a substance 2. It is a substance formally differenced from lower substance by the Virtue of special Vital Activity Intellect and free will p. 14 3. It is not Annihilated at Death 4. Nor destroyed by dissolution of parts 5. Nor loseth its formal Power or Virtue p. 15. 6. Nor doth sleep or cease to act p. 16. 7. To cease to be Individuate by Vnion with any other common Spirit is not to be feared were it true p. 19. But it is not like to be true p. 31 c. II. The second proof It is a natural notice p. 33. III. From the duty of all men to seek a future happinessm p. 34. IV. From Man's capacity of knowing God c. as differenced from Bruits p. 37. V. From Godâ—s governing Justice p. 38. VI. From Revelation supernatural p. 39. VII From God's answering Prayers p. 42. VIII From our present communion with Angels p. 44. IX From Satan's temptations Witches Apparitions c. p. 45. X. Specially from the Operations of God's Spirit on our Souls preparing them for Glory p. 47. Faith excited and Objections answered in the Application The proofs summed up in Order p. 65. Why this Happiness is described by our being vvith Christ 1. What is included in our Being vvith Christ 1. Presence with Christ's glorified Body and Soul and God-head p. 66. 2. Vnion with him in each p. 73. Too near Vnion not to be feared as destroying individuation 3. Communion with him in each active and passive opened p. 74 c. We must DEPART that we may be with Christ I. From what p. 75. 1. From this Body and Life Yet it is far better so to do p. 76. 2. From all the fleshly Pleasures of this Life p. 83. Yet best 3. From the more manly delights of Study Books Friends c. considered 1. Of Knowledge and Books the vanity 2. Of Sermons p. 87. 3. Of Friends and Converse p. 95. 4. Of God's Word and Worship p. 98. Of Theology p. 99. Of my own labours herein p. 103. 6. Notice of the Affairs of the World p. 109. 7. From our Service to the Living p. 112. The Application to my self p. 115. To DEPART and to BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER or rather to be chosen p. 120. I. Simply better and properly at it is the fulfilling of God's will p. 122. II. Analogically better as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Vniverse and the Church III. Better to my self as to my own felicity p. 124. proved 1. By general Reasons from the efficients and means 2. The final Reasons 3. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect as to the Iuâ—uitive manner of knowledg and as to the matter Both opened 1. I shall know God better p 144. 2. And God's Works the Vniverse 3. And Jesus Christ 4. And the Church 5. And the Church triumphant the heavenly Jerusalem 6. And all God's Word for Matter and Method 7. God's present Works of Providence 8. The nature and worth of Mercies 9. And my self Body and Soul 10. And my fellow Creatures 11. And what the evil was from which I was delivered enemies dangers sins c. 4. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will I. Negatively p. 163. 1. Freed from Temptations of the Flesh World and Devil 2. There will nothing be in it that is against God my Neighbours or my self II. Positively 1. It will be conform to God's will The benefits of this p. 165. Fruition A fixed will The Object 1. God To love him and beloved of him is our end p. 169. He is a suitable full near Object II. The next Object God's golorius Image in the Perfection of the Vniverse p. 171. III. The Church Triumphant p. 174. 1. Jesus Christ 2. Angels 3. Holy Souls The Wills Reception in Glory p. 175. 1. What it is to be loved of God Excitations 179. 2. How
talk of Many Souls becoming One it must be by conjunction and increase of the Substance of that one Or when they say that they were alwaies One they will confess withal that they now differ in number as individuate in the body And who will say that Millions of Millios are no more than one of all those Millions Number is a sort of Quantity And all Souls in the world are more than Cain's or Abel's only One feeleth not what another feeleth One knoweth not what another knoweth And indeed though Souls have not such corporeal extension as passive gross bodily Matter hath yet as they are more noble they have a more noble sort of Extension Quantity or Degrees according to which all Mankind conceive of all the Spiritual Substance of the Universe yea all the Angels or all the Souls on Earth as being more and having more Substance than one man's Soul alone 2. And the Fathers for the most part especially the Greeks yea and the Second Council of Nice thought that Spirits created had a purer sort of Material Being which Tertullian called a Body and doubtless all created Spirits have somewhat of Passiveness for they do Recipere vel pati from the Divine Influx Only God is wholly impassive We are moved when we move and acted when we act And it is hard to conceive that when Matter is commonly called Passive that which is Passive should have no sort of Matter in a large sense taken And if it have any parts distinguishable they are by God divisible 3. But if the contrary be supposed that all Souls are no more than One and so that there is no place for uniting or partition there is no place then for the Objection of all Souls becoming One and of losing Individuation unless they mean by Annihilation § 53. But that God who as is said delighteth both in the Union and yet in the wonderful multiplicity of Creatures and will not make all Stars to be only One though Fire have a most uniting or aggregative inclination hath further given experimental notice that there is Individuation in the other world as well as here even innumerable Angels and Devils and not one only as Apparitions and Witches and many other evidences prove of which more anon So that all things considered there is no reason to fear that Souls shall lose their Individuation or Activity though they change their manner of action any more than their Being or formal Power And so it is naturally certain that they are Immortal § 54. And if Holy Souls are so far Immortal I need not prove that they will be Immortally Happy For their Holiness will infer it And few will ever dream that it shall there go ill with them that are good and that the most just and holy God will not use those well whom he maketh holy § 1. II. That holy Souls shall be hereafter happy seemeth to be one of the common notices of Nature planted in the consciences of mankind And it is therefore acknowledged by the generality of the world that freely use their understandings Most yea almost all the Heathen Nations at this day believe it besides the Mahometans And it is the most barbarous Cannibals and Brasilians that do not whose understandings have had the least improvement and who have rather an inconsiderate Nescience of it than a denying opposition And though some Philosophers denyed it they were a small and contemned party And though many of the rest were somewhat dubious it was only a certainty which they professed to want and not a probability or opinion that it was true And both the Vulgar and the deep studyed men believed it and those that questioned it were the half studyed Philosophers who not resting in the Natural notice nor yet reaching full intellectual Evidence of it by discourse had found out matter of difficulty to puzzle them and came not to that degree of wisdom as would have resolved them § 2. And even among Apostates from Christianity most or many still acknowledge the Souls Immortality and the Felicity and Reward of holy Souls to be of the common Notices known by nature to mankind Julian was so much perswaded of it that on that account he exhorteth his Priests and Subjects to great strictness and holiness of life and to see that the Christians did not exceed them And among us the Lord Herbert de Veritate and many others that seem not to believe our supernatural Revelations of Christianity do fully acknowledge it Besides those Philosophers who most opposed Christianity as Porphyrius Maximus Tyrius and such others § 3. And we find that this notice hath so deep a root in Nature that few of those that study and labour themselves into Bestiality or Sadduceism are able to excuss the fears of future misery but Conscience overcometh or troubleth them much at least when they have done the worst they can against it And whence should all this be in man and not in Beasts if man had no further reason of hopes and fears then they Are a few Sadduces wiser by their forced or crude conceits than all the World that are taught by Nature itself § 1. III. If the God of Nature have made it every mans certain duty to make it his Chief care and work in this life to seek for happiness hereafter then such a happiness there is for them that truly seek it But the antecedent is certain as I have elsewhere proved Ergo c. § 2. As to the antecedent The world is made up of three sorts of men as to the belief of future retribution 1. Such as take it for a certain Truth such are Christians Mahometans and most Heathens 2. Such as take it for Uncertain but most probable or likeliest to be true 3. Such as take it for Uncertain but rather think it Untrue For as none can be certain that it is false which indeed is true so I never yet met with one that would say he was certain it was false So that I need not trouble you with the mention of any other party or opinion But if any should say so it is easy to prove that he speaketh falsly of himself § 3. And that it is the Duty of all these but especially of the two former sorts to make it their Chief care and work to seek for happiness in the life to come is easily proved thus Natural reason requireth every man to seek that which is Best for himself with the greatest diligence But Natural reason saith that a Probability or Possibility of the future everlasting happiness is better and more worthy to be sought than any thing attainable in this present life which doth not suppose it Ergo c. § 4. The Major is past doubt Good and Felicity being necessarily desired by the will of man that which is Best and known so to be must be Most desired And the Minor should be as far past doubt to men that use not their sense against their
it and how earnestly soever Shall I â—â—â—refore forget how oft he hath heard Prayers for me 〈◊〉 how wonderfully he hath helped both me and others My Faith hath oft been helpt by such experiences and shall I forget them or question them without cause at last § 1. VIII And it is a subordinate help to my belief of Immortality with Christ to find so much evidence that Angels have friendly communion with us here and therefore we shall have communion with them hereafter They have charge of us and pitch their Tents about us they bear us up they rejoyce at our Repentance they are the regardful Witnesses of our behaviour they are Ministring Spirits for our Good they are Our Angels beholding the Face of our heavenly Father They will come with Christ in glorious attendance at the great and joyful Day And as his Executioners they will separate the Just from the Unjust And it is not only the Testimony of Scripture by which we know their communion with us but also some degree of experience Not only of Old did they appear to the Faithful as Messengers from God but of late times there have been Testimonies of their Ministration for us Of which see Zanchy de Angelis and Mr. I. Ambrose of our communion with Angels Many a Mercy doth God give us by their Ministry And they that are now so friendly to us and suitable to our communion and help and make up one Society with us do heâ—â—â— greatly encourage us to hope that we are made for the same Region work and company with these our blessed loving Friends They were once in a life of tryal it seems as we are now though not on Earth Jude 6. 2 Pet. 2. 4. And they that overcame and are confirmed rejoice in our victory and confirmation It is not an uninhabited World which is above us nor such as is beyond our capacity and hope we are come to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the perfected Just who together have discrete quantity or numerical difference notwithstanding their happy Union and communion § 1. IX And Satan himself though unwillingly hath many ways helped my belief of our Immortality and Future hopes 1. I have had many convincing proofs of Witches the Contracts they have made with Devils and the Power which they have received from them Beside the Volums of Remegius and Bodin and the Mallei Maleficorum Danaeus and others we had many score of them detected and many executed in one Year in Suffolk and Essex about 1644. And I have at this present a Flint Stone which was one of about 160. which were voided by the Urinary passage by a bewitched Child in Evesham yet living some of near an Ounce weight which was fully proved the Witch Executed and the Child upon her imprisonment freed To pass by many others § 2. And I have had convincing Testimony of Apparitions besides that famous one The Devil of Mascon and that in the shape of Lieutenant Collonel Bowen in Wales mentioned elsewhere And besides many Testimonies of haunted Houses however many or most such reports are but deceits § 3. From both these I gather 1. that there are Individual Inhabitants of the Invisible World and that Spirits have their numerical differences whatever Unity is among them and therefore we have reason to judge the same of separated Souls 2. That our Souls are designed to future happiness or misery which is implied in the foresaid contracts and endeavours of Devils for our ruine 3. That Faith and Holiness are the way of Life and Unbelief and Sin the way to misery which also is in these implied § 3. 3. And I have both read and partly seen convincing evidence that there is such an exercise of diabolical power as we commonly call Possession Whether all or most mad men are under such a Power as some think I determine not But that some are under it is evident The motions of the Body which I have seen seem beyond Man's Natural power The telling of secrets and things absent the speaking Languages never learnt the vomiting of Nails Glass Hairs c. and other such effects which the most learned sober impartial Physicians profess to have seen are credible Testimonies §4 4. And I have felt and heard and known from others of such a sort of Temptations as shew themselves to be the acts of malicious Spirits Enemies to Mankind The advantages that Satan taketh of a corrupted Phantasie which hath once taken in such an Image as may be his matter to Work upon is very remarkable I have known a worthy learned Pious Person who from his youth to old Age upon such an advantage hath been so tempted with Pleasure to torment himself even his own Flesh as that for many years together in a partial melancholy at divers fits he was not able though Conscience also tormented him for it to forbear Many by animmodest look or touch have given Satan such a power upon their Phantasies as no Reason Conscience or resolution could of a long time overcome Few men I think that observe themselves have not at sometime had experience of such inward temptations as shew that the Author of them is an invincible Enemy All which tell us 1. That there are Individual Spirits 2. Yea Devils that seek Man's misery 3. And that by the way of sin and consequently that a future happiness or misery must be expected by us all § 1. X. But the great and sure Pregnosticks of our Immortal Happiness is from the Renewing Operations of the Spirit of Holiness on the Soul 1. That such a Renewing work there is all true Believers in some measure feel 2. And that it is the earnest of Heaven is proved thus § 2. 1. If it be a Change of greatest Benefit to Man 2. And if Heaven be the very Summ and End of it 3. And if it overcome all fleshly worldly Opposition 4. And can be wrought by none but God 5. And was before promised by Jesus Christ to all sound believers 6. And is universally wrought in them all either only or eminently above all others 7. And was promised them as a Pledge and Earnest of Glory then it can be no less than such a Pledge and Earnest But the former are all true c. § 3. 1. That the Change is of grand importance unto Man appeareth in that it is the Renovation of his Mind and Will and Life It repaireth his depraved faculties It causeth Man to live as Man who is degenerated to a life too like to Bruits By God's permitting many to live in Blindness Wickedness and Confusion and to be tormentors of themselves and one another by Temptations Injuries Wars and Cruelty we the fullier see what it is that Grace doth save men from and what a difference it maketh in the World Those that have lived unholily in their youth do easily find the difference in themselves when they are renewed But to
water Brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God My Soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God Psa 40. 12. And would I not have my Prayers heard and my desires granted What else is the summ of lawful Prayers but God himself If I desire any thing more than God what sinfulness is in those desires and how sad is their signification How oft have I said Whom have I in Heaven but Thee and there is none on Earth I desire besides Thee It is good for me to draw near to God Psal 73. 25 28. Woe to me if I did dissemble If not Why should my Soul draw back Is it because that Death stands in the way Do not my fellow Creatures die for my daily Food And is not my passage secured by the Love of my Father and the Resurrection and Intercession of my Lord Can I see the Light of heavenly Glory in this darksome shell and womb of Flesh § 2. All Creatures are more or less excellent and glorious as God is more or less Operative and refulgent in them and by that Operation communicateth most of himself unto them Though he be immense and indivisible his Operations and Communications are not equal And that is said to be Nearest to Him which hath most of those Operations on it and that without the intervenient causality of any second created Cause and so all those are in their Order Near unto him as they have Noblest Natures and fewest intervenient Causes far am I from presuming to think that I am or shall be the Best and Noblest of God's Creatures and so that I shall be so near him as to be under the influx of no second or created Causes of which more anon But to be as Near as my Nature was ordained to approach is but to attain the End and Perfection of my Nature § 3. And as I must not look to be the Nearest to Him as he is the first Efficient no more must I as he is the first Dirigent or governing Cause As now I am under the government of his Officers on Earth I look for ever to be under subgovernours in Heaven My glorified Saviour must be my Lord and Ruler and Who else under him I know not If Angels are not equal in Perfection nor as is commonly supposed equal in Power nor without some regimental order among themselves I must not conclude that no created Angel or Spirit shall have any government over me But it will be so Pure and Divine as that the blessed Effects of God's own Government will besweetly powerful therein If the Law was given by Angles and the Angel of God was in the burning Bush and the Angel conducted the People through the Wilderness and yet all these things are ascribed to God much more near and glorious will the Divine Regiment there be whoever are the Administrators § 4. And as I must expect to be under some created Efficient and Dirigent Causes there so must I expect to have some subordinate Ends Else there would not be a proportion and harmony in causalities whatever nobler Creatures are above me and have their Causalities upon me I must look to be finally for those nobler Creatures When I look up and think what a world of glorious Beings are now over me I dare not presume to think that I shall finally any more than Receptively be the Nearest unto God and that I am made for None but Him I find here that I am made and ruled and sanctified for the Publick or Common Good of many as above my own of which I am past doubt And I am sure that I must be finally for my glorified Redeemer and for what other Spiritual Beings or Intelligences that are above me little do I know And God hath so ordered all his creatures as that they are mutually Ends and Means for and to one another though not in an Equality nor in the same respects But whatever nearer Ends there will be I am sure that he who is the first Efficient and Dirigent will be the ultimate final Cause And I shall be in this respect as near him as is due to he rank and order of my Nature I shall be useful to he Ends which are answerable to my Perfection § 5. And if it be the honour of a Servant to have an honourable Master and to be appointed to the most honourable work If it be some honour to a Horse above a Swine or a Worm or Fly that he serveth more nearly for the use of Man yea for a Prince will it not be also my advancement to be ultimately for God and subordinately for the highest created Natures and this in such Services as are suitable to my Spiritual and Heavenly State § 6. For I am far from thinking that I shall be above Service and have none to do For Activity will be my Perfection and my Rest And all such Activity must be Regular in harmony and order of Causes and for its proper use And what though I know not now fully what service it is that I must do I know it will be good and suitable to the blessed state which I shall be in And it is enough that God and my Redeemer know it and that I shall know it in due time when I come to practice it of which more afterward § 7. The inordinate Love of this Body and present composition seduceth Souls to think that all their use and work is for its maintenance and prosperity and when the Soul hath done that and is separated from Flesh it hath nothing to do but must lie idle or be as nothing or have no considerable work or pleasure As if there were nothing in the whole World but this little fluid mass of matter for a Soul to work upon As if itself and all the Creatures and God were nothing or no fit Objects for a Soul And why not hereafter as well as now Or as if that which in our compounded state doth Operate on and by its Organs had no other way of Operation without them As if the Musician lost all his power or were dead when his Instrument is out of tune or broken and could do nothing else but play on that As if the fiery part of the Candle were annihilated or transmutate as some following-Philosphers imagine when the Candle goeth out and were not fire and in action still Or as if that Sun beam which I shut out or which passeth from our Horizon were annihilated or did nothing when it shineth not with us Had it no other individual to illuminate or to terminate its beams or action were it nothing to illuminate the common Air Though I shall not always have a Body to Operate in and upon I shall always have God and a Saviour and a world of fellow-Creatures and when I shine not in this Lanthorn and see not by these Spectacles nor imaginarily in a Glass I shall yet see things suitable
intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
entrance of the Inheritance of Saints And yet alas Darkness Darkness is still my misery There is Light round about me in thy word and works but darkness is within me And if my Eye be dark the Sun will be no Sun to me Alas my Lord it is noâ— all the Learning in the World no not of Theology that consisteth in the knowledge of Words and Methods which I can take for the satisfactory heavenly Light To know what thou hast written in the Sacred Book is nor enough to make me know my glorified Saviour my Father and my home It must be a Light from Heaven that must shew me Heaven and a Light accompanied with Vital heat that must turn to Love and Joy within me O Let me not have only dreaming knowledge of Words and Signs but quickning Light to shew the Things which these words do signifie to my Mâ—nd and Heart Surely the Faith By which we must live must be a lâ—ving Faith And must reach further than to Words how true soever Can Faith live in the Dark What is it but an effect of thine Illumination What is my Unbelief but the Darkness of my Soul Lord Iesus scatter all these mists Make thy way O thou Son of Righteousness into this benighred mind O send thine Advocate to silence every temptation that is against thy truth and thee and thine Agent to prosecute thy cause against thine Enemies and mine and to be the resident Witness of thy Verity and my Sonship and Salvation Hearing of thee is not satisfactory to me It must be the Presence and Operation of thy Light and Love shed abroad by thy Spirit on my Heart that must quiet and content my Soul I confess with shame that I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am unworthy to have any glimpse or taste of Heaven But so did many that are now entertained and feasted by thy Love in Glory My Lord I know that Heaven is not far from me It is not I believe one Days or Hours journey to a separated Soul How quick is the communion of my Eyes with the Sun that seems far off And couldst thou not shew it me in a moment Is not Faith a seeing Grace It can see the invisible God and the unseen World the new Jerusalem the innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the perfected Just if it be animated by thine influx Without which it can do nothing and is nothing Thou that oft healedst the Blind here in the Flesh didst tell us that it is much more thy work to illuminate Souls It is but forgiving all my sins and removing this film that sin hath gathered and my illuminated Soul will see thy Glory I know that the vail of Flesh must be also rent before I shall see thee with open Face and know my fellow Citizens above as I am known It is not Heaven on Earth that I am begging for But that I may see it from Mount Nebo and have the bunch of Grapes the Pledge and the first Fruits that Faith and Hope which may kindle Love and Desire and make me run my Race in Patience and live and die in the Joy which beseemeth an Heir of Heaven But if my part on Earth must be no greater than yet it is let it make me the wearier of this Dungeon and groan more fervently to be with thee and long for the day when all my longing shall be satisfied and my Soul be filled with thy light and love § 24. And doubtless as I shall love the Angels and Saints in Heaven so I shall some way in subordination to Christ be a Receiver from them Our love will be mutual And which way soever I owe duty I shall expect some answerable return of benefit The Sun shineth upon the Stars as well as on the Earth and the Stars on one another If Angels are greatly useful to me here it 's like they will be much more there where I shall be a more capable receiver It will be no diminution to Christ's honour that he there maketh use of my fellow Creatures to my joy no more than it is here The whole Creation will be still one compaginated frame and the heavenly Society will for ever retain their Relation to each other and their aptitude and disposition to the duties and benefits of those Relations And as we shall be far sitter for them than here we are so shall we have far more comfort in them How gloriously will God shine in the glory of the Blessed How delightful will it be to see their Perfection in Wisdom Holiness Love and Concord What Voices they use or what Communication instead of Voices we shall shortly know But surely there is a blessed harmony of Minds and Wills and Practice All are not equal but all accord to love and praise their glorious God and readily to obey him and perfectly to love each other There is no jarring or discordant Spirit that is out of tune no separation or opposition to each other As God's love in Christ is our full and final happiness so Nature which hath made us sociable teacheth us to desire to be loved of each other but especially by wise and worthy Persons Saints and Angels in Heaven will love incomparably better than our dearest Friends on Earth can do and better than they did themselves when we were on Earth For they will love that best which is best and where there is most of God appearing Else it were not intellectual love And therefore they will love us as much better when we come to Heaven as we shall be better If we go from loving friends on Earth we shall go to them that love us far more The love of these here doth but pitty us in our pains and go weeping with our Carkasses to the Grave But the love of those above will joyfully convoy or welcome out Souls to their triumphing Society All the holy Friends that we thought we had lost that went before us we shall find rejoicing there with Christ And O what a glorious state will be that common uniting and united love If two or three Candles joined together make a greater flame and light what would Ten thousand Stars united do When all the LOVE of Angels and Saints in full Perfection shall be so united as to make ONE LOVE to God that is One and to one another who are there all one in Christ O what a glorious LOVE will that be That LOVE and JOY will be the same thing And that One universal LOVE will be One universal JOY Little know we how great a Mercy it is to be here commanded to love our Neighbours as our selves and much more to be effectually taught of God so to love one another And did we all here live in such unfeigned Love we should be like to Heaven as bearing the Image of the God of Love But alas our Societies here are small our Goodness which is our Amiableness wofully imperfect and mixt with loathsom
1 Pet. 2. 5. I refuse not Lord to lie in Tears and Groans when thou requirest it and do not thou refuse those Tears and Groans but O give me better that I may have better of thine own to offer thee And by this prepare me for the far better which I shall find with Christ And that which is Best to us thy Creatures will be accepted as Best by Thee who art glorified and pleased in the Perfection of thy works § 4. II It is at least very probable that God maketh glorified Spirits his Agents and Ministers of much of his beneficence to the Creatures that are below them For 1. We see that where he endueth any Creature with the noblest endowments he maketh most use of that Creature to the benefit of others We shall in Heaven be most furnished to do good and that furniture will not be unused 2. And Christ tells us that we shall be like or equal to the Angels which though it mean not simply and in all things yet it meaneth more than to be above carnal Generation for it speaketh of a similitude of Nature and State as the Reason of the otheâ— And that the Angels are God's Ministers for the good of his chosen in this World and Administrators of much of the Affairs on Faith 〈◊〉 past all doubt 3. The Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 the Saintâ— shall Judg the World and Angels And Judging in Scripture is oft put for Ruling It is therefore probable at least that the Devils and the Damned shall be put under the Saints and that with the Angels they shall be employed in some Ministerial Oversight of the Inhabitants and Affairs of the promised New-Earth 4. And when even the more noble Superiour Bodies even the Stars are of so great use and influx to inferiour Bodies it is like that accordingly Superiour Spirits will be of use to the Inhabitants of the World below them § 5. But I think it not meet to venture here upon uncertain conjectures beyond the revelation of God's Word and therefore shall add no more but conclude that God knoweth what use to make of us hereafter as well as here and that if there were no more for us to do in Heaven but with perfect Knowledg Love and Joy to hold communion with God and all the heavenly Society it were enough to attract a sensible and considerate Soul to fervent desires to be at home with God § 6. And here I must not overpass my rejection of the injurious opinion of too many Philosophers and Divines who exclude all Sense and Affection from Heaven and acknowledge nothing there but Intellect and Will And this is because they find Sense and Affection in the Bruits and they think that the souls of Bruits are but some quality or perishing temperament of Matter and therefore that Sense and Affection is in us no better § 7. But 1. What felicity can we conceive of without any affection of delight or joy Certainly bare Volition now without these doth seem to be no felicity to us Nor knowledg neither if there were no delight in knowing § 8. 2. Yea I leave it to mens experience to judge whether there be now any such thing in us as proper willing which is not also some internal sense of and affection to the good which we will If it be Complacency or the Pleasedness of the Will this signifies some Pleasure and Love in the first act is nothing else but such an Appetite If it be Desire it hath in it a Pleasedness in the thing desired as in esse cognito as it is thought on by us and what Love is without all sense and affection § 9. 3. Why doth the Scripture ascribe Love and Joy to God and Angels if there were not some reason for it Doubtless there is great difference between the heavenly Love and Joy and ours here in the Body And so there is also between their knowledge and ours and their Will and ours But it is not that theirs is less or lower than ours but somwhat more excellent which ours giveth us some analogical or imperfect formal notice of § 10. 4. And what though Bruits have Sense and Affection doth it follow therefore that we have none now Or that we shall have none hereafter Bruits have Life And must we therefore have no Life hereafter because it is a thing that 's common â—oBruits Rather as now we have all that the Bruits have and more so shall we then have Life and Sense and Affection of a nobler sort than Bruits and more Is not God the Living God Shall we say that he liveth not because Bruits live Or rather that they live a sensitive life and Man a Sensitive and Intellectual because God is Essential Transcendent Infinite Life that makes them live § 11. 5. But if they say that there is no Sensation or Affection but by bodily Organs I answered before to that the Body feeleth nothing at all but the Soul in the Body The Soul uniteth itself most nearly to the Igneous-aereal parts called the Spirits and in them it feeleth seeth tasteth smelleth c. And that Soul that feeleth and seeth doth also inwardly love desire and rejoice And that Soul which doth this in the Body hath the same power and faculty out of the Body And if they judge by the cessation of sensation when the Organs are undisposed or dead so they might as well conclude against our future Intellection and Will whose operation in an Apoplexy we no more perceive than that of Sense But I have before shewed that the Soul will not want exercise for its Essential faculties for want of Objects or bodily Organs and that men conclude basely of the souls of Bruits as if they were not an enduring substance without any proof or probability And tell us idle dreams that they are but vanishing temperaments c. which are founded on another Dream that FIRE or the Motive-Illuminative-Calefactive Cause is no substance neither and so our unnatural Somatists know none of the most excellent substances which actuate all the rest but only the more base and gross which are actuated by them and they think they have well acquit themselves by telling us of subtâ—le actâ—d Matter and Motion without understanding what any Living Active-Motive Faculty or Virtue is And because no Man knoweth what God doth with the souls of Bruits whether they are only one common sensitive soul of a more common Body or whether Individuate still and Transmigrant from Body to Body or what else Therefore they make Ignorance a plea for Errour and feign them to be no substances or to be Annihilate § 12. I doubt not but Sensation as is aforesaid is an excellent Operation of the Essential faculties of real substances called Spirits and that the highest and noblest Creatures have it in the highest excellency and though God that fitteth every thing to its use hath given e. g. a Dog a more perfect Sense of Smelling than a Man
and ease a Man's Faith is not tried to the uttermost by actual forsaking all And yet an easy Death alone doth not fully try a Man For they that know that all must die may submit to this who cannot bear long pains before it But great and long pains and the Sentence of Death together are the trial And if God will so try me why should I repine Flesh will groan but the Mind may obediently submit It is but Flesh that Flesh that hath tempted and imprisoned my Soul I have too much loved it and am too loth to leave it And is it not Mercy from God to make me weary of it God is engaged against Idols that is all that is loved and pleased before him and if any thing that 's likest to be this Flesh It 's corruptibility tells us that both its pleasure and its pain will be but short Long pain is usually tolerable And intolerable pain will conquer Nature and not be long The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us and his strength is manifested in our weakness when he will not take the Thorn out of our Flesh though as Christ and Paul did we pray thrice or oftner And to be impatient with Death is to repine that we are born Mortal men and to fly from Heaven and all true Hopes and all the Felicity purchased by Christ And is this renouncing the World and trusting Christ for Life everlasting And why fear we that which endeth all our pains and fears A true Believer never suffereth so much but his Mercies are far more and greater than his sufferings His Soul is united to Christ His hopes of Heaven have a sure Foundation He is sealed up to Glory Rest and Joy are near at hand And former Mercies should not be forgotten And should not such men patiently endure O what a shameful contradiction is it to choose Heaven as our only Portion to believe in Christ for it and to seek it as the business of all our lives and yet to be loth to die that we may obtain it and to fly with fear from that which we so seek and hope for What a contradiction is it to call God our God and Father the God of Love and to call Christ our Gracious glorified Redeemer and yet to Fly from his presence with distrustful fear Almighty love may correct us may kill us but it cannot finally hurt true Believers So much of Moses and Elias discourse of the Sufferings and Death of Christ § 13. Sure it is not true that the Souls of the Fathers before Christ's coming did not enter into Heaven but lay in some inferiour Limbus For Moses and Elias came from Heaven their shining glory shewed that and their discourse with Christ and the Voice and glory that went with them And it is not to be thought that they were separated from the rest of the Souls of the Faithful and with Henoch were in Heaven by themselves alone and the rest elsewhere Though it 's said that God's House hath many Mansions and there are various degrees of Glory yet the blessed are all Fellow-Citizens of one Society and Children in one Family of God And they that came from East and West shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the believing Thief with Christ in Paradise § 14. It seems that Moses and Elias appeared thus to fore shew the Resurrection of Christ and of the Faithful and to make it easier to the three Disciples to believe it Why should they doubt whether Christ should rise when they saw Moses that was risen before him And why should they doubt of the Resurrection of the Faithful and the Glory following when they saw these glorified Saints Some think that this Apparition was for the strengthening of Christ himself whose humane Nature had use for such Ministry also of Angels But it 's more certain that it was for the strengthening of the Disciples Faith and of ours by their Testimony As it 's said Joh. 12. 30. This Voice came not because of me but for your sakes § 15. It is much worth our noting in what a Communion this Specimen of the Kingdom of Heaven was represented in the holy Mount Here was a Voice of God and a glimpse of his Glory Here was our Redeemer in a glimpse of his Glory Here was a Moses and Elias in a glimpse of their Glory And here were three beloved Disciples yet in the Flesh and in weakness of Faith which needed such confirmation God our Father and our Saviour the Saints of Heaven and those on Earth are all of one Society or Kingdom there is a near relation and a near communion among them all When the Eternal Word disdained not so wonderful condescension as to come to us in the form of a Servant even of a poor despised Crucified Man it 's less wonder that Moses and Elias should come down as his Witnesses and Servants Heb. 12. 23 c. The heavenly Jerusalem and City of the Living God of which we are Enrolled Burgesses or Heirs hath many parts There is the Assembly of the first Born and innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covâ—nant and God the Judge of all O what holy glorious joyful Company shall we have above Christ and his Angels will not despise the least of Saints § 16. But what was the Introduction to this Apparition and Transfiguration It was Christ's praying Luk. 9. 28 29. He went up into a Mountain to pray and as he prayed he was transfigured Surely this is written to invite and encourage us to pray We are in greater need than Christ It 's folly in Unbelievers to think Prayer vain because God is unchangeable We are not unchangeable And the exercise of Faith dependance on God and true desires being the Conditions required in a due Receiver maketh those Blessings become ourâ—s which else we had been uncapable of God who commandeth fervent Prayer hath promised to answer it Though we must not think to be the Rulers of the World nor have whatever our Flesh or solly doth desire because we ask it earnestly yet true Prayer is the appointed way for obtaining what we need and is best for us and we are fitted to receive And as Christ had this wonderful return to his Prayers his Servants have experience that their choicest Mercies for Soul and Body have come this way § 17. Though the three Disciples were admitted to this glorious Society how different was their case from that of Christ and Moses and Elias In the beginning of the heavenly concourse they were asleep with heaviness Even while this glorious Company stood near them Alas such is our infirmity in Flesh and such a Clog are these earthly Bodies to us that when God is present and Heaven is before us and we have the greatest cause to watch and pray a heavy weary sluggish Body even