being content to enjoy himself except he may enjoy God too and himself in God How he denyes himself for God To deny a mans self is not to deny Right Reason for that were to deny God in stead of denying himself for God Self-love the only Principle that acts wicked men The happy privileges of a Soul united to God pag. 385. Chap. III. 3. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Properties c. of which this is one 1. Religion enlarges all the Faculties of the Soul and begets a true Ingenuity Liberty and Amplitude the most Free and Generous Spirit in the Minds of Good men The nearer any Being comes to God the more large and free the further is slides from God the more streightened Sin is the sinking of mans Soul from God into sensual Selfishness An account when the most Generous freedom of the Soul is to be taken in its just proportions How Mechanical and Formal Christians make an Art of Religion set it such bounds as may not exceed the scant Measure of their Principles and then fit their own Notions as so many Examples to it A Good man finds not his Religion without him but as a living Principle within him God's Immutable and Eternal Goodness the Unchangeable Rule of his Will Pecvish Self-will'd and Imperious men shape out such Notions of God as are agreeable to this Pattern of themselves The Truly Religious have better apprehensions of God pag. 392. Chap. IV. The Second Property discovering the Nobleness of Religion viz. That it restores man to a just power and dominion over himself enables him to overcome his Self-will and Passions Of Self-will and the many Evils that flow from it That Religion does nowhere discover its power and prowess so much as in subduing this dangerous and potent Enemy The Highest and Noblest Victories are those over our Self-will and Passions Of Self-denial and the having power over our Wills the Happiness and the Privileges of such a State How that Magnanimity and Puissance which Religion begets in Holy Souls differs from and excells that Gallantry and Puissance which the great Nimrods of this world boast of pag. 397. Chap. V. The Third Property or Effect discovering the Nobleness of Religion viz. That it directs and enables a man to propound to himself the Best End viz. The Glory of God and his own becoming like unto God Low and Particular Ends and Interests both debase and streighten a mans Spirit The Universal Highest and Last End both ennobles and enlarges it A man is such as the End is he aims at The great power the End hath to mold and fashion man into its likeness Religion obliges a man not to seek himself nor to drive a trade for himself but to seek the Glory of God to live wholy to him and guides him steddily and uniformly to the One Chief Good and Last End Men are prone to flatter themselves with a pretended aiming at the Glory of God A more full and distinct explication of what is meant by a mans directing all his actions to the Glory of God What it is truly and really to glorifie God God's seeking his Glory in respect of us is the flowing forth of his Goodness upon us Our seeking the Glory of God is our endeavouring to partake more of God and to resemble him as much as we can in true Holiness and every Divine Vertue That we are not nicely to distinguish between the Glory of God and our own Salvation That Salvation is nothing else for the main but a true Participation of the Divine Nature To love God above our selves is not to love him above the Salvation of our Souls but above our particular Beings and above our sinfull affections c. The Difference between Things that are Good relatively and those that are Good absolutely and Essentially That in our conformity to these God is most glorified and we are made most Happy pag. 403. Chap. VI. The Fourth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it begets the greatest Serenity and Composedness of Mind and brings the truest Contentment the purest and most satisfying Joy and Pleasure to every holy Soul God as being that Uniform chief Good and the One last End does attract and fix the Soul Wicked men distracted through a Multiplicity of Objects and Ends. How the restless Appetite of our Wills after some Supreme Good leads to the knowledge as of a Deity so of the Unity of a Deity How the Joys and Delights of Good men differ from and far excell those of the Wicked The Constancy and Tranquillity of the Spirits of Good men in reference to External troubles All Perturbations of the Mind arise from an Inward rather then an Outward Cause The Stoicks Method for attaining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and true rest examined and the Insufficiency of it discovered A further Illustration of what has been said concerning the Peacefull and Happy State of Good men from the contrary State of the Wicked pag. 412. Chap. VII The Fifth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it advanceth the Soul to an holy boldness and humble familiarity with God and to a comfortable confidence concerning the Love of God towards it and its own Salvation Fearfulness Consternation of Mind and frightfull passions are consequent upon Sin and Guilt These together with the most dismall deportments of Trembling and amazement are agreeable to the nature of the Devil who delights to be serv'd in this manner by his worshippers Love Joy and Hope are most agreeable to the nature of God and most pleasing to him The Right apprehensions of God are such as are apt to beget Love to God Delight and Confidence in him A true Christian is more for a solid and well-grounded Peace then for high raptures and feelings of joy How a Christian should endeavour the Assurance of his Salvation That he should not importunately expect or desire some extraordinary manifestations of God to him but rather look after the manifestation of the life of God within him the foundation or beginning of Heaven and Salvation in his own Soul That Self-resignation and the subduing of our own Wills are greatly available to obtain Assurance The vanity and absurdity of that Opinion viz. That in a perfect resignation of our Wills to God's will a man should be content with his own Damnation and to be the subject of Eternal wrath in Hell if it should so please God pag. 423. Chap. VIII The Sixth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it Spiritualizes Material things and carries up the Souls of Good men from Sensible and Earthly things to things Intellectual and Divine There are lesser and fuller representations of God in the Creatures To converse with God in the Creation and to pass out of the Sensible World into the Intellectual is most effectually taught by Religion Wicked men converse not with God as shining out in the Creatures they
into the Soul of man wasts and eats out the innate vigour of the Soul and casts it into such a deep Lethargy as that it is not able to recover it self But Religion like that Balsamum vitae being once conveighed into the Soul awakens and enlivens it and makes it renew its strength like an Eagle and mount strongly upwards towards Heaven and so uniting the Soul to God the Centre of life and strength it renders it undaunted and invincible Who can tell the inward life and vigour that the Soul may be fill'd with when once it is in conjunction with an Almighty Essence There is a latent and hidden virtue in the Soul of man which then begins to discover it self when the Divine Spirit spreads forth its influences upon it Every thing the more Spiritual it is and the higher and nobler it is in its Being the more active and vigorous it is as the more any thing falls and sinks into Matter the more dull and sluggish unwieldy it is The Platonists were wont to call all things that participated most of Matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now nothing doth more purifie more sublimate and exalt the Soul then Religion when the Soul suffers God to sit within it as a refiner and purifier of Silver and when it abides the day of his coming for he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers sope Mal. 3. Thus the Soul being purified and spiritualliz'd and changed more and more into the glorious Image of God is able to doe all things out of weakness is made strong gives proof of its Divine vigour and activity and shews it self to be a Noble and Puissant Spirit such as God did at first create it CHAP. V. The Third Property or Effect discovering the Nobleness of Religion viz. That it directs and enables a man to propound to himself the Best End viz. The Glory of God and his own becoming like unto God Low and Particular Ends and Interests both debase and streighten a mans Spirit The Universal Highest and Last End both ennobles and enlarges it A man is such as the End is he aims at The great power the End hath to mold and fashion man into its likeness Religion obliges a man not to seek himself nor to drive a trade for himself but to seek the Glory of God to live wholy to him and guides him steddily and uniformly to the One Chief Good and Last End Men are prone to flatter themselves with a pretended aiming at the Glory of God A more full and distinct explication of what is meant by a mans directing all his actions to the Glory of God What it is truly and really to glorifie God God's seeking his Glory in respect of us is the flowing forth of his Goodness upon us Our seeking the Glory of God is our endeavouring to partake more of God and to resemble him as much as we can in true Holiness and every Divine Vertue That we are not nicely to distinguish between the Glory of God and our own Salvation That Salvation is nothing else for the main but a true Participation of the Divine Nature To love God above our selves is not to love him above the Salvation of our Souls but above our particular Beings and above our sinfull affections c. The Difference between Things that are Good relatively and those that are Good absolutely and Essentially That in our conformity to these God is most glorified and we are made most Happy THE Third Property or Effect whereby Religion discovers its own Excellency is this That it directs and enables a man to propound to himself the Best End and Scope of life viz. The Glory of God the Highest Being and his own assimilation or becoming like unto God That Christian in whom Religion rules powerfully is not so low in his ambitions as to pursue any of the things of this world as his Ultimate End his Soul is too big for earthly designes and interests but understanding himself to come from God he is continually returning to him again It is not worth the while for the Mind of Man to pursue any Perfection lower then its own or to aim at any End more ignoble then it self is There is nothing that more streightens and confines the free-born Soul then the particularity indigency and penury of that End which it pursues when it complies most of all with this lower world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is well observed by an excellent Philosopher the true Nobleness and Freedome of it is then most disputable and the Title it holds to true Liberty becomes most litigious It never more slides and degenerates from it self then when it becomes enthrall'd to some Particular interest as on the other side it never acts more freely or fully then when it extends it self upon the most Universal End Every thing is so much the more Noble quò longiores habet fines as was well observ'd by Tully As low Ends debase a mans spirit supplant rob it of its birth-right so the Highest and Last End raises and ennobles it and enlarges it into a more Universal and comprehensive Capacity of enjoying that one Unbounded Goodness which is God himself it makes it spread and dilate it self in the Infinite Sphere of the Divine Being and Blessedness it makes it live in the Fulness of Him that fills all in all Every thing is most properly such as the End is which is aim'd at the Mind of man is alwaies shaping it self into a conformity as much as may be to that which is his End and the nearer it draws to it in the atchievement thereof the greater likeness it bears to it There is a Plastick Virtue a Secret Energy issuing forth from that which the Mind propounds to itself as its End to mold and fashion it according to its own Model The Soul is alwaies stamp'd with the same Characters that are engraven upon the End it aims at and while it converses with it and sets it self before it it is turned as Wax to the Seal to use that phrase in Job Man's Soul conceives all its Thoughts and Imaginations before his End as Laban's Ewes did their young before the Rods in the watering troughs He that pursues any worldly interest or earthly thing as his End becomes himself also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earthly the more the Soul directs it self to God the more it becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-like deriving a print of that glory and beauty upon it self which it converseth with as it is excellently set forth by the Apostle But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory That Spirit of Ambition and Popularity that so violently transports the Minds of men into a pursuit of Vain-glory makes them as vain as that Popular air they live upon the Spirit of this world that draws forth a mans designes after worldly interests makes him
as unstable unconstant tumultuous and perplex'd a thing as the world is On the contrary the Spirit of true Religion steering and directing the Mind and Life to God makes it an Uniform Stable and quiet thing as God himself is it is only true Goodness in the Soul of man guiding it steddily and uniformly towards God directing it and all its actions to the one Last End and Chief Good that can give it a true consistency and composedness within it self All Self-seeking and Self-love do but imprison the Soul and confine it to its own home the Mind of a Good man is too Noble too Big for such a Particular life he hath learn'd to despise his own Being in comparison of that Uncreated Beauty and Goodness which is so infinitely transcendent to himself or any created thing he reckons upon his choice and best affections and designes as too choice and precious a treasure to be spent upon such a poor sorry thing as himself or upon any thing else but God himself This was the life of Christ and is in some degree the life of every one that partakes of the Spirit of Christ. Such Christians seek not their own glory but the glory of him that sent them into this world they know they were brought forth into this world not to set up or drive a trade for themselves but to serve the will pleasure of him that made them to finish that work he hath appointed them It were not worth the while to have been born or to live had it been only for such a penurious End as our selves are it is most God-like and best suits with the Spirit of Religion for a Christian to live wholy to God to live the life of God having his own life hid with Christ in God and thus in a sober sense he becomes Deified This indeed is such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deification as is not transacted merely upon the Stage of Fancy by Arrogance and Presumption but in the highest Powers of the Soul by a living and quickning Spirit of true Religion there uniting God and the Soul together in the Unity of Affections Will and End I should now pass from this to another Particular but because many are apt to misapprehend the Notion of God's glory and flatter themselves with their pretended and imaginary aiming at the Glory of God I think it may be of good use a little further and more distinctly to unfold the Designe that a Religious mind drives on in directing it self and all its actions to God We are therefore to consider that this doth not consist in some Transient thoughts of God and his Glory as the End we propound to our selves in any Undertakings a man does not direct all his actions to the Glory of God by forming a Conception in his Mind or stirring up a strong Imagination upon any Action That that must be for the Glory of God it is not the thinking of God's glory that is glorifying of him As all other parts of Religion may be apishly acted over by Fancy and Imagination so also may the Internal parts of Religion many times be acted over with much seeming grace by our Fancy and Passions these often love to be drawing the pictures of Religion and use their best arts to render them more beautifull and pleasing But though true Practical Religion derives its force and beauty through all the Lower Powers of a mans Soul yet it hath not its rise nor throne there as Religion consists not in a Form of Words which signifie nothing so neither doth it consist in a Set of Fancies or Internal apprehensions Our Saviour hath best taught what it is to live to God's glory or to glorifie God viz. to be fruitfull in all holiness and to live so as that our lives may shine with his grace spreading it self through our whole man We rather glorifie God by entertaining the Impressions of his Glory upon us then by communicating any kind of Glory to him Then does a Good man become the Tabernacle of God wherein the Divine Shechinah does rest and which the Divine glory fills when the frame of his Mind and Life is wholy according to that Idea and Pattern which he receives from the Mount We best glorifie him when we grow most like to him and we then act most for his glory when a true Spirit of Sanctity Justice Meekness c. runs through all our actions when we so live in the World as becomes those that converse with the great Mind and Wisdom of the whole World with that Almighty Spirit that made supports and governs all things with that Being from whence all good flows and in which there is no Spot Stain or Shadow of Evil and so being captivated and overcome by the sense of the Divine loveliness and goodness endeavour to be like him and conform our selves as much as may be to him When God seeks his own Glory he does not so much endeavour any thing without himself He did not bring this stately fabrick of the Universe into Being that he might for such a Monument of his mighty Power and Beneficence gain some Panegyricks or Applause from a little of that fading breath which he had made Neither was that gracious contrivance of restoring lapsed men to himself a Plot to get himself some Eternal Hallelujahs as if he had so ardently thirsted after the layes of glorified spirits or desired a Quire of Souls to sing forth his praises Neither was it to let the World see how Magnificent he was No it is his own Internal Glory that he most loves and the Communication thereof which he seeks as Plato sometimes speaks of the Divine love it arises not out of Indigency as created love does but out of Fulness and Redundancy it is an overflowing fountain and that love which descends upon created Being is a free Efflux from the Almighty Source of love and it is well pleasing to him that those Creatures which he hath made should partake of it Though God cannot seek his own Glory so as if he might acquire any addition to himself yet he may seek it so as to communicate it out of himself It was a good Maxime of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 w ch is better stated by * S. James God giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not And by that Glory of his which he loves to impart to his Creatures I understand those stamps and impressions of Wisdom Justice Patience Mercy Love Peace Joy and other Divine gifts which he bestows freely upon the Minds of men And thus God triumphs in his own Glory and takes pleasure in the Communication of it As God's seeking his own Glory in respect of us is most properly the flowing forth of his Goodness upon us so our seeking the Glory of God is most properly our endeavouring a Participation of his Goodness and an earnest uncessant pursuing after Divine perfection When God becomes so great in our eyes
then Fellow of Emman Col. afterwards Provost of Kings College Dr. Whichcote to whom for his Directions and Encouragements of him in his Studies his seasonable provision for his support and maintenance when he was a young Scholar as also upon other obliging Considerations our Author did ever express a great and singular regard But besides I considered him which was more as a true Servant and Friend of God and to such a one and what relates to such I thought that I owed no less care and diligence The former Title a Servant of God is very often in Scripture given to that incomparable person Moses incomparable for his Philosophical accomplishments and knowledg of Nature as also for his Political Wisdom and great abilities in the Conduct and managing of affairs and in speaking excellent sense strong and clear Reason in any business and Case that was before him for he was mighty in words and in deeds Acts 7. and of both these kinds of Knowledge wherein Moses excell'd as also in the more recondite and mysterious knowledge of the Egyptians there are several Instances and Proofs in the Pentateuch written by him incomparable as well for the loveliness of his Disposition and Temper the inward ornament and beauty of a meek and humble Spirit as for the extraordinary amiableness of his outward person and incomparable for his unexampled Self-denial in the midst of the greatest allurements and most tempting advantages of this world And from all these great Accomplishments and Perfections in Moses it appears how excellently he was qualified and enabled to answer that Title The Servant of God more frequently given to him in Scripture then unto any other The other Title a Friend of God is given to Abraham the Father of the Faithful an eminent Exemplar of Self-resignation and Obedience even in Trials of the greatest difficulty and it is given to him thrice in Scripture 2 Chron. 20. 7. Esay 41. 8. James 2. 23. and plainly implied in Genes 18. 17. Shall I hide from Abraham c. but express'd in the Jerusalem Targum there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Philo Jud. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is less insinuated concerning Moses with whom God is said to have spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouth to mouth and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouth to mouth as a man speaketh unto his friend And how fitly and properly both these Titles were verified concerning our Author who was a faithful hearty and industrious Servant of God counting it his Duty and Dignity his Meat and Drink to doe the will of his Master in heaven and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his very Soul and with good will the characters of a good Servant and who was dearly affected towards God and treated by God as a Friend may appear from that Account of him represented in the Sermon at his Funeral I might easily fill much Paper if I should particularly recount those many Excellencies that shined forth in him But I would study to be short I might truly say That he was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both a Righteous and truly Honest man and also a Good man He was a Follower and Imitator of God in Purity and Holiness in Benignity Goodness and Love a Love enlarged as God's Love is whose Goodness overflows and spreads it self to all and his tender mercies are over all his works He was a Lover of our Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity a Lover of his Spirit and of his Life a Lover of his Excellent Laws and Rules of holy life a serious Practiser of his Sermon in the Mount that Best Sermon that ever was preach'd and yet none more generally neglected by those that call themselves Christians though the observance of it be for the true Interest both of mens Souls and of Christian States and Common-wealths and accordingly as being the surest way to their true Settlement and Establishment it is compared to the building upon a Rock Matth. 7. 24. To be short He was a Christian not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more then a little even wholly and altogether such a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inwardly and in good earnest Religious he was but without any Vaingloriousness and Ostentation not so much a talking or a disputing as a living a doing and an obeying Christian one inwardly acquainted with the Simplicity and Power of Godliness but no admirer of the Pharisaick forms and Sanctimonious shews though never so goodly and specious which cannot and do not affect the adult and strong Christians though they may and doe those that are unskillful and weak For in this weak and low state of the divided Churches in Christendom weak and slight things especially if they make a fair shew in the flesh as the Apostle speaks are most esteemed whereas in the mean time the weightier matters of the Law the most concerning and Substantial parts of Religion are passed over disregarded by them as being grievous to them no way for their turns no way for their corrupt interests fleshly ease and worldly advantages But God's thoughts are not as their thoughts The Circumcision which is of the heart and in the spirit is that whose praise is of God though not of men and that which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God What I shall further observe concerning the Author is only this That he was Eminent as well in those Perfections which have most of Divine worth and excellency in them and rendred him a truly God-like man as in those other Perfections and Accomplishments of the Mind which rendred him a very Rational and Learned man and withall in the midst of all these great Accomplishments as Eminent and Exemplary in unaffected Humility and true Lowliness of Mind And herein he was like to Moses that Servant and Friend of God who was most meek and lowly in heart as our Lord is also said to be Mat. 11. in this as in all other respects greater then Moses who was vir mitissimus above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth Num. 12. And thus he excell'd others as much in Humility as he did in Knowledg in that thing which though in a lesser degree in others is apt to puff up and swell them with Pride and Self-conceit But Moses was humble though he was a Person of brave parts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus speaks of him and having had the advantages of a most ingenuous Education was admirably accomplish'd in the choicest parts of Knowledg and * learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians whereby some of the Antients understood the Mysterious Hieroglyphical learning Natural Philosophy Musick Physick and Mathematicks And for this last to omit the rest how excellent this Humble man the Author was therein did appear
out of slavish Fear void of inward Life and Love and a Complacency in the Law of God of which temper our Author discourses at large For concerning such cheap and little strictnesses as these it may be enquired What doe you more then others Do not even Publicans and Pharisees the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what excellent and extraordinary thing doe you what hard or difficult thing do you perform such as may deserve to be thought a worthy Instance and real Manifestation of the Power of Godliness except such things are to be accounted hard or extraordinary which are common to the real and to the formal Christian and are performable by unregenerate and natural men and are no peculiar Characters of Regeneration No these and the like performances by which such Religionists would set off themselves are but poor and inconsiderable things if compared with the mighty acts and noble atchievements of the more excellent though less ostentatious Christians who through Faith in the Goodness and Power of God have been enabled to doe all things through Christ knowing both how to abound and how to be abased c. Phil. 4. enabled to overcome the World without them and the Love of the World within them enabled to overcome themselves and for a man to rule his own Spirit is a greater instance of power and valour then to take a City as Solomon judgeth Prov. 16. enabled to resist the powers of darkness and to quit themselves like men and good Souldiers of Jesus Christ giving many signal overthrows to those Lusts that war against their Souls and to the mightiest and strongest of them the Sons of Anak and by engaging in the hardest Services of this Spiritual warfare wherein the Pharisaick boasters dare not follow them they shew that there is a Spirit of power in them and that they can doe more then others These are some of the Exploits of strong and healthful Christians and for the encouraging of them in these Conflicts which shall end in glorious Conquests and joyous Triumphs the Author hath in the Tenth and last Discourse suggested what is worthy our Consideration But I must not forget that there remains something to be observed concerning some other Treatises and having been so large in the last Observation which was not unnecessary the world abounding ever having abounded with spiritual Pharisees I shall be shorter in the rest And now to proceed to the next which is of Atheism This Discourse being but Preparatory to the ensuing Tracts is short yet I would mind the Reader that what is more briefly handled here may be supplied and further clear'd out of the Fifth Discourse viz. Of the Existence and Nature of God of which if the former part seem more Speculative Subtile and Metaphysical yet the Latter and Greater part containing several Deductions and Inferences from the Consideration of the Divine Nature and Attributes is less obscure and more Practical as it clearly directs us to the best though not much observed way of glorifying God and being made happy and blessed by a Participation and Resemblance of him as it plainly directs a man to such Apprehensions of God as are apt and powerful to beget in him the Noblest and dearest Love to God the sweetest Delight and the most peaceful Confidence in him One thing more I would observe to the Reader concerning the Discourse Of Atheism and the same I would desire to be observed also concerning the next that large Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul especially of the former part thereof and it is shortly this That the Author in these Treatises pursues his discourse with a particular reflexion on the Dogmata and Notions of Epicurus and his followers especially that great admirer of him Lucretius whose Principles are here particularly examined and refuted These were the men whose Opinions our Author had to combat with He lived not to see Atheism so closely and craftily insinuated nor lived he to see Sadduceism and Epicurism so boldly owned and industriously propagated as they have been of late by some who being heartily desirous That there were no God no Providence no Reward nor Punishment after this life take upon them to deride the Notion of Spirit or Incorporeal Substance the Existence of Separate Souls and the Life to come and by infusing into mens Minds Opinions contrary to these Fundamental Principles of Religion they have done that which manifestly tends to the overthrow of all Religion the destruction of Morality and Vertuous living the debauching of Mankind the consuming and eating out of any good Principle left in the Conscience which doth testifie for God and Goodness and against Sin and Wickedness and to the defacing and expunging of the Law written in mens hearts and so the holy Apostle judges of the Epicurean Notions and discourses a taste of which he gives in that passage 1 Cor. 15. Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die and then ther 's an End of all no other life or state and he expresseth his judgment concerning the evil and dangerousness of these doctrines and their teachers partly in a Verse out of Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil communications corrupt good manners and in what he subjoins v. 34. besides many other passages in this Chapter in opposition to the doctrine of the Sadducees and Epicureans and to the same purpose he speaks in 2. Tim. 2. 16 17 18. concerning those that denied the Doctrine of the Resurrection or any Future State and the Life to come The sum and substance of the Apostles judgment concerning these Epicurean principles is plainly this That these Principles properly and powerfully tend to the corrupting of mens Minds and Lives to the advancement of Irreligion and Immorality in the world That they are no benigne Principles to Piety and a Good life 'T is true that some of the more wary and considerate modern Epicureans may express some care to live inoffensively and to keep out of danger and to maintain a reputation in the world as to their converse with others and herein they mind their worldly interests and the advantages of this present life the only life which they have in their eye they may also express a care in avoiding what is prejudicial to health and a long life in this world But all this is short of a true and noble Love of Goodness and if in these men there be any appearance of what is Good and praise-worthy they would have been really better if they had been of other Principles and had believed in their Hearts That there is a Providence a Future state and Life to come and had lived agreeably to the Truths of the Christian Philosophy which do more ennoble and accomplish and every way better a man then the Principles of the Epicurean Sect. But to return We have before observed That our Author in these Two Treatises pursued his design in opposition to the Master-Notions and chief Principles of Epicurus
and the New Covenant as it is laid down by the Apostle Paul A more General Ansiver to this enquiry together with a General observation of the Apostle's main End in opposing Faith to the Works of the Law viz. To beat down the Jewish proud conceit of Merit A more particular and Distinct answer to the Enquiry viz. That the Law or Old Covenant is considered only as an External administration a dead thing in it self a Dispensation consisting in an Outward and Written Law of Precepts but the Gospel or New Covenant is an Internal thing a Vital Form and Principle of Righteousness in the Souls of men an Inward manifestation of Divine Life and a living Impression upon the Minds and Spirits of Men. This proved from several Testimonies of Scripture pag. 308. Chap. V. Two Propositions for the better understanding of the Doctrine of Justification and Divine Acceptance 1. Prop. That the Divine judgment and estimation of every thing is according to the truth of the thing and God's acceptance or disacceptance of things is suitable to his judgment On what account S. James does attribute a kind of Justification to Good works 2. Prop. God's justifying of Sinners in pardoning their Sins carries in it a necessary reference to the sanctifying of their Natures This abundantly proved from the Nature of the thing pag. 325. Chap. VI. How the Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us by Faith made to appear from these two Considerations 1. The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearfull dependance upon the Grace and Love of God and affiance in it This confirmed by several Gospel-expressions containing plainly in them the most strong Motives and Encouragements to all ingenuous addresses to God to all chearfull dependance on him and confident expectation of all assistance from him 2. A true Evangelical Faith is no lazy or languid thing but an ardent breathing and thirsting after Divine grace and righteousness it looks beyond a mere pardon of sin and mainly pursues after an inward participation of the Divine nature The mighty power of a living Faith in the Love and Goodness of God discoursed of throughout the whole Chapter pag. 332. Chap. VII An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse How the whole business and Undertaking of Christ is eminently available both to give full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to encourage us to Godliness or a God-like righteousness briefly represented in sundry Particulars pag. 343. DISCOURSE VIII OF THE SHORTNESS OF A Pharisaick Righteousness CHap. I. A General account of men's Mistakes about Religion Men are no where more lazy and sluggish and more apt to delude themselves then in matters of Religion The Religion of most men is but an Image and Resemblance of their own Fansies The Method propounded for discoursing upon those words in S. Matthew 1. To discover some of the Mistakes and False Notions about Religion 2. To discover the Reason of these Mistakes A brief Explication of the Words pag. 349. Chap. II. An Account of men's Mistakes about Religion in 4 Particulars 1. A Partial obedience to some Particular Precepts The False Spirit of Religion spends it self in some Particulars is confin'd is overswayed by some prevailing Lust. Men of this spirit may by some Book-skill and a zeal about the Externals of Religion loose the sense of their own Guiltiness and of their deficiencies in the Essentials of Godliness and fansy themselves nearly related to God Where the true Spirit of Religion is it informs and actuates the whole man it will not be confin'd but will be absolute within us and not suffer any corrupt Interest to grow by it p. 353. Chap. III. The Second Mistake about Religion viz. A meer complyance of the Outward man with the Law of God True Religion seats it self in the Centre of mens Souls and first brings the Inward man into Obedience to the Law of God the Superficiall Religion intermeddles chiefly with the Circumference and Outside of men or rests in an outward abstaining from some Sins Of Speculative and the most close and Spiritual wickedness within How apt men are to sink all Religion into Opinions and External Forms pag. 357. Chap. IV. The Third Mistake about Religion viz. A constrained and forc'd Obedience to God's Commandments The Religion of many some of whom would seem most abhorrent from Superstition is nothing else but Superstition properly so called False Religionists having no inward sense of the Divine Goodness cannot truly love God Yet their sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God compell them to serve him A slavish spirit in Religion may be very prodigal in such kind of serving God as doth not pinch their Corruptions but in the great and weightier matters of Religion in such things as prejudice their beloved Lusts it is very needy and sparing This servile Spirit has low and mean thoughts of God but an high opinion of its Outward services as conceiting that by such cheap things God is gratified and becomes indebted to it The different Effects of Love and Slavish fear in the truly and in the falsly Religious pag. 361. Chap. V. The Fourth and last Mistake about Religion When a mere Mechanical and Artificial Religion is taken for that which is a true Impression of Heaven upon the Souls of men and which moves like a new Nature How Religion is by some made a piece of Art and how there may be specious and plausible Imitations of the Internals of Religion as well as of the Externals The Method and Power of Fansy in contriving such Artificial imitations How apt men are in these to deceive both themselves and others The Difference between those that are govern'd in their Religion by Fansy and those that are actuated by the Divine Spirit and in whom Religion is a living Form That True Religion is no Art but a new Nature Religion discovers it self best in a Serene and clear Temper of Mind in deep Humility Meekness Self-denial Universal love of God and all true Goodness p. 366. DISCOURSE IX OF THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF RELIGION CHap. I. 1. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Original and Fountain it comes from Heaven and moves towards Heaven again God the First Excellency and Primitive Perfection All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approch to and Participation of the First Perfection Religion the greatest Participation of God none capable of this Divine Communication but the Highest of created Beings and consequently Religion is the greatest Excellency A twofold Fountain in God whence Religion flows viz. 1. His Nature 2. His Will Of Truth Natural and Revealed Of an Outward and Inward Revelation of God's Will pag. 380. Chap. II. 2. The Nobleness of Religion in respect of it's Nature briefly discovered in some Particulars How a man actuated by Religion 1. lives above the world 2. converses with himself and knows how to love value and reverence himself in the best sense 3. lives above himself not
converse with them in a Sensual and Unspiritual manner Religion does spiritualize the Creation to Good men it teaches them to look at any Perfections or Excellencies in themselves and others not so much as Theirs or That others but as so many Beams flowing from One and the Same Fountain of Light to love them all in God and God in all the Universal Goodness in a Particular Being A Good man enjoys and delights in whatsoever Good he sees otherwhere as if it were his own he does not fondly love and esteem either himself or others The Divine temper and strain of the antient Philosophy pag. 429. Chap. IX The Seventh and last Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it raiseth the Minds of Good men to a due observance of and attendance upon Divine Providence and enables them to serve the Will of God and to acquiesce in it For a man to serve Providence and the Will of God entirely to work with God and to bring himself and all his actions into a Compliance with God's Will his Ends and Designs is an argument of the truest Nobleness of Spirit it is the most excellent and divine life and it is most for mans advantage How the Consideration of Divine Providence is the way to inward quietness and establishment of Spirit How wicked men carry themselves unbecomingly through their impatience and fretfulness under the disposals of Providence The beauty and harmony of the various Methods of Providence pag. 435. Chap. X. 4. The Excellencie of Religion in regard of its Progress as it is perpetually carrying on the Soul towards Perfection Every Nature hath its proper Centre which it hastens to Sin and Wickedness is within the attractive power of Hell and hastens thither Grace and Holiness is within the Central force of Heaven and moves thither 'T is not the Speculation of Heaven as a thing to come that satisfies the desires of Religious Souls but the reall Possession of it even in this life Men are apt to seek after Assurance of Heaven as a thing to come rather then after Heaven it self and the inward possession of it here How the Assurance of Heaven rises from the growth of Holiness and the powerfull Progress of Religion in our Souls That we are not hastily to believe that we are Christ's or that Christ is in us That the Works which Christ does in holy Souls testify of him and best evidence Christ's spiritual appearance in them pag. 439. Chap. XI 5. The Excellency of Religion in regard of its Term and End viz. Perfect Blessedness How unable we are in this state to comprehend and describe the Full and Perfect state of Happiness and Glory to come The more Godlike a Christian is the better may he understand that State Holiness and Happiness not two distinct things but two several Notions of one and the same thing Heaven cannot so well be defined by any thing without us as by something within us The great nearness and affinity between Sin and Hell The Conclusion of this Treatise containing a serious Exhortation to a diligent minding of Religion with a Discovery of the Vanity of those Pretenses which keep men off from minding Religion pag. 443. DISCOURSE X. OF A CHRISTIANS CONFLICTS with CONQUESTS over SATAN CHap. I. The Introduction Summarily treating of the perpetual Enmity between God the Principle of Good and the Principle of Evil the Devil as also between Whatsoever is from God and that which is from the Devil That Wicked men by destroying what there is from God within them and devesting themselves of all that which hath any alliance to God or true Goodness and transforming themselves into the Diabolical image fit themselves for correspondence and converse with the Devil The Fears and Horrors which infest both the Apostate Spirits and Wicked men The weakness of the Devil's kingdom Christ's success against it pag. 455. Chap. II. The First observable That the Devil is continually busie with us The Devil consider'd under a double notion 1. As an Apostate Spirit which fell from God The great danger of the Devils activity not only when he presents himself in some corporeal shape but when he is unseen and appears not The weakness and folly of those who are afraid of him only when he appears embodyed That the Good Spirit of God is active for the Good of Souls How regardless men are of the gentle motions of the Divine Spirit and how unwatchfull and secure under the Suggestions of the Evil Spirit How we may discover the Devil in his Stratagems and under his several disguises and appearances pag. 458. Chap. III. 2. Of the activity of the Devil considered as a Spirit of Apostasie and as a Degenerate nature in men That the Devil is not only the name of one Particular thing but a Nature The Difference between the Devil and Wicked men is rather the Difference of a Name then of Natures The Kingdom and Tyranny of the Devil and Hell is chiefly within in the Qualities and Dispositions of mens Minds Men are apt to quarrell with the Devil in the name and notion and defie him with their Tongues while they entertain him in their Hearts and comply with all that which the Devil is The vanity of their pretended Love to God and Hatred of the Devil That there is nothing Better then God himself for which we should love him and to love him for his own Beauty and Excellency is the best way of loving him That there is nothing worse then Sin it self for which we should hate it and to hate it for its own deformity is the truest way of hating it How Hell and Misery arises from within men Why Wicked men are so insensible of their Misery in this life pag. 462. Chap. IV. The Second Observable viz. The Warfare of a Christian life True Religion consists not in a mere passive capacity and sluggish kind of doing nothing nor in a melancholy sitting still or slothfull waiting c. but it consists in inward life and power vigour and activity A discovery of the dulness and erroneousness of that Hypothesis viz. That Good men are wholy Passive and unable at any time to move without some external impetus some impression and impulse from without upon them or That all Motions in Religion are from an External Principle Of the Quality and Nature of the true Spiritual Warfare and of the Manner and Method of it That it is transacted upon the inner Stage of mens Souls and managed without Noise or pompous Observation and without any hindrance or prejudice to the most peacefull sedate and composed temper of a religious Soul This further illustrated from the consideration of the false and pretended Zeal for God and his Kingdome against the Devil which though it be impetuous and makes a great noise and a fair shew in the world is yet both impotent and ineffectual pag. 469. Chap. V. The Third Observable viz. The Certainty of Success and victory
of these in men yet none can be altogether without that Fortitude and Magnanimitie So it was said to Jeremy Chap. 17. 18. Be not dismaied at their faces c. Behold I have made thee this day a defenced City and so to Ezek. Ch. 2. 6. Be not afraid of them nor their words and generally in all the Prophets we shall find a great Fortitude and Magnanimity of Spirit But by the excellency of the gift of Divining they could on a sudden and in a moment foretell future things in which Facultie notwithstanding there was great diversitie Thus he It will not be therefore any great Digression here awhile to examine the Nature of this False light which pretends to Prophesie but is not as being seated only in the Imaginative power from whence the first occasion of this delusion ariseth seeing that Power is also the Seat of all Prophetical vision For this purpose it will not be amiss to premise that Threefold degree of Cognitive influence pointed out by Maimonides part 2. cap. 37. More Nev. The first is wholly Intellectual descending only into the Rational facultie by which that is extreamly fortified and strengthened in the distinct apprehension of Metaphysicall Truths from whence as he tells us ariseth the Sect of Philosophers and Contemplative persons The second is jointly into the Rational and Imaginative facultie together and from thence springs the Sect of Prophets The third into the Imaginative only from whence proceeds the Sect of Polititians Lawyers and Law-givers whose Conceptions only run in a secular channel as also the Sect of Diviners Inchanters Dreamers and Soothsayers We shall coppy out of him a Character of some of this Third sort the rather because it so graphically delineates to us many Enthusiastical Impostors of our Age. His words are these Hic verò monendus es ex tertio genere esse quasdam quibus Phantasiae Somnia Ecstases quales in Prophetiae Visione esse solent ita mirabiles obveniunt ut planè sibi persuadeant se Prophetas esse c. i. e. But here I must advertise thee that there are some of this Third sort who have sometimes such strange Phansies Dreams and Ecstasies that they take themselves for Prophets and much marvel that they have such Phansies and Imaginations conceiting at last that all Sciences and Faculties are without any pains or study infused into them And hence it is that they fall into great confusions in many Theoretical matters of no small moment and do so mix true notions with such as are meerly seeming and imaginary as if Heaven and Earth were jumbled together All which proceeds from the too-great force of the Imaginative faculty and the imbecillity of the Rational whence it is that nothing in it can pass forth into act Thus he This delusion then in his sense of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which pretend to Revelations ariseth from hence that all this forrain force that is upon them serves only to vigorate impregnate their Phansies and Imaginations but does not inform their Reasons nor elevate them to a true understanding of things in their coherence and contexture and therefore they can so easily imbrace things absurd to all true and sober Reason Whereas the Prophetical Spirit acting principally upon the Reason and Understanding of the Prophets guided them consistently and intelligibly into the understanding of things But this Pseudo-prophetical Spirit being not able to rise up above this low and dark Region of Sense or Matter or to soar aloft into a clear Heaven of Vision endeavoured alway as much as might be to strengthen it self in the Imaginative part and therefore the Wizzards and false prophets of old and later times have been wont alway to heighten their Phansies and Imaginations by all means possible which R. Albo insinuates Maam. 3. cap. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are some men whose Imaginative faculty is strong either by Nature or by some Artifice which they use to fortifie this Imaginative facultie with and for such purpose are the artifices which Witches and such as have familiar Spirits do use by the help whereof the similitudes of things are more easily excited in the Imagination Accordingly Wierus Lib. 3. Cap. 17. de Praestigiis Daemonum who was a man as some think too well acquainted with these mysteries though he himself seems to defie them speaks to the same purpose concerning Witches how that so they may have more pregnant Phansies they anoint themselves and diet themselves with some such food as they understand from the Devil is very fit for that purpose And for further proof hereof he there quotes Baptista Porta Lib. 2. and Cardan de Subtil Cap. 18. But we shall not over-curiously any further pry into these Arts. This kind of Divination resting meerly in the Imaginative faculty seemed so exactly to imitate the Prophetical Energy in this part of it that indeed it hath been by weaker minds mistaken for it though the Wiser sort of the Heathens have happily found out the lameness and delusiveness of it We have it excellently set forth by Plato in his Timaeus where speaking of God's liberality in constituting of Man he thus speaks of this Divination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. As for our worser part that it might in some sort partake of Truth God hath seated in it the power of Divining and it is a sufficient signe that God has indulged this faculty of Divining to the foolishness of men for there is no sober man that is touch'd with this Power of Divination unless in Sleep when his Reason is bound or when by Sickness or Enthusiasm he suffers some alienation of Mind But it is then for the Wise and Sober to understand what is spoken or represented in this Fatidical passion And so it seems Plato who was no careless observer of these matters could no where find this Divining spirit in his time except it were joined some way or other cum mentis alienatione and therefore he looks upon it as that which is inferior to Wisdome and to be regulated by it for so he further declares his mind to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is Wherefore it is a law that Prophets should be set as it were Judges over these Enthusiastick Divinations which Prophets some ignorantly and falsly call Diviners For indeed these Prophets in his sense to whom he gives the preeminence are none else but Wise and prudent men who by reason of the sagacitie of their Understandings were able to judge of those things which were uttered by this dull Spirit of Divination which resided only in Faculties inferior to Reason So in his Charmides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. i. e. But if you will we will grant the Gift of Divination to be a knowledge of what is to come but withall that it is fit that Wisdome and Sobrietie should be Judge and Interpreter But further that his age was acquainted with no other
Divinations then that which ariseth from a troubled Phansie and is conceived in a dark Melancholy imagination he confirms to us in his Phaedrus where he rightly gives us the true Etymon of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was called so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from rage and furie and therefore saies it was antiently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However he grants that it happened to many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Divine allotment yet it was most vulgarly incident to Sick and Melancholy men who oftentimes by the power thereof were able to presage by what Medicines their own distempers might be best cured as if it were nothing else but a discerning of that sympathizing symbolizing complexion of their own Bodies with some other Bodies without them And elsewhere he tells us that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never or verie rarely understood the meaning and nature of their own Visa And therefore indeed the Platonists generally seem'd to reject or very much to slight all this kind of Revelation and to acknowledge nothing transcendent to the naked Reason and Understanding of Man So Maximus Tyrius in Dissert 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It 's a bold assertion yet I shall not doubt to say that God's Oracles and Men's Understandings are of a near alliance And so according to Porphyrius lib. 2. § 52. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Good man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that needs not soothsaying being familiarly and intimately acquainted with God himself Likewise the Stoicks will scarce allow their Wise man at any time to consult an Oracle as we may learn from Arrian l. 2. c. 7. and Epictetus c. 39. and Simplicius his Comment thereupon where that great Philosopher making a scrupulous search what those things were which it might be fit to consult the Oracle about at last brings them into so narrow a compass that a Wise man should never find occasion to honour the Oracle with his presence A famous instance whereof we have in Lucan lib. 9. where Cato being advised to consult Jupiter Hammon his Oracle after Pompey's death answers Estnè Dei sedes nisi Terra Pontus Aer Et Coelum Virtus Superos quid quaerimus ultra Jupiter est quodcunque vides quocunque moveris Sortilegis egeant dubii sempérque futuris Casibus ancipites me non Oracula certum Sed mors certa facit But enough of this Particular and I hope by this time I have sufficiently unfolded the true Seat of Prophesie and shewed the right Stage thereof as also how lame and delusive the Spirit of Divination was which endeavoured to imitate it Now from what hath been said ariseth one main Characteristical distinction between the Prophetical and Pseudo-prophetical spirit viz. That the Prophetical spirit doth never alienate the Mind seeing it seats it self as well in the Rational powers as in the Sensitive but alwaies maintains a consistency and clearness of Reason strength and soliditie of Judgment where it comes it doth not ravish the Mind but inform and enlighten it But the Pseudo-prophetical spirit if indeed without any kind of dissimulation it enters into any one because it can rise no higher then the Middle region of Man which is his Phansy it there dwells as in storms and tempests and being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it self is also conjoined with alienations and abreptions of mind For whensoever the Phantasms come to be disordered and to be presented tumultuously to the Soul as it is either in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Furie or in Melancholy both which Kinds of alienation are commonly observed by Physicians or else by the Energy of this Spirit of Divination the Mind can pass no true Judgment upon them but its light and influence becomes eclipsed But of this alienation we have already discoursed out of Plato and others And thus the Pythian Prophetess is described by the Scholiast upon Aristophanes his Plutus and by Lucan lib. 5. as being filled with inward furie while she was inspired by the Fatidical spirit and uttering her Oracles in a strange disguise with many Antick gestures her hair torn and foaming at her Mouth As also Cassandra is brought in prophesying in the like manner by Lycophron So the Sibyll was noted by Heraclitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one speaking ridiculous and unseemly speeches with her furious mouth And Ammianus Marcellinus in the beginning of his 21 th book hath told us an old Observation concerning the Sibylls Sibyllae crebro se dicunt ardere torrente vi magnâ flammarum This was cautelously observed by the Primitive Fathers who hereby detected the Impostures of the Montanists that pretended much to Prophesie but indeed were acquainted with nothing more of it then Ecstasies or abreptions of mind For that is it which they mean by Ecstasies I shall first mention that of Clem. Alexandr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is The false prophets mingled Truth sometimes with Falshood and indeed when they were in an Ecstasie they prophesied as being servants to that grand Apostate the Devil Eusebius mentions in Histor. Eccles. lib. 5. c. 17. a Discourse of Miltiades to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertullian who was a great Friend to Montanus and his prophetical Sisters Maximilla and Priscilla speaking of them endeavours to alleviate this business and though he grants they were Ecstatical in their Prophesies that is only transported by the power of a Spirit more potent then their own as he would seem to implie yet he denies that they used to fall into any rage or fury which he saies is the Character of every false Prophet and so Montanus excused himself But yet for all this they could not avoid the lash of Jerome who thought he saw through this Ecstasie and that indeed it was a true alienation seeing they understood not what they spoke Neque verò ut Montanus cum insanis foeminis somniat Prophetae in Ecstasi locuti sunt ut nescirent quid loquerentur cùm alios erudirent ipsi ignorarent quid dicerent The Prophets did not as Montanus together with some mad women dreams speak in Ecstasies nor did they speak they knew not what nor were they when they went about to instruct others ignorant of what they said themselves So he in his Preface to Esay This also he otherwhere brands the Montanists withall as in his Praoemium to Nahum Non loquitur Propheta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut Montanus Prisca Maximilláque delirant sed quod prophetat liber est intelligentis quae loquitur And in his Preface to Habakuk Prophetae visio est adversum Montani dogma perversum intelligit quod videt nec ut amens loquitur nec in morem insanientium foeminarum dat sine mente sonum I shall add but one Author more and that is Chrysostome who hath very fully and excellently laid down this difference between the true and false Prophets Hom. 29. on the first Epistle to the Corinthians 〈◊〉
Reason to order affairs there but that is left to the sole Oeconomy and Soveraignty of the Father of Lights There is a clear and bright heaven in mans Soul in which Lucifer himself cannot subsist but is tumbled down from thence as often as he assayes to climbe up into it But to come more pressely to the business The Hebrew Masters here tell us that in the beginning of Prophetical inspiration the Prophets use to have some Apparition or Image of a Man or Angel presenting itself to their Imagination Sometimes it began with a Voice and that either strong and vehement or else soft and familiar And so God is said first of all to appear to Samuel 1 Sam. 3. 7. who is said not yet to have known the Lord that is as Maimon in Part. 2. c. 44. of his More Nevochim expounds it Ignoravit adhuc tunc temporis Deum hoc modo cum Prophet is loqui solere quod hoc mysterium nondū fuit ei revelatum In the same manner R. Albo Maam. 3. cap. 11. For otherwise we must not think that Samuel was then ignorant of the true God but that he knew not the manner of that Voice by which the Prophetical spirit was wont to awaken the attention of the Prophets And that this was the antient opinion of the Jews R. Solomon tells us out of the Massecheth Tamid where the Doctors thus gloss upon this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. as yet he knew not the Lord that is he knew not the manner of the Prophetical voice This is that soft and gentle voice whereby the Sense of the Prophet is sometimes attempted but sometimes this Voice is more vehement It will not be amiss to hear Maimonides his words Part. 2. c. 44. of his More Nev. Nonnunquam fit ut Verbum illud quod Propheta audit in Visione Prophetiae ei videatur fieri voce robustissimâ c. i. e. It sometims happens that the Word which the Prophet hears in a Prophetical Vision seems to strike him with a more vehement noise and accordingly some dream that they hear Thunder and Earthquake or some great Clashing and sometimes again with an ordinarie and familiar noise as if it was close by him We have a famous Instance of the last in that Voice whereby God appeared unto Adam after he had sinned and of the former in Job and Elijah That instance of Adam is set down Gen. 3. 8 9. And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the Garden in the coole of the day and Adam hid himself from the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him Where art thou Where those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render the coole of the day the Jews expound of a gentle vocal air such an one as breathed in the day-time more pacately For this appearance of God to him they suppose to be in a Prophetical Vision and so Nachmanides comments upon those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The sense of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the gale of the day is that ordinarily in the manifestation of the Shechina or divine presence there comes a great and mighty wind to usher it in according to what we read of Elijah 1 Kings 19. 11. And behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind rent the Mountains and brake in pieces the Rocks before the Lord and in Psalme 18. and elsewhere He flew upon the wings of the wind Accordingly it is written concerning Job c. 38. v. 1. that the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind Wherefore by way of distinction it is said in this place that they heard the voice of the Lord that is that the Divine Majestie was revealed to them in the garden as approaching to them in the gale of the day For the wind of the day blew according to the manner of the day-time in the garden not as a great and strong wind in this Vision as it was in other Prophetical approaches lest they should fear and be dismaied This mightie voice we also find recorded as rowzing up the attention of Ezechiel chap. 9. 1. He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice saying c. So that all these Schemes are meerly Prophetical and import nothing else but the strong awakening and quickning of the Prophets mind into a lively sense of the Divine majesty appearing to him And of these the Apocalypse is full there being indeed no Prophetical writ where the whole Dramatical series of things as they were acted over in the Mind of the Prophet are more graphicallie and to the Life set forth So we have this Vox praecentrix to the whole Scene sometimes sounding like a Trumpet Rev. 1. 10. I was in the Spirit on the Lords day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet And chap. 4. upon the beginning of a new Vision we find this Prologue I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven and the first voice which I heard was as it were the sound of a Trumpet talking with me which said Come up hither c. And when a new Act of opening the Seals begins chap. 6. 1. he is excited by another voice sounding like Thunder And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the Seals and I heard as it were the noise of thunder one of the four Beasts saying Come and see And chap. 8. ver 5. voices and thunders and lightnings and an earthquake are the Prooemium to the Vision of the Seven Angels with seven trumpets Lastly to name no more sometimes it is brought in sounding like the roaring of a Lion So when he was to receive the little Book of Prophesie chap. 10. 3. An Angel cryed with a loud voice as when a Lion roareth and when he had cryed seven thunders uttered their voices Hence it is that we find the Prophets ordinarily prefacing to their Visions in this manner The hand of the Lord was upon me that is indeed some potent force rouzing them up to a lively sense of the Divine majesty or some heavenly Embassador speaking with them And that the sense hereof might be the more Energetical sometimes in a Prophetical Vision they are commanded to eat those Prophetick rolls given them which are described with the greatest contrarietie of tast that may be sweet as hony in their mouths and in their bellies as bitter as gall Rev. 10. 9. Ezek. 2. 8. Thus we have seen in part how those Impressions by which the Prophets were made partakers of Divine inspiration carried a strong evidence of their Original along with them whereby they might be able to distinguish them both from any hallucination as also from their own True dreams which might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sent by God but not Propheticall which yet I think is more universally unfolded Jeremie 23. where the difference between true Divine inspiration and such false Dreams and Visions as sometimes a
out of them all as out of its elements compounded together For it is plain that he thought there was a kind of Prognostick virtue in Souls themselves which was in this manner to be excited which was the opinion of some Philosophers among which Plutarch laies down his sense in this manner according to the minds of many others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Soul doth not then first of all attain a Prophetical energie when it leaves the Body as a cloud but it now hath it already only she is blind of this Eye because of her concretion with this mortal body This Philosopher's opinion Maimonides was more then prone to however he would dissemble it and therefore he speaks of an impotency to Prophesie supposing all those Three qualifications named before as of the suspension of the act of some natural Facultie So Chap. 32. Meo judicio res hîc se habet sicut in Miraculis c. i. In my judgment saith he the matter here is just so as it is in Miracles and bears proportion with them For natural Reason requires that he who by his nature is apt to prophesie and is diligently taught and instructed and of fit age that such a one should prophesie but he that notwithstanding cannot doe so is like to one that cannot move his hand as Jeroboam or one that cannot see as those that could not see the Tents of the King of Syria as it is in the Story of Elisha And again Chap. 36. he further beats upon this String Si vir quidam ita comparatus fuerit nullum dubium est si facultas ejus Imaginatrix quae in summo gradu perfecta est Influentiam ab Intellectu secundùm perfectionem suam speculativam accipit laboraverit in operatione fuerit illum non nisi res divinas admirandas apprehensurum nihil praeter Deum ejus Angelos visurum nullius denique rei scientiam habiturum curaturum nisi earum quae verae sunt quae ad communem hominum spectant utilitatem This Opinion of Maimonides I find not any where entertained but only by the Author of the Book Cozri That which seems to have led him into this conceit was his mistaken sense it may be of some Passages in the story of the Kings that speak of the Schools of the Prophets and the like of which more hereafter But I know no Reason sufficient to infer any such thing as the Prophetical Spirit from the highest improvement of Natural or Moral endowments And I cannot but wonder how Maimonides could reconcile all this with the right Notion of Prophesie which must of necessity include a Divine inspiration and therefore may freely be bestowed by God where and upon whom he pleaseth Though indeed common Reason will teach us that it is not likely that God would extraordinarily inspire any men and send them thus specially authorized by himself to declare his mind authentically to them and dictate what his Truth was who were themselves vitious and of unhallowed lives and so indeed the Apostle Peter 2 Epist. Chap. I. tells us plainly They were holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Neither is it probable that those who were any way of crazed Minds or who were inwardly of inconsistent tempers by reason of any perturbation could be very fit for these Serene impressions A troubled Phansie could no more receive these Ideas of Divine Truth to be imprest upon it and clearly reflect them to the Understanding then a crack'd glass or troubled water can reflect sincerely any image to be made upon them And therefore the Hebrew Doctors universally agree in this Rule That the Spirit of Prophesie never rests upon any but a Holy and Wise man one whose passions are allay'd So the Talmud Masses Sanhedrin as it is quoted by R. Albo Maam. 3. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. The Spirit of prophesie never resides but upon a Man of Wisdome and Fortitude as also upon a rich and great man The two last qualifications in this rule Maimonides in his Fundamenta legis hath left out and indeed it is full enough without them But those other two qualifications of Wisdome and Fortitude are constantly lay'd down by them in this argument And so we find it ascribed to the Author of this Canon who is said to be R. Jochanan c. 4. Gem. Nedar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. R. Jochanan saies God doth not make his Shechina to reside upon any but a rich and humble man a man of fortitude all which we learn from the example of Moses our Master Where by Fortitude they mean nothing else but that Power whereby a good man subdues his Animal part for so I suppose I may safely translate that solution of theirs which I have sometime met with and I think in Pirke Avoth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who is the man of fortitude It is he that subdues his figmentum malum by which they meant nothing else but the Sensual or Animal part of which more in another Discourse And thus they give us another Rule as it were paraphrastical upon the former which I find Gem. Schab c. 2. where glancing at that contempt which the Wise man in Ecclesiastes cast upon Mirth and Laughter they distinguish of a twofold Mirth the one Divine the other Mundane and then sum up many of these Mundane and Terrene affections which this Holy Spirit will not reside with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine presence or Spiritus Sanctus doth not reside where there is grief and dull sadness laughter and lightness of behaviour impertinent talk or idle discourse but with due and innocuous chearfulness it loves to reside according to that which is written concerning Elisha Bring me now a Minstrel and it came to pass when the Minstrel played the hand of the Lord was upon him 2 Kings 3. Where we see that temper of Mind principally required by them is a free Chearfulness in opposition to all Griefs Anger or any other sad and Melancholy passions So Gem. Pesac c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every man when he is in passion if he be a wise man his wisdom is taken from him if a Prophet his prophesie The first part of this Aphorism they there declare by the example of Moses who they say prophesied not in the wilderness after the return of the Spies that brought an ill report of the land of Canaan by reason of his Indignation against them And the last part from the example of the Prophet Elisha 2 Kings 3. 15. of which more hereafter Thus in the Book Zohar wherein most of the ancient Jewish Traditions are recorded col 408. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold we plainly see that the divine presence doth not reside with Sadness but with Chearfulness If there be no Chearfulness it will not abide there as it is written concerning Elisha who said Give me now a Minstrell But from whence learn we that the Spirit
that Maxime we now speak of ascribed to R. Jochanan in Massec Berac c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All the Prophets prophesied to the daies of the Messiah but as for the world to come Eye hath not seen it So they constantly expound that passage in Esay 64. 4. Since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the Eare neither hath the Eye seen O God besides thee what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him And according to this Aphorisme our Saviour seems to speak when he saies All the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John Mat. 11. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. They prophesied to or for that Dispensation which was to begin with John who lived in the time of the twilight as it were between the Law and the Gospel They prophesied of those things which should be accomplished within the period of Gospel-Dispensation which was usher'd in by John As for the state of Blessedness in Heaven it is major Mente humanâ much more is it major Phantasia But of this in part heretofore An Advertisement THE Reader may remember That our Author in the beginning of his Treatise of the Immortality of the Soul propounded these Three great Principles of Religion to be discoursed of 1. The Immortalitie of the Soul 2. The Existence and Nature of God 3. The Communication of God to Mankind through Christ. And having spoken largely to the Two former Principles of Natural Theology he thought it fit as a Preparation to the Third which imports the Revelation of the Gospel to speak something concerning Prophesie the way whereby Revealed Truth is dispensed to us Of this he intended to treat but a little they are his words in the beginning of the Treatise of Prophesie and then pass on to the Third and Last part viz. Those Principles of Revealed Truth which tend most of all to advance and cherish true and real Piety But in his discoursing of Prophesie so many considerable Enquiries offered themselves to his thoughts that by that time he had finished this Discourse designed at first only as a Preface his Office of being Dean and Catechist in the Colledge did expire Thus far had the Author proceeded in that year of his Office and it was not long after that Bodily distempers and weaknesses began more violently to seize upon him which the Summer following put a Period to his life here a life so every way beneficial to those who had the happiness to converse with him Sic multis ille bonis flebilis occidit Thus he who designed to speak of God's Communication of Himself to Mankind through Christ was taken up by God into a more inward and immediate participation of Himself in Blessedness Had he liv'd and had health to have finish'd the remaining part of his designed Method the Reader may easily conceive what a Valuable piece that Discourse would have been Yet that he may not altogether want the Authors labours upon such an Argument I thought good in the next place to adjoine a Discourse of the like importance and nature delivered heretofore by the Author in some Chappel-Exercises from which I shall not detain the Reader by any more of Preface A DISCOURSE Treating Of LEGAL Righteousness EVANGELICAL Righteousness Or The Righteousness of FAITH The Difference between the LAW and the GOSPEL OLD and NEW COVENANT JUSTIFICATION and DIVINE ACCEPTANCE The CONVEIGHANCE of the EVANGELICAL Righteousness to us by FAITH Except your Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdome of heaven Matth. 5. 20. Having a form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof 2 Tim. 3. 5. For the Law made nothing perfect but the bringing in of a better hope did Heb. 7. 19. B. Macarius in Homil. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Discourse Of LEGAL Righteousness and of The Righteousness of FAITH c. Rom. 9. 31 32. But Israel which followed after the Law of righteousness hath not attained to the Law of righteousness Wherefore Because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the works of the Law CHAP. I. The Introduction shewing What it is to have a right Knowledge of Divine Truth and What it is that is either Availeable or Prejudicial to the true Christian Knowledge and Life THE Doctrine of Christian Religion propounded to us by our Saviour and his Apostles is set forth with so much simplicity and yet with so much repugnancy to that degenerate Genius and Spirit that rules in the hearts and lives of Men that we may truly say of it it is both the Easiest and the Hardest thing it is a Revelation wrapt up in a Complication of mysteries like that Book of the Apocalypse which both unfolds and hides those great Arcana that it treats of or as Plato sometimes chose so to explain the secrets of his Metaphysical or Theological Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he that read might not be able to understand except he were a Son of Wisdome and had been train'd up in the knowledge of it The Principles of True Religion are all in themselves plain and easie deliver'd in the most familiar way so that he that runs may read them they are all so clear and perspicuous that they need no Key of Analytical demonstration to unlock them the Scripture being written doctis pariter indoctis and yet it is Wisdome in a mystery which the Princes of this world understand not a sealed Book which the greatest Sophies may be most unacquainted with it is like that Pillar of Fire and of a Cloud that parted between the Israelites and the Egyptians giving a clear and comfortable light to all those that are under the manuduction and guidance thereof but being full of darkness and obscurity to those that rebell against it Divine Truth is not to be discerned so much in a mans Brain as in his Heart Divine wisdome is a Tree of life to them that find her and it is only Life that can feelingly converse with Life All the thin Speculations and subtilest Discourses of Philosophy cannot so well unfold or define any Sensible Object nor tell any one so well what it is as his own naked Sense will doe There is a Divine and Spiritual sense which only is able to converse internally with the life and soul of Divine Truth as mixing and uniting it self with it while vulgar Minds behold only the body and out-side of it Though in it self it be most intelligible and such that mans Mind may most easily apprehend yet there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Hebrew writers call that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incrustamentum immunditiei upon all corrupt Minds which hinders the lively taste and relish of it This is that thick and palpable Darkness which cannot comprehend that divine Light that shines in the Minds and Understandings of all men but makes them to deny that very Truth which they seem to
Despair Fretfulness against God pale Jealousies wrathfull and embittered Thoughts of him or any struglings or contests to get from within the verge of his Power and Omnisciency which would mantle up their Souls in black and horrid Night I mean not all this while by this holy Boldness and Confidence and Presence of Mind in a Believer's converse with the Deitie that high pitch of Assurance that wafts the Souls of good men over the Stygian lake of Death and brings them to the borders of life that here puts them into an actual possession of Bliss and reestates and reestablishes them in Paradise No That more general acquaintance which we may have with God's Philanthropy and Bounty ready to relieve with the bowells of his tender compassions all those starving Souls that call upon him for surely he will never doe less for fainting and drooping Souls then he doth for the young Ravens that cry unto him that converse which we are provoked by the Gospel to maintain with God's unconfined love if we understand it aright will awaken us out of our drowsie Lethargy and make us aske of him the way to Sion with our faces thitherward This will be digging up fresh fountains for us while we goe through the valley of Baca whereby refreshing our weary Souls we shall goe on from strength to strength until we see the face of our loving and ever-to-be-loved God in Sion And so I come to the next Particular wherein we shall further unfold how this God-like righteousness we have spoken of is conveighed to us by Faith and that is this A true Gospel-faith is no lazie or languid thing but a strong ardent breathing for and thirsting after divine Grace and Righteousness it doth not only pursue an ambitious project of raising the Soul immaturely to the condition of a darling Favourite with Heaven while it is unripe for it by procuring a mere empty Pardon of sin it desires not only to stand upon clear terms with Heaven by procuring the crossing of all the Debt-books of our sins there but it rather pursues after an Internal participation of the Divine nature We often hear of a Saving Faith and that where it is is not content to wait for Salvation till the world to come it is not patient of being an Expectant in a Probationership for it untill this Earthly body resignes up all it's worldly interest that so the Soul might then come into its room No but it is here perpetually gasping after it and effecting of it in a way of serious Mortification and Self-denial it enlarges and dilates it self as much as may be according to the vast dimensions of the Divine love that it may comprehend the height and depth the length and breadth thereof and fill the Soul where it is seated with all the fullness of God it breeds a strong and unsatiable appetite where it comes after true Goodness Were I to describe it I should doe it no otherwise then in the language of the Apostle It is that whereby we live in Christ and whereby he lives in us or in the dialect of our Saviour himself Something so powerfully sucking in the precious influences of the Divine Spirit that the Soul where it is is continually flowing with living waters issuing out of it self A truely-believing Soul by an ingenuous affiance in God and an eager thirst after him is alwaies sucking from the full breasts of the Divine love thence it will not part for there and there only is its life and nourishment it starves and faints away with grief and hunger whensoever it is pull'd away from thence it is perpetually hanging upon the arms of Immortal Goodness for there it finds its great strength lies and as much as may be armes it self with the mighty Power of God by which it goes forth like a Gyant refreshed with wine to run that race of Grace Holiness that leads to the true Elysium of Glory and that heavenly Canaan which is above And whensoever it finds it self enfeebled in its difficult Conflict with those fierce and furious Corruptions those tall sons of Anak which arising from our terrene and sensual affections doe here encounter it in the Wilderness of this world then turning it self to God and putting it self under the conduct of the Angel of his presence it finds it self presently out of weakness to become strong enabled from above to put to flight those mighty armies of the aliens True Faith if you would know its rise and pedegree it is begotten of the Divine bounty and fulness manifesting it self to the Spirits of men and it is conceived and brought forth by a deep and humble sense of Self-indigency and Poverty Faith arises out of Self-examination seating and placing it self in view of the Divine plenitude and Allsufficiency and thus that I may borrow those words of S. Paul we received the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him The more this Sensual Brutish and Self-Central life thrives and prospers the more divine Faith languisheth and the more that decays and all Self-feeling Self-love and Self-sufficiency pine away the more is true Faith fed and nourished it grows more vigorous and as Carnal life wasts and consumes so the more does Faith suck in a true divine and spiritual life from the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath life in himself and freely bestowes it to all those that heartily seek for it When the Divinity united it self to Humane nature in the person of our Saviour he then gave mankind a pledge and earnest of what he would further doe therein in assuring of it into as near a conjunction as might be with Himself and in dispensing and communicating himself to Man in a way as far correspondent and agreeable as might be to that first Copy And therefore we are told of Christ being formed in us and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us of our being made conformable to him of having fellowship with him of being as he was in this world of living in him and his living in us of dying and rising again and ascending with him into Heaven and the like because indeed the same Spirit that dwelt in him derives it self in its mighty Virtue and Energy through all believing Souls shaping them more and more into a just resemblance and conformitie to him as the first Copy Pattern Whence it is that we have so many waies of unfolding the Union between Christ and all Believers set forth in the Gospel And all this is done for us by degrees through the efficacy of the Eternal spirit when by a true Faith we deny our selves and our own Wills submit our seves in a deep sense of our own folly and weakness to his Wisdome and Power comply with his Will and by a holy affiance in him subordinate our selves to his pleasure for these are the Vital acts of a Gospel-Faith And according to this which hath been said I
knowledge and moving on towards a state of Perfection we do but turn up and down from one kind of Form to another we are as apt still to draw it down into as low worldly and mundane Rites and Ordinances as ever it was before our Saviour made that glorious Reformation therein which took away these Material crutches made up of carnal Observances which Earthly minds lean so much upon and are fain to underprop their Religion with which else would tumble down and fall to nothing except we can cast it into such a certain Set of duties and System of Opinions that we may see it altogether from one end to another we are afraid lest it should become too abstruse a thing and vanish away from us I would not be misunderstood to speak against those Duties Ordinances which are necessary means appointed by God to promote us in the waies of Piety But I fear we are too apt to sink all our Religion into these and so to embody it that we may as it were touch and feel it because we are so little acquainted with the high and spiritual nature of it which is too subtile for gross and carnal minds to converse with I fear our vulgar sort of Christians are wont so to look upon such kind of Models of Divinity and Religious performances which were intended to help our dul minds to a more lively sense of God and true Goodness as those things that claim the whole of their Religion and therefore are too apt to think themselves absolved from it except at some solemn times of more especial addresses to God and that this wedding garment of holy Thoughts and divine Affections is not for every days wearing but only then to be put on when we come to the Marriage-feast and Festivals of Heaven as if Religion were fast lock'd and bound up in some sacred Solemnities and so incarcerated and incorporated into some divine Mysteries as the superstitious Heathen of old thought that it might not stir abroad and wander too far out of these hallowed Cloisters and grow too busie with us in our Secular imploiments We have learned to distinguish too subtily I doubt in our lives and conversations inter sacrum profanum our Religious approaches to God and our Worldly affairs I know our conversation and demeanour in this world is not nor can well be all of a piece and there will be several degrees of Sanctity in the lives of the best men as there were once in the land of Canaan but yet I think a Good man should alwaies find himself upon Holy ground and never depart so far into the affairs of this life as to be without either the call or compass of Religion he should alwaies think wheresoever he is etiam ibi Dii sunt that God and the blessed Angels are there with whom he should converse in a way of Puritie We must not think that Religion serves to paint our Faces to reform our Looks or only to inform our Heads or instruct and tune our Tongues no nor only to tie our Hands and make our Outward man more demure and bring our Bodies and bodily actions into a better decorum But its main business is to purge and reform our Hearts and all the Elicit actions and motions thereof And so I come to a Third particular wherein we are apt to misjudge our selves in matters of Religion CHAP. IV. The Third Mistake about Religion viz. A constrain'd and forc'd Obedience to God's Commandments The Religion of many some of whom would seem most abhorrent from Superstition is nothing else but Superstition properly so called False Religionists having no inward sense of the Divine Goodness cannot truly love God Yet their sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God compell them to serve him A slavish spirit in Religion may be very prodigal in such kind of serving God as doth not pinch their Corruptions but in the great and weightier matters of Religion in such things as prejudice their beloved Lusts it is very needy and sparing This servile Spirit has low and mean thoughts of God but an high opinion of its Outward services as conceiting that by such cheap things God is gratified and becomes indebted to it The different Effects of Love and Slavish fear in the truly and in the falsly Religious ANother Particular wherein men mistake Religion is A constrained and forced obedience to God's Commandments That which many men amongst whom some would seem to be most abhorrent from Superstition call their Religion is indeed nothing else but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may use the word in its ancient and proper sense as it imports such an apprehension of God as renders him grievous to men and so destroys all free and chearfull converse with him and begets in stead thereof a forc'd and dry devotion void of inward Life and Love Those Servile spirits which are not acquainted with God and his Goodnesse may be so haunted by the frightfull thoughts of a Deity as to scare and terrifie them into some worship and observance of him They are apt to look upon him as one clothed with austerity or as the Epicurean Poet hath too truly painted out their thoughts as a savus Dominus that is in the language of the unprofitable servant in the Gospel an hard Master and therefore they think something must be done to please him and to mitigate his severity towards them and though they cannot truly love him having no inward sense of his Loveliness yet they cannot but serve him so far as these rigorous apprehensions lie upon them though notwithstanding such as these are very apt to perswade themselves that they may pacifie him and purchase his favour with some cheap services as if Heaven it self could become guilty of Bribery and an Immutable Justice be flattered into Partiality and Respect of persons Because they are not acquainted with God and know him not as he is in himself therefore they are ready to paint him forth to themselves in their own shape and because they themselves are full of Peevishness and Self-will arbitrarily imposing and prescribing to others without sufficient evidence of Reason and are easily inticed by Flatteries they are apt to represent the Divinity also to themselves in the same form and think they view the true pourtraiture and draught of their own Genius in it and therefore that they might please this angry Deity of their own making they care not sometimes to be lavish in such a kind of Service of him as doth not much pinch their own corruptions nay and it may be too will seem to part with them sometimes and give them a weeping farewel if God and their own awakened Consciences seem to frown upon them though all their Obedience arise from nothing else but the Compulsions and necessities which their own sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God lay upon them and therefore in those things which more nearly touch their own beloved Lusts they
will be as scant and sparing as may be here they will be as strict with God as may be that he may have no more then his due as they think like that Unprofitable servant in the Gospel that because his Master was an austere man reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he had not scattered was content and willing he should have his own again but would not suffer him to have any more This Servile spirit in Religion is alwaies illiberal and needy in the Magnalia Legis the great and weightier matters of Religion and here weighs out Obedience by drams and scruples it never finds it self more shrivell'd and shrunk up then when it is to converse with God like those creatures that are generated of slime and mud the more the Summer-sun shines upon them and the nearer it comes to them the more is all their vital strength dried up and spent away their dreadfull thoughts of God like a cold Eastern wind blasts all their blossoming affections and nips them in the bud these exhaust their native vigour and make them weak and sluggish in all their motions toward God Their Religion is rather a Prison or a piece of Penance to them then any voluntary and free compliance of their Souls with the Divine will and yet because they bear the burden and heat of the day they think when the evening comes they ought to be more liberally rewarded such slavish spirits being ever apt inwardly to conceit that Heaven receives some emolument or other by their hard labours and so becomes indebted to them because they see no true gain and comfort accruing from them to their own Souls and so because they doe God's work and not their own they think they may reasonably expect a fair compensation as having been profitable to him And this I doubt was the first and vulgar foundation of Merit though now the world is ashamed to own it But alas such an ungodlike Religion as this can never be owned by God the Bond-woman and her son must be cast out The Spirit of true Religion is of a more free noble ingenuous and generous nature arising out of the warm beams of the Divine love which first hatch'd it and brought it forth and therefore is it afterwards perpetually bathing it self in that sweetest love that first begot it and is alwaies refresh'd and nourish'd by it This Love casteth out fear fear which hath torment in it and is therefore more apt to chase away Souls once wounded with it from God rather then to allure them to God Such fear of God alwaies carries in it a secret Antipathy against him as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plutarch speaks one that is so troublesome that there is no quiet or peaceable living with him Whereas Love by a strong Sympathy draws the Souls of men when it hath once laid hold upon them by its powerfull insinuation into the nearest conjunction that may be with the Divinity it thaws all those frozen affections which a Slavish fear had congealed and lock'd up and makes the Soul most chearfull free and nobly resolved in all its motions after God It was well observed of old by Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are never so well as when we approach to God when in a way of Religion we make our addresses to God then are our Souls most chearfull True Religion and an Inward acquaintance with God discovers nothing in him but pure and sincere Goodness nothing that might breed the least distaste or disaffection or carry in it any semblance of displeasingness and therefore the Souls of good men are never pinching and sparing in their affections then the Torrent is most full and swells highest when it empties it self into this unbounded Ocean of the Divine Being This makes all the Commandements of God light and easie and far from being grievous There needs no Law to compel a Mind acted by the true spirit of divine love to serve God or to comply with his Will It is the choice of such a Soul to endeavour to conform it self to him and draw from him as much as may be an Imitation of that Goodness and Perfection which it finds in him Such a Christian does not therefore obey his Commands only because it is God's Will he should doe so but because he sees the Law of God to be truly perfect as David speaks his nature being reconciled to God finds it all holy just and good as S. Paul speaks and such a thing as his Soul loves sweeter then the honey or the honey-combe and he makes it his meat and drink to doe the Will of God as our Lord and Saviour did And so I pass to the Fourth and last Particular wherein Religion is sometimes mistaken CHAP. V. The Fourth and last Mistake about Religion When a mere Mechanical and Artificial Religion is taken for that which is a true Impression of Heaven upon the Souls of men and which moves like a new Nature How Religion is by some made a piece of Art and how there may be specious and plausible Imitations of the Internals of Religion as well as of the Externals The Method and Power of Fancy in contriving such Artificial imitations How apt men are in these to deceive both themselves and others The Difference between those that are govern'd in their Religion by Fancy and those that are actuated by the Divine Spirit and in whom Religion is a Living Form That True Religion is no Art but a new Nature Religion discovers it self best in a Serene and clear Temper of Mind in deep Humility Meekness Self-denial Universal love of God and all true Goodness THE Fourth and last Particular wherein men mis-judge themselves is When a mere Mechanical and Artificial Religion is taken for that which is a true Impression of Heaven upon the Souls of men and which moves like an Inward nature True Religion will not stoop to Rules of Art nor be confin'd within the narrow compass thereof No where it is we may cry out with the Greek Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath there kindled as it were his own Life which will move and act only according to the Laws of Heaven But there are some Mechanical Christians that can frame and fashion out Religion so cunningly in their own Souls by that Book-skill they have got of it that it may many times deceive themselves as if it were a true living thing We often hear that mere Pretenders to Religion may go as far in all the External acts of it as those that are best acquainted with it I doubt not also but many times there may be Artificial imitations drawn of that which only lives in the Souls of good Men by the powerful and wily Magick of exalted Fancies as we read of some Artificers that have made such Images of living creatures wherein they have not only drawn forth the outward shape but seem almost to have copied out the life
mangling of the Words or running out into any Critical curiosities about them I shall from these Words take occasion to set forth The Nobleness and Generous Spirit of True Religion which I suppose to be meant here by The way of life The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here rendred above may signifie that which is divine and heavenly high and excellent as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 3. 2. S. Austin supposeth the things of Religion to be meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superna for this reason quòd merito excellentiae longè superant res terrenas And in this sense I shall consider it my purpose being from hence to discourse of the Excellent and Noble spirit of true Religion whether it be taken in abstracto as it is in it self or in concreto as it becomes an inward Form and Soul to the Minds and Spirits of Good men and this in opposition to that low and base-born spirit of Irreligion which is perpetually sinking from God till it couches to the very Centre of misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lowermost Hell In discoursing upon this Argument I shall observe this Method viz. I shall consider the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion 1. In its Rise and Original 2. In its Nature and Essence 3. In its Properties and Operations 4. In its Progress 5. In its Term and End CHAP. I. 1. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Original and Fountain it comes from Heaven and moves towards Heaven again God the First Excellency and Primitive Perfection All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approach to and Participation of the First Perfection Religion the greatest Participation of God none capable of this Divine Communication but the Highest of created Beings and consequently Religion is the greatest Excellency A twofold Fountain in God whence Religion flowes viz. 1. His Nature 2. His Will Of Truth Natural and Revealed Of an Outward and Inward Revelation of God's Will WE begin with the First viz. True Religion is a Noble thing in its Rise and Original and in regard of its Descent True Religion derives its pedigree from Heaven is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes from Heaven and constantly moves toward Heaven again it 's a Beam from God as every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning as S. James speaks God is the First Truth and Primitive Goodness True Religion is a vigorous Efflux and Emanation of Both upon the Spirits of men and therefore is called a participation of the divine Nature Indeed God hath copyed out himself in all created Being having no other Pattern to frame any thing by but his own Essence so that all created Being is umbratilis similitudo entis increati and is by some stamp or other of God upon it at least remotely allied to him But True Religion is such a Communication of the Divinity as none but the Highest of created Beings are capable of On the other side Sin and Wickedness is of the basest and lowest Original as being nothing else but a perfect degeneration from God and those Eternal Rules of Goodness which are derived from him Religion is an Heaven-born thing the Seed of God in the Spirits of men whereby they are formed to a similitude likeness of himself A true Christian is every way of a most noble Extraction of an heavenly and divine pedigree being born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above as it is express'd Joh. 3. The line of all earthly Nobility if it were followed to the beginning would lead to Adam where all the lines of descent meet in One and the Root of all Extractions would be found planted in nothing else but Adamah red Earth But a Christian derives his line from Christ who is the Only-begotten Son of God the shining forth of his glory and the Character of his person as he is stiled Heb. 1. We may truly say of Christ and Christians as Zebah and Zalmunna said of Gideon's brethren As he is so are they according to their capacity each one resembling the children of a king Titles of Worldly honour in Heavens heraldry are but only Tituli nominales but Titles of Divine dignity signify some Real thing some Real and Divine Communications to the Spirits and Minds of men All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approach to that Primitive Perfection of all God himself and therefore Participation of the Divine nature cannot but entitle a Christian to the highest degree of dignity Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 1 Jo. 3. 1. Thus much for a more general discovery of the Nobleness of Religion as to its Fountain and Original We may further and more particularly take notice of this in reference to that Twofold fountain in God from whence all true Religion flows and issues forth viz. 1. His Immutable Nature 2. His Will 1. The Immutable Nature of God From thence arise all those Eternal Rules of Truth and Goodness which are the Foundation of all Religion and which God at the first Creation folded up in the Soul of man These we may call the Truths of Natural inscription understanding hereby either those Fundamental principles of Truth which Reason by a naked intuition may behold in God or those necessary Corollaries and Deductions that may be drawn from thence I cannot think it so proper to say That God ought infinitely to be loved because he commands it as because he is indeed an Infinite and Unchangeable Goodness God hath stamp'd a Copy of his own Archetypal Loveliness upon the Soul that man by reflecting into himself might behold there the glory of God intra se videre Deum see within his Soul all those Ideas of Truth which concern the Nature and Essence of God by reason of its own resemblance of God and so beget within himself the most free and generous motions of Love to God Reason in man being Lumen de Lumine a Light flowing from the Fountain and Father of Lights and being as Tully phraseth it participata similitudo Rationis aternae as the Law of Nature the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law written in mans Heart is participatio Legis aternae in Rationali creatura it was to enable Man to work out of himself all those Notions of God which are the true Ground-work of Love and Obedience to God and conformity to him and in modling the inward man into the greatest conformity to the Nature of God was the Perfection and Efficacy of the Religion of Nature But since Mans fall from God the inward virtue and vigour of Reason is much abated the Soul having suffered a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the Almighty and to establish an unbounded Tyranny in contradiction to the Will of God which is nothing else but the Issue and Efflux of his Eternal and Unbounded Goodness This is the very Heart of the old Adam that is within men This is the Hellish Spirit of Self-will it would solely prescribe laws to all things it would fain be the source and fountain of all affaires and events it would judge all things at its own Tribunal They in whose Spirits this Principle rules would have their own Fancies and Opinions their perverse and boisterous Wills to be the just Square and Measure of all Good and Evil these are the Plumb-lines they applie to all things to find out their Rectitude or Obliquity He that will not submit himself to nor comply with the Eternal and Uncreated Will but in stead of it endeavours to set up his own will makes himself the most real Idol in the world and exalts himself against all that is called God and ought to be worshipp'd To worship a graven Image or to make cakes burn incense to the Queen of heaven is not a worse Idolatry then it is for a man to set up Self-will to devote himself to the serving of it and to give up himself to a complyance with his own will as contrary to the Divine and Eternal Will When God made the World he did not make it merely for the exercise of his Almighty power and then throw it out of his hands and leave it alone to subsist by it self as a thing that had no further relation to him But he derived himself through the whole Creation so gathering and knitting up all the several pieces of it again that as the first production and the continued Subsistence of all things is from himself so the ultimate resolution and tendency of all things might be to him Now that which first endeavoured a Divorce between God and his Creation and to make a Conquest of it was that Diabolical Arrogancy and Self-will that crept up and wound it self Serpent-like into apostate Minds and Spirits This is the true strain of that Hellish nature to live independently of God and to derive the Principles from another Beginning and carry on the line of all motions and operations to another End then God himself by whom and to whom and for whom all things subsist From what hath been said concerning this powerful and dangerous Enemy that wars against our Souls and against the Divine Will may the Excellency and Noble Spirit of True Religion appear in that it tames the impetuousness and turbulency of this Self-will Then indeed does Religion perform the highest and bravest conquests then does it display the greatness of its strength and the excellency of its power when it overcomes this great Arimanius that hath so firmly seated himself in the very Centre of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who is the man of Courage and Valour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is he that subdues his Concupiscence his own Will it is a Jewish Maxime attributed to Ben Zoma and a most undoubted truth This was the grand Lesson that our great Lord Master came to teach us viz. To deny our own Wils neither was there any thing that he endeavor'd more to promote by his own Example as he tells us of himself I came down from heaven not to doe mine own will but the will of him that sent me and again Lo I come in the volume of the Book it is written of me to do thy will O God yea thy Law is within my heart and in his greatest agonies with a clear and chearful submission to the Divine will he often repeats it Not my will but thy will be done and so he hath taught us to pray and so to live This indeed is the true life and spirit of Religion this is Religion in its Meridian altitude its just dimensions A true Christian that hath power over his own Will may live nobly and happily and enjoy a perpetually-clear heaven within the Serenity of his own Mind When the Sea of this World is most rough and tempestuous about him then can he ride safely at Anchor within the haven by a sweet complyance of his will with God's Will He can look about him and with an even and indifferent Mind behold the World either to smile or frown upon him neither will he abate of the least of his Contentment for all the ill and unkind usage he meets withall in this life He that hath got the Mastery over his own Will feels no violence from without finds no contests within and like a strong man keeping his house he preserves all his Goods in safety and when God calls for him out of this state of Mortality he finds in himself a power to lay down his own life neither is it so much taken from him as quietly and freely surrendred up by him This is the highest piece of prowess the noblest atchievement by which a man becomes Lord over himself and the Master of his own Thoughts Motions and Purposes This is the Royal prerogative the high dignity conferred upon Good men by our Lord and Saviour whereby they overcoming this both His and their Enemy their Self-will and Passions are enabled to sit down with him in his Throne as he overcoming in another way is set down with his Father in his Throne as the phrase is Revelat. 3. Religion begets the most Heroick Free and Generous motions in the Minds of Good men There is no where so much of a truly Magnanimous and raised Spirit as in those who are best acquainted with the power of Religion Other men are Slaves and Captives to one Vanity or other but the truly Religious is above them all and able to command himself and all his Powers for God That bravery and gallantness which seems to be in the great Nimrods of this world is nothing else but the swelling of their own unbounded pride and vain-glory It hath been observed of the greatest Monarchs of the world that in the midst of their Triumphs they themselves have been led Captives to one Vice or another All the Gallantry and Puissance which the Bravest Spirits of the world boast of is but a poor confined thing and extends it self only to some Particular Cases and Circumstances But the Valour and Puissance of a Soul impregnated by Religion hath in a sort an Universal Extent as S. Paul speaks of himself I can doe all things through Christ which strengtheneth me it is not determined to this or that Particular Object or Time or Place but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things whatsoever belong to a Creature fall under the level thereof Religion is by S. Paul described to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit of power in opposition to the Spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. as all Sin is by Simplicius wel described to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impotency weakness Sin by its deadly infusions
own happiness This is the best temper and composedness of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus speaks when by a Conjunction with One Chief Good and Last End it is drawn up into an Unity and Consent with it self when all the Faculties of the Soul with their several issues and motions though never so many in themselves like so many lines meet together in one and the same Centre It is not one and the same Goodness that alwaies acts the Faculties of a Wicked man but as many several images and pictures of Goodness as a quick and working Fancy can represent to him which so divide his affections that he is no One thing within himself but tossed hither and thither by the most independent Principles Imaginations that may be But a Good man hath singled out the Supreme Goodness which by an Omnipotent sweetness draws all his affections after it and so makes them all with the greatest complacency conspire together in the pursuit and embraces of it Were there not some Infinite and Self-sufficient Goodness and that perfectly One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simplicius doth phrase it Man would be a most miserably-distracted creature As the restless appetite within Man after some Infinite and Soveraign Good without the enjoyment of which it could never be satisfied does commend unto us the Notion of a Deity so the perpetnal distractions and divisions that would arise in the Soul upon a Plurality of Deities may seem no less to evince the Unity of that Deity Were not this Chief Good perfectly One were there any other equal to it man's Soul would hang in aequilibrio equally poised equally desiring the enjoyment of both but moving to neither like a piece of Iron between two Loadstones of equal virtue But when Religion enters into the Soul it charms all its restless rage and violent appetite by discovering to it the Universal Fountain-fulness of One Supreme Almighty Goodness and leading it out of it self into a conjunction therewith it lulls it into the most undisturbed rest and quietness in the lap of Divine enjoyment where it meets with full contentment and rests adequately satisfied in the fruition of the Infinite Uniform and Essential Goodness and Loveliness the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a noble Philosopher doth well express it The Peace which a Religious Soul is possessed of is such a Peace as passeth all understanding the Joy that it meets with in the ways of Holiness is unspeakable and full of Glory The Delights and Sweetnesses that accompany a Religious life are of a purer and more excellent Nature then the Pleasures of Worldly men The Spirit of a Good man is a more pure and refined thing then to delight it self in the thick mire of Earthly and Sensual pleasures which Carnal men rowle and tumble themselves in with so much greediness Non admittit ad volatum Accipitrem suum in terra pulverulenta as the Arabick Proverb hath it It speaks the degeneration of any Soul whatsoever that it should desire to incorporate it self with any of the gross dreggy sensual delights here below But a Soul purified Religion from all Earthly dreggs delights to mingle it self only with things that are most Divine and Spiritual There is nothing that can beget any pleasure or sweetness but in some harmonical Faculty which hath some kindred and acquaintance with it As it is in the Senses so in every other Faculty there is such a Natural kind of Science as whereby it can single out its own proper Object from every thing else and is better able to define it to it self then the exactest Artist in the world can and when once it hath found it out it presently feels it self so perfectly fitted and matched by it that it dissolves into secret joy and pleasure in the entertainment of it True Delight and Joy is begotten by the conjunction of some discerning Faculty with its proper Object The proper Object for a Mind and Spirit are Divine and Immaterial things with which it hath the greatest affinity and therefore triumphs most in its converse with them as it is well observed by Seneca Hoc habet argumentum divinitatis suae quòd illum divina delectant nec ut alienis interest sed ut suis and when it converseth most with these high and noble Objects it behaves it self most gracefully and lives most becoming it self and it lives also most deliciously nor can it any where else be better provided for or indeed fare so well A Good man disdains to be beholding to the Wit or Art or Industry of any Creature to find him out and bring him in a constant revenue and maintenance for his Joy and Pleasure the language of his Heart is that of the Psalmist Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me Religion alwaies carries a sufficient Provision of Joy and Sweetness along with it to maintain it self withall All the ways of Wisdom are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Religion is no sullen Stoicisme or oppressing Melancholie it is no enthralling tyranny exercised over those noble and vivacious affections of Love and Delight as those men that were never acquainted with the life of it may imagine but it is full of a vigorous and masculine delight and joy such as advanceth and ennobles the Soul and does not weaken or dispirit the life and power of it as Sensual and Earthly joys doe when the Soul unacquainted with Religion is enforc'd to give entertainment to these gross earthly things for the want of enjoyment of some better Good The Spirit of a Good man may justly behave it self with a noble disdain to all Terrene pleasures because it knows where to mend its fare it is the same Almighty and Eternal Goodness which is the Happiness of God and of all Good men The truly-religious Soul affects nothing primarily and fundamentally but God himself his contentment even in the midst of his Worldly employments is in the Sun of the Divine favour that shines upon him this is as the Manna that lies upon the top of all outward blessings which his Spirit gathers up and feeds upon with delight Religion consists not in a toilesome drudgery about some Bodily exercises and External performances nor is it onely the spending of our selves in such attendances upon God and services to him as are onely accommodated to this life though every employment for God is both amiable and honourable But there is something of our Religion that interests us in a present possession of that joy which is unspeakable and glorious which leads us into the Porch of heaven and to the confines of Eternity It sometimes carries up the Soul into a mount of Transfiguration or to the top of Pisgah where it may take a prospect of the promised land and gives it a Map or Scheme of its future inheritance it gives it sometimes some anticipations of
Blessedness some foretasts of those joys those rivers of pleasure which run at God's right hand for evermore I might further add as a Mantissa to this present Argument the Tranquillity and Composedness of a Good man's spirit in reference to all External molestations Religion having made a through-pacification of the Soul within it self renders it impregnable to all outward assaults So that it is at rest and lives securely in the midst of all those boysterous Storms and Tempests that make such violent impressions upon the spirits of wicked men Here the Stoicks have stated the case aright That all Perturbations of the Mind arise not properly from an Outward but an Inward cause it is not any outward Evil but an inward imagination bred in the womb of the Soul it self that molests and grieves it The more that the Soul is restored to it self and lives at the height of it's own Being the more easily may it disdain and despise any design or combination against it by the most blustering Giants in the world A Christian that enjoys himself in God will not be beholding to the worlds fair and gentle usage for the composedness of his mind No he enjoys that Peace and Tranquillity within himself which no creature can bestow upon him or take from him But the Stoicks were not so happy in their notions about the way to true Rest and Composedness of Spirit It is not by their leave the Souls collecting and gathering up it self within the Circumference of it's own Essence nor is it a rigid restraining and keeping in its own issues and motions within the confines of its own natural endowments which is able to conferre upon it that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Composedness of mind which they so much idolize as the supreme and onely bliss of man and render it free from all kind of perturbations For by what we find in Seneca and others it appears that the Stoicks seeking an Autarchy within themselves and being loth to be beholden to God for their Happiness but that each of them might be as God self-sufficient and happy in the enjoyment of himself endeavoured by their sour doctrine and a rigid discipline over their Souls their severities against Passions and all those restless motions in the Soul after some Higher Good to attain a complete 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a full contentment within themselves But herein they mistof the true method of finding Rest to themselves it being the Union of the Soul with God that Uniform Simple and unbounded Good which is the sole Original of all true inward Peace Neither were it an Happiness worth the having for a Mind like an Hermite sequestred from all things else by a recession into it self to spend an Eternity in self-converse and the enjoyment of such a Diminutive superficial Nothing as it self is and must necessarily be to it self It is onely peculiar to God to be happy in himself alone and God who has been more liberal in his provisions for man hath created in man such a spring of restless motion that with the greatest impatiency forceth him out of himself and violently tosseth him to and fro till he come to fix himself upon some solid and Self-subsistent Goodness Could a man find himself withdrawn from all terrene and Material things and perfectly retired into himself were the whole World so quiet and calme about him as not to offer to make the least attempt upon the composedness and constancy of his Mind might he be so well entertain'd at his own home as to find no frowns no sour looks from his own Conscience might he have that security from Heaven that God would not disquiet his fancied Tranquillity by embittering his thoughts with any dreadful apprehensions yet he should find something within him that would not let him be at rest but would rend him from himself toss him from his own foundation consistency There is an insatiable appetite in the Soul of man like a greedy Lion hunting after his prey that would render him impatient of his own pinching penury could never satisfy it self with such a thin and spare diet as he finds at home There are Two principall faculties in the Soul which like the two daughters of the Horsleach are always crying Give Give these are those hungry Vultures which if they cannot find their prey abroad return and gnaw the Soul it self where the carkasse is there will the Eagles be gathered together By this we may see how unavailable to the attaining of true Rest and Peace that conceit of the Stoicks was who supposed the onely way and method hereto was this To confine the Soul thus Monastically to its own home We read in the Gospel of such a Question of our Saviour's What went you out into the wilderness to see we may invert it What do you return within to see A Soul confined within the private and narrow cell of its own particular Being Such a Soul deprives it self of all that Almighty and Essential Glory and Goodness which shines round about it which spreads it self through the whole universe I say it deprives it self of all this for the enjoying of such a poor petty and diminutive thing as it self is which yet it can never enjoy truly in such a retiredness We have seen the Peacefull and Happy state of the truly-religious But it is otherwise with wicked and irreligious men There is no peace to the wicked but they are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt as it is exprest by the Prophet Esay The mind of a wicked man is like the Sea when it roares and rages through the striving of severall contrary winds upon it Furious lusts and wild passions within as they warre against Heaven and the more noble and divine part of the Soul so they warr amongst themselves maintaining perpetuall contests contending which shall be the greatest Scelera dissident These indeed are the Cadmus-brood rising out of the Serpent's teeth ready arm'd one against another whence it is that the Soul of a wicked man becomes a very unhabitable and incommodious place to it self full of disquietness and trouble through the many contests and civil commotious maintained within it The minds of wicked men are like those disconsolate and desolate spirits which our Saviour speaks of Matth. 12. which being cast out of their habitation wander up and down through dry and desert places seeking rest but finding none The Soul that finds not some solid and self-sufficient Good to centre it self upon is a boisterous and restless thing and being without God it wanders up and down the world destitute afflicted tormented with vehement hunger and thirst after some satisfying Good and as any one shall bring it tidings Lo here or Lo there is Good it presently goes out towards it and with a swift and speedy flight hastens after it The sense of an inward indigency doth stimulate and enforce it to seek its
correspondence and converse with the Devil The Fears and Horrors which infest both the Apostate Spirits and Wicked men The weakness of the Devil's kingdom Christ's success against it IT Hath been an antient Tradition received by the Gentile Philosophers That there are Two main Principles that spend and spread their influence through the whole Universe The one they call'd The Principle of Good the other they call'd The Principle of Evil and that these Two maintain a continual contest and enmity the one with the other The Principle of Goodness which is nothing else but God himself who derived himself in clear and lovely stamps and impressions of Beauty and Goodness through the whole Creation endeavours still to assimilate and unite it to himself And on the other side The Principle of Evil the Prince of darkness having once stained the Original beauty and glory of the Divine workmanship is continually striving to mold and shape it more and more into his own likeness And as there is such a perpetual and active Enmity between God and the Evil Spirit so whatsoever is from God is perpetually opposing and warring against that which arises from the Devil The Divine Goodness hath put enmity between whatsoever is born of him or flowes forth from it self and the Seed of the Serpent As at the beginning he divided between the Night and the Day between Light and Darkness so that they can never intermingle or comply one with another or be reconciled one to the other so neither can those Beams of Divine light and love which descend from God upon the Souls of men be ever reconciled to those foul and filthy Mists of Sin and Darkness which ascend out of the bottomless pit of Hell and Death That Spirit is not from God who is the Father of lights and in whom there is no darkness as the Apostle speaks which endeavours to compound with Hell and to accommodate between God and the Devil God himself hath set the bounds to darkness and the shadow of death Divine Truth and Goodness cannot contract themselves with any thing that is from Hell or espouse themselves to any Brat of darkness as it was set forth in the Emblem under the Old Law where none of the Holy seed might marry with the people of any strange God Though that Rule Touch not tast not handle not be abolished in the Symbolical rites yet it hath an immutable Mystery in it not subject to the laws or changes of Time He that will entertain any correspondence with the Devil or receive upon his Soul his Image or the number of his name must first devest and strip himself of all that which hath any alliance to God or true Goodness within him He must transform his Mind into the true likeness and similitude of those foul Fiends of darkness and abandon all relation to the Highest and Supremest Good And yet though some men endeavour to doe this and to smother all those Impressions of Light and Reason which God hath folded up in every mans Being and destroy all that which is from God within them that so they may reconcile themselves to Sin and Hell yet can they never make any just peace with them There is no peace to the wicked but they are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt Those Evil spirits are alwaies turbulent and restless and though they maintain continually a War with God and his kingdom yet are they alwaies making disquietings and disturbances in their own kingdom and the more they contest with God and are deprived of him the more full are they of horror and tumultuous commotions within Nothing can stand firm and sure nothing can have any true and quiet establishment that hath not the Everlasting arms of true Goodness under it to support it And as those that deliver over themselves most to the Devil's pleasure and devote themselves to his service cannot doe it without a secret inward Antipathy against him or dreadful thoughts of him so neither can those impure spirits stand before the Divine glory but being filled with trembling and horror continually endeavour to hide themselves from it and flee away before it as the Darkness flies away before the Light And according as God hath in any Places in any Ages of the world made any manifestations of himself to men so have those Evil spirits been vanquished and forced to quit their former Territories as is especially very observable in the ceasing of all the Graecian Oracles soon after the Gospel was promulged in those parts when those desolate spirits with horrid and dismal groans resigned up their habitations as Plutarch hath recorded of them Our Saviour hath found by good experience how weak a thing the Devil's kingdome is when he spoiled all the Principalities and Powers of darkness and made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in or by it that is his Crosse as the Apostle speaks and if we will resolutely follow the Captain of our salvation and fight under his banner as good souldiers of Jesus Christ we have full security given us for the same successe Resist the Devil and he will flee from you CHAP. II. The First observable That the Devil is continually busie with us The Devil consider'd under a double notion 1. As an Apostate Spirit which fell from God The great danger of the Devil's activity not onely when he presents himself in some corporeal shape but when he is unseen and appears not The weakness and folly of those who are afraid of him onely when he appears embodyed That the Good Spirit of God is active for the Good of Souls How regardless men are of the gentle motions of the Divine Spirit and how unwatchfull and secure under the Suggestions of the Evil Spirit How we may discover the Devil in his Stratagems and under his several disguises and appearances IN these words Resist the Devil and he will flee from you we shall take notice First of what is evidently implied viz. That the Devil is continually busy with us This may be considered under a double notion 1. By the Devil we are to understand that Apostate Spirit which fell from God and is always designing to hale down others from God also The old Dragon mentioned in the Revelation with his tail drew down the third part of the Stars of heaven and cast them to the Earth As true Goodness is not content to be happy alone so neither can Sin and Wickedness be content to be miserable alone The Evil Spirit told God himself what his imployment was viz. To goe to and fro in the earth and to walk up and down in it he is always walking up and down through dry places where no Divine influences fall to water it as our Saviour speaks seeking rest though always restlesse The Philosophy of the Antients hath observed That every man that comes into this world hath a good and an evil Genius attending upon him
so much a Thing without us as some men would seem to fansy it were we so dead and liveless as that we could never move but from an External impetus as our Religion could never indeed be called Ours so neither could we ever have the inward sense of that Bliss and Peace which goes along with it but must be like so many heavy loggs or dul pieces of Earth in Heaven and Happiness That is a very earthly and flat Spirit in Religion which sinks like the lees to the bottome or rather it is like that Terra damnata which the Chymists speak of having no vigour life or activity left in it is truly dead to God and is reprobate to any thing of Heaven We know the Pedigree of those Exhalations that arise no higher then a mere external force from the Sun's heat weigheth them up to be but base and earthly and therefore having no natural warmth or energy within themselves imparted to them they sink down again to the Earth from whence they came The Spirit which is from Heaven is alwaies out of an in-bred Nobleness which bears it up carried upwards again towards Heaven from whence it came powerfully resisting all things that would deprive it of God or hinder it from returning to its Original it is alwaies moving upwards in an even and steady way towards God from whence it came leaving the dark Regions of Hell and Death under it it resists Hell and Darkness by assimilating and conforming it self to God it resists Darkness in the armour of light it resists Death and destruction by the power of Divine love It must be something of Heaven in the Minds of men which must resist the Devil and Hell We do not alwaies resist the Devil then when we bid defiance to him or when we declame most zealously against him neither does our Resisting and Opposing of Sin and Wickedness consist in the violence of some Feminine passions which may sometimes be raised by the power of Fancy in the Minds of men against it But it consists rather in a mature and sedate resolution against it in our own Souls arising from a clear judgment of the foul and hatefull nature of Sin it self and him who is the Patron of it in a constant and serious endeavour of setling the government of our own Souls and establishing the principality of Grace and Peace within our selves There is a pompous and popular kind of tumult in the world which sometimes goes for Zeal to God and his kingdome against the Devil whenas mens own Pride and Passions disguise themselves under the notions of a Religious fervencie Some men think themselves the greatest Champions for God and his Cause when they can take the greatest liberty to quarrel with every thing abroad and without themselves which is not shaped according to the mould of their own Opinions their own Self-will Humour and Interest Whereas indeed this Spiritual warfare is not so much maintained against a forrein enemy as against those domestick rebellions that are within neither is it then carried on most successfully when men make the greatest noise and most of all raise the dust That impetuous violence and tempestuousness with which men are acted in pretensions of Religion arises ordinarily I doubt from unquiet and disturbed Minds within whereas it is indeed the inward conflicts and commotions sin and vice and not a holy zeal for God which discompose the Minds of men Sin where it is entertained will indeed breed disturbance and break the peace of a mans own spirit but a true resisting and opposing of it is the restoring of the Soul to its just Consistency Freedome and Serenity again As God's kingdome is set up so the Devil's kingdome may be pulled down without the noise of axes and hammers We may then attain to the greatest atchievements against the gates of Hell and Death when we most of all possesse our own Souls in patience collect our Minds into the most peacefull composed and united temper The motions of true Practical Religion are most like that of the Heavens which though most swift is yet most silent As Grace and true Religion is no lazy or sluggish thing but in perpetual motion so all the motions of it are soft and gentle While it acts most powerfully within it also acts most peacefully The kingdome of heaven comes not with observation that men may say Loe here or Loe there it is not with the devouring fire coming after it or a whirlwind going before it This fight and contest with Sin and Satan is not to be known by the ratling of the Chariots or the sound of an alarm it is indeed alone transacted upon the inner stage of mens souls and spirits and is rather a pacifying and quieting of all those riots and tumults raised there by Sin and Satan it is rather a reconciling the minds of men to Truth Justice and Holiness it is a captivating and subjecting all our Powers and Faculties to God and true Goodness through the effectual working of a divine Love and Humility and this Ressistance is always attended with Victory and Triumph warts upon this Fight which is the Third and last Observation we shall make upon these Words CHAP. V. The Third Observable viz. The Certainty of Success and victory to all those that resist the Devil This grounded upon 1. The Weakness of the Devil and Sin consider'd in themselves 2. God's powerfull assisting all faithful Christians in this warfare The Devil may allure and tempt but cannot prevail except men consent and yield to his suggestions The Devil's strength lies in mens treachery and falseness to their own Souls Sin is strong because men oppose it weakly The Errour of the Manichees about a Principium mali defended by men in their lives and practices Of God's readiness to assist Christians in their spiritual Consticts his Compassionate regards and the more special respects of his Providence towards them in such occasions The Conclusion discovering the Evil and Horridness of Magick Diabolical Contracts c. THe Certainty of Successe to all those that resist the Devil Resist the Devil and he will flee from you He cannot stand when opposed in the strength of God he will fall down as swift as lightning he cannot bear the glory of God shining in the Souls of men Here it is no more but Stand and Conquer Resist and Vanquish For First of all The Devil and Sin in themselves considered are but weak and impotent they cannot prevail over that Soul which yields not to them the Evil spirit then onely prevails over us when we our selves consent to his suggestions all his strength lies in our treachery and falseness to our own Souls Though those wicked spirits be perpetually so near us yet they cannot bow or bend our Wills there is a place of defence in the Souls of men into which they cannot enter they may stand at a distance allure and intice them but they cannot prevail over
And he told me in his sickness that he hoped he had learned that for which God sent it and that he thought God kept him so long in such a case under such burdens and pressures that Patience might have its perfect work in him His sickness undoubtedly was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen speaks a learned disease and full of true Philosophy which taught him more of real Christianity and made his Soul of a more strong able Athletick habit and temper For as S. James saith if Patience have its perfect work then is a Soul perfect and entire wanting nothing And really in his Sickness he shewed what Christianity and True Religion is able to doe what Might Power and Virtue there is in it to bear up a Soul under the greatest loads and that he could through Christ strengthening him doe all that which he so admirably discoursed of in his life But for his Humility it was that which was most apparent and conspicuous You might have beheld in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the same Father speaks true humility in a most eminent degree and the more eminent considering how much there was within him which would have swelled and puffed up another But from his first admission into the Universitie as I am informed by those that knew him he sought not great things for himself but was contented in the condition wherein he was He made not hast to rise and climb as youths are apt to doe which we in these late times too much experience wherein Youths scarce fledg'd have soared to the highest preferments but proceeded leisurely by orderly steps not to what he could get but to what he was fit to undertake He stai'd God's time of advancement with all industry and pains following his studies as if he rather desired to deserve honour then to be honoured He shook off all Idleness and Sloth the bane of youth and so had the Blessing of God upon his endeavours who gave him great encouragement from divers persons of worth and at last brought him unto this place And I challenge any one that is impartial to say if since he came hither they ever beheld in him any Pride Vain-glory Boasting Self-conceit Desire of honour and being famous in the world No there is not the man living that had the eyes ever to discern any thing of this swoln nature but on the contrary it was easie to take notice of most profound Humility and Lowliness of mind which made him a true Disciple of Jesus Christ who took upon him the form of a servant and made himself of no reputation And I dare say our dear friend was as true as humble a servant without any complement to the good of Mankind as any person that this day lives This was his designe in his studies and if it had pleased the Lord of life to have prolonged his daies it would have been more of his work For he was resolved as he once told me very much to lay aside other studies and to travel in the salvation of mens Souls after whose good he most ardently thirsted Shall I add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks above or unto all these his Faith I say his true lively and working Faith his simple plain-hearted naked Faith in Christ It is likely that it did not busie it self about many fine Notions Subtilties and Curiosities or believing whole Volumes but be sure it was that which was firmly set and fixed in the Mercy and Goodness of God through Christ that also which brought down Christ into his Soul which draw'd down Heaven into his Heart which suck'd in life and strength continually from our Saviour which made him hearty serious and constant in all those forenamed Christian Vertues His Faith was not without a Soul but what Isidore saith of Faith and Works held true of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Faith was animated quickned and actuated by these It made him God-like and he lived by Faith in the Son of God by it he came to be truly partaker of the Righteousness of Christ and had it wrought and formed in his very Soul For this indeed was the End of his life the main design which he carried on that he might become like to God So that if one should have asked him that Question in Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is thy art and profession thy business and imploiment He would not have answered To be a great Philosopher Mathematician Historian or Hebrician all which he was in great eminency To be a Physitian Lawyer General Linguist which Names and many more his General skill deserved But he would have answered as he doth there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Art is to be Good To be a true Divine is my care and business or in the Christian phrase To be holy as God is holy to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect All that remember the serious behaviour and weightie expressions he used in his Prayers cannot but call to mind how much his Heart was set upon the attainment of this true Goodness I have transgressed too much my bounds now it is so late and trespassed perhaps too much upon your patience Yet I hope I should not weary you if I should discourse upon his Ingenuity his Courtesie his Gentleness and Sweetness with many other things of the like nature And let me say thus much that he was far from that Spirit of devouting zeal that now too much rages He would rather have been consumed in the service of men then have called for fire down from heaven as Elijah did to consume them And therefore though Elijah excelled him in this that he ascended up to Heaven in a fiery chariot yet herein I may say he was above the spirit of Elijah that he called for no fire to descend from heaven upon men but the fire of Divine love that might burn up all their Hatreds Roughness and Cruelty to each other But as for Benignity of Mind and Christian kindness every body that knew him will remember that he ever had their names in his mouth and I assure them they were no less in his heart and life as knowing that without these Truth it self is in a faction and Christ is drawn into a party And this Graciousness of Spirit was the more remarkable in him because he was of a temper naturally Hot and Cholerick as the greatest Minds most commonly are He was wiser then to let any Anger rest in his bosom much less did he suffer it to burn and boil til it was turned into gall and bitterness and least of all would he endure that any Passion should lodge in him till it was become a cankered Malice and black Hatred which men in these days can scarce hide but let it appear in their countenance and in their carriage towards others If he was at any time moved unto Anger it was but a sudden flushing in his face and it
did as soon vanish as arise and it used to arise upon no such occasions as I now speak of No whensoever he look'd upon the fierce and consuming Fires that were in mens Souls it made him sad not angry and it was his constant endeavour to inspire mens Souls with more benigne and kindly heats that they might warm but not scorch their Brethren And from this Spirit together with the rest of Christian Graces that were in him there did result a great Serenity Quiet and Tranquillity in his Soul which dwelt so much above that it was not shaken with any of those Tempests and Storms which use to unsettle more low and abject Minds He lived in a continued sweet enjoyment of God and so was not disquieted with scruples or doubts of his Salvation There was alwaies discernable in him a chearful sense of God's goodness which ceased not in the time of sickness But we most longed for to see the motions of his Soul when he drew near to the Centre of his rest He that had such a constant feeling of God within him we might conclude would have the most strong and powerful sense when he came nearer to a close conjunction with him But God was pleased to deny this to us and by a Lethargick distemper which seized on his Spirits he passed the six last daies of his life if I may call it a life in a kind of Sleep and without taking much notice of any thing he slept in the Lord. And now have I not described a Person of Worth and Eminency Have we not reason to be so sad as you see our Faces tell you that we are But alas half of that is not told you which your Eyes might have seen had you been acquainted with him I want thoughts and Words to make a lively pourtraiture of him my young Experience hath not yet seen to the height or the depth of these things which I have here given you a rude draught of and so my Conceipts and Expressions must needs fall far below that excellent degree of beauty wherein they dwelt in him Let it suffice therefore to say that I may keep to the word in the Text That he was truly a Father that he wanted Ages only to make him Reverend and that if he had lived many Generations ago left us the children of his Mind to posterity he might by this time have been numbred among the Fathers of the Church I have almost prevented my self already in the Two latter Particulars His singular Care and his great Usefulness both which must needs be concluded from the former His Care I say of others as a Tutor his Usefullness as a Fellow of this now mournful Society Let me speak a word or two of either 2. All his Pupils who are now truly Pupilli Fatherless children began to know in his sickness what it was to have and to want a loving Father a faithful Tutor and now they will know it more fully He was one that did so constantly mind their good that instilled such excellent pious Notions into their Minds gave such light in everything a man could desire to know that I could have been content though in this gown to have been his Pupil His Life taught them continual lessons of Justice Temperance Prudence Fortitude and Masculine vertue and above all he taught them true Dependance upon God and reference of themselves and all their Studies unto him with true Faith in and Imitation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for which end he often expounded to them out of the Holy Scriptures And for Humane learning the many good Scholars that came from under his hand do witness how dextrous he was at the training up of Youth in all good Literature Porphyry tells us of Plotin that he was such a carefull person that sundry Noble men and women with divers others when they died committed both their sons and daughters to his Tuition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unto some Tutelar Angel or a sacred and divine Guardian Truly those that come hither are in a manner without Father and Mother but they could not be committed to a more loving Tutor a more holy and faithful Guardian that would bring them up in all true Learning and Piety If any think that he was too severe let me tell them that they are such as find fault with the Lion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he looks not like an Ape but with a stern royal and Kingly countenance He both look'd and spake like a man that had drunk into his Soul such solid high and generous Principles as few men are acquainted with which made him very zealous not only for Righteousness Integrity and Holiness but for a Decorum in all things He had a great regard for all those things which are mentioned by the Apostle Philip. 4. 8. for whatsoever things were true honest or rather comely and grave seemly and venerable as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie for all that was just pure lovely of good fame and report if there was any praise or any vertue he was most earnest and forward in its behalf 3. And now what his Usefulness was and the Benefit we received by him all that bear any share in the government of this Society will be made to know by the want of him There is not one but will cry out with Elisha O the Chariot of this place and the horsemen thereof which words seem to express what a necessary man Elias was and to be just like that of Horace to Maecenas when sick which we may use concerning him that is now dead Grande decus columénque rerum Our great glory the pillar upon whose shoulders the weight of business of late lay O praesidium dulce decus meum as he saith in another place O thou who wast both my safe-guard and my ornament who wast a Society by thy self a College in brief what a loss have we sustained by thy departure That must not be resolved by me nor by any one single person of us but we must all lay our heads together to tell our loss To which of us was not he dear who is there that was not ingaged to him who can think himself as wise as he was when we had him And this our high and dear Esteem of him when he was with us leads me to speak of that Honour and Reverence which we all express to his Name that Affection which is in our Hearts to his Memory the sense that is in us of our great and unspeakable loss in Answer to those three foregoing Considerations about Elisha But here I must be very brief and put all together There is none that knew his Worth but honour his very dust And for my part I honour him so much that I wish we might doe as the Virgins of Israel did for Jephtah's daughter come once a year hither and lament his death and so at once we might express all
throughly acquainted with him knew well That as there was in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as'twas said of Solomon a largeness and vastness of Heart and Understanding so there was also in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a free ingenuous noble Spirit most abhorrent of what was sordid and unworthy and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lxx. translate that Hebrew is the genuine product of Religion in that Soul where it is suffer'd to rule and as S. James speaks of Patience to have her perfect work The Style in this Tract may seem more rais'd and sublime then in the other which might be perhaps from the Nature and quality of the subject matter apt to heighten expressions but yet in this as in the other Tracts it is free from the Vanity of Affectation which a Mind truly ennobled by Religion cannot stoop to as counting it a Pedantick business and a certain argument of a Poorness and Weakness of Spirit in the either Writer or Speaker But if in this Tract the Style seem more magnificent yet in the Tenth and Last Discourse viz. Of a Christian's Conflicts and Conquests it is most familiar The Matter of it is very Useful and Practical for as it more fully and clearly acquaints a Christian with the more dangerous and unseen Methods of Satan's activity concerning which the Notions and Conceptions of many men are discovered here to be very short and imperfect so it also acquaints him with such Principles as are available to beget in him the greatest Courage Spirit and Resolution against the day of battel chasing away all lazy faintheartedness and despair of Victory This for the Matter The Style is as I said most familiar This Discourse was deliver'd in publick at Huntingdon where one of Queen's College is every year on March 25. to preach a Sermon against Witchcraft Diabolical Contracts c. I shall onely adde this That when he preach'd in lesser Country-Auditories particularly at Achurch near Oundle in Northamptonshire the place of his Nativity as it was his care to preach upon arguments of most practical concernment so was it also his Desire and Endeavour to accommodate his Expressions to ordinary vulgar Capacities being studious to be understood and not to be ignorantly wondred at by amuzing the People either with high unnecessary Speculations or with hard Words and vain Ostentations of Scholastick Learning the low design of some that by such arts would gain a poor respect to themselves for such and no better is all that stupid respect which is not founded upon Knowledg and Judgment He was studious I say there to speak unto men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Edification and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what was significant and easie to be understood as the Apostle doth phrase it and to express his Mind in a way suitable to the apprehensions of Popular Auditories And as for the Discourses now published they also were delivered being College-Exercises in a way not less suitable to that Auditory and therefore it may not be thought strange if sometimes they seem for Matter and Style more remote from vulgar capacities Yet even in these Discourses what is most Practical is more easily intelligible by every honest-hearted Christian. And indeed that the whole might be made more familiar and easie and more accommodate to the use of any such I thought it would be very expedient as to cast the Discourses into Chapters so before every Chapter to propose to the Readers view the full Scope Sense and Strength of the principal Matters contained therein I could willingly have spared such a labour the greater when busied about the Notions and Conceptions of another and not our own if I had not conceived it to be greatly helpfull and beneficial to some Readers besides another advantage to them hereby viz. That they may the more easily find out and select any such particular Matters in these Discourses as they shall think most fit or desireable for their perusal Thus have I given the Reader some account of what seem'd fit to be observ'd concerning these Ten Discourses which now present themselves to his free and candid Judgment And now if in the reading of these Tracts enrich'd with Arguments of great variety there should occur any Passage wherein either He or I may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it need not be a matter of wonder for what Book besides that Book of Books the Bible has not something in it that speaks the Author Man It would not have displeased our Author in his life-time to have been thought less then Infallible He was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was no fond Self-admirer nor was he desirous that others should have his person his opinion and judgment in admiration he was far from the humour of Magisterial dictating to others not ambitious to be called of men Rabbi Rabbi as were and are the old the modern Pharisees nor of the number of those who are inwardly transported and tickled when others applaud their judgment and receive their Dictates with the greatest veneration and respect but very peevish and sowre disturb'd and out of order when any shall express themselves dissatisfied and otherwise minded or goe about modestly to discover their mistakes No he was truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of Truth and of Peace and Charity He loved an ingenuous and sober Freedom of Spirit the generous Berean-like temper and practice agreeable to the * Apostle's prudent and faithful advice of proving all things and holding fast that which is good But to return It s possible that some Passages in these Tracts which seem dubious may upon a patient considering of them if the Reader be unprejudic'd one of a clear Mind Heart gain his assent and what upon the first reading seems obscure and less grateful may upon another view and further thoughts clear up and be thought worthy of all acceptation It is not with the fair Representations and Pictures of the Mind as with other Pictures these of the Mind shew best the nearer they are viewed and the longer the Intellectual Eye dwells upon them There is only one thing more which I ought not to forget to mind the Reader of and it is shortly this That he would please to remember that the now-published Tracts are Posthumous works and then affording that charity candour and fair respect which is commonly allowed to such works of Worthy men I nothing doubt but he will judge them too good to have been buried in obscurity although its likely if the Author himself had revis'd them in his life-time with an intent to present them to publick view they would have received from his happy hand some further polishing and enlargements He could have easily obliged the world with other Discourses of as valuable importance if he had liv'd and been so minded But it pleas'd the only-wise God in whose hand our breath is to call for him home to the Spirits of just
men made perfect after he had lent him to this unworthy world for about Five and thirty years A short life his was if we measure it by so many years but if we consider the great Ends of Life and Being in the world which he fulfill'd in his generation his great Accomplishments qualifying him for eminent Service and accompanied with as great a Readinesse to approve himself a good and faithful Servant to his gracious Lord and Master in heaven his life was not to be accounted short but long and we may justly say of him what is said by the Author of the Book of Wisdom concerning Enoch that great Exemplar of holiness and the shortest-liv'd of the Patriarchs before the flood for he lived but 365 years as many years as there are daies in one year 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He being consummated in a short time fulfilled a long time For as the same Author doth well express it in some * preceding verses Honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time nor that which is measured by number of years But Wisdom is the gray hair unto men and an unspotted life is old age Thus much for the Papers now published There are some other pieces of this Author's both English and Latine which may make another considerable Volume especially if some papers of his in other hands can be retriv'd For my particular I shall wish and endeavour that not the least Fragment of his may be conceal'd which his Friends shall think worthy of publishing and I think all such Fragments being gathered up may fitly be brought together under the Title of Miscellanies If others who have any of his Papers shall please to communicate them I doubt not but that there will be found in some of his Friends a readiness to publish them with all due care and faithfulness Or if they shall think good to doe it themselves and publish them apart I would desire and hope that they would bestow that labour and diligence about the preparing them for publick view and use as may testifie their respect both to the Readers benefit and the honour of the Author's memory And now that this Volume is finished through the good guidance and assistance of God the Father of lights and the Father of mercies whose rich Goodness and Grace in enabling me both to will and to doe and to continue patiently in so doing notwithstanding the many tedious difficulties accompanying such kind of labour I desire humbly to acknowledge now that the severed Papers are brought together in this Collection to their due and proper places as it was said of the Bones scattered in the vally that they came together bone to his bone Ezek. 37. what remains but that the Lord of life he who giveth to all things life and breath be with all earnestness and humility implor'd That he would please to put breath into these otherwise dry Bones that they may live That besides this Paper-life which is all that Man can give to these Writings they may have a living Form and Vital Energy within us That the Practical Truths contained in these Discourses may not be unto us a Dead letter but Spirit and Life That He who teacheth us to profit would prosper these Papers for the attainment of all those good Ends to which they are designed That it would please the God of all grace to remove all darkness and prejudice from the Mind and Heart of any Reader and whatsoever would hinder the fair reception of Truth That the Reader may have an inward Practical and feeling knowledge of the Doctrine which is according to Godliness and live a life worthy of that Knowledge is the Prayer of His Servant in Christ Jesus JOHN WORTHINGTON Cambridge December 22. 1659. In this Epistle pag. vii lin alt for mouth to mouth r. face to face The CONTENTS of the several DISCOURSES in this Volume DISCOURSE I. Of the true WAY or METHOD of attaining to DIVINE KNOWLEDGE SEct. I. That Divine things are to be understood rather by a Spiritual Sensation then a Verbal Description or mere Speculation Sin and Wickedness prejudicial to True Knowledge That Purity of Heart and Life as also an Ingenuous Freedome of Judgment are the best Grounds and Preparations for the Entertainment of Truth Page 1. Sect. II. An Objection against the Method of Knowing laid down in the former Section answered That Men generally notwithstanding their Apostasie are furnished with the Radical Principles of True Knowledge Men want not so much Means of knowing what they ought to doe as Wills to doe what they know Practical Knowledge differs from all other Knowledge and excells it pag. 13. Sect. III. Men may be considered in a Fourfold capacity in order to the perception of Divine things That the Best and most excellent Knowledge of Divine things belongs only to the true and sober Christian and that it is but in its infancy while he is in this Earthly Body pag. 17. DISCOURSE II. OF SUPERSTITION THE true Notion of Superstition well express'd by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. an over-timorous and dreadfull apprehension of the Deity A false Opinion of the Deity the true Cause and Rise of Superstition Superstition is most incident to such as Converse not with the Goodness of God or are conscious to themselves of their own unlikeness to him Right apprehensions of God beget in man a Nobleness and Freedome of Soul Superstition though it looks upon God as an angry Deity yet it counts him easily pleas'd with flattering Worship Apprehensions of a Deity and Guilt meeting together are apt to excite Fear Hypocrites to spare their Sins seek out waies to compound with God Servile and Superstitious Fear is encreased by Ignorance of the certain Causes of Terrible Effects in Nature c. as also by frightful Apparitions of Ghosts and Spectres A further Consideration of Superstition as a Composition of Fear and Flattery A fuller Definition of Superstition according to the Sense of the Ancients Superstition doth not alwaies appear in the same Form but passes from one Form to another and sometimes shrouds it self under Forms seemingly Spiritual and more refined pag. 25. DISCOURSE III. OF ATHEISM THat there is a near Affinity between Atheism Superstition That Superstition doth not only prepare the way for Atheism but promotes and strengthens it That Epicurism is but Atheism under a mask A Confutation of Epicurus his Master-notion together with some other pretences and Dogmata of his Sect. The true Knowledge of Nature is advantageous to Religion That Superstition is more tolerable then Atheism That Atheism is both ignoble and uncomfortable What low and unworthy notions the Epicureans had concerning Man's Happiness and what trouble they were put to How to define and Where to place true Happiness A true belief of a Deity supports the Soul with a present Tranquillity and future Hopes Were it not for a Deity the World would be unhabitable p. 41. DISCOURSE IV. OF