with his own And had my resignation and devotedness to him been more absolute my trust in him would have been more easy But Lord thou knowest that I would fain be thine and wholly thine and it is to thee that I desire to live Therefore let me quietly Die to Thee and wholly Trust Thee with my Soul § 5. II. And why should my want of formal Conceptions of the future state of separated Souls and my strangeness to the manner of their subsistence and operations induce me to doubt of those generals which are evident and beyond all rational doubting That Souls are substances and not annihilated and essentially the same when they forsake the Body as before I doubt not Otherwise neither the Christians Resurrection nor the Pythagoreans transmigration were a possible thing For if the Soul cease to be it cannot pass into another Body nor can it re-enter into this If God raise this Body then it must be by another Soul For the same Soul to be Annihilated and yet to begin again to be is a contradiction For the second beginning would be by Creation which maketh a new Soul and not the same that was before It is the Invisible things that are excellent active operative and permanent The Visible excepting Light which maketh all things else visible are of themselves but lifeless dross It is the unseen part of Plants and Flowers which causeth all their growth and beauty their fruit and sweetness Passive Matter is but moved up and down by the invisible active Powers as Chess-men are moved from place to place by the Gamesters hands What a loathsom Corps were the World without the invisible Spirits and Natures that animate actuate or move it To doubt of the being or continuation of the most excellent Spiritual parts of the Creation when we live in a World that is actuated by them and where every thing demonstrates them as their effects is more foolish than to doubt of the being of these gross materials which we see § 6. How oft have I been convinced that there are good Spirits with whom our Souls have as certain communion though not so sensible as our Life hath with the Sun and as we have with one another And that there are evil and envious Spirits that fight against our Holiness and Peace as certain Narratives of Apparitions and Witches and too sad experience of Temptations do evince And the marvellous diversity of Creatures on Earth for kind and number yea the diversity of Stars in Heaven as well as the diversities of Angels and Devils do partly tell me that though All be of One and through One and to One yet absolute Unity is the divine Prerogative and we must not presume to expect such Perfection as to lose our specifique or numerical diversity by any Union which shall befall our Souls Nor can I reasonably doubt that so noble and active a Nature as Souls dwelling above in the lucid Regions in communion with their like and with their betters shall be without the activity the pleasure and felicity which is suitable to their Nature their Region and their Company And my Saviour hath entered into the Holiest and hath assured me that there are many Mansions in his Fathers House and that when we are absent from the Body we shall be present with the Lord. § 7. Organical sight is given me for my use here in the Body And a Serpent or a Hawk hath as much or more of this than I have Mental knowledge reacheth further than sight and is the act of a nobler Faculty and for a higher use Though it be the Soul itself embodied in the igneous Spirits that seeth yet it is by a higher and more useful Faculty that it understandeth And Faith is an understanding act It knoweth things unseen because they are revealed Who can think that all believing holy Souls that have passed hence from the beginning of the World have been deceived in their Faith and Hope And that all the wâ—cked worldly Infidels whose hope was only in this life have been the wisest men and have been in the right If Virtue and Piety are faults or foâ—lies and bruitish Sensualâ—ty be best then why are not Laws made to command Sensualâ—ty and forbâ—d Piety and Virtue To say this is to deny humanity and the Wisdom of our Creator and to feign the World to be governed by a Lie and to take the Perfection of our Nature for its disease and our greatest disease for our Perfection But if Piety and Virtue be better than Impiety and Vice the Principles and necessary Motives of them are certainly true and the exercise of them is not in vain What abominable folly and wickedness were it to say the wicked only attain their ends and that they all lose their labour and live and die in miserable deceit who seek to please God in hope of a better life to come believing that God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Wouâ—d not this justifie the foolish Manichees that thought a bad God made this World yea and would infer that he not only made us for a mischief but Ruleth uâ— to our deceit and hurt and giveth us both Natural and Supernatural Laws in ill will to us to mâ—slead us to our misery and to fill our lives with needless troubles Shall I not abhor every suggestion that containeth such inhumane absurdities as these Wonderful that Satan can keep up so much Unbelief in the World while he must make men such fools that he may make them unbelievers and ungodly § 8. III. That my Soul is no more heavenly and my foretast of future Blessedness is so small is partly the fruit of those many wilful sins by which I have quenched the Spirit that should be my Comforter And it is partly from our common state of darkness and strangeness while the Soul is in Flesh and operateth as the Bodies form according to its Interest and Capacity Affections are more easily stirred up to things seen than to things that are both unseen and known only very defectively by general and not by clear distinct apprehensions And yet this O this is the misery and burden of my Soul Though I can say that I love God's Truth and Graces his Work and his Servants and whatever of God I see in the World and that this is a love of God in his Creatures Word and Works yet that I have no more desiring and delightful Love of Heaven where his Loveliness will be more fully opened to my Soul and that the thoughts of my speedy appearing there are no more joyful to me than they are is my sin and my calamity and my shame And if I did not see that it is so with other of the Servants of Christ as well as with me I should doubt whether affections so unproportionable to my Profession did not signifie unsoundness in my belief It is strange and shameful that one that expecteth quickly to see the glorious World
Self-love be by a kind of Sensation and Intuition rather than by Discursive Reason I doubt not but some late Philosophers make snares to themselves and others by too much vilifying sense and sensitive Souls as if sense were but some loseable Accident of contempered Atoms But Sensation though diversified by Organs and Uses and so far mutable is the Act of a noble Spiritual Form and Virtue And as Chambre and some others make Brutes a lower rank of Rationals and Man another higher species as having his nobler Reason for higher Ends so for Man to be the noblest Order here of Sensitives and to have an Intellect to Order and Govern Sensations and connex them and improve them were a noble work if we had no higher And if Intellection and Volition were but a higher species of Internal Sensation than Imagination and the Phantasie and Memory are it might yet be a height that should set Man specifically above the Brutes And I am daily more and more persuaded that Intellectual Souls are essentially sensitive and more and that their Sensation never ceaseth 4. And still I say that it is to Nature it self a thing unlikely that the God of Nature will long continue a Soul that hath formally or naturally an Intellective Power in a state in which it shall have no use of it Let others that will enquire whether it shall have a Vehicle or none to act in and whether aereal or igneous and ethereal and whether it be really an Intellectual sort of Fire as material as the solar Fire whose not compounding but inadequate-conceptus objectivi are an Igneous substance and a Formal Virtue of Life Sense and Intellection with other such puzzling doubts it satisfieth me that God will not continue its noblest Powers in vain and how they shall be exercised is known to him And that God's Word tells us more than Nature And withal LIFE INTUITION and LOVE or Volition are Acts so natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat quoad actum to Fire that I cannot conceive how its Separation should hinder them but rather that its Incorporation hindereth the two latter by hiding Objects whatever be said of abstractive knowledge and memory § 33. VII But the greatest difficulty to Natural Knowledge is Whether Souls shall continue their individuation or rather fall into one common Soul or return so to God that gave them as to be no more divers or many individuals as now as extinguished Candles are united to the illuminated Air or to the Sun beams But of this I have elsewhere said much for others and for my self I find I need but this 1. That as I said before either Souls are partible substances or not If not partible how are they unible If Many may be made One by conjunction of substances then that One may by God be made Many again by partition Either All or Many Souls are now but One individuate only by Matter as many gulfs in the Sea or many Candles lighted by the Sun or not If they are not One now in several bodies what reason have we to think that they will be One hereafter any more than now Augustine de Anim. was put on the question 1. Whether Souls are One and not Many and that he utterly denieth 2. Whether they are Many and not One and that it seemeth he could not digest 3. Whether they were at once both One and Many which he thought would seem to some ridiculous but he seemeth most to incline to And as God is the God of Nature so Nature even of the Devils themselves dependeth on him as I said more than the Leaves or Fruit do on the Tree And we are all his Off-spring and Live and Move and Are in Him Acts 17. But we are certain for all this 1. That we are not God 2. That we are yet many Individuals and not all One Soul or Man I◠our Union should be as near as the Leaves and Fruit on the same Tree yet those Leaves and Fruit are numerous and individual Leaves and Fruits though parts of the Tree And were this proved of our present or our future state it would not alter our Hopes or Fears For as Now though we all Live Move and Be in God and as some dream are parts of a common Soul yet it is certain that some are Better and Happier than others some wise and good and some foolish and evil some in pain and misery and some at ease and in pleasure and as I said it is now no ease to the miserable to be told that radically all Souls are One no more will it be hereafter nor can men reasonably hope for or fear such an Union as shall make their state the same We see in Nature as I have elsewhere said that if you graff many sorts of Sciens some sweet some bitter some Crabs on the same Stock they will be One Tree and yet have diversity of fruit If Souls be not Unible nor Partible substances there is no place for this doubt If they be they will be still what they are notwithstanding any such Union with a common Soul As a drop of Water in the Sea is a separable part and still it self and as a Crab upon the foresaid Stock or Tree And the good or bad quality ceaseth not by any Union with others Sure we are that all Creatures are in God by close dependance and yet that the good are good and the bad are bad and that God is Good and hath no Evil and that when Man is tormented or miserable God suffereth nothing by it as the whole Man doth when but a Tooth doth ake For he would not hurt himself were he passive Therefore to dream of any such cessation of our Individuation by any Union with a Creature as shall make the Good less Good or happy or the Bad less Bad or miserable is a groundless folly § 34. Yet it is very probable that there will be a Nearer Union of holy Souls with God and Christ and one another than we can here conceive of But this 〈◊〉 so far from being to be feared that it is the highest of our hopes 1. God himself though equally every where in his Essence doth operate very variously on his Creatures On the wicked he operateth as the first Cause of Nature as his Sun shineth on them On some he operateth by common Grace To some he giveth Faith to prepare them for the Indwelling of his Spirit In Believers he dwelleth by Love and they in him And if we may use such a comparison as Satan acteth on some only by suggestions but on others so despotically as that it 's called His Possessing them so God's Spirit worketh on holy Souls so powerfully and constantly as is called his Possessing them And yet on the Humane Nature of Christ the Divine Nature of the Second Person hath such a further extraordinary Operation as is justly called a Personal Union which is not by a more Essential Presence for
that is every where but by a peculiar operation and relation And so holy Souls being under a more felicitating operation of God may well be said to have a Nearer Union with him than now they have § 35. 〈◊〉 And I observe that as is aforesaid all things have naturally a strong inclination to Union and Communion with their like Every clod and stone inclineth to the Earth Water would go to Water Air to Air Fire to Fire Birds and Beasts associate with their like And the noblest natures are most strongly thus inclined And therefore I have natural reason to think that it will be so with holy Souls § 36. 3. And I find that the inordinate Contraction of Man to himself and to the interest of this Individual-Person with the defect of Love to all about us according to every creatures goodness and specially to God the Infinite good whom we should love above our selves is the very sum of all the pravity of man And all the injustice and injury to others and all the neglect of good works in the world and all our daily terrours and self-distracting self-tormenting cares and griefs and fears proceed from this inordinate Love and Adhesion to our selves Therefore I have reason to think that in our better state we shall perfectly Love others as our selves and the selfish Love will turn into a common and a Divine Love which must be by our preferring the common and the Divine Good and Interest § 37. And I am so sensible of the power and Plague of selfishness and how it now corrupteth tempteth and disquieteth me that when I feel any fears lest individuation cease and my Soul fall into one common Soul as the Stoicks thought all Souls did at death I find great cause to suspect that this ariseth from the power of this corrupting selfishness For Reason seeth no cause at all to fear it were it so § 38. 4. For I find also that the nature of Love is to desire as near a Union as is possible And the strongest Love doth strongliest desire it Fervent Lovers think they can scarce be too much One. And Love is our Perfection and therefore so is Union § 39. 5. And I find that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit they had the ferventest Love and the nearest Union and the least desire of propriety and distance § 40. 6. And I find that Christs prayer for the felicity of his disciples is a prayer for their Unity Joh. 17. 22 23. And in this he placeth much of their Persection § 41. 7. And I find also that man is a sociable nature and that all men find by experience that conjunction in societies is needful to their Safety strength and Pleasure § 42. 8. And I find that my Soul would fain be nearer God and that darkness and distance is my misery and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my Soul Why then should I fear too near a Union § 43. I think it utterly improbable that my Soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God though it be of the same kind with other Souls and infinitely below God For God is as near me as I am to my self I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause And that not as the fruit upon the Tree which borroweth all from the Earth Water Air and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit but as a creature on its Creator who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God by constant communication Hence Autonine Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter as Man of Soul and body Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World GOD and sometime calling the whole World God But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God or of the Body of God or Accidents at least § 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense such as Benedict Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis approved by many Doctors who placeth much of his Supereminent Life in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God and Living accordingly Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God but are to God as the Beams are to the Sun and as the Heat is to the Fire which really is it self And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good as being nothing but Gods essential will which is himself resolving even our sins and Imperfections accordingly into God so that they are Gods or None § 45. And all these men have as fair a pretence for their conceits of such a Union with God now as for such an Union after death For their Reason is 1. That God being Infinite there can be no more Beings than his own But God and the smallest Being distinct would be more Entity than God alone But Infinity can have no addition 2. Because Ens Bonum Convertuntur But God only is good And if we are notwithstanding all this distinct Beings from God now we shall be so then For we shall not be Annihilated and we shall not be so advanced as to be deified and of creatures or distinct Beings turned into a Being infinitely above us If we be not Parts of God now we shall not be so then But if they could prove that we are so now we should quickly prove to them 1. That then God hath material divisible parts as the Stoicks thought 2. And that we are no such parts as are not distinct from one another but some are tormented and some happy And 3. That as is said it will be no abatement of the misery of the tormented nor of the felicity of the blessed to tell them that they are all parts of God For though the manner of our Union with him and dependance on him be past our comprehension yet that we are distinct and distant from each other and have each one a joy or misery of his own is past all doubt Therefore there is no Union with God to be feared by holy Souls but the utmost possible to be highliest desired § 46. And if our Union with God shall not cease our Individuation or resolve us into a Principle to be feared we may say so also of our Union with any common Soul or many If we be Unible we are Partible and so have a distinct though not a divided substance which will have its proper Accidents All Plants are parts of the Earth really united to it and radicated in it and live and are nourished by it And yet a Vine is a Vine and an Apple is an Apple and a Rose is a Rose and a Nettle is a Nettle And few men would be toiled Horses or Toads if it were proved that they are animated by a common Soul § 47.
talk of Many Souls becoming One it must be by conjunction and increase of the Substance of that one Or when they say that they were alwaies One they will confess withal that they now differ in number as individuate in the body And who will say that Millions of Millios are no more than one of all those Millions Number is a sort of Quantity And all Souls in the world are more than Cain's or Abel's only One feeleth not what another feeleth One knoweth not what another knoweth And indeed though Souls have not such corporeal extension as passive gross bodily Matter hath yet as they are more noble they have a more noble sort of Extension Quantity or Degrees according to which all Mankind conceive of all the Spiritual Substance of the Universe yea all the Angels or all the Souls on Earth as being more and having more Substance than one man's Soul alone 2. And the Fathers for the most part especially the Greeks yea and the Second Council of Nice thought that Spirits created had a purer sort of Material Being which Tertullian called a Body and doubtless all created Spirits have somewhat of Passiveness for they do Recipere vel pati from the Divine Influx Only God is wholly impassive We are moved when we move and acted when we act And it is hard to conceive that when Matter is commonly called Passive that which is Passive should have no sort of Matter in a large sense taken And if it have any parts distinguishable they are by God divisible 3. But if the contrary be supposed that all Souls are no more than One and so that there is no place for uniting or partition there is no place then for the Objection of all Souls becoming One and of losing Individuation unless they mean by Annihilation § 53. But that God who as is said delighteth both in the Union and yet in the wonderful multiplicity of Creatures and will not make all Stars to be only One though Fire have a most uniting or aggregative inclination hath further given experimental notice that there is Individuation in the other world as well as here even innumerable Angels and Devils and not one only as Apparitions and Witches and many other evidences prove of which more anon So that all things considered there is no reason to fear that Souls shall lose their Individuation or Activity though they change their manner of action any more than their Being or formal Power And so it is naturally certain that they are Immortal § 54. And if Holy Souls are so far Immortal I need not prove that they will be Immortally Happy For their Holiness will infer it And few will ever dream that it shall there go ill with them that are good and that the most just and holy God will not use those well whom he maketh holy § 1. II. That holy Souls shall be hereafter happy seemeth to be one of the common notices of Nature planted in the consciences of mankind And it is therefore acknowledged by the generality of the world that freely use their understandings Most yea almost all the Heathen Nations at this day believe it besides the Mahometans And it is the most barbarous Cannibals and Brasilians that do not whose understandings have had the least improvement and who have rather an inconsiderate Nescience of it than a denying opposition And though some Philosophers denyed it they were a small and contemned party And though many of the rest were somewhat dubious it was only a certainty which they professed to want and not a probability or opinion that it was true And both the Vulgar and the deep studyed men believed it and those that questioned it were the half studyed Philosophers who not resting in the Natural notice nor yet reaching full intellectual Evidence of it by discourse had found out matter of difficulty to puzzle them and came not to that degree of wisdom as would have resolved them § 2. And even among Apostates from Christianity most or many still acknowledge the Souls Immortality and the Felicity and Reward of holy Souls to be of the common Notices known by nature to mankind Julian was so much perswaded of it that on that account he exhorteth his Priests and Subjects to great strictness and holiness of life and to see that the Christians did not exceed them And among us the Lord Herbert de Veritate and many others that seem not to believe our supernatural Revelations of Christianity do fully acknowledge it Besides those Philosophers who most opposed Christianity as Porphyrius Maximus Tyrius and such others § 3. And we find that this notice hath so deep a root in Nature that few of those that study and labour themselves into Bestiality or Sadduceism are able to excuss the fears of future misery but Conscience overcometh or troubleth them much at least when they have done the worst they can against it And whence should all this be in man and not in Beasts if man had no further reason of hopes and fears then they Are a few Sadduces wiser by their forced or crude conceits than all the World that are taught by Nature itself § 1. III. If the God of Nature have made it every mans certain duty to make it his Chief care and work in this life to seek for happiness hereafter then such a happiness there is for them that truly seek it But the antecedent is certain as I have elsewhere proved Ergo c. § 2. As to the antecedent The world is made up of three sorts of men as to the belief of future retribution 1. Such as take it for a certain Truth such are Christians Mahometans and most Heathens 2. Such as take it for Uncertain but most probable or likeliest to be true 3. Such as take it for Uncertain but rather think it Untrue For as none can be certain that it is false which indeed is true so I never yet met with one that would say he was certain it was false So that I need not trouble you with the mention of any other party or opinion But if any should say so it is easy to prove that he speaketh falsly of himself § 3. And that it is the Duty of all these but especially of the two former sorts to make it their Chief care and work to seek for happiness in the life to come is easily proved thus Natural reason requireth every man to seek that which is Best for himself with the greatest diligence But Natural reason saith that a Probability or Possibility of the future everlasting happiness is better and more worthy to be sought than any thing attainable in this present life which doth not suppose it Ergo c. § 4. The Major is past doubt Good and Felicity being necessarily desired by the will of man that which is Best and known so to be must be Most desired And the Minor should be as far past doubt to men that use not their sense against their
the wicked to prosecure his Servants to the Death and make duty costly and give no after recompence 6. If he let the most wicked on the Earth pass unpunished or to scape as well hereafter as the best and to live in greater pleasure here The Objections fetcht from the intrinsecal good of Duty I have elsewhere answered § 1. VI. But God hath not left us to the Light of meer Nature as being too dark for men so blind as we The Gospel Revelation is the clear Foundation of our Faith and Hopes Christ hath brought Life and Immortality to Light One from Heaven that is greater than an Angel was sent to tell us what is there and which is the way and to secure our hopes He hath risen and conquered death and entered before us as our Captain and Forerunner into the Everlasting habitations And he hath all power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is committed to him that he might give Eternal life to his Elect he hath frequently and expresly promised it them that they shall live because he liveth and shall not perish but have Everlasting life And how fully he hath proved and sealed the Truth of his Word and Office to us I have so largely opened in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and unreasonableness of Infidelity and in my Life of Faith c. and since in my Houshold Catechizing that I will not here repeat it § 2. And as all his Word is full of promises of our future Glory at the Resurrection so we are not without assurance that at Death the departing Soul doth enter upon a State of Joy and Blessedness For 1. He expresly promised the penitent crucified Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 2. He gave us the Narrative or Parable of the damned sensualist and of Lazarus Luk. 16. to instruct us and not to deceive us 3. He tells the Sadduces that God is not the God of the Dead as his Subjects and Beneficiaries but of the Living Mat. 22. 32. 4. Henoch and Elias were taken up to Heaven and Moses that died appeared with Elias on the Mount Mat. 17. 5. He telleth us Luk. 12. 4. that they that kill the Body are not able to kill the Soul 6. And Christ's own Soul was commended into his Father's hands Luk. 23. 46. and was in Paradise when his Body was in the Grave to shew us what shall become of ours 7. And he hath promised that Where he is there shall his Servant be also Joh. 12. 26. And that the life here begun in us is Eternal life and that he that believeth in him shall not die but shall live by him as he liveth by the Father for he dwelleth in God and God in him and in Christ and Christ in him Joh. 17. 3. 6. 54. 3. 16 36. 6. 47 56 57 50. 1 Joh. 4. 5. 13. Luk. 17. 21. Rom. 14. 17. 8. And accordingly Stephen that saw Heaven opened prayed the Lord Jesus to receive his Spirit Act. 7. 5. 59. 9. And we are come to Mount Sion c. to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the Just made perfect Heb. 12. 22 23. 10. And Paul here desireth to depart and be with Christ as far better And to be absent from the Body and be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. 11. And the dead that die in the Lord are blessed from henceforth that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them 12. And if the disobedient Spirits be in Prison and the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the vengeance of eternal Fire 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude 7. then the Just have eternal Life And if the Jews had not thought the Soul immortal Saul had not desired the Witch to call up Samuel to speak with him The rest I now pass by We have many great and precious promises on which a departed Soul may trust 13. And Luk. 16. 9. Christ expresly saith that when we fail that is must leave this World we shall be received into the Everlasting habitations § 1. VII And it is not nothing to encourage us to hope in him that hath made all these Promises when we find how he heareth Prayers in this life and thereby assureth his Servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour We are apt in our distress to cry loud for Mercy and deliverances and when humane help faileth to promise God that if he now will save us we will thankfully acknowledg it his work and yet when we are delivered to return not only to security but to ingratitude and think that our deliverance came but in the course of common Providence and not indeed as an answer to our Prayers And therefore God in Mercy reneweth both our distresses and our deliverances that what once or twice will not convince us of many and great deliverances may This is my own case O how oft have I cryed to him when men and means were nothing and when no help in second Causes did appear and how oft and suddenly and mercifully hath he delivered me What sudden ease what removal of long afflictions have I had such extraordinary changes and beyond my own and others expectations when many plain-hearted upright Christians have by Fasting and Prayer sought God on my behalf as have over and over convinced me of Special Providence and that God is indeed a hearer of Prayers And wonders I have seen done for others also upon such Prayer more than for my self Yea and wonders for the Church and publick Societies Though I and others are too like those Israelites Psal 78. who cried to God in their troubles and he oft delivered them out of their distress but they quickly for got this Mercies and their Convictions Purposes and Promises when they should have praised the Lord for his Goodness and declared his works with thanksgiving to the Sons of Men. And what were all these Answers and Mercies but the fruits of Christ's Power Fidelity and Love the fulfilling of his Promises and the earnest of the greater blessings of Immortality which the same Promises give me Title to I know that no Promise of hearing Prayer setteth up our wills in absoluteness or above God's as if every will of our must be fulfilled if we do but put it into a fervent or confident Prayer But if we ask any thing through Christ according to his will expressed in his Promise he will hear us If a sinful love of this present life or of Ease or Wealth or Honour should cause me to pray to God against Death or against all sickness want reproach or other Trials as if I must live here in Prosperity for ever if I ask it this sinful desire and expectation is not the work of Faith but of Presumption What if God will not abate me my last or daily pains What if he will continue my life no longer who ever pray for
them that have been piously inclined from their Childhood it is harder to discern the difference unless they mark the Case of others If Man be worth any thing it is for the use that his Faculties were made And if he be not good for the Knowledg Love and Service of his Creator what is he good for And certainly the generality of ungodly Worldlings are undisposed to all such works as this till the Spirit of Christ effectually change them Men are Slaves to sin till Christ thus make them free Joh. 8. 32 33 36. Rom. 6. 18. Act. 26. 18. Rom. 8. 2. But where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. If the Divine Nature and Image and the Love of God shed abroad on the Heart be not our Excellency Health and Beauty what is And that which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Joh. 3. 6. Without Christ and his Spirit we can do nothing Our dead Notions and Reason when we see the Truth have not power to overcome Temptations nor to raise up Man's Soul to its Original and End nor to possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future Blessedness It were better for us to have no Souls than that those Souls should be void of the Spirit of God § 4. 2. And that HEAVEN is the Sum and End of all the Spirits Operations appeareth in all that â—â—e truly Conscious of them in themselves and to them and others by all God's Precepts which the Spirit causeth us to obey and the Doctrine which it causeth us to believe and by the description of all God's graces which he worketh in us What is our Knowledge and Faith but our knowledge and belief of Heaven as consisting in the Glory and Love of God there manifested and as purchased by Christ and given by his Covenant What is our Hope but the Hope of Glory See Heb. 11. 1. and throughout 1 Pet. 1. 3. 21. Heb. 6 11 18 19. 3. 6 Tit. 2 13. 3. 7. Col. 1. 5 23 27. And through the Spirit we wait for all this Hope Gal. 5. 5. What is our Love but a desire of Communion with the blessed God initially here and perfectly hereafter As the Sum of Christ's Gospel was Take up the Cross forsake all here and follow me and thou shalt have a Reward in Heaven Luke 14. 26 33. 18. 22 23. and the Consolation of his Gospel is Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Matt. 5. 11 12. So the same is the Sum of his Spirits Operations For what he teacheth and commandeth that he worketh For he worketh by that Word and the impress must be like the Signet what arm soever set it on He sendeth not his Spirit to make men craftier than others for this World but to make them wiser for Salvation and to make them more Heavenly and Holy For the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light Heavenliness is the Spirits special work § 5. 3. And in working this it conquereth the inward undisposedness and aversness of a fleshly worldly mind and will and the customs of a Carnal life and the outward Temptations of Satan and all the allurements of the World Christ first overcame the World and teacheth and causeth us to overcome it even its flatteries and its frowns Our Faith is our Vâ—ctory Whether this Victory be easie and any honour to the Spirit of Christ let our experience of the wickedness of the ungodly World and of our own weakness and of our falls when the Spirit of God forsaketh us be our informer § 6. 4. And that None but God can do this work on the Soul of Man both the knowledge of Causes and Experience prove The most learned wise and holy Teachers cannot as they confess and shew The wisest and most loving Parents cannot and therefore must pray to him that can The greatest Princes cannot Evil Angels neither can nor will What Good Angels can do on the Heart we know not but we know that they do nothing but as the obedient Ministers of God And though we have some power on our selves yet that we our selves cannot do it that we cannot Quicken Illuminate or Sanctifie our selves and that we have nothing but what we have received Conscience and Experience fully tell us § 7. 5. And that Christ promised this Spirit in a special measure to all true Believers that it should be in them his Advocate Agent Seal and Mark is yet visible in the Gospel yea and in the former Prophets Isa 44. 34. Ezek. 36. 26. 37. 14. Joel 2. 28 29. Ezek. 11. 19. 18. 31. Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 3. 5. 4. 23 24. 6. 63. 7. 39. Joh. 1. 33. 14. 16 26. Act. 1. 5 8. Joh. 15. 26. 16. 7 8 9 c. Indeed the Spirit here and Heaven hereafter are the chief of all the Promises of Christ § 8. 6. And that this Spirit is given not to Hypocrites that abuse Christ and do not seriously believe him nor to meer pretending nominal Christians but to all that sincerely believe the Gospel is evident not only to themselves in certainty if they are in a condition to know themselves but to others in part by the effects They have other Ends other affections other lives than the rest of Mankind have Though their heavenly Nature and Design be the less discerned and honoured in the World because their chiefest difference is out of the sight of Man in the Heart and in their secret actions and because their imperfections blemish them and because the Malignant World is by Strangeness and Enmity an incompetent judge yet it is discernable to others that they live upon the hopes of a better life and their heavenly Interest is it that over-ruleth all the adverse Interests of this World and that in order thereunto they live under the conduct of Divine Authority and that God's will is highest and most prevalent with them and that to obey and please him so far as they know it is the greatest business of their lives though ignorance and adverse Flesh do make their Holiness and Obedience imperfect The universal noise and opposition of the World against them doth shew that men discern a very great difference which Error and cross Interests and Carnal inclinations render displeasing to those who find themselves condemned by their heavenly Designs and Conversations § 9. But whether others discern it or deny it or detest it the true Believer is conscious of it in himself Even when he groaneth to be better to believe and trust and love God more and to have more of the heavenly life and comforts those very desires signifie another Appetite and Mind than Worldlings have and even when his frailties and weaknesses make him doubt of his own sincerity he would not change his Governour Rule or Hopes for all that the World can
Nature in all the works of Creation for in Him we Live and Move and Are and by the way of Grace in all the Gracious doth Operate and Is by the works and splendour of his Glory eminently in Heaven By which Glory therefore we must mean some Created Glory For his Essence hath no inequality § 5. 2. We shall be present with the Humane Nature of Christ both Soul and Body But here our present narrow Thoughts must not too boldly presume to resolve the difficulties which to a distinct understanding of this should be overcome For we must not here expect any more than a dark and general Knowledge of them As 1. What is the formal difference between Christs glorified Body and his Flesh on Earth 2. Where Christ's glorified Body is and how far it extendeth 3. VVherein the Soul and the Glorified Body differ seeing it is called A Spiritual Body These things are beyond our present reach § 6. 1. For what conceptions can we have of a Spiritual Body save that it is Pure incorruptible invisible to mortal Eyes and fitted to the most perfect state of the Soul How near the Nature of it is to a Spirit and so to the Soul and how far they agree or differ in substance extensiveness divisibility or activity little do we know § 7. 2. Nor do we know where and how far Christ's Body is present by extent The Sun is commonly taken for a Body and its Motive Illuminative and Calefactive Beams are by the most probable Philosophy taken to be a real emanant part of its substance and so that it is Essentially as extensive as those Beams that is It at once filleth all our Air and toucheth the surface of the Earth and how much further it extendeth we cannot tell And what difference there is between Christ's glorified Body and the Sun in Purity Splendour Extent or Excellency of Nature little do poor Mortals know And so of the rest § 8. Let no Man therefore cavil and say How can a whole World of glorified Bodies be all present with the One Body of Christ when each must possess its proper room For as the Body of the solar Beams and the extensive Air are so compresent as that none can discern the difference of the places which they possess and a World of Bodies are present with them both so may all our Bodies be with Christ's Body and that without any true confusion § 9. 2. Besides Presence with Christ there will be such an Union as we cannot now distinctly know A political Relative Union is past doubt such as Subjects have in one Kingdom with their King But little know we how much more We see that there is a wonderful Corporeal continuity or contact among the material works of God And the more Spiritual pure and noble the more inclination each Nature hath to Union Every Plant on Earth hath a Union with the whole Earth in which it liveth they are real parts of it And what Natural Conjunction our Bodies shall have to Christ's and what influence from it is past our Knowledge Though his similitudes in Joh. â—5 Joh. 6. Eph. 5. 1 Cor. 12. seem to extend far yet being but similitudes we cannot fully know how far § 10. The same variatis variandis we may say of our Union with Christ's humane Soul Seeing Souls are more inclinable to union than Bodies when we see all Vegetables to be united parts of one Earth and yet to have each one its proper individuating form and matter we cannot though Animals seem to walk more disjunct imagine that there is no kind of Union or Conjunction of invisible Souls though they retain their several substances and forms Nor yet that our Bodies shall have a nearer Union with Christ's Body than our Souls with his Soul But the nature manner and measure of it we know not § 11. Far be it from us to think that Christ's glorified Spiritual Body is such in form parts and dimensions as his earthly Body was That it hath Hands Feet Brains Heart Stomach Liver Intestines as on Earth Or that it is such a Compound of Earth Water and Air as here it was and of such confined extent for then as his Disciples and a few Jews only were present with him and all the World besides were absent and had none of his Company so it would be in Heaven But it is not such only as Paul but all true Believers in the World from the Creation to the end shall be with Christ and see his Glory And though inequality of Fitness or Degrees of Holiness will make an inequality of Glory no Man can prove an inequality by local distance from Christ Or if such there be for it 's beyond our reach yet none in Heaven are at such a distance from him as not to enjoy the Felicity of his Presence § 12. Therefore when we dispute against them that hold Transubstantiation and the ubiquity of Christ's Body we do assuredly conclude that Sense is Judge whether there be real Bread and Wine present or not But it is no Judge whether Christ's Spiritual Body be present or not no more than whether an Angel be present And we conclude that Christ's Body is not Infinite or Immense as is his Godhead but what are its dimensions Limits or extent and where it is absent far be it from us to determine when we cannot tell how far the Sun extendeth its secondary substance or emanant Beams nor well what Locality is as to Christ's Soul or any Spirit if to a Spiritual Body § 13. Their fear is vain and carnal who are afraid lest their Union with Christ or one another will be too near even lest thereby they lose their individuation as Rivers that fall into the Sea or extinguished Candles whose Fire is after but a Sun-beam or part of the common Element of Fire in the Air or as the Vegetative Spirits which in Autumn retire from the Leaves into the Branches and Trunk of the Tree I have proved before that our Individuation or numerical Existence ceaseth not And that no Union is to be feared were it never so sure which destroyeth not the Being or formal Powers or Action of the Soul and that it is the great radical disease of SELFISHNESS and want of Holy LOVE to God and our Saviour and one another which causeth these unreasonable Fears Even that Selfishness which now maketh men so partially desirous of their own wills and pleasure in comparison of God's and their own Felicity in comparison of other and which maketh them so easily bear God's injuries and the Sufferings of a Thousand others in comparison of their own But he that put a great desire of the Bodies preservation into the Soul while it is its form will abate that desire when the time of separation is come because there is then no use for it till the Resurrection Else it would be a torment to the Soul § 14. 3. And as we shall
that were it not for the work and higher ends of life I had little Reason to be much in love with it or to be loath to leave it And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary unavoidable sensitive Love of the Body and of Life as he puts into the Mother and into every Bruit a love of their young Ones how unclean and impotent and troublesome soever for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth Had God but left it to meer Reason without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is whether this life should be loved and desired and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born A wish which I have had much a do to forbear even when I have known that it is sinful and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it as few have had 6. Yea to depart from such a Body is but to be removed from a very foul uncleanly and sordid Habitation I know that the Body of Man and Bruits is the curious wonderful work of God and not to be despised nor injuriously dishonoured but admired and well used But yet it is a wonder to our Reason that so noble a Spirit should be so meanly housed And we may call it Our vile Body as the Apostle doth Phil. 3. 21. It is made up of the Airy Watery and Earthly parts of our daily food subacted and actuated by the fiery part as the instrument of the Soul The greater part of the same food which with great cost and pomp and pleasure is first upon our Tables and then in our Mouths to day is to morrow a fetid loathsom excrement and cast out into the draught that the sight and smell of that annoy us not which yesterday was the sumptuous fruit of our abundance the glory of that which is called great housekeeping and the pleasure of our Eyes and Taste And is not the rest that turneth into Blood and Flesh of the same general kind with that which is turned into loathsom filth The difference is that it is fitter for the Soul by the fiery Spirits yet longer to operate on and keep from corruption Our blood and flesh are as stinking and loathsom a substance as our filthiest excrements save that they are longer kept from putrefaction Why then should it more grieve me that one part of my food which turned into flesh should rot and stink in the Grave than that all the rest should daily stink in the draught Yea while it is within me were it not covered from my sight what a loathsom mass would my Intestines appear If I saw what is in the Guts the Mesentery the Ventricles of the Brain what filth what bilious or mucous matter and perhaps crawling Worms there are in the most proud or comely Person I should think that the cover of a cleaner Skin and the borrowed Ornaments of Apparel make no great difference between such a Body and a Carkass which may be also covered with an adorned Coffin and Monument to deceive such Spectators that see but out-sides the change is not so great of corruptible Flesh repleat with such fetid Excrements into corrupted Flesh as some Fools imagine 7. Yet more to Depart from such a Body is but to be loosed from the Bondage of Corruption and from a Clog and Prison of the Soul I say not that God put a pre-existent Soul into this Prison Penally for former faults I must say no more than I can prove or than I know But that Body which was an apt Servant to Man's Soul is become as a Prison to him now What alteration sin made upon the Nature of the Body as whether it be more terrene and gross than else it would have been I have no reason to assert Of Earth or Dust it was at first and to Dust it is sentenced to return But no doubt but it hath its part in that dispositive depravation which is the fruit of sin we find that the Soul as sensitive is so imprisoned or shut up in Flesh that sometimes it is more than one Door that must be opened before the Object and the Faculty can meet In the Eye indeed the Soul seemeth to have a Window to look out at and to be almost itself viâ—ible to others And yet there are many interposing tunicles and a suffusion or winking can make the clearest sight to be as useless for the time as if it were none And if sense be thus shut up from its Object no wonder if Reason also be under difficulties from coporeal impediments and if the Soul that is yoaked with such a Body can go no faster than its heavy pace 8. Yet further To Depart from such a Body is but to be separated from an accidental Enemy and one of our greatest and most hurtful Enemies Though still we say That it is not by any default in the work of our Creator but by the effects of sin that it is such What could Satan or any other Enemy of our Souls have done against us without our flesh What is it but the Interest of this Body that standeth in competition against the Interest of our Souls and God What else do the prophane sell their heavenly Inheritance for as Esau his Birthright No Man loveth evil as evil but as some way a real or seeming good And what good is it but that which seemeth good for the Body What else is the Bait of Ambition Covetousness and Sensuality but the Interest and Pleasure of this Flesh What taketh up the Thoughts and Care which we should lay out upon things Spiritual and Heavenly but this Body and its Life What Pleasures be they that steal away mens Hearts from the heavenly Pleasures of Faith Hope and Love but the Pleasures of this Flesh This draweth us to sin This hindereth us from and in our duty This Body hath its interest which must be minded and its inordinate Appetite which must be pleased or else what murmurings and disquiet must we expect Were it not for Bodily Interest and its Temptations how much more innocently and holily might I live I should have nothing to care for but to please God and to be pleased in him were it not for the care of this Bodily life What Employment should my Will and Love have but to Delight in God and Love Him and his Interest were it not for the Love of the Body and its concerns By this the mind is darkened and the Thoughts diverted By this our wills are perverted and corrupted and by Loving things Corporeal contract a strangâ—ness and aversation from things Spiritual By this Heaâ—â— and Time are alienated from God our Guilt is increased and our heavenly desire and hopes destroyed Life made unholy and uncomfortable and Death made terrible God and our Souls separated and Life eternal set by and in danger of being utterly lost
how to make her nest to lay her Eggs secretly together when and how to sit on them till they are hatched and how to feed them and preserve them and when to forsake them as sufficient for themselves without her help c. If the Bâ—c know when and whence and how to gather her Honey and Wax and how to form the repository Combs and how to lay it up and all the rest of her marvellous Oeconomy shall I think that God doth he knoweth not what or what is not absolutely the best Doth he want either Shill or Will or Power And should the Stone grudge to be hewed the Brick to be burnt the Trees to be cut down and sawed and framed the Lead and Iron to be melted c. when it is but to form an useful Edifice and to adapt and compose every part to the perfecting of the whole Shall the Waters grudge that they must glide away and the Plants that they must die and half die every Winter and the Fruit and Flowers that they must fall or the Moon that it must have its changing motions or the Sun that it must set and rise so oft c. when all is but the action and order which maketh up that harmony and perfection which was designed by the Creator and is pleasing to his will § 7. III. But lawful self-love is yet further herein gratified The Goodness expressed in the Text is that Analogical subordinate Good which is mihi Bonum my own Felicity and that which tendeth thereunto It is most Reasonable to Love God best and that next which is likest him if known And why should it not be the easiest and the sweetest But experience findeth it so easie to Love our selves that certainly if I firmly Believe that it is best for me I shall Desire to depart and be with Christ And have I not reason to believe it § 8. The Reasons of it I will consider in this order I. The general Reason from the Efficients and the Means II. The Final Reasons III. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect and its Action and Fruition there IV. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Will V. The constitutive Reasons from my practice there leaving out those which the Resurrection will give me because I am speaking but of my present departure unto Christ § 9. And 1. That is best for me which Love itself my heavenly Father designeth and chooseth for my good I hope I shall never dare to think or say that he is mistaken or that he wanted Skill or Love Or that I could have chosen better for my self than he doth if he had left all to my choice Many a time the wise and good-will of God hath crossed my foolish rebellious will on Earth And afterward I have still perceived that it was best usually for my self but always for a higher good than mine It is not an Enemy nor a Tyrant that made me that hath preserved me and that calls me hence He hath not used me as an Enemy The more I have tried him the better I have found him Had I better obeyed his Ruling will how happy had I been And is not his disposing and rewarding will as good Man's work is like Man and evil corrupteth it but God's work is like God and uncorrupted If I should not die till my dearest Friend would have it much more till I my self would choose it not constrained by misery I should rejoyce and think my life were safe O foolish sinful Soul if I take it not to be far better to be at God's choice than at my own or any Mans And if I had not rather that he choose the time than I. Be of good cheer then O my Soul it is thy Fathers voice that calls thee hence His voice that called thee into the World and bid thee live that called thee out of a state of sin and death and bid thee live hereafter unto him That called thee so oft from the Grave and forgiving thy sins renewed thy strength restored thee to the comforts of his House and Service and hath so graciously led thee through this howling Wilderness and brought thee almost to the sight of the promised Land And wilt thou not willingly go when infinite fatherly Love doth call thee Art thou not desirous of his presence Art thou afraid to go to him who is the only cure of thy fears What was it but this Glory to which he did finally Elect thee Where dost thou read that he Elected thee to the Riches and Honours of this World or to the pleasures of the Flesh But he Elected us in Christ to the heavenly Inheritance Eph. 1. 3 4 c. Indeed he Elected thee also to bear the Cross and to manifold sufferings here But is it that which thou preferrest before the Crown That was but as a Means unto the Kingdom that thou mightest be conformed to Christ and reign with him when thou hast suffered with him If God choose thee to blessedness refuse it not thy self nor behave thy self like a refuser § 10. 2. And surely that state is my Best which my Saviour purchased and promised me as best As he bought me not with Silver and Gold so neither to Silver and Gold Did he live and die to make me Rich or advanced in the World Surely his Incarnation Merits Sacrifice and Intercession had a low design if that were all And who hath more of these than they that have least of Christ But he purchased us to an incorruptible Crown to an Inheritance undefiled that fadeth notaway reserved in Heaven for us that are kept by God's Power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. And is it Heaven that cost so dear a price for me and is the End of so wonderful a design of Grace and shall I be unwilling now to receive the gift § 11. 3. That sure is Best for me for which God's Holy Spirit is preparing me That for which he is given to believers And that which is the End of all his holy Operations on my Soul But it is not to Love this World that he is persuading me from Day to Day but to come off from such Love and to set my Heart on the things above Is it to love this life and fleshly interest this Vanity and Vexation or rather to love the invisible Perfection that this blessed Spirit hath done so much to work my Heart And would I now undo all or Cross and frustrate all his Operations Hath Grace been so long preparing me for Glory and shall I be loath to take possession of it If I am not willing I am not yet sufficiently prepared § 12. 4. If Heaven be not better for me than Earth God's Word and Ordinances have been all in vain Surely that is my Best which is the Gift of the Better Covenant and which is secured to me by so many sealed Promises and which I am directed to by so many sacred Precepts
intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
temptation I will suppose that it will not have such a mode of Conception as it hath now by these Organs But 1. The Soul will be still essentially a Vital Intellective substance disposed to act naturally and that is to those acts which it is formally inclined to as fire to illuminate and heat And as it cannot die while it is what it is in Essence because it is Life itself that is The Vital substance so it cannot but be Intellective as to an Inclined Power because it is such Essentially though God can change or annihilate any thing if he would 2. And it will be among a world of Objects 3. And it will still have its dependence on the first cause and receive his continual actuating influx 4. And no Man can give the least shew of true Reason to prove that it shall cease sensation whether the sensitive Faculties be in the same substance which is Intellective which is most probable or in one conjunct as some imagine though the Species and Modes of Sensation cease which are denominated from the various Organs 5. Yea no Man can prove that the departing Soul doth not carry with it its igneous Spirits which in the Body it did immediately actuate If it were never so certain that those Greek Fathers were mistaken as well as Hippocrates who took the Soul itself to be a sublime Intellectual Fire And as to the Objection some hold that the Soul preexisted before it was in the Body others and most that it then received its first being If the first were true it would be true that the Soul had its Intellectual Activity before though the Soul itself incorporate remember it not because it Operateth but ut forma hominis and its Oblivion they take to be part of its penalty And they that think it a radius of the Anima mundi vel systematis must think that then it did Intellectually animate hunc mundum vel mundi partem And to do so again is the worst they can conjecture of it As the rays of the Sun which heat a burning Glass and by it set a Candle on fire are the same rays still diffused in the Air and illuminating heating and moving it and terminated on some other Body and not annihilated or debilitated when their contracted Operation ceaseth by breaking the Glass or putting out the Candle And as the Spirit of a Tree still animateth the Tree when it retireth from the Leaves and lets them fall But this being an unproved imagination of mens own Brains we have no further use of it than to confute themselves But if the Soul existed not till its incorporation what wonder if it Operate but ut forma when it is united to the Body for that use What wonder if its initial Operations like a spark of Fire in Tinder or the first lighting of a Candle be weak and scarce by us perceptible What wonder if it operate but to the uses that the Creation did appoint it and first as vegetative fabricate its own Body as the Makers instrument and then feel and then understand And what wonder if it Operate no further than Objects are admitted And therefore what wonder if in Apoplexies c. such Operations are intercepted But the departing Soul is 1. in its Maturity 2. No more united to this Body and so not confined to sense and imagination in its Operations and the admission of its Objects 3. And it is sub ratione meriti and as a governed subject is ordinate to its reward which it was not capable of receiving in the Womb or in an Apoplexy And as we have the Reasons before alledged to hold 1. That it shall not be annihilated 2. Nor dissolved 3. Nor lose its essential Faculties or Powers 4. Nor those essential Powers be continued useless by the wise and merciful Creator though by Natural revelation we know not in what manner they shall act whether on any other Body and by what conjunction and how far so by Supernatural Revelation we are assured that there is a reward for the Righteous and that holy Souls are still members of Christ and live because he liveth and that in the Day of their departure they shall be with him in Paradise and being absent from the Body shall be present with the Lord and that Christ therefore died rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the Dead and of the Living that is of those that being Dead hence do Live with him and of those that yet live in the Body For he that said God is not the God of the dead but of the Living that is stands not related to them as his People as a King to Subjects is not himself the Lord of the absolute Dead but of the Living Therefore as Contarenus against Pomponatius de Immortal Anim saith the Immortality of the Soul is provable by the Light of Nature but the manner of its future Operation must be known by Faith And blessed be the Father of Spirits and our Redeemer who hath sent and set up this excellent Light by which we see further than purblind Infidels can do § 2. But I deny not but even the Scripture itself doth tell us but little of the Manner of our Intellection when we are out of the Body and it is not improbable that there is more Imperfection in this Mode of Notional Organical Abstractive knowledge which the Soul exerciseth in the Body than most consider of And that as the Eye hath the visive Faculty in sleep and when we wink and an internal action of the visive Spirits no doubt and yet seeth not any thing without till the Eyelids are opened and was not made to see its own sight so the Soul in the Body is as a winking Eye to all things that are not by the Sense and Imagination intromitted or brought within its reach And whether sicut non video visum neque facultatem neque substantiam videntem videndo tamen certo percipio me videre so it may be said Non intelligo immediatè ipsam intellectionem neque facultatem aut substantiam intelligentem Intelligendo tamen certo percipio me intelligere quia actus Intellectûs in Spiritus sensitivos operans sentitur or whether we must further say with Ockam that Intellectus tum intuitivè tum abstractivè se intelligit I leave to wiser men to judge But I am very suspicious that the Body is more a Lanthorn to the Soul than some will admit and that this Lusus notionum secundarum or abstractive knowledge of Things by Organical Images Names and Notions is occasioned by the Union of the Soul with the Body ut formae and is that Childish knowledge which the Apostle saith shall be done away And how much of Mans fall might consist in such a knowing of good and evil I cannot tell or in the overvaluing such a knowledge And I I think that when vain Philosophy at Athens had called the thoughts and desires of Mankind from
great Realities to the Logical and Philological game at Words and Notions it was Socrates his wisdom to call them to more concerning Studies and Pauls greater Wisdom to warn men to take heed of such vain Philosophy and to labour to know God and Jesus Christ and the things of the Spirit and not to overvalue this ludicrous dreaming worldly Wisdom And if I have none of this kind of Notional childish knowledge when I am absent from the Body the Glass and Spectacles may then be spared when I come to see with open Face or as face to Face Our future knowledge is usually in Scripture called SEEING Mat. 5. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God 1 Cor. 13. 12. We shall see Face to Face 1 Joh. 3. 2. We shall see him as he is Joh. 17. 24. Father I will that those which thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me c. An Intuitive knowledge of all things as in themselves immediately is a more excellent sort of knowledge than this by similitudes Names and Notions which our Learning now consisteth in and is but an Art acquired by many acts and use § 3. If the Sun were as the Heathens thought it an Intellective Animal and it s emitted rayes were vitally visive and when one of those rayes were received by prepared seminal matter as in Insects it became the Soul of an inferiour Animal in this case the said ray would operate in that Insect or Animal but according to the Capacity of the recipient matter whereas the Sun itself by all it s emitted rays would see all things Intellectually and with delight and when that Insect were dead that Ray would be what it was an Intellective Intuitive emanation And though the Soul in Flesh do not know itself how it shall be united to Christ and to all other holy Souls and to God himself nor how near or just of what sort that union will be yet united it will be and therefore will participate accordingly of the the universal Light or understanding to which it is united The Soul now as it is or operateth in the Foot or Hand doth not understand but only as it is and operateth in the Head And yet the same Soul which is in the Hand understandeth in the Head and the Soul operateth not so selfishly or dividedly in the Hand as to repine there because it understandeth not there but it is quiet in that it understandeth in the Head and performeth its due Operation in the Hand But this diversity of Operations seemeth to be from the Organs and the Bodies use or need But Souls dismissed from the Body seem to be as all Eye or Intuitive Light Therefore though it might content us to say that our Head seeth all things and we are united to him yet we may say further that we our selves shall see God and all things that are meet for us to see § 4. And seeing it is most certain that the Superior glorious Regions are full of blessed Spirits who do see God and one another having much more perfect Operations than we have whose effects we Mortals find here below why should I that find an Intellective Nature in my self make any doubt of my more perfect Operations when I am dismissed hence being satisfied that a Soul will not lose its simple Essence Either those superiour Spirits have ethereal Bodies to act in or are such themselves or not If they are or have such why should I doubt of the like and think that my Substance or Vehicle will not be according to the Region of my abode If not why should I think that my departed Soul may not know or see without an igneous or ethereal Body or Vehicle as well as all those worlds of Spirits And the certainty of Apparitions Possessions and Witches do tell us not only that there are such Inhabitants of other Regions Ordinarily invisible to us but also that we are in the way to that Happiness or Misery which is in our invisible state § 5. These things reviewed being partly mentioned before assuring me that I shall have actual Intellection in my separated state the Region with the Objects but above all the Holy Scriptures will tell me as much as it is meet that I should here know what it is that I shall intuitively understand The Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. doth distinguish our knowing in part and knowing Perfectly knowing as a Child and as a Man knowing darkly and enigmatically as in a Glass and knowing Face to Face as we are known The great Question is When this Time of Perfection is Whether he mean at Death or at the Resurrection If Dr. Hammonds observation hold that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture when The Flesh or Body is not joined with it signifies that Life which the Soul doth enter upon immediately after our Death and so that the Soul hath that after living which is sinified by the very word which we Translate Resurrection then it will lead men to think that there is less difference between Mansstate at his first departure and at his last Resurrection than most think even than Calvin himself thought But the difference between our first and last state of after life or Resurrection cannot be now distinctly known What difference there is now between Henoch Elias and those who rose at Christs Resurrection and the rest of the Saints even the Spirits of the perfected Just and whether the first have as much greater Glory than the rest as it is conceived that we shall have at the Resurrection above that which immediately followeth Death what mortal Man can tell I am past doubt that Flesh and Blood formally so called and not only ab accidente as sinful shall not inherit the Kingdom of God vid. Hammond in loc but that our Natural Bodies shall be made Spiritual Bodies And how a Spiritual Body differeth from a Spirit or Soul I pretend not well to understand but must stay till God by experience or fuller Light inform me But surely the difference is not like to be so great as that a Soul in Flesh shall know in part and a Soul in a Spiritual Body shall know perfectly and a Soul between both shall not know at all If it be Perfection which we shall have in our Spiritual Body it is like that we are nearer to that Perfection in Knowledge and Felicity while we are between both than we are in the Flesh § 6. And sure a Soul that even Solomon saith goeth upward and to God that gave it is liker to know God than that which is terminated in Flesh and operateth ut forma according to its capacity and state And a Soul that is with Christ is liker to know Christ and the Father in him than that which is present with the Body and absent from the Lord. What less can the Promise of being with him signifie § 7.
more desire it V. I shall better understand all the World of God! The Matter and the Method of it Though I shall shall not have that use for it as I have now in this Life of Faith yet I shall see more of God's Wisdom and his Goodness his Love Mercy and Justice appearing in it than ever Man on Earth could do As the Creatures so the Scriptures are perfectly known only by perfect Spirits I shall then know how to solve all doubts and reconcile all seeming contradictions and to expound the hardest Prophesies That light will shew me the admirable Methods of those Sacred words where dark minds now suspect confusion How evident and clear then will every thing appear to me Like a small print when the light comes in which I could not read in the glimmering twilight How easily shall I then confute the cavils of all our present Unbelievers And how joyfully shall I praise that God and Saviour that gave his Church so clear a light to guide them through this darksom World and so sure a promise to support them till they came to life Eternal How joyfully shall I bless him that by that immortal Seed did regenerate me to the hopes of Glory And that ruled me by so Holy and Just a Law VI. In that World of Light I shall better understand God's present and past works of Providence by which he ordereth the matters of this World The Wisdom and Goodness of them is little understood in little parcels It is the union and harmony of all the parts which sheweth the beauty of them when the single Parcels seem deformed or are not understood And no one can see the whole together but God and they that see it in the light of his Celestial Glory It is a prospect of that End by which we have here any true understanding of such Parcels as we see Then I shall know clearly why or to what use God prospered the wicked and tryed the Righteous by so many afflictions I shall know why he set up the ungodly and put the humble under their Feet Why he permitted so much ignorance ungodliness pride lust oppression persecution falshood deceit and other sins in the World I shall know why the faithful are so few And why so many Kingdoms of the World are left in Heathenism Mahometanism and Infidelity The strange permissions which now so puzzle me and are the matter of my astonishment shall all be then as clear as day I shall know why God disposed of me as he did through all my life and why I suffered what I did and how many great deliverances I had which I understood not here and how they were accomplished All our mis-interpretations of God's works and permissions will be then rectified And all our Controversies about them which Satan hath made so great advantage of by a pretended zeal for some Truths of God will then be reconciled and at an end And all the works of Divine Providence from the beginning of the World will then appear a most delectable beauteous frame VII And among all these works I shall specially know more the nature and excellency of Gods mercies and gifts of Love which here we too unthankfully undervalued and made light of The special works of Love should be the matter of our most constant sweet and serious Thoughts and the fuel of our constant Love and Gratitude The lively sense of Love and Mercy maketh lively Christians abounding in Love to God and Mercy to others But the Enemy of God and Man most laboureth to obscure diminish and disgrace God's Love and Mercys to us or to put us out of relish to them that they be unfruitful as to their excellent ends and uses Little do most Christians know how much they wrong God and themselves and how much they lose by the diminutive poor Thoughts which they have of God's Mercies Ingratitude is a grievous misery to the Sinner as gratitude is a very pleasant work Many a Thousand Mercies we now receive which we greatly undervalue But when I come to the state and work of perfect gratitude I shall have a more perfect knowledge of all the Mercies which ever I received in my Life and which my Neighbours and Friends and God's Church and the World did ever receive For though the thing be past the use of it is not past Mercies remembred must be the matter of our everlasting thanks And we cannot be perfectly thankful for them without a perfect knowledge of them The worth of a Christ and all his grace the work of the Gospel the worth of our Church-priviledges and all God's Ordinances the worth of our Books and Friends and Helps of our Life and Health and all conveniences will be better understood in Heaven than the most holy and thankful Christian here understandeth them VIII And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self Both with my Nature and with my Sin and Grace I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul and its formal Faculties Three in One I shall know the nature and way of its Operations and how far its acts are simple or compound or organical I shall know how far Memory Phantasie and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one and what Senses will perish and what not I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep in Apoplexies and in the Womb I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul sensitive or rational and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance of all Spirits diversly specified by the Forms mental sensitive and vegetative or whether it be as a Body or Vehicle to Spirits or rather a nature made for the Copulation of Spirits and Bodies and the Operation of the former on the latter as between both And whether Fire and of what sort be the active forma telluris and of other Globes I shall know how far Souls are One and yet Many and how they are Individuate And whether their Quantitas discreta in being numerically many do prove that they have any Quantitatem continuam and whether they are a purer sort of Bodies as the Greek Fathers Tertullian and others Thought and what Immateriality signifieth and what substantiality of Spirits and how substantia materia differ and how far they are penetrable and indivisible and whether a Soul be properly pars and whether individual Souls are parts of any common Soul and how far the individuation doth continue And whether separated from the Body they operate in and by any other Vehicle or without and how and whether they take with them any of the fiery Nature as a Vehicle or as a constitutive part I shall know how God produceth Souls And how
is here but as in the Seed the perfect union and communion is hereafter Earth and Heaven must be distinguished We must not extend our hopes or pretensions here beyond the Capacity of our Natures As perfect Holiness and Knowledge so perfect Unity and Concord is proper to Heaven and is not here to be expected The Papal pretensions of an impossible Union in one Governour of all the Earth is the means to hinder that Union which is possible But the state of Perfection is the state of perfect union communion Hasten then upwards O my Soul with the ferventest desires and breath after that state with the strongest Hopes where thou shalt not be rich and see thy Neighbours poor about thee nor be poor while they are rich nor be well while they are sick or sick while they are well But their Riches their Health their Joy will be all thine and thine will be all theirs as the common Light and none will have the less for the participation of the rest Yea Communion will be part of every ones felicity It constitueth the very being of the City of God This Celestial Communion of Saints in one holy Church above what is here to be attained is now an Article of our Belief But believing will soon end in seeing and enjoying V. The Constitutive Reasons from the heavenly Life or Practice § 1. Seeing and Loving will be the heavenly Life But yet it seemeth that besides these there will be EXECUTIVE Powers and therefore some answerable PRACTICE There are GOOD WORKS in Heaven and far more and better than on Earth For 1. There will be more Vital Activity and therefore more exercise of it For the Power is for Action 2. There will be more Love to God and one another And Love is active 3. There will be more likeness to God and our Redeemer who is communicative and doth good as he is good 4. Our Union with Christ who will be everlastingly beneficent as well as benevolent will make us in our places also beneficent 5. Our Communion in the City of God will prove that we shall all bear our part as the Members of the Body in contributing to the welfare of the whole and in the common returns to God § 2. But What are the heavenly Works we must perfectly know when we come thither In general we know 1. That they will be the works of love to God and to his Creatures that is such as Love inclineth us to exercise 2. And they will be works of Obedience to God that is such as we shall do to please his will and because he willeth them to be our duty 3. They will be useful works to others 4. They will be pleasant to our selves and part of our felicity 5. And they will carry all to God our End § 3. And somwhat of them is particularly described in the holy Scriptures As 1. We shall in Concord with the whole Society or Chore give Thanks and Praise to God and our Redeemer Rev. 19. 5. 1 Pet. 4. 11. Rev. 7. 4. 4. 7 11. 5. 13. 7. 12. 19. 1. Phil. 4 20. Whether there be any Voice or only such Spiritual activity and exultation as to Man in Flesh is not to be clearly understood is not fit for us here to presume to determine It will be somwhat more high and excellent than our vocal Praise and Singing is and of which this beareth some analogical resemblance or signification As all Passions earnestly desire vent and exercise so specially do our holy affections of Love Joy and Admiration of God Almighty And there is in us a desire of communion with many in such affections and expressions Methinks when we are singing or speaking God's praise in the great Assemblies with joyful and fervent Souls I have the liveliest foretast of Heaven on Earth And I could almost wish that our Voices were loud enough to reach through all the World and unto Heaven itself Nor could I ever be offended as many are at the Organs and other convenient Musick soberly and seasonably used which excite and help to tune my Soul in so holy a work in which no true assistance is to be despised No work more comforteth me in my greatest sufferings none seemeth more congruous and pleasant to me while I wait for Death than Psalms and words of Praise to God nor is there any exercise in which I had rather end my life And should I not then willingly go to the heavenly Chore where God is praised with perfect Love and Joy and harmony Had I more of a Praising frame of Soul it would make me long more for that Life of Praise For I never find my self more willing to be there than when I most joyfully speak or sing God's praise Though the Dead praise not God in the grave and dust doth not give him thanks yet living Souls in Heaven do it joyfully while their fleshly cloathing turns to dust Lord â—une my Soul to thy Praises now that sweet experience may make me long to be where I shall do it better I see where any excellent Musick is Nature maketh men flock to it and they that are but Hearers yet join by a concurrent phantasie and delight Surely if I had once heard the heavenly Chore I should Eccho to their holy Songs though I could not imitaâ— them and I should think it the truest Blessedness to be there and bear my part My God the voice of thy comforting Spirit speaking thy Love effectually to my Soul would make such holy Musick in me that would incline me to the Celestial consort and without it all these thoughts and words will be in vain It is the inward Mâ—lody of thy Spirit and my Conscience that must tune me to desire the hâ—avenly Melody O speak thy love first to my Heart and then I shall joyfully speak it to my Brethren and shall ambitiously seek that communion of them that praise thee better than sinful groaning Mortals can And though my sins here make a loathed jar and discord in my Songs I hope my groans for these sins and their effects will make no discord Sighs and Tears have had the honour to be accepted by thee who despisest not a contrite Soul But if thy Spirit will sing and speak within me and help me against the discordant murmurs of my unbelieving Heart and pained Flesh I shall offer thee that which is more suitable to thy Love and Grace I confess Lord that daily Tears and Sighs are not unsuitable to the Eyes and Voice of so great a Sinner who is under thy correcting Roâ— What better could I expect when I grieved thy Spirit than that it should prove my grief Yea this is far better than the genuine effects of sin But this is not it that is meeâ—est to be offered to the God of Love He that offereth Praise doth glorifie thee And is not this the Spiritual Sacrifice acceptable through Christ for which we were made Priests to God
1 Pet. 2. 5. I refuse not Lord to lie in Tears and Groans when thou requirest it and do not thou refuse those Tears and Groans but O give me better that I may have better of thine own to offer thee And by this prepare me for the far better which I shall find with Christ And that which is Best to us thy Creatures will be accepted as Best by Thee who art glorified and pleased in the Perfection of thy works § 4. II It is at least very probable that God maketh glorified Spirits his Agents and Ministers of much of his beneficence to the Creatures that are below them For 1. We see that where he endueth any Creature with the noblest endowments he maketh most use of that Creature to the benefit of others We shall in Heaven be most furnished to do good and that furniture will not be unused 2. And Christ tells us that we shall be like or equal to the Angels which though it mean not simply and in all things yet it meaneth more than to be above carnal Generation for it speaketh of a similitude of Nature and State as the Reason of the otheâ— And that the Angels are God's Ministers for the good of his chosen in this World and Administrators of much of the Affairs on Faith 〈◊〉 past all doubt 3. The Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 the Saintâ— shall Judg the World and Angels And Judging in Scripture is oft put for Ruling It is therefore probable at least that the Devils and the Damned shall be put under the Saints and that with the Angels they shall be employed in some Ministerial Oversight of the Inhabitants and Affairs of the promised New-Earth 4. And when even the more noble Superiour Bodies even the Stars are of so great use and influx to inferiour Bodies it is like that accordingly Superiour Spirits will be of use to the Inhabitants of the World below them § 5. But I think it not meet to venture here upon uncertain conjectures beyond the revelation of God's Word and therefore shall add no more but conclude that God knoweth what use to make of us hereafter as well as here and that if there were no more for us to do in Heaven but with perfect Knowledg Love and Joy to hold communion with God and all the heavenly Society it were enough to attract a sensible and considerate Soul to fervent desires to be at home with God § 6. And here I must not overpass my rejection of the injurious opinion of too many Philosophers and Divines who exclude all Sense and Affection from Heaven and acknowledge nothing there but Intellect and Will And this is because they find Sense and Affection in the Bruits and they think that the souls of Bruits are but some quality or perishing temperament of Matter and therefore that Sense and Affection is in us no better § 7. But 1. What felicity can we conceive of without any affection of delight or joy Certainly bare Volition now without these doth seem to be no felicity to us Nor knowledg neither if there were no delight in knowing § 8. 2. Yea I leave it to mens experience to judge whether there be now any such thing in us as proper willing which is not also some internal sense of and affection to the good which we will If it be Complacency or the Pleasedness of the Will this signifies some Pleasure and Love in the first act is nothing else but such an Appetite If it be Desire it hath in it a Pleasedness in the thing desired as in esse cognito as it is thought on by us and what Love is without all sense and affection § 9. 3. Why doth the Scripture ascribe Love and Joy to God and Angels if there were not some reason for it Doubtless there is great difference between the heavenly Love and Joy and ours here in the Body And so there is also between their knowledge and ours and their Will and ours But it is not that theirs is less or lower than ours but somwhat more excellent which ours giveth us some analogical or imperfect formal notice of § 10. 4. And what though Bruits have Sense and Affection doth it follow therefore that we have none now Or that we shall have none hereafter Bruits have Life And must we therefore have no Life hereafter because it is a thing that 's common â—oBruits Rather as now we have all that the Bruits have and more so shall we then have Life and Sense and Affection of a nobler sort than Bruits and more Is not God the Living God Shall we say that he liveth not because Bruits live Or rather that they live a sensitive life and Man a Sensitive and Intellectual because God is Essential Transcendent Infinite Life that makes them live § 11. 5. But if they say that there is no Sensation or Affection but by bodily Organs I answered before to that the Body feeleth nothing at all but the Soul in the Body The Soul uniteth itself most nearly to the Igneous-aereal parts called the Spirits and in them it feeleth seeth tasteth smelleth c. And that Soul that feeleth and seeth doth also inwardly love desire and rejoice And that Soul which doth this in the Body hath the same power and faculty out of the Body And if they judge by the cessation of sensation when the Organs are undisposed or dead so they might as well conclude against our future Intellection and Will whose operation in an Apoplexy we no more perceive than that of Sense But I have before shewed that the Soul will not want exercise for its Essential faculties for want of Objects or bodily Organs and that men conclude basely of the souls of Bruits as if they were not an enduring substance without any proof or probability And tell us idle dreams that they are but vanishing temperaments c. which are founded on another Dream that FIRE or the Motive-Illuminative-Calefactive Cause is no substance neither and so our unnatural Somatists know none of the most excellent substances which actuate all the rest but only the more base and gross which are actuated by them and they think they have well acquit themselves by telling us of subtâ—le actâ—d Matter and Motion without understanding what any Living Active-Motive Faculty or Virtue is And because no Man knoweth what God doth with the souls of Bruits whether they are only one common sensitive soul of a more common Body or whether Individuate still and Transmigrant from Body to Body or what else Therefore they make Ignorance a plea for Errour and feign them to be no substances or to be Annihilate § 12. I doubt not but Sensation as is aforesaid is an excellent Operation of the Essential faculties of real substances called Spirits and that the highest and noblest Creatures have it in the highest excellency and though God that fitteth every thing to its use hath given e. g. a Dog a more perfect Sense of Smelling than a Man
they pretend to and profess are the ordinary case and course of the most of men And when we would plead them out of their deceit and misery it 's well if we are not tempted to imitate them or be not partly infected with their Disease or at least reproached and oppressed as their Enemies Such a Bedlam is most of the World become where madness goeth for the only Wisdom and he is the bravest Man that can sin and be damned with reputation and renown and successfully drive or draw the greatest number with him unto Hell To which the World hath no small likeness forsaking God and being very much forsaken by him This is the World which standeth in competition for my Love with the Spiritual blessed World Much of God's Mercies and Comforts I have here had But their sweetness was their taste of Divine Love and their tendency to heavenly Perfection What was the end and use of all the Good that ever I saw or that ever God did for my Soul or Body but to teach me to Love him and to long for more How many weaning experiences How many Thousand bitter or contemning Thoughts have I had of all the glory and pleasures of this World How many Thousand love tokens from God have called me to believe and taste his Goodness Where ever I go and which way soever I look I see VANITY and VEXATION written upon all things in this World so far as they stand in competition with God and would be the end and portion of a fleshly Mind And I see HOLINESS TO THE LORD written upon every thing so far as it declareth God and leadeth me to him as my ultimate end God hath not for nothing engaged me in a War against this World and commanded me to take and use it as mine Enemy The emptiness dangerousness and bitterness of the World and the All-sufficiency Trustiness and Goodness of God have been the Summ of all the experiences of my life And shall a worldly backward Heart overcome the teachings of Nature Scripture the Spirit of Grace and all Experience Far be it from me But O my God LOVE is thy great and special gift All Good is from thee But LOVE is the God-like Nature Life and Image It is given us from the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the quickning illuminating and sanctifying Operation of the Holy Spirit What can the Earth return unto the Sun but its own reflected Beams If those As how far soever Man is a Medium in Generation Nature and that Appetite which is the moving pondus in the Child is thy work so whatever is Man's part in the Mediate work of Believing and Repenting which yet is not done without thy Spirit and grace certainly it is the blessed Regenerator which must make us New Creatures by giving us this Divine Nature holy LOVE which is the holy Appetite and Pondus of the Soul Come down Lord into this Heart for it cannot come up to thee Can the Plants for Life or the Eye for Light go up unto the Sun Dwell in me by the Spirit of Love and I shall dwell by Love in Thee Reason is weak and Thoughts are various and Man will be a slippery uncertain Wight if LOVE be not his fixing Principle and do not incline his Soul to Thee Surely through thy Grace I easily feel that I love thy Word I love thy Image I love thy Work and O how heartily do I Love to Love thee And long to Know and Love thee more And if all things be of Thee and through Thee and to Thee surely this Love to the Beams of thy Glory here on Earth is eminently so It 's Thee Lord that it meaneth To Thee it looketh It 's Thee it serveth For Thee it mourns and seeks and groans In Thee it Trusteth And the Hope and Peace and Comfort which support me are in Thee When I was a returning Prodigal in rags thou sawest me afar off and mettest me with thy embracing feasting Love And shall I doubt whether he that hath better cloathed me and dwelt within me will entertain me with a Feast of greater love in the heavenly Mansions the World of Love The suitableness of things below to my fleshly Nature hath detained my affections too much on Earth And shall not the suitableness of things above to my Spiritual Nature much more draw up my Love to Heaven There is the GOD whom I have sought and served He is also here but vailed and but litâ—le known But there he shineth to heavenly Spirits in heavenly Glory There is the Saviour in whom I have believed He hath also dwelt in Flesh on Earth Bâ—t cloathed in such meanness and humbled to such a Life and Death as was to the Jews a stumbling Block and to the Gentiles matter of reproach But he Shineth and Reigneth now in Glory above the malice and contempt of Sinners And I shall there Live because he liveth and in his Light I shall have Light He loved me here with a Redeeming Regenerating and preserving Love But there he will love me with a perfecting glorifying joyful Love I had here some Raies of heavenly Light But interpositions caused Eclipses and Nights yea some long and winter Nights But there I shall dwell in the City of the Sun the City of God the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no Night Eclipse or Darkness There are the heavenly Hosts whose holy Love and Joyful Praises I would fain be a partaker of I have here had some of their Loving assistance but to me unseen being above our fleshly way of Converse But there I shall be with them of the like Nature in the same Orb and of the same Triumphant Church and Chore There are perfected Souls gathered home to Christ Not as here striving like Esau and Jacob in the Womb not yet as John when he leaped in the Womb because of his Mothers joy nor as wrangling Children that are hardly kept in the same House in Peace Not like the Servants of Abraham and Lot like Paul and Barnabas like Epiphanius and Chrysostom like Luther and Carolostadius like Ridley and Hooper or the many striving Parties now among us nor like the Disciples striving who should be the greatest Not like Noah's Family in a wicked World or Lot in a wicked City or Abraham in an Idolatrous Land nor like Elijah left alone nor like those that wandred in Sheep Skins and Goat Skins destitute afflicted and tormented hid in Dens and Caves of the Earth not like Job on the Dunghil or like Lazarus at the rich Man's Doors Not like the African Bishops whose Tongues were cut out nor like the Preachers silenced by Papist imposers in German by the Intâ—rim or elsewhere Nor like such as Tzegedine Peucer and many other worthy men whose maturest Age was spent in Prisons Not as we poor bewildred Sinners feeling evil and fearing more confounded in folly and mad contention some hating the only way of Peace and
doubtingly whether thy heavenly Father and thy Lord doth love thee Canst thou forget the sealed Testimonies of it Did I not even now repeat so many as should shame thy doubts A multitude of thy Friends have loved thee so entirely that thou canst not doubt of it And did any of them signifie their love with the convincing evidence that God hath done Have they done for thee what he hath done Are they Love itself Is their love so full so firm and so unchangeable as his I think the sweetlier of Heaven because abundance of my ancient Lovely and Loving Holy Friends are there and am the willinger by Death to follow them And should I not think of it more pleasedly because my God and Father my Saviour and my Comforter is there And not alone but with all the Society of Love Was not Lazarus in the Bosom of God himself yet it is said that he was in Abraham's Bosom as the Promise runs that we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And what maketh the Society of Saints so sweet as holy Love It is comfortable to read that To love the Lord our God with all our Heart and Soul and might is the First and great Commandment and the Second is like to it To Love our Neighbours as our selves For God's Commands proceed from that Will which is his Nature or Essence and they tend to the same as their Objective end Therefore he that hath made Love the Great Command doth tell us that LOVE is the Great conception of his own Essence the spring of that Command and that this commanded imperfect Love doth tend to perfect heavenly Love even to our communion with Essential Infinite Love It were strange that the Love and Goodness which is equal to the Power that made the World and the Wisdom that ordereth it should be scant and backward to do good and to be suspected more than the Love of Friends The remembrance of the holiness humility love and faithfulness of my dearest Friends of every Rank with whom I have conversed on Earth in every place where I have lived is so sweet to me that I am oft ready to recreate my self with the naming of such as are now with Christ But in Heaven they will love me better than they did on Earth and my love to them will be more pleasant But all these Sparks are little to the Sun Every place that I have lived in was a place of Divine Love which there set up its obliging Monuments Every Year and Hour of my life hath been a time of Love Every Friend and every Neigbour yea every Enemy have been the Messengers and Instruments of Love Every state and change of my life notwithstanding my sin hath opened to me Treasures and Mysteries of Love And after such a life of Love shall I doubt whether the same God do love me Is he the God of the Mountains and not of the Valleys Did he love me in my youth and health And doth he not love me in my Age and Pain and Sickness Did he love all the Faithful better in their life than at their Death If our hope be not chiefly in this life neither is our state of Love which is principally the heavenly endless Grace My groans grieve my Friends but abate not their love Did he love me for my strength my weakness might be my fear as they that love for Beauty loath them that are deformed and they that love for Riches despise the Poor But God loved me when I was his Enemy to make me a Friend and when I was bad to make me better What ever he taketh pleasure in is his own gift Who made me to differ And what have I that I have not received And God will finish the Work the Building the Warfare that is his own O the multitude of Mercies to my Soul and Body in Peace and War in Youth and Age to my self and friends the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the Love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it and shall I die in the doubts of it Had it been Love only to my Body it would have died with me and not have accompanied my departing Soul I am not much in doubt of the truth of my Love to him Though I have not seen him save as in a Glass as in a Glass seen I love him I love my Brethren whom I have seen and those most that are most in Love with him I love his Word and Works and Ways and fain I would be nearer him and love him more and I loath my self for loving him no better And shall Peter say more confidently Thou knowest that I love thee than I know that thou lovest me Yes he may because though God's Love is greater and stedfaster than ours yet our knowledge of his great love is less than his knowledge of our little love and as we are defective in our own Love so are we in our certainty of its sincerity And without the knowledge of our Love to God we can never be sure of his special love to us But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World And who it is that I have desired to please The God whose I am and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth and he will love me in my aged weakness My Flesh and my Heart fail my pains seem grievous to the Flesh But it is LOVE that chooseth them that useth them for my good that moderateth them and will shortly end them Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love Shall pain or dying make me doubt Did God love none from the beginning of the World but Henoch and Elias And what am I better than my fore-Fathers What is in me that I should expect exemption from the common lot of all Mankind Is not a competent time of great Mercy on Earth in order to the unseen felicity all that the best of men can hope for O for a clearer stronger Faith to shew me the World that more excelleth this than this excelleth the Womb where I was conceived Then should I not fear my third Birth day what pangs soever go before it nor be unwilling of my change The Grave indeed is a Bed that Nature doth abhor Yet there the weary be at rest But Souls new born have a double Nature that is Immortal and go to the place that is agreeable to their Nature even to the Region of Spirits and the Region of Holy Love Even passive Matter that hath no other Natural motion hath a Natural Inclination to uniting aggregative motion And God maketh all Natures suitable to their proper ends and use How can it be that a Spirit should not incline to be with Spirits And Souls that have the Divine Nature in holy Love desire to be with the God of Love Arts and Sciences and Tongues become not
This Nature and its faculties and powers are not made in vain II. Reason assureth me that all men are bound by Nature to prefer the least probability of a Life of Everlasting Joy before all the Prosperity of this World and to suffer the loss of all this short Vanity to escape the least possibility of endless misery And Nature hath such notices of Rewards and Punishments after Death that no Man can say that he is sure there is no such thing From whence it followeth that all men are bound by the very Law of Nature to be Religious and to seek first and most their Salvation in the Life to come And if so It 's certain that there is such a thing to be obtained Else God had made the very Nature of Man to be deceived by itself and to spend the chief part yea all his life through labour and suffering for that which is not and so made his greatest duty to be his greatest deceit and misery And the worst men should be least deceived But all this is not to be imputed to our wise and good Creator III. The universal sense of Moral Good and Evil in all Mankind is a great evidence of another life The vilest Atheist cannot abide to be accounted a Knave a Lyer a bad Man nor will equal a vicious Servant with another All would be thought good who will not be good And doth not God make a greater difference than Man And will he not shew it IV. The World is actually ruled much by the hopes and fears of another life and cannot well be ruled without it according to the Nature of Man But the Almighty most Wise and most Holy God needs not and will not rule the World by meer deceit V. The Gospel of Christ hath brought Life and Immortality into a clearer Light than that of Nature And it must be by believing in Christ that we must have our full satisfaction O what hath God done in the Wonders of Redemption to make us sure And against the doubts that are apt to rise from some hard particular Text of Scripture it must be considered I. That Christ and his Apostles did put the ascertaining Seal of the many uncontrolled Miracles to the Gospel Doctrin primarily which Doctrin 1. Was delivered and sealed Eight years before any of the New Testament was written and almost Seventy before the last 2. And Christ did not speak in the Language that the Gospel is written to us so that being but a Translation as to his own Words the Matter is the thing first sealed II. And that it was the two Legislator-Mediators Moses and Christ who came with the great stream of uncontrolled Miracles It being necessary that men should have full proof that a Law or Doctrin is of God before they believe it But the Priests and Prophets after Moses and the Preachers and Pastors of the Christian Church who were not Commissioned to bring men any New Laws or Gospel but to proclaim and teach that which they received needed no such New Testimony of Miracles III. The Belief of every particular Priest or Prophet after Moses or every Pastor after Christ and his Apostles was not of the same degree of necessity to Salvation as the belief of the Law and Gospel itself Therefore though all the Holy Scripture be true the Law and the Gospel must be much differenced from the rest IV. The History of the Law and Gospel have full ascertaining historical Evidence or else there is none such in the World Therefore the Doctrin must be true V. The Prophesies fulfilled prove the Gospel true VI. And the Divine Impress on the whole VII And the sanctifying work of the Spirit wrought by it in all Nations and Ages on serious Believers is a constant Divine attestation VIII And as my Faith hath so sure a Foundation it confirmeth my Faith and Hope that it hath been so long and great a work of God by his Word and Spirit on my Soul to raise it to believe and love and desire that Holy state of Perfection and Fruition which I hope for That which hath made me so much better than I else had been and turned my Heart and Life though imperfectly to things above the Pleasures of the Flesh must needs be of God And God would never send his Grace to work my Heart to Deceit and Lies and give me such Graces as shall all be frustrate His Spirit is the Earnest and first Fruits of Glory IX And all the course of Religious and Moral duty which he hath commanded me and in which he hath employed my life were never imposed to deceive me I am sure by Nature and Scripture that it is my Duty to love God and my Neighbour to desire Perfection and to serve God and do good with all my time and power and to trust God for my reward believing that all this shall not be in vain nor that which is best be made my loss O blessed be God for Commands and Holy Duty For they are equal to Promises Who can fear that he shall lose by seeking God X. As God hath sealed the Truth of his Word as aforesaid so he hath by an instituted Office and Ordinance sealed and delivered to my self his Covenant with the gift of Christ and Life in Baptism and the Lord's Supper XI He hath given me such a love to Holy Things and Persons that I greatly long to see his Church in perfect Light and Love and Concord Oh how sweet would it be to see all men Wise and Holy and Joyfully praising God Every Christian longs for this And therefore such a state will be XII I have found here the great benefit of the Love and Ministry of Angels such as is described in Psal 91. They have kept me Night and Day which confirmeth my hope that I shall dwell with them for I love them better than men because they love and serve God better XIII That low communion which I have here with God by Christ and the Spirit in his answer to my Prayers Supports Comforts Experiences tends to more XIV The pleasure which I have by Love in thinking of the happiness of my many many many holy departed Friends and of the Glory of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem is sure some hopeful approach towards their state XV. When I see the Fire mount upward and think that Spirits are of a more sublime and excellent Nature than Fire And when I see that all that is done in this World is done by Spiritual unseen powers which move this gross and drossie Matter it puts me past doubt that my Soul being a Spirit hath a vast and glorious World of Spirits to ascend to God hath by Nature put into all things an aggregative uniting inclination Earth hath no other natural motion The ascent of Fire tells us its Element is above And Spiritâ— naturally incline to Spirits and holy Spirits peculiarly are inclined to the Holy XVI I am sure 1. By understanding
more impossible for Moses to assume such a Body as he appeared in on the Mount for that occasion than for Angels to appear in humane shapes and departed Souls too as many Apparitions have told men And if bad Souls can do it why not good ones when God will have it The Tradition seemeth but a Jewish Dream that God kept the Body of Moses uncorrupted in the Grave and that this was it that the Devil is said to strive for against Michael that the Body might be corrupted And say others that at this Transfiguration it rose again There need no such conceits to our satisfaction The Soul of Moses could assume a Body § 8. But still the dissimilitude of Henoch and Elias from all the Saints in Heaven is an unresolved difficulty If we knew that God would have it so it might satisfie us But there is a symmetry in the Body of Christ And it 's like that the same Region hath Inhabitants of the same Nature What shall we think then That Henoch and Elias at their entrance into those Regions laid by their Bodies and became such as Abraham and other holy Souls Why are they taken up to be so laid by The corruptibility no doubt they did lay by God knoweth but it s much unknown to us Or shall we think as all those Fathers cited by Faustus Regiensis and as Dr. More and some of late that all Spirits are Souls and animate some Bodies and so that all in Heaven have some Bodies If so what Bodies are they And how differ they from the Resurrection state As the Soul here operateth in and by the Igneous Spirits in our Bodies it may be so lodged in these as to take some of them with it at Death as the life of a dying Plant yet dieth not in the Seed And a Man may be said to go unclothed to Bed though he put not off his shift or nearest Garment and to be clothed again when he puts on the rest And at the Resurrection as there will be a New Heaven and Earth so Spirits now in Heaven may have much more delightful business on the New and Righteous Earth than now they have and therefore may have use for an additional Body as much differing from what they have now in Heaven as the New Earth and their employment there require and as the Seed doth differ from the Plant. And Spirits being communicative will be more happy by more communication As God delighteth to do good to all his works so the Souls now confined to Heaven will delight to be employed in doing good to the New Earth and to animate the Bodies suited to such work Though now they have use for no other than such Spiritual lucid Receptacles as are fit for the Regions where they dwell And it will be no debasement or dejection for a Spirit now in Heaven to animate a Body at the Resurrection fit for the New Earth no more than it was to Angels to speak to Adam and to Moses to Abraham Jacob Manoah and others or then it is to the Sun to enlighten and enliven things on Earth It is a foolish thing to think as some do that departed Souls will be as dormant and unactive as in Apopletick or Sleeping Persons for want of Organized Bodies to act in Spirits are Essentially Active Intellective and Volitive And will God continue such Essential Powers in vain Moses and Elias wanted not Bodies And those in Heaven can praise Jehovah and the Lamb with holy concordant Love and Joy whether in any sort of ethereal Bodies or without we shall shortly know § 8. It is said that Moses and Elias talked with Christ This sheweth that Christ hath familiar communion with the Blessed He that would come into Flesh on Earth and live with Man in an humbled state and refused not familiar converse with poor men and women and would eat and drink with Publicans and Sinners will not refuse everlasting near familiarity with the glorified If the Church be his dearly beloved Spouse and as it were one with him as his Body surely he will be no stranger to the least and lowest Member of it § 9. But what was it that they talkt about Luk. 9. 31. saith They appeared in Glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem This was not to make it known to Christ who came into the World to die for sin What then was it for Did Christ tell them of it as not knowing it before That is not likely neither Did he need their comfort as Angels in his trials ministred to him and strengthned him The particular uses of this speech we know not But in general we know it was somwhat preparatory to his great Sufferings and Death And must Christ's Sufferings and Death have such preparation and must not mine have much premeditation and do I not need the consolatory messages of God Carnal men would rather have chosen pleasanter discourse than the talk of Sufferings and Death But that which must be undergone and requireth greatest strength must be forethought of and requireth the most preparing Thoughts It 's worse than madness to be surprized with Sufferings and Death before it 's seriously forethought of So sharp a trial and so great a change require the greatest preparation He that can refuse to suffer and die may refuse to talk or think of it If Christ must have men from Heaven to talk with him of his Cross what cause have we to study the Cross Even all our lives to foresee it and by obedient consent to submit unto it and take it up to follow Christ and even to determine with Paul to know nothing in the World but Christ and him Crucified that is to take this for the only needful and excellent Learning But alas how senslesly is Death and Suffering talkt of till it comes We are to learn how to suffer when suffering is upon us and to learn how to die till Nature or the Physician pass the sentence of Death on us at hand And it is God's Mercy to some of us to make our sufferings long that we may have a competent time of learning As we learn to write by writing and to discourse by discoursing and every Art and Trade by practice even so by suffering we learn to suffer And the Lesson is very hard Malefactors suffer without Learning whether they will or not but to suffer Obediently with Child-like affections is the Lesson to be learnt O little too little do many honest Christians think how much of their most excellent Obedience consisteth in Child-like holy Suffering Therefore they little expect it and provide for it And then they are overwhelmed with the unexpected surprizal when it comes Even in the sufferings which men bring on the Faithful for Righteousness sake how many shrink and shift off their duty or venture on forbidden things for safety because they were not prepared for it The loss of goods or imprisonment and want seem
itself contained the evidence of its Divinity and of their Truth And Christ then and to this Day hath owned it by the sanctifying Efficacy of the same Spirit upon Millions of Souls How Holy a Doctrin doth Peter himself deliver as confirmed by this Apparition 2 Pet. 1. 16 17 18. We have not followed cunningly devised Fables when we made known to you the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were Eye Witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent Glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And this Voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount The words In whom I am well pleased are only here and in Matthew Mark and Luke omitting them tell us that the Evangelists undertook not to recite all that was said and done but each one so much as seemed necessary for him to say § 42. And now what remaineth O my Soul but that thou take in the due Impression of this Apparition of the Glory of Jesus and his Saints and that thou joyfully obey this heavenly Voice and Hear the Beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased I. As we that are Born in another Age and Land must know what Christ said by the transmission and certain testimony of them that heard him infallible Tradition by Act Word and Record being our way of notice as immediate sensation was theirs so even the glorious Apparition itself may be the mediation of their infallible Record be partly transmitted to our Imagination An Incorporate Soul is so used to a mixed way of knowing by imagined Idea's received by sense that it would fain have such a sort of knowledge of separated Souls and other Spirits and of their glorious state and place and work and is hardly fully satisfied without it Seeing Christ hath partly condescended to this our culpable weakness lose not the help of his condescension Let this clear description of the heavenly sight make it to thee partly as if thou had been one of the three Spectators till thou canst say Methinks I almost see the Face of Christ shine as the Sun and his raiment whiter than the Snow and Moses and Elias no doubt in some degree of glory standing with him Methinks I almost hear them discoursing of Christ's Death and Man's Redemption And by this sight I partly conceive of the unseen heavenly Company and State Methinks I see the Cloud receive them when Peter had been transported with the sight and I almost feel his pleasant raptures and am ready to say as if I had been with him It is good for us to be hear Methinks I almost hear the heavenly Voice This is my beloved Son Hear him And shall I yet doubt of the Celestial Society and Glory Had I once seen that what a sense would it have left upon my Heart of the difference between Earth and Heaven Man and God Flesh and Spirit Sin and Duty how thankfully should I have thought of the work of Redemption and Sanctification And why may I not accordingly put my self as into the case of them who saw all Christ's Miracles and saw him risen and ascend towards Heaven Or at least of all those ordinary Christians who saw all the wonders done by the Reporters of these things I can easily receive a pleasing Idea of some forreign happy Countrey which a Traveller describeth to me though I never saw it and my Reason can partly gather what great things are if I see but lesser of the same kind or somewhat like them A Candle sheweth somewhat by which we may conceive of the greatest flame Even Grace and Gracious actions do somewhat notifie to us the state of Glory But the sight on the Mount did more sensibly notifie it Think not then that heavenly contemplation is an impossible thing or a meer dream as if it had no conceivable subject matter to work upon the visible things of Earth are the Shaddows the Cobwebs the Bubbles the Shews Mummerries and Masques and it is loving them and rejoicing and trusting in them that is the dream and dotage Our heavenly Thoughts and Hopes and Business are more in comparison of these than the Sun is to a glow-Worm or the World to a Mole-hill or Governing an Empire to the motions of a Fly And can I make somwhat yea too much of these almost nothings and yet shall I make almost nothing of the active glorious unseen World and doubt and grope in my Meditations of it as if I had no substance to apprehend If invisibility to Mortals were a cause of doubting or of unaffecting unsatisfying Thoughts God himself who is All to Men and Angels would be as no God to us and Heaven as no Heaven and Christ as no Christ and our Souls which are our selves would seem as nothing to themselves and all men would be as no men to us and we should converse only with Carkasses and Cloaths Lord shine into this Soul with such an heavenly potent quickening Light as may give me more lively and powerful conceptions of that which is all my hope and life Leave me not to the exercise of Art alone in barren notions but make it as Natural to me to love Thee and breath after Thee Thou teachest the young ones both of men and bruits to seek to the Dam for food and shelter And though Grace be not a brutish Principle but work by Reason it hath its Nature and Inclining force and tendeth towards its Original as its End Let not my Soul be destitute of that holy Sense and Appetite which the Divine and Heavenly Nature doth contain Let me not lay more stress and trust upon my own Sight and Sense than on the Sight and Fidelity of my God and my Redeemer I am not so foolish as to live as if this Earth were no bigger than the little of it which I see Let me not be so much more foolish as to think of the vast and glorious Regions and the Blessed Inhabitants thereof and the Receptacles of justified Souls as if they wanted either substantiality or certainty to exercise a heavenly conversation here and to feast believing Souls with joy and draw forth well grounded and earnest desire to depart and be with Christ § 43. II. Hear then and Hear with Trust and Joy the tydings and promises of him whom the Voice from Heaven commanded Man to hear He is the glorified Lord of Heaven and Earth All is in his power He hath told us nothing but what he knew and promised nothing but what he is able and willing to give Two sorts of things he hath required us to Trust him for Things notified by express particular Promises and things only generally promised and known to us 1. We may know particularly that he will receive our departing Souls and justifie them in judgment and raise the Dead and
so much under suffering and so little study and exercise Patience and no more rejoice in the exercise thereof IX And Patience Experience It is manifold and profitable Experience which patient suffering brings It giveth us experience as of Natures weakness and the great need of Faith So of the Truth of God's Promises the love and tenderness of Christ the acceptance of our Prayers and the power of the Spirits aid and grace O what abundance of experiences of God and our selves and the vanity of Creatures had we wanted if we had not waited in a suffering state Alas how many Experiences have I forgotten X. And Experience Hope A bare Promise should give us Hope But we are still distrustful of our selves and of all the clearest Evidences till experience help us and set all Home O what an advantage hath a Christian of great and long experience for his hope and joy And yet when notable experiences of God's Providence are past and gone an unbelieving Heart is ready to question whether the things came not by meer natural course and like the Israelites in the Wilderness dangers and fears bear down even long and great experiences This is my sin XI And Hope maketh not ashamed That is true Hope of what God hath promised shall never be disappointed They that trust on deceitful Creatures are deceived and ashamed of their Hope For all men are Lyars that is untrusty but God is true and ever faithful O what a comfort is it that God commandeth me to trust him Sure such a command is a virtual Promise from him that cannot fail that trust which he commandeth Lord help me to trust thee in greatest dangers and there to rest XII Because the Love of God is shed abroad upon our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us It is the Love of God shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which must make us rejoice in hope of the Glory of God even in Tribulation Here I must consider I. What is meant by the Love of God II. Why and how it is shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost I. By the Love of God is meant the Effects of his Love 1. His special Grace 2. The pleasant gust or sense of it II. God's Love thus shed on the Heart pre-supposeth it exprest in the Gospel and Providence and contains all these particulars 1. The sanctifying of the Soul by renewing Grace This is the giving of the Spirit as he is given all true Christians 2. Herein the Holy Ghost makes us perceive the exceeding desirableness of the Love of God and maketh us most desire it 3. He giveth the Soul some easing Hope of the Love of God 4. He quieteth the doubts and fears and troubles of the Soul 5. He raiseth our Hopes by degrees to confident assurance 6. Then the thoughts of God's love are pleasant to the Soul and give it such delight as we feel in the love and fruition of our most valued and beloved friends 7. The Soul in this state is as unapt to be jealous of God or to question his Love as a good Child or Wife to question the Love of a Parent or Husband or to hear any that speak evil of them 8. This then becomes the habitual state of the Soul in all changes to live in the delightful sense of the love of God as we do live in pleasure with our dearest Friends O blessed state and first fruits of Heaven and happy are they that do attain it And though lower degrees have their degree of happiness yet how far short are such in goodness amiableness and comfort of those that are thus rich in grace This presupposeth 1. Knowledge of God and the Gospel 2. True belief and hope 3. A sincere and fruitful life 4. Mortification as to Idol worldly vanities 5. A conviction of our sincerity in all this 6. A conclusion that God doth love us But yet it is somewhat above all this A Man may have all this in his Mind and Mouth and yet want this gust of effused Love upon his Heart These are the way to it but not itself This is the greatest good on this side Heaven to which all Wealth and Honour all fleshly Pleasure and long Life all Learning and Knowledge are unworthy to be once compared Briefly 1. It is the flower and highest part of God's Image on Man 2. It is the Souls true communion with God and fruition of him which carnal men deride Even as our Eye hath communion with the Sun and the flourishing Earth enjoys its reviving heats 3. It is that which all lower grace doth tend to as Childhood doth to Manhood And what is a world of Infants comparatively good for 4. It is that which most properly answereth the design of Redemption and the wonders of God's love therein And all the tenor of the Gospel 5. It is that which is most fully called The Spirit of God or Christ in us He hath lower works but this is his great work by which he possesseth us as God's most pleasant Habitation For we have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Power and Love and a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. 6. It is only that which all men in general desire I mean the only satisfying content and pleasure that Man is capable of on Earth All men would have quieting and constant Pleasure and it is to be found in nothing else but the effused love of God 7. It is that which will make every burden light and all affliction easy When the sense of God's love is still upon the Soul all pain and crosses will be but as Blood-letting by the kindest Physician to save the Patients life God will not be suspected or grudged at in suffering his love will sweeten all 8. It will overcome abundance of Temptations which no mens Wit or Learning or knowledge of the words of Scripture will overcome No Arguments will draw a loving Child or Wife from the Parents or Husband that they know doth love them Love is the most powerful Disputant 9. It puts a mellow pleasant sweetness into all our duties When we hear the Word or receive the Sacrament it is to such a Soul as pleasant Food to the most healthful Man When we pray or praise God it comes from a comforted Heart and excites and increaseth the comfort it comes from O who can be backward to draw near to God in Prayer or Meditation who tasteth the sweetness of his Love This is Religion indeed and tells us what its life and use and glory is This is the true walking with God in the best degree When the Soul liveth in the taste of his Love the Heart will be still with him and that will be its Pleasure And God most delights in such a Soul 10. This is it that putteth the sweetest relish on all our Mercies Deny God's love and you deny them all If you tast not his love in them you
taste little more than a Beast may taste Poor Food and Rayment is sweet with the sense of the Love of God Had I more of this I should lie down and rise and walk in Pleasure and content I could bear the loss of other things And though Nature will feel pains I should have Pleasure and Peace in the midst of all my pains and groans This is the white Stone the New Name No Man well knoweth it who never felt it in himself 1. There is no dying comfortably without this experienced taste of the Love of God This will draw up the desires of the Soul Love tasted casteth out fear though God be Holy and Just and Judgment terrible and Hell intollerable and the Soul hath no distinct Idea of its future state out of the Body and though we see not whither it is that we must go the taste of God's love will make it go joyfully as trusting him as a Child will go any whither in his Father's power and hand But all the knowledge in the World without this quiets not a departing Soul A Man may write as many Books and Preach as many Sermons of Heaven as I have done and speak of it and think of almost nothing else and yet till the Soul be sweetned and comforted with the Love of God shed abroad on it by the Holy Ghost death and the next life will be rather a Man's fear than his desire And the common fear of death which we see in the far greatest part even of godly Persons doth tell us that though they may have saving desires and hopes yet this sense of God's love on the Heart is rare What wonder then if our Language our Converse our Prayers have too little savour of it and in comparison of joyful Believers duties be but like green Apples to the mellow ones My God I feel what it is that I want and I perceive what it is that is most desirable O let not guilt be so far unpardoned as to deprive my Soul of this greatest good which thou hast commended to me and commanded and which in my languishing and pains I so much need Did I beg for Wealth or Honour I might have it to the loss of others But thy Love will make me more useful to all and none will have the less for my enjoyment For thou Lord art enough for all Even as none hath the less of the Sun-light for my enjoying it The least well grounded hope of thy Love is better than all the pleasures of the Flesh But without some pleasant sense of it alas what a withered languishing thing is a Soul thy loving kindness is better than life but if I taste it not how shall I here rejoice in God or bear my heavy burdens O let me not be a dishonour to thy Family where all have so great cause to honour thy bounty by their joy and hopes Nor by a sad and fearful Heart tempt men to think that thy love is not real and satisfactory I can easily believe and admire thy Greatness and thy Knowledge Let it not be so hard to me to believe and taste thy Goodness and thy Love Which is as necessary to me If there be any thing as surely there is in which the Divine Nature and Spirit of Adoption consisteth as above all the Art and Notions of Religion which are but like to other acquired Knowledge sure it must be this holy Appetite and Habitual Inclination of the Soul to God by way of Love which is bred by an internal sense of his Loveliness and Loving inclination to Man which differenceth a Christian from other men as a Child differs towards his Father from Strangers or from common Neigbours Till the love of God be the very state or nature of the Soul working here towards his Honour Interests Word and Servants no Man can say that he is God's habitation by the Spirit And how the Heart will ever be thus habited without believing God's Love to us it 's hard to conceive Experience tells the World how strongly it constraineth Persons to love one another if they do but think that they are strongly beloved by one another In the love that tends to marriage if one that is inferior do but know that a Person of far greater worth doth fervently love them it almost puts a necessity and constraint on them for returns of Love Nature can scarce choose but love in such a case Love is the Loadstone of Love A real taste of the Love of God in saving Souls by Christ and grace is it that constraineth them to be holy that is to be devoted to that God in Love III. But this must as necessarily be the work of the Holy Ghost and can be no more done without him than the Earth can be illuminated and the Vegetables live without the Sun But all the approaches of the Holy Spirit suffice not to produce this great effect and give us the Divine holy Nature The same Sun shine hath three different effects on its Objects 1. On most things as Houses Stones Earth it causeth nothing but the Accidents of Heat Colour and Motion 2. On some things it causeth a seminal Disposition to Vegetable life but not Life itself 3. In this disposed matter it causeth Vegetable life itself So doth the Spirit of God 1. Operate on Millions but lifeless Accidents as the Sun on a stone Wall 2. On others Dispose and prepare them to Divine Life 3. On others so disposed it effecteth the Divine life itself When holy Love is turned into a habit like to Nature That none but the Holy Ghost doth make this holy change is evident For the effect cannot transcend the causes 1. Nature alone is dark and knoweth not the attractive amiableness of God till illuminated nor can give us a satisfactory notice of God's special Love to us 2. Nature is Guilty and Guilt breedeth fears of Justice and fear makes us wild and fly from God lest he will hurt us 3. Nature is under penal sufferings already and feeleth pain fear and many hurts and foreseeth Death And under this is undisposed of itself to feel the pleasure of God's Love 4. Nature is corrupted and diverted to Creature vanity and its Appetite goeth another way and cannot cure itself and make itself suitable to the amiableness of God 5. God hateth wickedness and wicked men and meer Nature cannot secure us that we are saved from that enmity Diligence may do much to get religious Knowledge and Words and all that which I call the Art of Religion And God may bless this as a preparation to holy Life and Love But till the Souls Appetite incline with desire to God and Holiness Divine things will not sweetly relish And this is a great comfort to the Thoughts of the Sanctified that certainly their holy Appetite Desire and Complacency is the work of the Holy Ghost For 1. This secureth them of the Love of God of which it is the proper token 2. And
it assureth them of their Union with Christ when they live because he liveth even by the Spirit which is his Seal and Pledge 3. And it proveth both a future life and their title to it For God maketh not all this preparation for it by his Spirit in vain But alas if it were not a work that hath great impediment it would not be so rare in the World What is it in us that keepeth the Sun of Love from so shining on us as to revive our Souls into Holy contentments and delight It must be supposed 1. That all God's gifts are free and that he giveth not to all alike The wonderful variety of Creatures proveth this 2. The reasons of his differencing works are his own will and inferiour reasons are mostly unknown to us of which he is not bound to give us an account 3. But yet we see that God doth his works in a causal order and one work prepareth for another and he maketh variety of capacities which occasion variety of receptions and of gifts and he useth to give every thing that to which he hath brought it into the next capacity and disposition And therefore in general we may conclude that we feel not God's Love shed abroad upon the Heart because the Heart is undisposed and is not in the next disposition thereto And abused free will hath been the cause of that That we have Grace is to be ascribed to God That we are without it is to be ascribed to our selves 1. Heinous guilt of former sin may keep a Soul much without the delights of Divine love And the heinousness is not only in the greatness of the evil done materially but oft in our long and willful committing of smaller sins against Knowledge and Conscience and consideration The Spirit thus grieved by hardened Hearts and willful repulses is not quickly and easily a comforter to such a Soul and when the sinner doth repent it leaveth him more in uncertainty of his sincerity when he thinks I do but repent purpose and promise now and so I oft did and yet returned the next temptation to my sin And how can I tell that my Heart is not the fame and I should sin again if I had the same temptations O what doubts and perplexities doth oft willful sinning prepare for 2. And sins of omission have here a great part The sweetness of God's Love is a reward which sloathful Servants are unmeet for It follows a Well done good and faithful Servant There is needful a close attendance upon God and devotedness to him and improvement of Gospel Grace and Revelation to make a Soul fit for amicable sweet communion with God All that will save a Soul from Hell will not do this He that will taste these Divine Love-tokens must 1. Be no stranger to holy Meditation and Prayer nor unconstant cold and cursory in them but must dwell and walk above with God 2. And he must be wholly addicted to improve his Masters Talents in the World and make it his design and trade on Earth to do all the good in the World he can And to keep his Soul clean from the flesh and worldly vanity And to such a Soul God will make known his Love 3. And alas how ordinarily doth some carnal aâ—fection corrupt the appetite of the Soul When we grow too much in love with mens esteem or with earthly Riches or when our Throats or Phantasies can master us into obedience or vain desires of Meat Drink Recreation Dwelling c. the Soul loseth its Appetite to things Divine and nothing relisheth where Appetite is gone or sick We cannot serve God and Mammon and we cannot at once taste much pleasure both in God and Mammon The old austere Christians found the mortification of the fleshly Lusts a great advantage to the Souls delight in God 4. And many errours about God's nature and works much hinder us from feasting on his Love 5. And especially the slight and ignorant thoughts of Christ and the wondrous workings of God's Love in him 6. And specially if our belief itself once shake or be not well and firmly founded 7. And our slight thoughts of the Office and Work of the Holy Ghost on Souls and our necessity of it and our not begging and waiting for the Spirits special help 8. And lastly our unfaithful forgetfulness of manifold experiences and testimonies of his Love which should still be as fresh before us Alas my Soul thou feelest thy defect and knowest the hinderance but what hope is there of remedy Will God ever raise so low so dull so guilty a Heart to such a foretast of Glory as is this effusion of his Love by the Holy Ghost The lightsom Daies in Spring and Summer when the Sun reviveth the late naked Earth and clothes it with delectable beauties differs not more from Night and Winter than a Soul thus revived with the Love of God doth differ from an unbelieving formal Soul Though this great change be above my power the Spirit of God is not impotent backward barren or inexâ—â—able He hath appointed us means for so high a state and he appointeth no means in vain Were my own Heart obedient to my commands all these following I would lay upon it Yea I 'll do it and beg the help of God I. I charge thee think not of God's Goodness and Love as unproportionable to his Greatness and his Knowledge Nor overlook in the whole frame of Heaven and Earth the manifestation of one any more than of the other II. Therefore let not the the wickedness and misery of the World tempt thee to think basely of all God's Mercies to the World nor the peculiar priviledges of the Churches draw thee to deny or contemn God's common Mercies unto all III. I charge thee to make the study of Christ and the great work of Man's Redemption by him thy chiefest Learning and most serious and constant work and in that wonderful Glass to see the Face of Divine Love and to hear what is said of it by the Son from Heaven and to come boldly as reconciled to God by him IV. O see that thy repentance for former sins against knowledge and Conscience and the Motions of God's Spirit be sound and throughly lamented and abhorred how small soever the matter was in itself That so the doubt of thy sincerity keep not up doubts of God's acceptance V. Let thy dependance on the Holy Ghost as given from Christ be henceforth as serious and constant to thee as is the dependance of the Eye on the light of the Sun and of natural Life upon its heat and motion Beg hard for the Holy Spirit and gladly entertain it VI. O never forget the many and great experiences thou hast had these almost Sixty years observed of marvellous favour and providence of God for Soul and Body in every time place condition relation company or change thou hast been in Lose not all these Love-tokens of thy Father while thou
not how erroneously they think The sensible souls of Bruits are substance And therefore are not annihilated at death But God put them under us and made them for us and us more nearly for himself Bruits have not Faculties to know and love God to meditate on him or praise him or by moral agency to obey his Precepts They desire not any higher felicity than they have God will have us use their service yea their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us He tells us not what he doth with them after death But whatever it is it is not annihilation and it 's like they are in a state still of service unto Man Whether united or how individuate we know not Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superiour Regions where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here where the Spirits of Bruits are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies to those low rational Spirits that inhabite the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh But it 's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know love praise and obey him and trust him for Glory which he never gave to them because they were not made for things so high Every Creatures Faculties are suited to their use and ends And Love tells me that the blessed God who giveth to Bruits that life health and pleasure which they are made and fitted for will give his Servants that heavenly delight in the fulness of his Love and Praise and and mutual joyful Love to one another which Nature fundamentally and Grace more immediately hath made them fit for Blessed Jehovah for what tasts of this effused Love thou hast given me my Soul doth bless thee with some degree of gratitude and joy And for those further measures which I want and long for and which my pained languid state much needs and would raise my joyful hopes of Glory I wait I beg from day to day O give me now at the Door of Heaven some fuller taste of the heavenly Felicity Shed more abroad upon my Heart by the Holy Ghost that Love of thine which will draw up my longing Soul to thee rejoicing in hope of the Glory of God FINIS This is the true mean between George Keith the Quakers Doctrine of Continued Inspiration Intuition and that on the other extream Matth. 28. 18. Joh. 5. 22. Joh. 17. 2. Joh. 12. 26. Joh. 3. 16. Rom. 8. 35 36 37 30. * 1 Pet. 4. 6. They that died to or in the Flesh according to Men do live in the Spirit according to God * Indeed if the Soul were not Immortal the Resurrection were impossible It might be a new Creation of another Soul but not a Resurrection of the same if the same be annihilated It 's certain that the Jews believed the Immortality of the Soul in that they believed the Resurrection and future life of the same Man * Psal 34. 7. 91. 11 12. Luk. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 11. 10. Heb. 1. 14. 12. 22. 13. 2. Mat. 18. 10. 25. 31. 13. 39 49. Act. 5. 19. 8. 26. 12. 7. 23. * Of this see the Second Edition by Dr. More of Mr. Glanvile's Book of Apparitions called Atheismus Triumphatus †For the truth of this read Mr. Fairclough's Life * See what I have said of particular Testimonies in my Saints Rest and unreasonableness of Infidelity * 1 Joh. 5. 9 10 11. Gal. 5. 17. Rom. 7. Phil. 3. 7. to the 15. * Eph. 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 23. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Eph. 1. 13. 4. 30. 1 Joh. 5. 9 10. Heb. 10. 15. * This one Truth will give great Light into the Controversies about God's gracious Operations on the Soul For when he useth second Causes we see he Operateth according to their limited aptitude And Christ's humane Nature and all other second Causes are limited and operate variously and resistibly according to the Recipients capacity * Treat of Infidelity Luke 15. 10. And Mr. Beverly in his Great Soul of Man ☞
Nos quâ—que floruimus sed flos fuit ille 〈◊〉 Flâ—mmaque de stipula nostra brepusque fuiâ— Oâ— VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OPâ— ET PATâ— FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS AN O 168â— AETAT SUAE â—8 Farewell Vaine World as thou hast bin to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Life-Light-Love to it The Leavs Fruit are dropt for soyle Seed Heavens heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Râ—st BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS UPON PHIL. 1. 23. Written for his own Use in the latter Times of his corporal Pains and Weakness LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons at the Three golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Have no other use for a Preface to this Book but to give you a true excuse for its Publication I wrote it for my self unresolved whether any one should ever see it but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my Executors to publish or suppress it when I am dead as they saw cause But my Person being seized on and my Library and all my Goods distrained on by Constables and sold and I constrained to relinquish my House for preaching and being in London I knew not what to do with multitudes of Manuscripâ—â— that had long lain by me having no House to go to but a narrow hired Lodging with strangers Wherefore I cast away whole Volumes which I could not carry away both Controversies and Letters practical and Cases of Conscience but having newly lain divers Weeks Night and Day in waking torments Nephritick and Colick after other long pains and languor I took this Book with me in my removal for my own use in my further sickness Three Weeks after falling into another extream fit and expecting Death where I had no Friend with me to commit my Papers to meerly lest it should be lost I thought best to give it to the Printer I think it is so much of the work of all mens lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort that the same Thoughts may be needful for others that are so for me If any mislike the Title as if it imported that the Author is Dead let him know that I die daily and that which quickly will be almost is It 's suited to my own use They that it is unsuible to may pass it by If those mens lives were spent in serious preparing Thoughts of Death who are now studying to destroy each other and tear in pieces a distressed Land they would prevent much dolorous Repentance R. B. THE CONTENTS Doct. 1. THat the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ I. The necessity of believing this proved pag. 1 c. II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the difficulties or proofs p. 7. III. The certainty of it manifested 1. From the Immortality of the Soul which is proved p. 11. 1. The Soul is a substance 2. It is a substance formally differenced from lower substance by the Virtue of special Vital Activity Intellect and free will p. 14 3. It is not Annihilated at Death 4. Nor destroyed by dissolution of parts 5. Nor loseth its formal Power or Virtue p. 15. 6. Nor doth sleep or cease to act p. 16. 7. To cease to be Individuate by Vnion with any other common Spirit is not to be feared were it true p. 19. But it is not like to be true p. 31 c. II. The second proof It is a natural notice p. 33. III. From the duty of all men to seek a future happinessm p. 34. IV. From Man's capacity of knowing God c. as differenced from Bruits p. 37. V. From Godâ—s governing Justice p. 38. VI. From Revelation supernatural p. 39. VII From God's answering Prayers p. 42. VIII From our present communion with Angels p. 44. IX From Satan's temptations Witches Apparitions c. p. 45. X. Specially from the Operations of God's Spirit on our Souls preparing them for Glory p. 47. Faith excited and Objections answered in the Application The proofs summed up in Order p. 65. Why this Happiness is described by our being vvith Christ 1. What is included in our Being vvith Christ 1. Presence with Christ's glorified Body and Soul and God-head p. 66. 2. Vnion with him in each p. 73. Too near Vnion not to be feared as destroying individuation 3. Communion with him in each active and passive opened p. 74 c. We must DEPART that we may be with Christ I. From what p. 75. 1. From this Body and Life Yet it is far better so to do p. 76. 2. From all the fleshly Pleasures of this Life p. 83. Yet best 3. From the more manly delights of Study Books Friends c. considered 1. Of Knowledge and Books the vanity 2. Of Sermons p. 87. 3. Of Friends and Converse p. 95. 4. Of God's Word and Worship p. 98. Of Theology p. 99. Of my own labours herein p. 103. 6. Notice of the Affairs of the World p. 109. 7. From our Service to the Living p. 112. The Application to my self p. 115. To DEPART and to BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER or rather to be chosen p. 120. I. Simply better and properly at it is the fulfilling of God's will p. 122. II. Analogically better as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Vniverse and the Church III. Better to my self as to my own felicity p. 124. proved 1. By general Reasons from the efficients and means 2. The final Reasons 3. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect as to the Iuâ—uitive manner of knowledg and as to the matter Both opened 1. I shall know God better p 144. 2. And God's Works the Vniverse 3. And Jesus Christ 4. And the Church 5. And the Church triumphant the heavenly Jerusalem 6. And all God's Word for Matter and Method 7. God's present Works of Providence 8. The nature and worth of Mercies 9. And my self Body and Soul 10. And my fellow Creatures 11. And what the evil was from which I was delivered enemies dangers sins c. 4. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will I. Negatively p. 163. 1. Freed from Temptations of the Flesh World and Devil 2. There will nothing be in it that is against God my Neighbours or my self II. Positively 1. It will be conform to God's will The benefits of this p. 165. Fruition A fixed will The Object 1. God To love him and beloved of him is our end p. 169. He is a suitable full near Object II. The next Object God's golorius Image in the Perfection of the Vniverse p. 171. III. The Church Triumphant p. 174. 1. Jesus Christ 2. Angels 3. Holy Souls The Wills Reception in Glory p. 175. 1. What it is to be loved of God Excitations 179. 2. How
The Crown will come in its due time And Eternity is long enough to enjoy it how long soever it be delayed But if I will do that which must obtain it for my self and others it must be quickly done before my declining sun be set O that I had no worse causes of my unwillingness yet to die than my desire to do the work of life for my own and other mens Salvation And to finish my course with joy and the Ministry committed to me by the Lord. Use VI. And as it is on Earth that I must do good to others so it must be in a manner suited to their state on Earth Souls are here closely united to Bodies by which they must receive much good or hurt Do good to mens Bodies if thou wouldst do good to their Souls Say not Things corporeal are worthless Trifles for which the receivers will be never the better They are things that nature is easily sensible of And sense is the passage to the mind and will Dost not thou find what a help it is to thy self to have at any time any ease and alâ—crity of Body And what a burden and hinderance pains and cares are Labour then to free others from such burdens and temptations and be not regardless of them If thou must rejoice with them that rejoice and mourn with them that mourn further thy own joy in furthering theirs and avoid thy own sorrows in avoiding or curing theirs But alas what power hath selfishness in most How easily do we bear our Brethrens pains reproaches wants and afflictions in comparison of our own How few thoughts and how little cost or labour do we use for their supply in comparison of what we do for our selves Nature indeed teacheth us to be most sensible of our own case But Grace tells us that we should not make so great a difference as we do but should love our Neighbours as our selves Use VII And now O my Soul consider how mercifully God hath dealt with thee that thy streight should be between two conditions so desirable I shall either die speedily or stay yet longer upon Earth Which ever it be it will be a Merciful and Comfortable state That it is desirable to depart and be with Christ I must not doubt and shall anon more copiously consider And if my abode on Earth yet longer be so great a Mercy as to be put in the Ballance against my present possession of Heaven surely it must be a state which obligeth me to great thankfulness to God and comfortable acknowledgment And surely it is not my pain or sickness my sufferingâ— from malicious men that should make this Life on Earth unacceptable while God will continue it Paul had his Prick or Thorn in the Flesh the Messenger of Satan to Buffet him and suffered more from men though less in his Health than I have done And yet he gloried in such Infirmities and rejoiced in his Tribulationâ— and was in a streight between living and dying yea rather chose to live yet longer Alas it is another kind of streight that most of the World are in The streight of most is between the desire of Life for fleshly interest and the fear of Death as ending their felicity The streight of many is between a tiring World and Body which maketh them aweary of living and the dreadful prospect of future danger which makes them afraid of dying If they live it is in misery if they must die they are afraid of greater misery which way ever they Look behind or before them to this World or the next fear and trouble is their Lot yea many an upright Christian through the weakness of their Trust in God doth live in this perplexed streight aweary of living and afraid of dying between grief and fear they are prest continually But Paul's streight was between two Joys which of them he should desire most And if that be my case what should much interrupt my Peace or Pleasure If I live it is for Christ for his Work and for his Church for Preparation for my own and others everasting felicity And should any suffering which maketh me not unserviceable make me impatient with such a work and such a life If I die presently it is my gain God who appointeth me my work doth limit my time and sure his glorious reward can never be unseasonable or come too soon if it be the time that he appointeth When I first engaged my self to preach the Gospel I reckoned as probable but upon one or two years And God hath continued me it above Forty four with such interruptions as others in these times have had And what reason have I now to be unwilling either to live or die God's Service hath been so sweet to me that it hath overcome the trouble of constant pains or weakness of the Flesh and all that men have said or done against me But the following Crown exceeds this pleasure more than I am here capable to conceive There is some trouble in all this pleasant work from which the Soul and Flesh would rest And blessed are the dead that die in the Lord Even so saith the Spirit for they rest from their Labours and their Works follow them But O my Soul what need'st thou be troubled in this kind of streight It is not left to thee to choose whether or when thou wilt live or die It is God that will determine it who is infinitely fitter to choose than thou Leave therefore his own work to himself and mind that which is thine whilst thou livest live to Christ and when thou diest thou shalt die to Christ even into his blessed Hands So live that thou maist say It is Christ liveth in me and the life that I live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me And then as thou hast lived in the comfort of hope thou shalt die unto the comfort of Vision and Fruition And when thou canst say he is the God whose I am and whom I serve thou maist boldly add and whom I trust and to whom I commend my departing Soul And I know whom I have trusted Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts Philippians 1. 23. For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better or for this is much rather to be preferred or better § 1. MAN that is born of a Woman is of few daies and full of trouble He cometh forth like a Flower and is cut down He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not And dost thou open thine Eyes upon such a one and bringest me into Judgment with thee saith Job ch 14. v. 1 2 3. As a Watch when it is wound up or as a Candle newly lighted so Man newly conceived or born beginneth a motion which incessantly hasteth to its appointed period And an Action and its Time that is past is Nothing So vain a thing would
Effective Teaching of God doth ordinarily suppose a Rational Objective Organical Teaching and Knowledge And the foresaid unlearned Christians are convinced by good evidence that God's Word is true and his Rewards are sure though they have but a confused conception of this evidence and cannot word it nor reduce it to fit notions And to drive these that have fundamental evidence unseasonably and hastily to dispute their Faith and so to puzzle them by words and artificial Objections is but to hurt them by setting the Artificial Organical lower part which is the body of Knowledge against the real Light and Perception of the Thing which is as the Soul even as carnal men set the Creatures against God that should lead us to God so do they by Logical Artificial Knowledge § 15. But they that are prepared for such Disputes and furnished with all artificial helps may make good use of them for defending and clearing up the Truth to themselves and others so be it they use them as a means to the due end and in a right manner and set them not up against or instead of the real and effective Light § 16. But the Revealed and Necessary part must here be distinguished from the unrevealed and unnecessary To study till we as clearly as may be understand the certainty of a future happiness and wherein it consisteth in the sight of God's Glory and in perfect holy mutual Love in Union with Christ and all the blessed this is of great use to our Holiness and Peace But when we will know more than God would have us it doth but tend as gazing on the Sun to make us blind and to doubt of certainties because we cannot be resolved of uncertainties To trouble our heads too much in thinking how Souls out of the body do subsâ—sâ— and act sensitively or not by Organs or without how far they are one and how far still individuate in what place they shall remain and where is their Paradise or Heaven how they shall be again united to the body whether by their own emission as the Sun beams touch their Objects here and whether the body shall be restored as the consumed flesh of restored sick men aliunde or only from the old materials A hundred of these Questions are better left to the knowledge of Christ lest we do but foolishly make snares for our selves Had all these been needful to us they had been revealed In respect to all such curiosities and needless knowledge it is a Believer's wisdom implicitly to Trust his Soul to Christ and to be satisfied that he knoweth what we know not and to fear that vain vexatious knowledge or inquisitiveness into good and evil which is selfish and savoureth of a distrust of God and is that sin and fruit of sin which the Learned world too little feareth § 17. III. That God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him and that holy Souls shall be in blessedness with Christ these following Evidences conjoyned do evince on which my Soul doth raise its Hopes § 18. I. The Soul which is an Immortal Spirit must be immortally in a Good or Bad condition But Man's Soul is an Immortal Spirit and the good are not in a bad condition Its Immortality is proved thus A spiritual or most pure invisible substance naturally endowed with the Power Virtue or Faculty of Vital-Action Intellection and Volition which is not annihilated nor destroyed by separation of Parts nor ceaseth or loseth either its Power Species Individuation or Action is an Immortal Spirit But such is the Soul of Man as shall be manifest by parts § 19. I. The Soul is a substance For that which is Nothing can do Nothing but it doth move understand and will No man will deny that this is done by something in us and by some substance and that substance is it which we call the Soul It is not Nothing and it is within us § 20. As to them that say It is the Temperament of several parts conjunct I have elsewhere fully confuted them and proved 1. That it is some one part that is the Agent on the rest which all they confess that think it to be the material spirits or fiery part It is not bones and flesh that understand but a purer substance as all acknowledge 2. What part soever it be it can do no more than it is Able to do And a conjunction of many parts of which no one hath the power of Vitality Intellection or Volition formally or eminently somewhat as excellent can never by contemperation do those acts For there can be no more in the effect than is in the cause otherwise it were no effect The vanity of their Objections that tell us a Lute a Watch a Book perform that by cooperation which no one part can do I have elsewhere manifested 1. Many strings indeed have many motions and so have many effects on the Ear and Phantasie which in us are sound and harmony But all is but a percussion of the Air by the strings and were not that motion received by a sensitive Soul it would be no Musick or Melody so that there is nothing done but what each part had power to do But Intellection and Volition are not the conjunct motions of all parts of the body receiving their form in a nobler Intellective nature as the sound of the strings maketh melody in man If it were so that Receptive Nature still would be as excellent as the Effect importeth 2. And the Watch or Clock doth but move according to the action of the spring or poise but that it moveth in such an order as becometh to man a sign and measure of Time this is from Man who ordereth it to that use But there is nothing in the motion but what the parts have their power to cause And that it signifieth the hour of the daies to us is no Action but an object used by a rational Soul as it can use the shadow of a Tree or House that yet doth nothing 3. And so a Book doth nothing at all but is a meer objective ordination of passive signs by which Man 's active Intellect can understand what the Writer or Orderer did intend so that here is nothing done beyond the power of the Agent nor any thing in the effect which was not in the cause either formally or eminently But for a company of Atoms of which no one hath sense or reason to become sensitive and rational by meer conjunct motion is an â—ffect beyond the power of the supposed cause § 21. But as some think so basely of our noblest Acts as to think that contempered agitated Atoms can perform them that have no natural intellective or sensitive virtue or power in themselves so others think so highly of them as to take them to be the Acts only of God or some universal Soul in the body of Man and so that there is no Life Sense or Reason in the World but God himself or such
an universal Soul And so that either every man is God as to his Soul or that it is the Body only that is to be called Man as distinct from God But this is the Self-ensnaring and self-perplexing temerity of busie bold and arrogant heads that know not their own capacity and measure And on the like reasons they must at last come with others to say that all passive matter also is God and that God is the Universe consisting of an Active Soul and Passive Body As if God were no cause and could make nothing or nothing with Life or Sense or Reason § 22. But why depart we from things certain by such presumptions as these Is it not certain that there are baser creatures in the World than Men or Angels Is it not certain that one Man is not another Is it not certain that some men are in torment of body and mind And will it be a comfort to a man in such torment to tell him that he is God or that he is part of an universal Soul Would not a man on the Rack or in the Stone or other misery say Call me by what name you please that caseth not my pain If I be part of God or an universal Soul I am sure I am a tormented miserable part And if you could not make me believe that God hath some parts which are Serpents Toads Devils or wicked or tormented men you must give me other senses and perceptive powers before it will comfort me to hear that I am such a part And if God had wicked and tormented parts on Earth why may he not have such and I be one of them hereafter And if I be a holy and happy part of God or of an universal Soul on Earth why may not I hope to be such hereafter § 23. We deny not but that God is the continued first cause of all Being whatsoever and that the branches and fruit depend not as effects so much on the causality of the Stock and Roots as the creature doth on God and that it is an impious conceit to think that the World or any part of it is a Being independent and separated totally from God or subsisting without his continued causation But cannot God cause as a Creator by making that which is not himself This yieldeth the self-deceiver no other honour nor happiness but what equally belongeth to a Devil to a Fly or Worm to a Dunghill or to the worst miserablest man § 24. II. As Man's Soul is a SUBSTANCE so is it a Substance differenced formally from all inferiour Substances by an Innate indeed Essential Power Virtue or Faculty of Vital-Action Intellection and Free-will For we find all these Acts performed by it as Motion Light and Heat are by the Fire or Sun And if any should think that these Actions are like those of a Musician compounded of the Agents principal and organical several parts could he prove it no more would follow but that the lower powers the Sensitive or Spirits are to the higher as a Passive Organ receiving its operations and that the Intellectual Soul hath the power of causing Intellection and Volition by its Action on the inferiour parts as a man can cause such motions of his Lute as shall be melody not to it but to himself And consequently that as Musick is but a lower operation of man whose proper acts of Intellection and Volition are above it so Intellection and Volition in the Body are not the noblest Acts of the Soul but it performeth them by an Eminent Power which can do greater things And if this could be proved what would it tend to the unbelievers ends or to the disadvantage of our hopes and comforts § 25. III. That man's Soul at death is not annibilated even the Atomists and Epicurians will grant who think that no Atom in the Universe is annihilated And we that see not only the Sun and Heavens continued but every grain of matter and that compounds are changed by dissolution of parts and rarefaction or migration c. and not by Annihilation have no reason to dream that God will annihilate one Soul though he can do it if he please yea and annihilate all the World It is a thing beyond a rational expectation § 26. IV. And a destruction by the dissolution of the parts of the Soul we need not fear For 1. Either an Intellectual Spirit is divisible and partible or not if not we need not fear it if it be either it is a thing that Nature tendeth to or not But that Nature doth not tend to it is evident For 1. There is naturally so strange and strong an inclination to unity and averseness to separation in all things that even Earth and Stones that have no other known natural motion have yet an aggregative motion in their gravitation But if you will separate the parts from the rest it must be by force And Water is yet more averse from partition without force and more inclined to union than Earth and Air than Water and Fire than Air so that he that will cut a Sun-beam into pieces and make many of one must be an extraordinary Agent And surely Spirits even Intellectual Spirits will be no less averse from partition and inclined to keep their Unity than Fire or a Sun-beam is so that naturally it is not a thing to be feared that it should fall into pieces 2. And he that will say that the God of Nature will change and overcome the Nature that he hath made must give us good proofs of it or it is not to be feared And if he should do it as a punishment we must find such a punishment somewhere threatened either in his Natural or Supernatural Law which we do not and therefore need not fear it § 27. 3. But if it were to be feared that Souls were partible and would be broken into parts this would be no destruction of them either as to their substance powers form or action but only a breaking of one Soul into many For being not compounded of Heterogeneal parts but as simple Elements of Homogeneal only as every Atom of Earth is Earth and every drop of Water in the Sea is Water and every particle of Air and Fire is Air and Fire and have all the properties of Earth Water Air and Fire so would it be with every particle of an Intellectual Spirit But who can see cause to dream of such a partition never threatened by God § 28. V. And that Souls lose not their formal Powers or Virtues we have great reason to conceive because they are their Natural Essence not as mixt but simple substances And though some imagine that the Passive Elements may be attenuation or incrassation be transmuted one into another yet we see that Earth is still Earth and Water is Water and Air is Air and their conceit hath no proof And were it proved it would but prove that none of these are a first or proper Element
But God letteth us see that though the World be One yet he delighteth in a wonderful diversity and multiplicity of Individuals How various and numerous are they in the Sea and on the Land and in the Air And are there none in the other World How come the Stars therein to be so numerous which are of the same Element And though perhaps Saturn or some other Planets or many Stars may send forth their radiant Effluvia or parts into the same Air which the Sun Beams seem totally to fill and illuminate yet the Rays of the Sun and of other Stars are not the same how near soever in the same Air. § 48. Were there now no more Contraction by Egoity or Propriety among men nor Mine and Thine did signify no more nor the distance were greater than that of the several drops of Water in the Sea or particles of of Light in the illuminated Air but I had all my part in such a perfect unity and Communion with all others and knew that all were as happy as I so that there were no divisions by cross interests or minds but all were One certainly it would make my own comforts greater by far than they are now Are not an hundred Candles set together and united as splendid a flame as if they wâ—re all set asunder To one Soul one Love one Joy would be § 49. Object But it is only the fomes that individuateth Lights As when the same Sun by a burning Glass lighteth a thousand Candles they are individuate only by the matter contracting being still all united parts of the same Sun Beams And when they are extinct they are nothing or all one again Ans They were before they were extinct both One and many none but fools think that extinction annihilateth them or any part of them They are after as much Substance and as much solar Fire though diffused and as much and no more one than before but not indeed Many as before but Parts of one Nature hath made the equal diffused Sun Beams to be to the Air and surface of the Earth as the blood equally moving in the Body And our Candles and Fires seem to be like the same blood contracted in a bile or Inflammation which indeed is more felt than the equally diffused blood but it is as the pain of a disease And so when our Fires go out they are but like a healed Scattered Inflammation the same substance is more naturally and equally diffused And if the Individuation of Souls were only by Corporeal matter and the Union thus as great at their departure it would not diminish if it did not too much increase their perfection and felicity For there would be no diminution of any Substance or Power or Activity or Perfection whatsoever § 50. And this would confute their fond Opinion who think that separated Souls sleep in nudâ potentiâ for want of an organized body to operate in For no doubt but if all holy Souls were One this World either in Heaven or Earth hath a common Body enough for such a Soul to operate in Even those Stoicks that think departed Souls are One do think that that One Soul hath a nobler operation than ours in our narrow Bodies and that when our Souls cease animating this Body they have the nobler and sweeter work in part of animating the whole World And those that thought several Orbs had their several Souls of which the particular wights participated said the like of separated Souls as animating the bodies of their Globes or Orbs. And though all these men trouble their heads with their own vain imaginations yet this much the Nature of the Matter tells us which is considerable that whereas the utmost fear of the Infidel is that Souls departed lose their Individuation or Activity and are resolved into one common Soul or continue in a sleepy Potentiality for want of a Body to operate in they do but contradict themselves seeing it is a notorious Truth 1. That if all holy Souls were One no one would be a Loser by the Union but it would be a greater Gain than we must hope for For a part of One is as much and as noble and as active a Substance as if it were a separated Person And Annihilation or loss of specifique Powers is not to be rationally feared 2. And that one Soul is now either self-subsisting without a Body or animateth a suitable Body as some Ancients thought the Angels Stars If that One Soul can act without a Body so may Ours whether as parts of it or not If that One Soul animate a suitable Body ours were they united parts of it would have part of that Employment so that hereby they confute themselves § 51. Obj. But this would equalize the Good and Bad or at least those that were good in several degrees And where then were the Reward and Punishment Ans It would not equal them at all any more than distinct Personality would do For 1. The Souls of all holy Persons may be so united as that the Souls of the wicked shall have no part in that Union Whether the Souls of the wicked shall be united in one sinful miserable Soul or rather but in one sinful Society or be greatlier separate disunited contrary to each other and militant as part of their sin and misery is nothing to this case 2. Yet Natural and Moral Union must be differenced God is the Root of Nature to the worst and however in one sense it is said that There is nothing in God but God yet it is true that In Him all Live and Move and have their Being But yet the wickeds Inbeing in God doth afford them no Sanctifying and Beatifying communion with him as experience sheweth us in this life which yet holy Souls have as being made capable Recipients of it As I said different Plants Bryars and Cedars the stinking and the sweet are implanted parts or Accidents of the same World or Earth 3. And the godly themselves may have as different a share of happiness in one common Soul as they have now of Holiness and so as different Rewards even as Roses and Rosemary and other Herbs differ in the same Garden and several Fruits in the same Orchard or on the same Tree For if Souls are Unible and so Partible Substances they have neither more nor less of Substance or Holiness for their Union and so will each have his proper measure As a Tun of Water cast into the Sea will there still be the same and more than a spoonful cast into it § 52. Obj. But Spirits are not as Bodies extensive and quantitative and so not partible or divisible and therefore your supposition is vain Ans 1. My supposition is but the objectors For if they confess that Spirits are Substances as cannot with reason be denyed For they that Specify their operations by Motion only yet suppose a pure proper substance to be the subject or thing Moved then when they
it and how earnestly soever Shall I â—â—â—refore forget how oft he hath heard Prayers for me 〈◊〉 how wonderfully he hath helped both me and others My Faith hath oft been helpt by such experiences and shall I forget them or question them without cause at last § 1. VIII And it is a subordinate help to my belief of Immortality with Christ to find so much evidence that Angels have friendly communion with us here and therefore we shall have communion with them hereafter They have charge of us and pitch their Tents about us they bear us up they rejoyce at our Repentance they are the regardful Witnesses of our behaviour they are Ministring Spirits for our Good they are Our Angels beholding the Face of our heavenly Father They will come with Christ in glorious attendance at the great and joyful Day And as his Executioners they will separate the Just from the Unjust And it is not only the Testimony of Scripture by which we know their communion with us but also some degree of experience Not only of Old did they appear to the Faithful as Messengers from God but of late times there have been Testimonies of their Ministration for us Of which see Zanchy de Angelis and Mr. I. Ambrose of our communion with Angels Many a Mercy doth God give us by their Ministry And they that are now so friendly to us and suitable to our communion and help and make up one Society with us do heâ—â—â— greatly encourage us to hope that we are made for the same Region work and company with these our blessed loving Friends They were once in a life of tryal it seems as we are now though not on Earth Jude 6. 2 Pet. 2. 4. And they that overcame and are confirmed rejoice in our victory and confirmation It is not an uninhabited World which is above us nor such as is beyond our capacity and hope we are come to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the perfected Just who together have discrete quantity or numerical difference notwithstanding their happy Union and communion § 1. IX And Satan himself though unwillingly hath many ways helped my belief of our Immortality and Future hopes 1. I have had many convincing proofs of Witches the Contracts they have made with Devils and the Power which they have received from them Beside the Volums of Remegius and Bodin and the Mallei Maleficorum Danaeus and others we had many score of them detected and many executed in one Year in Suffolk and Essex about 1644. And I have at this present a Flint Stone which was one of about 160. which were voided by the Urinary passage by a bewitched Child in Evesham yet living some of near an Ounce weight which was fully proved the Witch Executed and the Child upon her imprisonment freed To pass by many others § 2. And I have had convincing Testimony of Apparitions besides that famous one The Devil of Mascon and that in the shape of Lieutenant Collonel Bowen in Wales mentioned elsewhere And besides many Testimonies of haunted Houses however many or most such reports are but deceits § 3. From both these I gather 1. that there are Individual Inhabitants of the Invisible World and that Spirits have their numerical differences whatever Unity is among them and therefore we have reason to judge the same of separated Souls 2. That our Souls are designed to future happiness or misery which is implied in the foresaid contracts and endeavours of Devils for our ruine 3. That Faith and Holiness are the way of Life and Unbelief and Sin the way to misery which also is in these implied § 3. 3. And I have both read and partly seen convincing evidence that there is such an exercise of diabolical power as we commonly call Possession Whether all or most mad men are under such a Power as some think I determine not But that some are under it is evident The motions of the Body which I have seen seem beyond Man's Natural power The telling of secrets and things absent the speaking Languages never learnt the vomiting of Nails Glass Hairs c. and other such effects which the most learned sober impartial Physicians profess to have seen are credible Testimonies §4 4. And I have felt and heard and known from others of such a sort of Temptations as shew themselves to be the acts of malicious Spirits Enemies to Mankind The advantages that Satan taketh of a corrupted Phantasie which hath once taken in such an Image as may be his matter to Work upon is very remarkable I have known a worthy learned Pious Person who from his youth to old Age upon such an advantage hath been so tempted with Pleasure to torment himself even his own Flesh as that for many years together in a partial melancholy at divers fits he was not able though Conscience also tormented him for it to forbear Many by animmodest look or touch have given Satan such a power upon their Phantasies as no Reason Conscience or resolution could of a long time overcome Few men I think that observe themselves have not at sometime had experience of such inward temptations as shew that the Author of them is an invincible Enemy All which tell us 1. That there are Individual Spirits 2. Yea Devils that seek Man's misery 3. And that by the way of sin and consequently that a future happiness or misery must be expected by us all § 1. X. But the great and sure Pregnosticks of our Immortal Happiness is from the Renewing Operations of the Spirit of Holiness on the Soul 1. That such a Renewing work there is all true Believers in some measure feel 2. And that it is the earnest of Heaven is proved thus § 2. 1. If it be a Change of greatest Benefit to Man 2. And if Heaven be the very Summ and End of it 3. And if it overcome all fleshly worldly Opposition 4. And can be wrought by none but God 5. And was before promised by Jesus Christ to all sound believers 6. And is universally wrought in them all either only or eminently above all others 7. And was promised them as a Pledge and Earnest of Glory then it can be no less than such a Pledge and Earnest But the former are all true c. § 3. 1. That the Change is of grand importance unto Man appeareth in that it is the Renovation of his Mind and Will and Life It repaireth his depraved faculties It causeth Man to live as Man who is degenerated to a life too like to Bruits By God's permitting many to live in Blindness Wickedness and Confusion and to be tormentors of themselves and one another by Temptations Injuries Wars and Cruelty we the fullier see what it is that Grace doth save men from and what a difference it maketh in the World Those that have lived unholily in their youth do easily find the difference in themselves when they are renewed But to
than long ago Am I at the highest 〈◊〉 Man on Earth can reach and that when I am so dark and low Is there no growth of these apprehensions more to be expected Doth the Soul cease its increase in vigorous Perception when the Body ceaseth its increase or vigor of sensation Must I sit down in so low a measure while I am drawing nearer to the things believed and am almost there where belief must pass into sight and love or must I take up with the passive silence and inactivity which some Fryars persuade us is nearer to Perfection and under pretence of Annihilation and Receptivity let my fluggish Heart alone and say that in this neglect I wait for thy Operations O let not a Soul that is driven from this World and weary of Vanity and can think of little else but immortality that seeks and crys both Night and Day for the heavenly Light and fain would have some foretast of Glory and some more of the first Fruits of the promised joys let not such a Soul either long or cry or strive in vain Punish not my former grieving of thy Spirit by deserting a Soul that cryeth for thy Grace so near its great and unconceivable change Let me not languish in vain desires at the Door of Hope nor pass with doubtful Thoughts and Fears from this Vale of Misery Which should be the Season of Triumphant Faith and Hope and Joy if not when I am entering on the World of Joy O thou that hast left us so many consolatory words of Promise that our joy may be full send O send the promised Comforter without whose approaches and heavenly Beams when all is said and a thousand Thoughts and strivings have been assayed it will still be Night and Winter with the Soul § 19. But have I not expected more particular and more sensitive Conceptions of Heaven and the State of blessed Souls than I should have done and â—emained less satisfied because I expected such distinct Perceptions to my satisfaction which God doth not ordinarily give to Souls in Flesh I fear it hath been too much so A distrust of God and a distrustful desire to know much Good and Evil for our selves as necessary to our quiet and satisfaction was that sin which hath deeply corrupted Man's Nature and is more of our common pravity than is commonly observed I find that this Distrust of God and my Redeemer hath had too great a hand in my desires of a distincter and more sensible Knowledg I know that I should implicitely and absolutely and quietly trust my Soul into my Redeemers Hands of which I must speak more anon And it is not only for the Body but also for the Soul that a distrustful care is our great sin and Misery But yet we must desire that our Knowledge and Belief may be as distinct and particular as God's Revelations are and we can Love no further than we know and the more we know of God and Glory the more we shall love desire and trust him It is a known and not meerly an unknown God and happiness that the Soul doth joyfully desire And if I may not be ambitious of too sensible and distinct Perceptions here of the things unseen yet must I desire and beg the most fervent and sensible Love to them that I am capable of I am willing in part to take up with that unavoidable ignorance and that low degree of such Knowledge which God confineth us to in the Flesh so be it he will give me but such Consolatory foretasts in Love and Joy which such a General imperfect Knowledge may consist with that my Soul may not pass with distrust and terrour but with suitable triumphant Hopes to the Everlasting pleasures O Father of Lights who givest Wisdom to them that ask it of thee shut not up this sinful Soul in darkness Leave me not to grope in unsatisfied doubts at the Door of the Celestial Light Or if my Knowledg must be General let it be clear and powerful and deny me not now the lively exercise of FAITH HOPE and LOVE which are the stirrings of the New Creature and the dawnings of the everlasting Light and the Earnest of the promised Inheritance § 20. But we are oft ready to say with Cicero when he had been reading such as Plato that while the Book is in our Hands we seem confident of our Immortality and when we lay it by our doubts return so our Arguments seem clear and cogent and yet when we think not of them with the best advantage we are oft surprized with Fear lest we should be mistaken and our Hopes be vain and hereupon and from the common fear of Death that even good men too often manifest the Infidels gather that we do but force our Selves into such a Hope as we desire to be true against the tendency of mans Nature and that we were not made for a better World § 21. But this fallacy ariseth from mens not distinguishing 1. sensitive fears from Rational uncertainty or doubts 2. And the mind that is in the darkness of unbelief from that which hath the Light of Faith I find in my self too much of fear when I look into Eternity interrupting and weakening my Desires and Joy But I find that it is very much an irrational sensitive Fear which the Darkness of Man's mind the Greatness of the Change the dreadful Majesty of God and Man's Natural aversness to die do in some degree necessitate even when Reason is fully satisfied that such fears are consistent with certain safety If I were bound with the strongest Chains or stood on the surest Battlements on the top of a Castle or Steeple I could not possibly look down without fear and such as would go near to overcome me and yet I should be rationally sure that I am there fast and safe and cannot fall So is it with our Prospect into the Life to come Fear is oft a necessitated Passion When a Man is certain of his safe Foundation it will violently rob him of the comfort of that Certainty Yea it is a passion that irrationally doth much to corrupt our Reason it self and would make us doubt because we fear though we know not why And a fearful Man doth hardly trust his own apprehensions of his safety but among other Fears is still ready to fear lest he be deceived Like timorous Melancholy Persons about their Bodies who are ready still to think that every little Distemper is a mortal Symptom and that worse is still near them than they feel and they hardly believe any words of hope § 22. And Satan knowing the power of these passions and having easier access to the Sensitive than to the Intellective Faculties doth labour to get in at this back Door and to frighten poor Souls into doubts and unbelief and in timorous Natures he doth it with too great success as to the Consolatory acts of Faith Though yet God's Mercy is wonderfully seen in preserving many
honest tender Souls from the damning part of unbelief and by their fears preserveth them from being bold with sin When many bold and impudent Sinners turn Infidels or Atheists by forfeiting the helps of Grace § 23. And indeed Irrational fears have so much power to raise Doubts that they are seldom separated insomuch that many scarce know or observe the difference between Doubts and Fears And many say they not only fear but doubt when they can scarce tell why as if it were no intellectual act which they meant but an irrational Passion § 24. If therefore my Soul see undeniable Evidence of Immortality and if it be able by irrefragable Argument to prove the future blessedness expected and if it be convinced that God's promises are true and sufficiently sealed and attested by him to warrant the most confident belief and if I trust my Soul and all my hopes upon this word and evidences of Truth it is not then our aversness to die nor the sensible fears of a Soul that looketh into Eternity that invalidate any of the Reasons of my Hope nor prove the unsoundness of my Faith § 25. But yet these Fears do prove its weakness and were they prevalent against the Choice Obedience Resolutions and Endeavours of Faith they would be prevalent against the Truth of Faith or prove its nullity for Faith is Trust and Trust is a securing quieting thing Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith was a just reproof of Christ to his Disciples when sensible dangers raised up their fears For the established will hath a political or imperfect though not a despotical and absolute Power over our Passions And therefore our fears do shew us our unbelief and stronger Faith is the best means of conquering even irrational fears Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why art thou so disquieted in me Trust in God c. Psal 42. is a needful way of chiding a timorous Heart § 26. And though many say that Faith hath not evidence and think that it is an Assent of the Mind meerly commanded by the Empire of the Will without a knowledg of the Verity of the Testimony yet certainly the same Assent is ordinarily in the Scriptures called indifferently Knowing and Believing And as a bare Command will not cause Love unless we perceive an Amiableness in the Object so a bare Command of the Law or of the Will cannot alone cause Belief unless we perceive a truth in the Testimony believed For it is a Contradiction or an act without its Object And Truth is perceived only so far as it is some way Evident For Evidence is nothing but the objective perceptibility of Truth or that which is Metaphorically called Light So that we must say that Faith hath not sensible Evidence of the invisible things believed but Faith is nothing else but the willing Perception of the Evidence of Truth in the word of the Assertor and a Trust therein We have and must have Evidence that Scripture is God's Word and that his Word is true before by any Command of the Word or Will we can believe it § 27. I do therefore neither despise Evidence as unnecessary nor trust to it alone as the sufficient total cause of my belief For if God's Grace do not open mine Eyes and come down in power upon my Will and insinuate into it a sweet acquaintance with the things unseen and a tast of their Goodness to delight my Soul no Reasons will serve to stablish and comfort me how undeniable soever Reason is fain first to make use of notions words or signs and to know Terms Propositions and Arguments which are but Means to the knowledg of Things is its first employment and that alas which Multitudes of Learned men do take up with But it 's the Illumination of God that must give us an effectual acquaintance with the Things Spiritual and Invisible which these Notions signifie and to which our Organical Knowledg is but a Means § 28. To sum up all That our Hopes of Heaven have a certain ground appeareth I. From Nature II. From Grace III. From other works of Gracious Providence 1. From the Nature of Man 1. Made capable of it 2. Obliged even by the Law of Nature to seek it before all 3. Naturally desiring Perfection 1. Habitual 2. Active 3. And Objective 2. And from the Nature of God 1. As Good and Communicative 2. As Holy and Righteous 3. As Wise making none of his works in vain § 29. II. From Grace 1. Purchasing it 2. Declaring it by a Messenger from Heaven both by Word and by Christ's own and others Resurrection 3. Promising it 4. Sealing that Promise by Miracles there 5. And by the work of Sanctification to the end of the World § 30. III. By subordinate Providence 1. God's actual Governing the World by the hopes and fears of another Life 2. The many helps which he giveth us for a heavenly Life and for attaining it which are not vain 3. Specially the Ministration of Angels and their Love to us and Communion with us 4. And by accident Devils themselves convince us 1. By the Nature of their Temptations 2. By Apparitions and haunting Houses 3. By Witches 4. By Possessions Which though it be but a Satanical Operation on the Body yet is so Extraordinary an Operation that it differeth from the more usual as if I may so compare them God's Spirit so operateth on the Saints that it is called his dwelling in them or possessing them as different from his lower Operations on others § 1. II. Having proved that Faith and Hope have a certain future Happiness to expect the Text directeth me next to consider why it is described by being with Christ viz. I. What is included in our being with Christ II. That we shall be with him III. Why we shall be with him § 2. To be with Christ includeth 1. Presence 2. Union 3. Communion or participation of Felicity with him § 3. 1. Quest Is it Christ's Godhead or his Humane Soul or his Humane Body that we shall be Present with and united to or All Answ It is all but variously § 4. 1. We shall be Present with the Divine Nature of Christ Quest But are we not always so And are not all Creatures so Answ Yes as his Essence comprehendeth all Place and Beings But not as it is Operative and Manifested in and by his Glory Christ directeth our Hearts and Tongues to pray Our Father which art in Heaven And yet he knew that all Place is in and with God Because it is in Heaven that he Gloriously operateth and shineth forth to holy Souls Even as Man's Soul is eminently said to be in the Head because it understandeth and reasoneth in the Head and not in the Foot or Hand though it be also there And as we look a Man in the Face when we talk to him so we look up to Heaven when we pray to God God who is and operateth as the Root of
have UNION so also COMMUNION with the Divine and Humane Nature of Christ respectively Both as they will be the Objects of our Souls most noble and Constant acts and as they will be the Fountain or Communicative cause of our receptions § 15. 1. We find now that our various Faculties have various Objects suitable to their Natures The Objects of Sense are things sensible and the Objects of Imagination things Imaginable and the Objects of Intellection things Intelligible and the Objects of the Will things amiable The Eye that is a nobler Sense than some others hath Light for its Object which to other Senses is none and so of the rest Therefore we have cause to suppose that as far as our Glorified Souls and our Spiritual Glorified Bodies will differ so far Christ's Glorified Soul and Body will respectively be their several Objects And beholding the Glory of both will be part of our Glory § 16. Yet is it not hence to be gathered that the separated Soul before the Resurrection shall not have Christ's Glorified Body for its Object For the Objects of the Body are also the Objects of the Soul or to speak more properly the Objects of Sense are also the Objects of Intellection and Will though all the Objects of the Intellect and Will are not Objects of Sense The Separated Soul can know Christ's Glorified Body though our present Bodies cannot see a Soul But how much our Spiritual Bodies will excel in Capacity and Activity these passive Bodies that have so much Earth and Water we cannot tell § 17. And though now our Souls are as a Candle in a Lanthorn and must have extrinsick Objects admitted by the Senses before they can be understood yet it followeth not that therefore a separated Soul cannot know such Objects 1. Because it now knoweth them Abstractively per species because its act of Ratiocination is Compound as to the Cause Soul and Body But it will then know such things Intuitively as now it can do it self when the Lanthorn is cast by 2. And what ever many of late that have given themselves the title of Ingenious have said to the contrary we have little reason to think that the sensitive faculty is not an Essential inseparable power of the same Soul that is Intellectual and that sensation ceaseth to separated Souls however the modes of it may cease with their several Uses and Organs To Feel Intellectually or to understand and will feelingly we have cause to think will be the Action of separated Souls And if so why may they not have communion with Christ's Body and Soul as their Objects in their separated State 3. Besides that we are uncertain whether the separated Soul have no Vehicle or Body at all Things unknown to us must not be supposed True or False Some think that the sensitive Soul is Material and as a Body to the Intellectual never separated I am not of their Opinion that make them two substances but I cannot say I am certain that they err Some think that the Soul is Material of a purer substance than things visible and that the common Notion of its substantiality meaneth nothing else but a pure as they call it Spiritual Materiality Thus thought not only Tertullian but almost all the old Greek Doctors of the Church that write of it and most of the Latine or very many as I have elsewhere shewed and as Faustus reciteth them in the Treatise answered by Mammertus Some think that the Soul as Vegetative is an Igneous Body such as we call Aether or Solar Fire or rather of a higher purer kind and that Sensation and Intellection are those formal Faculties which Specifically difference it from inferior meer Fire or Aether There were few of the Old Doctors that thought it not some of these ways Material And consequently extensive and divisible per potentiam Divin 〈◊〉 though not Naturally or of its own inclination because most strongly inclined to Unity And if any of all these uncertain Opinions should prove true the Objections in hand will find no place To say nothing of their conceit who say that as the Spirit that retireth from the falling Leaves in Autumn continueth to animate the Tree so Man's Soul may do when departed with that to which it is United to animate some more Noble universal Body But as all these are the too bold Cogitations of men that had better let unknown things alone so yet they may be mentioned to refel that more perillous boldness which denyeth the Souls Action which is certain upon at best uncertain Reasons § 18. I may boldly conclude notwithstanding such Objections that Christ's Divine and Humane Nature Soul and Body shall be the felicitating Objects of Intuition and holy Love to the separated Soul before the Resurrection and that to be with Christ is to have such communion with him and not only to be present where he is § 19. 2. And the chief part of this communion will be that in which we are Receptive even Christ's Communications to the Soul And as the Infinite Incomprehensible Deity is the Root or first Cause of all Communication Natural Gracious and Glorious to Being Motion Life Rule Reason Holiness and Happiness and the whole Creation is more dependant on God than the Fruit on the Tree or the Plants on the Earth or the Members on the Body though yet they are not parts of the Deity nor Deified because the Communication is Creative so God useth Second Causes in his Communications to inferiour Natures and it is more than probable that the Humane Soul of Christ primarily and his Body secondarily are the chief second cause of Influence and Communication both of Grace and Glory both to Man in the Body and to the separated Soul And as the Sun is first an Efficient communicative second Cause of seeing to the Eye and then is also the Object of our sight so Christ is to the Soul For as God so the Lamb is the Light and Glory of the heavenly Hierusalem and in his light we shall have light Though he give up the Kingdom to the Father so far as that God shall be all in all and his Creature be fully restored to his favour and there shall be need of a healing Government no more for the recovering of lapsed Souls to God yet sure he will not cease to be our Mediator and to be the Churches Head and to be the conveying cause of Everlasting Life and Light and Love to all his Members As now we live because he liveth even as the Branches in the Vine and the Spirit that quickneth enlightneth and sanctifieth us is first the Spirit of Christ before it is ours and is communicated from God by him to us so will it be in the state of Glory For we shall have our Union and Communion with him perfected and not destroyed or diminished And unless I could be so proud as to think that I am or shall be the most excellent of all the Creatures
the Love of ancient Friends and Hearers I must say What mean you to weep and break my Heart I am ready to leave the dearest Friends on Earth and life and all the pleasures of life for the presence of far better Friends with Christ and the sweeter pleasures of a better life That little amiableness which is in things below is in godly men as life in the Heart which dieth last When that 's all gone when we are dead to the Love of the godly themselves and to Learning Books and mediate Ordinances so far as they serve a selfish interest and tempt down our Hearts from heavenly aspirings the World then is Crucified to us indeed and we to it I rejoice to tread in the Footsteps of my Lord who had some indeed weeping about his cross but was forsaken by all his Disciples while in the Hour of Temptation they all fled But my desertion is far less for it is less that I am fit to bear If God will justifie who shall condemn If he be for me who shall be against me O may I not be put to that dreadfull case to cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And may nothing separate me from his Love And then were I forsaken of the sober and peaceable as I am in part of some quarrelsom Dividers how tolerable a tryal would it be Man is as dust in the Ballance that addeth little to it and signifieth nothing when God is in the other end But I suspect still that I make too much account of Man when this case hath taken up too much of my observation 1. And of all things surely a departing Soul hath least cause to fear the losing of its notice of the Affairs of the World Of Peace or Wars or Church or Kingdoms For 1. If the Sun can send forth its material Beams and operate by motion light and heat at such a distance as this Earth why should I think that blessed Spirits are such local confined and impotent substances as not to have notice of the things of Earth Had I but bodily Eyes I could see more from the top of a Tower or Hill than any one that is below can do And shall I know less of Earth from Heaven than I do now It 's unlike that my Capacity will be so little And if it were it is unlike that Christs and all the Angels will be so strange to me as to give me no notice of things that so much concern my God and my Redeemer to whom I am united and the Holy Society of which I am a part and my self as a Member of Christ and that Society I do not think that the Communion of the Celestial Inhabitants is so narrow and slow as it is of walking Clods of Earth and of Souls that are confined to such dark Lanthorns as this Body is Stars can shine one to another And we on Earth can see them so far off in their Heaven And sure then if they have a seeing faculty each of them can see many of us even the Kingdoms of the World Spirits are most active and of powerful and quick communication They need not send Letters or write Books to one another nor lift up a voice to make each other hear Nor is there any unkindness division or unsociable selfishness among them which may cause them to conceal their notices or their joys But as Activity so Unity is Greatest where there is most Perfection They will so be Many as yet to be One and their Knowledge will be One Knowledge and their Love One Love and their Joy One Joy Not by so perfect a Unity as in God himself who is One and but One but such as is suitable to created imperfection which participate of the Perfection of the Creator as the Effect doth of the virtue of the Cause and therefore hath some participation of his Unity O foolish Soul if I shall fear this Unity with God Christ and all the Holy Spirits lest I should lose my present separate Individuation when Perfection and Union are so near akin In a word I have no cause to think that my Celestial advancement will be a diminution of any desirable Knowledge even of things on Earth but contrarily that it will be unconceivably increased 2. But if indeed I shall know less of things below it will be because that the knowledge of them is a part of Vanity and Vexation which hath no place in Heaven So much knowledge of good and evil in lower matters as came to us by sin is unworthy of our fond tenaciousness and fear of losing it Surely the sad tidings which we have Weekly in our News Books our lamentable notices of Heathen and Infidel Kingdoms of the overspreading prevalency of Barbarousness Idolatry Ignorance and Infidelity of the rage and success of cruel Tyrants of the bloody Wars of proud unquiet worldly men of the misery of the oppressed desolate Countreys the dissipated Churches the persecuted innocent Christians are no such pleasing things as that we should be afraid to hear of such no more To know or hear of the poor in Famine the rich in Folly the Church distracted the Kingdom discontented the godly scandalous by the effects of their Errours imperfections and divisions the wicked outrageous and waxing worse the falseness or miscarriages or sufferings of Friends the fury or success of Enemies is this an intelligence which I cannot spare What is the daily tidings that I hear but of bloody Wars the undone Countreys the persecuted Churches the silenced banished or imprisoned Preachers of the best removed in judgment from an unworthy World by Death and worse succeeding in their rooms of the renewed designs and endeavours of the Churches Enemies the implacable rage of the worldly and unquiet Clergy and the new divisions of self-conceited Sectaries and the obloquy and backbitings of each Party against the other How oft hear I the sad tidings of this Friends sickness or Death and that Friends discontent and of anothers fall and of many very many's Sufferings My Ears are daily filled with the cryes of the poor whom I cannot relieve with the endless complaints of fearful Melancholy despairing Persons with the wranglings of the ignorant and proud Professors and contentious Divines who censure most boldly where they are most Erroneous or dark Or with the troublesom discontents of those that I converse with And should I be afraid of the ending of so sad a Tragedy or of awaking out of such an unpleasant dream Have I not many times thought of the Priviledge of the deaf that hear not these troublesom and provoking things and of the Blind that see not the Vanities and Temptations of this World It is one part of the benefit of solitude or a private life and habitation to free me from many of these unpleasing Objects and a great part of the benefit of sleep that with my Cloaths I may lay by these troubleous Thoughts § 11. But other men
Doctrines and Examples and for which I have been called to hear and read and meditate and pray and Watch so long Was it the interest of the Flesh on Earth or a longer life of worldly Prosperity which the Gospel Covenant secured to me which the Sacraments and Spirit Sealed to me Which the Bible was written to direct me to which Ministers preached to me Which my Books were written for Which I prayed for and for which I served God Or was it not for his Grace on Earth and Glory in Heaven And is it not better for me to have the End of all these means than lose them all and lose my hopes Why have I used them if I would not attain their End § 13. 5. That is my Best state which all the Course of God's Fatherly Providences tend to All his sweeter Mercies and all his sharper corrections are to make me partaker of his Holiness and to Lead me to glory in the way that my Saviour and all his Saints have gone before me All things work together for the best to me by preparing me for that which is best indeed Both calms and storms are to bring me to this Harbour If I take them but for themselves and this present life I mistake them and understand them not but unthankfully vilifie them and lose their End and life and sweetness Every word and work of God every Days mercies and changes and Usages do look at Heaven and intend Eternity God leadeth me no other way If I follow him not I forsake my hope in forsaking him If I follow him shall I be unwilling to be at home and come to the End of all this way § 14. 6. Surely that is Best for me which God hath required me principally to value love and seek and that as the business of all my life referring all things else thereto That this is my Duty I am fully certain as is proved elsewhere and before Is my business in the World only for the things of this World How vain a Creature then were Man and how little were the difference between waking and sleeping Life and Death No wonder if he that believeth that there is no Life but this to seek or hope for do live in uncomfortable despair and only seek to palliate his misery with the brutish pleasures of a wicked life and if he stick at no villany which hisfleshly Lusts incline him to Especially Tyrants and Multitudes who have none but God to fear And it is my certain duty to seek Heaven with all the fervour of my Soul and diligence of my life And is it not Best to find it § 15. 7. That must needs be Best for me which all other things must be forsaken for It is folly to forsake the Better for the worse But Scripture Reason and Conscience tell me that all this World when it stands in competition or opposition should be forsaken for Heaven yea for the least hopes of it A possible everlasting Glory should be preferred before a certainly perishing Vanity I am sure this life will shortly be nothing to me and therefore it is next to nothing now And must I forsake all for my everlasting Hopes and yet be unwilling to pass unto the possession of them § 16. 8. That is like to be our Best which is our Maturest state Nature carrieth all things towards their perfection Our Apples Pears Grapes and every Fruit is best when it is ripe And though they then hasten to corruption that is through the incapacity of the corporeal materials any longer to retain the Vegetative Spirit which is not annihilated at its separation and being not made for its own felicity but for Mans its ripeness is the state in which Man useth it before it doth corrupt of itself that its corruption may be for his nutriment and the Spirits and best matter of his said food doth become his very substance And doth God cause Saints to grow up unto ripeness only to perish and drop down unto useless rottenness It is not credible Though our Bodies become but like our filthiest excrements our Souls return to God that gave them And though he need them not he useth them in their separated state and that to such heavenly uses as their heavenly Maturity and Mellowness hath disposed them to Seeing then Love hath ripened me for itself shall I not willingly drop into its hand § 17. 9. That is like to be the Best which the Wisest and Holiest in all Ages of the World have preferred before all and have most desired And which also almost all Mankind do acknowledge to be best at last It is not like that all the Best men in the World should be most deceived and be put upon fruitless labour and sufferings by this deceit and be undone by their duty and that God should by such deceits rule all or almost all Mankin And also that the common notices of humane Nature and Consciences last and closest documents should be all in vain But it is past all doubt that no men usually are worse than those that have no Belief or Hopes of any Life but this And that none are so Holy Just and Sober so charitable to others and so useful to Mankind as those that firmliest believe and hope for the state of immortality And shall I fear that state which all that were wise and holy in All Ages have preferred and desired § 18. 10. And it is not unlike that my Best state is that which my greatest Enemies are mâ—st against And how much Satan doth to keep me and other men from Heaven and how much worldly Honour and Pleasure and Wealth he could afford us to accomplish it I need not here again be copious in reciting having said so much of it elsewhere And shall I be towards my self so much of Satans mind He would not have me come to Heaven And shall I also be unwilling All these things tell me that It is Best to be with Christ II. The Final Reasons § 1. II 1. Is it not far better to dwell with GOD in Glory than with sinful men in such a World as this Though he be every where his Glory which we must behold to our Felicity and the perfecting Operations and Communications of his Love are in the glorious World and not on Earth As the Eye is made to see the Light and then to see other things by the Light so is mans mind made to see God and to Love him and other things as in by and for him He that is our beginning is our end And our End is the first Motive of all Moralaction and for It it is that all means are used And the End attained is the Rest of Souls How oft hath my Soul groaned under the sense of Distance and Darkness and Estrangeness from God! How oft hath it looked up and gasped after him and said O when shall I be nearer and better acquianted with my God As the Heart panteth after the
his production by Emanation or Creation doth consist with Generation And how forms are multiplied And what Causality the Parents Soul hath to the production of the Childs Whether by communication of substance or only by disposing the recipient matter I shall know whether all Souls came from Adam's one substantiality and whether there be more substance in the All than in that One and whether one substance cause more by generation Or whether it be so as to the Souls of Bruits or whether any Anima communis inform many Organical Bodies of the Bruits as the Sun lighteth many Candles which are individuate by matter to which as parts of one they variously are contracted and on which they operate and whether they were individuate in pre-existence or shall be individuate after separation I shall know how far the semen in generation is animated And how the animated semina of two make one And if animated what becomes of the anima seminis perditi and of an Abortive And whether the Body be animated as Vegetative or Sensitive before the entrance of the rational Soul Or rather the same Soul which in its Faculty is Rational being one with the Sensitive and Vegetative be the constitutive form of the first animated Body and the Fabricator of its own domicilium I shall know how far the Soul is receptive And what the Causa finalis doth to it And what each Object is to the Constitution or production of the act Yea and what an Act is and what a Habit And how a Soul acting or habited differeth from itself not acting or habited And how its acts are many and yet but One Or its Faculties at least Many other such difficulties will all be solved which now Philosophers contend about in the dark and pass but under doubtful conjectures Or at least are known to very few And I shall know how God's Spirit operateth on Souls And how it is sent from Christ's humane Nature to work on Man And whether Grace be properly or only Metaphorically called a Nature a New Nature a Divine Nature in us I shall know what Free-will is and how Man's will can be the first determiner of any act of its own in specie morali good or evil without being such a Causa prima as none but God can be And so how far free acts are necessitated or not I shall know what power the Intellect hath on the will and the will on the Intellect and what power the Sense and Phantasie hath on either And what any Intellectus agens doth Whether it be to our Intellection as the Sun is to our sight I shall know what is meant by the Degrees of Acts and Habits in the Soul And whether there be divers Degrees of Substantiality or of the virtus vel facultas formalis of several Souls I shall know better the difference of the Habits called Acquired and Infused And what common Grace is and what it doth And what Nature can do of itself or by common Grace without that which is proper to the justified And how far any Degrees of Grace are lost I shall know what measure of Grace I had my self and how far I was mistaken in my self And what acts were sincere and how much that was not sound was mixt and what was of my self and sin I shall know much more of my sin than here I ever knew the number and the greatness of them That so I may know with greatest thankfulness and love how much I am beholden to pardoning and healing Grace Yea I shall know more of my Body as it was the Habitation of my Soul or the organical matter on which unitedly it workt I shall know how far it helpt or hindred me And what were all thâ— obscure Diseases that puzzled all the Physicians and my self And how marvellously God sustained preserved and oft delivered me And what of my actions was to be imputed to the Body and what of them to the Soul IX And every fellow Creature which I am concerned to know I shall know far better than now I do both Things and Persons The Good and Bad the Sincere and the Hypocrites will be there discerned And many an action that here 〈◊〉 for honourable covered or coloured with wit or worldly advantages or false pretences will then be found to be odious and unjust and wickedness will be flattered or extenuated no more And many a good and holy Work which false men through wickedness and worldly Interest reproached as some odious Crime will there be justified honoured and rewarded All Sciences are there perfect without our ambiguous Terms or imperfect Axioms and Rules of Art X. And lastly I shall better know from what Enemies what Sins what Dangers I was here delivered What contrivances and malicious endeavours of Satan and his Instruments God defeated How many Snares I escaped And I shall better know how great my deliverance is by Christ from the Wrath to come Though we shall not know Hell by painful Sense we shall know it so far as is necessary to fill us with gratitude to our Redeemer Yea we shall know much of it far better than the damned Spirits that feel it For we shall know by sweet and full fruition what the Joy and Blessedness is which they have lost when they have no such kind of knowledge of it All this knowledge will be thus advanced to my glorified Soul beyond what I can here conceive in Flesh And is it not then far better to be with Christ IV. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will § 1. But it is the WILL that is to the Soul what the Heart is to the Body As it is the prime â—eat of Morality so is it the chief seat of Felicity My greatest Evil 〈◊〉 there and my greatest subjective Good will be there Satan did most against it and God will do most for it And will it not be better with Christ than here 1. It will not there by tyed to a body of cross interests and inclinations which is now the greatest snare and enemy to my Soul Which is still drawing my love and care and fears and sorrows to and for it self and turning them from my highest interest How great a deliverance will it be to be freed from the temptations and the inordinate love and cares and fears for this corruptible Flesh 2. My will shall not there be tempted by a world of inferiour good which is the bait and provision for the Flesh where Meat and Sleep and Possessions House Lands and Friends are all become my snares and danger Gods mercies will not be made there the Tempters instruments I shall not there have the Flatteries or frowns promises or threatnings of the Tyrants of the World to tempt me Bad company will not infect me nor divert me The errours of good men wiâ—l not seduce me nor reputation or reverence of the Wise Learned or Religious draw me to imitate them in any sin 3. I shall there have
inclination and such as is agreeable to the nature of his Faculties And therefore our love and delight in all things is that uniting inclination in Man § 14. III. And I shall have a special Love to the Holy Society the triumphant Universal Church consisting of Christ Angels and Saints as they are specially amiable in the Image and Glory of God God himself loveth them more than his inferiour works that is his Essence which is Love and hath no degrees or change doth send forth fuller streams of good upon them or maketh them better and happier than the rest And my love will imitate the love of God in my Capacity And if Societies on Earth more holy and wise than others though imperfectly are very amiable what then will the heavenly Society be Of this I spake before of knowing them § 15. 1. Think here O my Soul how sweet a state unto thee it will be to Love the Lord Jesus thy glorâ—fied Head with perfect love When the glory of God which shineth in him will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure The highest created Perfection of Power Wisdom and Goodness refulgent in him will not give leave to thy Love to cease or intermit or abate its fervour When thou shalt see in the glorified Church the precious fruits of Christ's Redemption Grace and Love this also will feed thy love to him from whom this heavenly Glory cometh And when thou shalt feel thy self possest of perfect happiness by his Love to thee will not this also do its part Yea the remembrance of all his former Love what he did for thee and what he did in thee here on Earth how he called thee with a Holy calling how he washed thee in his Blood from all thy sins how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect Glory how he renewed thy Nature how he instructed and guided and preserved thee from thy Childhood and how many and how great sins enemies dangers and sufferings he saved thee from all this will constrain thee Everlastingly to love him Thus though he give the Kingdom to the Father as ceasing his Mediatory healing saving work of acquisition he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition God in him will be accessible and condescend to a suitable communion with us Joh. 17. 24. And as Christ is thy Life radically and efficiently as he is the giver of Grace and the Spirit of Love so he will be Objectively thy Life as he is Lovely and it will be formally thy Life to Love him and God in him for ever § 16. 2. Think also O my Soul how delectable it will be to Love as well as to know those Angels that most servently love the Lord They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee and more as they have been Lovers and Benefactors to the Church and to Mankind but far more as they are so many refulgent Stars which continually move and shine and burn in purest love to their Creator O blessed difference between that amiable Society of holy Spirits and this dark mad distracted wicked World Here Devils tempt me within and Devils incarnate persecute me without Blaspheming of God reviling godliness deriding the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred exercises malignant slandering of the Servants of God hating persecuting silencing and saying all manner of evil falsly of them for their Righteousness sake while such Crimes are pretended as they once falsly charged on Christ himself this is the Conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this World Atheism Infidelity Papal Church tyranny bloody Wars destroying the Righteous oppressing the Poor Adultery and Fornication Stigmatizing-Perjury Ambition Violence Covetousness deceit sottish Ignorance wilfulness in Sin hatred of Reproof revengeful Malice these and such like are the fruits of the Soil where I have long sojourned Though through the Grace of Christ among the faithful there have been better fruits And is not the Company of Holy Angels better than this With whom God is all who are even made up of shining Wisdom and holy Lovâ— and beneficent activity who are the blessed Choâ—e that melodiously sing forth the high Praises of their Maker Among whom God dwelleth as in his presence Chamber or his Temple and in whom he taketh his great delight With these I shall see or hear no evil No mixture of fools or wicked Ones do pollute or trouble their Society There will be no false Doctrine no evil Example no favouring Wickedness no accusing Goodness no hurtful Violence but holy powerful operative Love will be all and do all as their very Nature Life and Work And is it not better be a Door-keeper there than to dwell in the Pallaces of Wickedness And is not a Day with them better than a Thousand here § 17. 3. And with the holy Angels I shall love holy Souls that are made like unto them and joined with them in the same Society and it is likely with them Judge that is Rule the World All their infirmities are there put off with the Flesh they also are Spirits made up of holy Life and Light and Love There is none of their former ignorance errour imprudence selfishness contentiousness impatience or any other troubling hurtful thing When I think with what fervent love to God to Jesus Christ and to one another they will be perfectly united there alas how sad and how shameful is it that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions and hardly agree to call each other the Servants of God or to worship God in the same Assembliâ—â— But the remnants of dividing Principles viz. Pride Errour and Uncharitableness will be all left behind Society with imperfect Saints is sweet The imperfect Image of God upon them is amiable But their frailties here are so vexatious that it is hard to live with some of them in Peace But perfect Love will make them one and O how delightful will that communion of Saints be I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my Pilgrimage by the fragrancy and usefulness of his Servants graces How sweet have my bosom Friends been though mutable How sweet hath the Neighbourhood of the godly been How sweet have the holy Assemblies And how many hours of comfort have I there had How profitable have their Writings their Conference and their Prayers been What then will it be to live in the union of perfect Love with perfect Saints in Heaven for ever and with them concordantly to love the God of Love § 18. III. And as the Act and the Object of LOVE will constitute my felicity so will my Reception from the Love of God and his Creatures be sweeter to me than my own activity can be For it is Mutual Love that makes it up I shall not be the Fountain of my own delights nor can I act till I am acted nor offer any thing to God but what I have first received from him And Receive I shall abundantly
out a Prayer Book on my Heart He giveth me desires and he loveth to be importuned by them His Spirit is first a Spirit of supplication and after of Consolation and in both a Spirit of Adoption so far is he from being loth to be troubled with my importunity that he seeketh to me to seek his grace and is displeased with me that I will ask and have no more All this is true But how then cometh my Soul to be yet so low so dark so fond of this wretched Flesh and World and so backward to go home and dwell with Christ Alas a taste of Heaven on Earth is a Mercy too pretious to be cast away upon such as have long grieved and quencht the Spirit and are not by diligent and patient seeking prepared to receive it He that proclaimeth a general Peace will give Peace only to the Sons of Peace If after such unkind neglects such wilful sins as I have been guilty of I should expect to be suddenly in my Saviours Armâ— and to be feasted presently with the first Fruits of Heaven I should look that the Most Holy should too little manifest his hatred of my sin My Conscience remembreth the follies of my Youth and many a later odious sin and telleth me that if Heaven were quite hid from my sight and I should never have a glimpse of the Face of glorious eternal Love it were but just I look upward from Day to Day I groan to see his pleased Face and better to know my God and my home I cry to him daily My God this little is better than all the pleasures of sin My Hopes are better than all the Possessions of this World Thy gracious looks have oft revived me and thy mercies have been unmeasurable to my Soul and Body But O how far short am I of what even Fourty Years ago I hoped sooner to have attained Where is the Peace that passeth Understanding that should keep my Heart and Mind in Christ O where is the seeing the longing the rejoicing and triumphing Faith Where is that pleasant familiarity above that should make a Thought of Christ and Heaven to be sweeter to me than the Thoughts of Friends or Health or all the Prosperity and Pleasure of this World Do those that dwell in God and God in them and have their Hearts and Conversations in Heaven attain to no more clear and satisfying perceptions of that blessed state than I have yet attained Is there no more acquaintance above to be here expected No livelier sense of future joyes No sweeter foretast Nor fuller silencing of doubts and fears I am not so loth to go to a Friend nor to the Bed where I oft spend the Night in restless pains and rolling as I have too often been to come to thee Alas how many of thy Servants are less afraid to go to a Prison than to their God! and had rather be banished to a Land of Strangers than sent to Heaven Lord must I that am called Thy Child and an Heir of Heaven and a Co-heir with Christ have no more acquaintance with my glorified Lord and no more love to Thee that art my portion before I go hence and come before thee Shall I have no more of the heavenly Life and Light and Love Alas I have scarce enough in my Meditations to denominate them truly heavenly Meditations I have scarce enough in a Prayer to make it indeed a heavenly Prayer or in a Sermon to make it a heavenly Sermon And shall I have no more when I come to die Must I go hence so like a stranger to my home Wilt thou take Strangâ—â—â— into Heaven know them as thine that do no better know thee here O my God vouchsafe a Sinner yet more of his Spirit that came down on Earth to call up earthly minds to God and to open Heaven to all Believers O what do I beg for so frequently so earnestly for the sake of my Redeemer as the Spirit of Life and Consolation which may shew me the pleased Face of God and unite all my affections to my glorified Head and draw up this dark and drowsie Soul to love and long to be with thee But alas though these are my daily groans how little yet do I ascend I dare not blame the God of Love He is full and willing I dare not blame my blessed Saviour He hath shewed that he is not backward to do good I dare not accuse the holy Spirit It is his work to sanctifie and comfort Souls If I knew no reason of this my low and dark Estate I must needs conclude that it is somewhat in my self But alas my Conscience wants not matter to satisfie me of the cause Sinful resistance of the Spirit and unthankful neglects of Grace and Glory are undoubtedly the cause But are they not a cause that Mercy can forgive That grace can overcome and may I not yet hope for such a Victory before I die Lord I will lie at thy doors and groan I will pour out my moans before thee I will beg and whatever thou wilt do with me Thou describest the kindness of the Dogs to a Lazarus that lay at a rich Man's Doors in Sores Thou commendest the neighbourly pitty of a Samaritan that took care of a wounded Man Thou condemnest those that will not shew mercy to the poor and needy Thou biddest us Be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful If we see our Brother have need and shut up the Bowels of our compassion from him it is because thy love dwelleth not in us And shall I wait then at thy Doors in vain and go empty away from such a God when I beg but for that which thou hast commanded me to ask and without which I cannot serve thee or come to thee live or die in a habit beseeming a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Hâ—ir of Heaven O give me the wedding Garment without which I shall but dishonour thy bounteous Feast Let me wear a Livery which becometh thy Family even a Child of God! How oft hast thou commanded 〈◊〉 to Rejoice Yea to rejoice with exceeding and unspeakable joy And how fain would I in this obey thee O that I had more faithfully obeyed thee in other preparatory duties in ruling my Senses my Phantasie my Tongue and in diligent using all thy Talents Then I might more easily have obeyed thee in this Thou knowest Lord that Love and Joy are duties that must have more than a Command O bid me do them with an effecting word How can I Rejoice in Death and Darkness When the Bridegroom is absent I must fast and mourn While I look towards Heaven but through the crevises of this dungeon Flesh my Love and Joy will be but answerable to my Light How long is it since I hoped that I had been translated from the Kingdom of Darkness and delivered from the power of the Prince of Darkness and brought into that Light which is the
entrance of the Inheritance of Saints And yet alas Darkness Darkness is still my misery There is Light round about me in thy word and works but darkness is within me And if my Eye be dark the Sun will be no Sun to me Alas my Lord it is noâ— all the Learning in the World no not of Theology that consisteth in the knowledge of Words and Methods which I can take for the satisfactory heavenly Light To know what thou hast written in the Sacred Book is nor enough to make me know my glorified Saviour my Father and my home It must be a Light from Heaven that must shew me Heaven and a Light accompanied with Vital heat that must turn to Love and Joy within me O Let me not have only dreaming knowledge of Words and Signs but quickning Light to shew the Things which these words do signifie to my Mâ—nd and Heart Surely the Faith By which we must live must be a lâ—ving Faith And must reach further than to Words how true soever Can Faith live in the Dark What is it but an effect of thine Illumination What is my Unbelief but the Darkness of my Soul Lord Iesus scatter all these mists Make thy way O thou Son of Righteousness into this benighred mind O send thine Advocate to silence every temptation that is against thy truth and thee and thine Agent to prosecute thy cause against thine Enemies and mine and to be the resident Witness of thy Verity and my Sonship and Salvation Hearing of thee is not satisfactory to me It must be the Presence and Operation of thy Light and Love shed abroad by thy Spirit on my Heart that must quiet and content my Soul I confess with shame that I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am unworthy to have any glimpse or taste of Heaven But so did many that are now entertained and feasted by thy Love in Glory My Lord I know that Heaven is not far from me It is not I believe one Days or Hours journey to a separated Soul How quick is the communion of my Eyes with the Sun that seems far off And couldst thou not shew it me in a moment Is not Faith a seeing Grace It can see the invisible God and the unseen World the new Jerusalem the innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the perfected Just if it be animated by thine influx Without which it can do nothing and is nothing Thou that oft healedst the Blind here in the Flesh didst tell us that it is much more thy work to illuminate Souls It is but forgiving all my sins and removing this film that sin hath gathered and my illuminated Soul will see thy Glory I know that the vail of Flesh must be also rent before I shall see thee with open Face and know my fellow Citizens above as I am known It is not Heaven on Earth that I am begging for But that I may see it from Mount Nebo and have the bunch of Grapes the Pledge and the first Fruits that Faith and Hope which may kindle Love and Desire and make me run my Race in Patience and live and die in the Joy which beseemeth an Heir of Heaven But if my part on Earth must be no greater than yet it is let it make me the wearier of this Dungeon and groan more fervently to be with thee and long for the day when all my longing shall be satisfied and my Soul be filled with thy light and love § 24. And doubtless as I shall love the Angels and Saints in Heaven so I shall some way in subordination to Christ be a Receiver from them Our love will be mutual And which way soever I owe duty I shall expect some answerable return of benefit The Sun shineth upon the Stars as well as on the Earth and the Stars on one another If Angels are greatly useful to me here it 's like they will be much more there where I shall be a more capable receiver It will be no diminution to Christ's honour that he there maketh use of my fellow Creatures to my joy no more than it is here The whole Creation will be still one compaginated frame and the heavenly Society will for ever retain their Relation to each other and their aptitude and disposition to the duties and benefits of those Relations And as we shall be far sitter for them than here we are so shall we have far more comfort in them How gloriously will God shine in the glory of the Blessed How delightful will it be to see their Perfection in Wisdom Holiness Love and Concord What Voices they use or what Communication instead of Voices we shall shortly know But surely there is a blessed harmony of Minds and Wills and Practice All are not equal but all accord to love and praise their glorious God and readily to obey him and perfectly to love each other There is no jarring or discordant Spirit that is out of tune no separation or opposition to each other As God's love in Christ is our full and final happiness so Nature which hath made us sociable teacheth us to desire to be loved of each other but especially by wise and worthy Persons Saints and Angels in Heaven will love incomparably better than our dearest Friends on Earth can do and better than they did themselves when we were on Earth For they will love that best which is best and where there is most of God appearing Else it were not intellectual love And therefore they will love us as much better when we come to Heaven as we shall be better If we go from loving friends on Earth we shall go to them that love us far more The love of these here doth but pitty us in our pains and go weeping with our Carkasses to the Grave But the love of those above will joyfully convoy or welcome out Souls to their triumphing Society All the holy Friends that we thought we had lost that went before us we shall find rejoicing there with Christ And O what a glorious state will be that common uniting and united love If two or three Candles joined together make a greater flame and light what would Ten thousand Stars united do When all the LOVE of Angels and Saints in full Perfection shall be so united as to make ONE LOVE to God that is One and to one another who are there all one in Christ O what a glorious LOVE will that be That LOVE and JOY will be the same thing And that One universal LOVE will be One universal JOY Little know we how great a Mercy it is to be here commanded to love our Neighbours as our selves and much more to be effectually taught of God so to love one another And did we all here live in such unfeigned Love we should be like to Heaven as bearing the Image of the God of Love But alas our Societies here are small our Goodness which is our Amiableness wofully imperfect and mixt with loathsom
sin and discord But there a whole Heaven fulâ— of blessed Spirits will flame for ever in perfect Love to God to Christ and one another Go then go willingly O my Soul Love joineth with LIGHT to draw up thy desires Nature inclineth all things unto Union Even the lifeless Elements have an Aggregative motion by which the parts when violently separated do hastily return to their Natural adhesion Art thou a Lover of Wisdom and wouldst thou not be united to the Wise Art thou a Lover of Holiness and of Love itself and wouldst thou not be united to the Holy who are made of Love Art thou a hater of enmity discord and divisions and a Lover of Unity here on Earth and wouldst thou not be where all the just are One It is not an unnatural Union to thy loss Nothing shall be taken from thee by it Thou shalt receive by it more than thou canst contribute It shall not be forced against thy will It is but a Union of Minds and Wills a perfect Union of Loves Let not natural or sinful selfishness cause thee to think suspiciously or hardly of it For it is thy happiness and end What got the Angels that fell to selfishness from Unity And what got Adam that followed them herein The further any man goeth from UNITY by SELFISHNESS the deeper he falleth into sin and misery from God! And what doth Grace but call us back from sin and selfishness to Gods Unity again Doâ—e not then on this dark divided World Is not thy Body while the parts by a uniting Soul are kept together and make One in a better state than when it is crumbled into lifeless dust And doth not death creep on thee by a gradual dissolution Away then from this sandy incoherent state The further from the Center the further from Unity A Unity indeed there is of all things but it is One heavenly LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE which is the true felicitating Union We dispute here whether the Aggregative Motion of separated parts as in descensu gravium be from a Motive Principle in the part or by the Attraction of the whole or by any external impulse It is like that there is somewhat of all these But sure the greatest cause is like to do most to the effect The body of the Earth hath more power to attract a Cload or Stone than the intrinsick Principle to move it downwards But intrinsick Gravity is also necessary The superior attractive Love and Loveliness must do more to draw up this mind to God than my intrinsick Holiness to move it upward But without this Holiness the Soul would not be capable of feeling that attractive influx Every Grace cometh from God to fit and lead up my Soul to God Faith therefore believeth the heavenly state and Love doth with some Delight desire it and Hope gapeth after it that I may at last attain it They that have pleaâ—ed against Propriety and would have all things common in this World have forgotten that there is a Propriety in our present Egoity and Natural Constitution which rendereth some accidental Propriety necessary to us Every Man hath his own bodily parts and inherent accidents and every Man must have his own Food his own Place Cloathing and Acquisitions his own Children and therefore his own Wife c. But that the greatest Perfection is most for Community as far as Nature is capable of it God would shew us in making the first Receivers of the extraordinary pourings out of his Spirit to sell all and voluntarily make all common none saying This or that is my own which was not done by any constraining Law but by the Law or Power of uniting Love They were first all as of one Heart and Soul Act. 4. 32. Take not then thy inordinate desire of Propriety for thy Health but for thy Sickness Cherish it not and be not afraid to lose it and measure not the heavenly felicity by it Spirits are penetrable They claim not so much as a Propriety of place as Bodies do It is thy weakness and state of Imperfection now which maketh it so desirable to thee that thy House should be Thine and nones but thine thy Land be Thine and nones but Thine thy Cloaths thy Books yea thy knowledge and grace be Thine and Nones but Thine How much more excellent a state were it if we were here capable of it if we could say that all these are as the common Light of the Sun which is mine and every ones as well as mine Why are we so desirous to speak all Languages but that we might understand all men and 〈◊〉 understood of all and so might make our sentiments as common as is possible Whence is it that men are so addicted to talkativeness but that Nature would make all our Thoughts and passions as common aâ— it can And why else are Learned men so desirous to propagate their Learning and Godly men so desirous to make all others wise and godly It seemeth one of the greatest calamities of this life that when a Man hath with the longest and hardest study attained to much knowledge he cannot bequeath it or any part of it to his Heir or any Person when he dieth but every Man must acquire it for himself And when God hath sanctified the Parents they cannot communicate their Holiness to their Children though God promise to bless them on their account Much less can any Man make his Grace or Knowledge common Nature and Grace incline us to desire it but we cannot do it For this end we Talk and Preach and Write for this end we study to be as plain and convincing and moving as we can that we may make our Knowledge and Affections as common to our Hearers and Readers as we can And O what a blessed work should we take Preaching and Writing for if we could make them all know but what we know and love what we are persuading them to love There would then be no need of Schools and Universities A few Hours would do more than they do in an Age. But alas how rare is it for a Father of excellent Learning and Piety to have one Son like himself after all his industry Is not the heavenly communion then desirable where every Man shall have his Own and yet his Own be common to all others My knowledge shall be mine own and other mens as well as mine My goodness shall be my own and theirs My glory and felicity shall be mine and theirs And theirs also shall be mine as well as theirs The Knowledge the Goodness the Glory of all the heavenly Society shall be Mine according to my Capacity Grace is the Seed of such a state which maketh us all one in Christ neither Barbarian nor Scythian Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Bond nor Free by giving us to love our Neighbours as our selves and to love both our Neighbours and our selves for Christ and Christ in all Well might Paul say All things yours But it
Trust and quietly Trust that Infinite Wisdom Love and Power whom I have so long trusted and found so good Nature teacheth Man to love best those Animals that are tame and tractable that trust us and love us that will come to our hands and love our Company that will be familiar with us and follow us be it Horse or Dog Beasts or Birds But those that are wild and live in Woods and fly from the Face of Man are taken to be the Game and Preys of any one that can catch and kill them And shall my foolish Soul thus wildly fly from the Face of God Shall his Children be like the fearful Hare Or like a guilty Cain Or like an unbelieving Sadduce that either believeth not or hopeth not for the forgiveness of sin and the life Everlasting Doth not the Spirit of Adoption incline us to love our Fathers presence and to be loth to be long from home To distrust all Creatures even thy self is not unreasonable but to distrust God hath no just excuse Fly from Sin from Satan from Temptations from the World from sinful Flesh and Idol-self But fly not from him that is Goodness Love and Joy itself Fear thine Enemy but Trust thy Father If thy Heart be reconciled to Him and his Service by the Spirit he is certainly reconciled to thee through Christ And if he be for thee and justifie and love thee who shall be against thee or condemn thee or separate thee from his Love If thy unreconciled will do make thee doubt of his reconciliation it 's time to abhor and lay by thy Enmity Consent and be sure that he consenteth Be willing to be his and in Holiness to serve him and to be united in joyful Glory to him and then be sure that he is willing to accept thee and receive thee to that Glory O dark and sinful Soul how little dost thou know thy Friend thy Self or God if thou canst more easily and quietly trust thy Life thy Soul and Hopes to the will of thy Friend or of thy self if thou hadst power than to the will of God Every Dog would be at home and with his Master much more every ingenuous Child with his Father And tho Enemies distrust us Wife and Children will not do so while they bâ—lieve us just And hath God ever shewed himself either unfaithful or unmerciful to me To thee O Lord as to a faithful Creator I commit my Soul 1 Pet. 4. 19. I know that thou art the faithful God who keepest Covenant and Mercy with them that love thee and keep thy Commandments Deut. 7. 9. Thou art faithful who hast called me to the communion of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 1. 9. Thy faithfulness hath saved me in and from temptation 1 Cor. 10. 13. It hath stablished me and kept me from prevailing evil 2 Thess 3. 3. And if will keep my Spirit Soul and Body to the coming of Christ 1 Thess 5. 23 24. It is in faithfulness that thou hast afflicted me Ps 119. 75. and shall not I trust thee then to save me It is thy faithful Word that all thine Elect shall obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal Glory and if we be dead with him shall live with him and if we suffer we shall also reign with him 2 Tim. 2. 10 11 12. To thee O my Saviour I commit my Soul it is thine own by Redemption it is thine own by Covenant It is marked and Sealed by thy Spirit as thine own and thou hast promised not to lose it Joh. 6. 39. Thou wast made like us thy Brethren that thou mightest be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for our Sins By thy Blood we have boldness to enter into the Holiest even by the new and living consecrated way Cause me to draw near with a sincere Heart in full assurance of Faith by thee that art the High Priest over the House of God For he is faithful that has promised life through thee Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22 23. Thy Name is Faithful and True Rev. 19. 11. and Faithful and True are all thy Promises Rev. 22. 6. 21. 5. Thou hast promised Rest to weary Souls that come to thee Matth. 11. 28. 2 Thess 1. 7. I am weary of suffering and weary of sin weary of my flesh and weary of my darkness and dulness and distance and of this wicked blind unrighteous and confounded World And whither should I look for Rest but home to my heavenly Father and to Thee I am but a bruised Reed but thou wilt not break me I am but a smoaking Flax but thou wilt not quench what thy Grace hath kindled but thou in whose Name the Nations trust wilt bring forth judgment unto Victory Matth. 12. 20 21. The Lord redeemeth the Souls of his Servants and none of them that trust in thee shall be desolate Psa 34. 22. Therefore will I wait on thy Name for it is good and will trust in the Mercy of God for ever Psal 52. 8 9. The Lord is Good a strong-hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him Nah. 1. 7. sinful fear is a snare but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be set on high Prov. 29. 25. Blessed is the Man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the Proud and such as turn aside to lies Psal 40. 4. Thou art my hope O Lord God thou art my trust from my youthâ— By thee have I been holden up from the Womb my praise shall be continually of thee Cast me not off now in the time of Age forsake me not when my strength faileth O God thou hast taught me from my youth and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works Now also when I am old and gray O God forsake me not Psal 17. 5 6 9 17 18. Leave not my Soul destitute for mine Eyes are toward thee my trust is in thee Psa 14. 8. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Even where they that live shall die no more The Sun may cease to shine on Man and the Earth to bear us but God will never cease to be Love nor to be faithful in his Promises Blessed be the Lord who hath commanded me so safe and quietting a duty as to trust him and cast all my cares on him as on one that hath promised to care for me 11. And blessed be God who hath made it my Duty to HOPE for his Salvation HOPE is the Ease yea the life of our Hearts that else would break yea die within us Despair is no small part of Hell God cherisheth Hope as he is the lover of Souls Satan our Enemy cherisheth Despair when his way of blind Presumption faileth As Fear is a foretast of Evil before it is felt so Hope doth anticipate and foretast Salvation before it is
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
by his life Having loved his own to the end he loveth them and without end His Gifts and Calling are without Repentance When Satan and thy Flesh would hide God's love look to Christ and read the golden words of Love in the Sacred Gospel and peruse thy many recorded experiences and remember the convictions which secret and open Mercies have many a time afforded thee But especially draw nearer to the Lord of Love and be not seldom and slight in thy contemplations of his Love and Loveliness Dwell in the Sun-shine and thou wâ—lt know that it is light and warm and comfortable Distance and strangeness cherish thy doubts Acquaint thy self with him and be at peace Yet look up and oft and earnestly look up after thy ascended glorified Head who said Tell my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God! Think where and what he is and what he is now doing for all his own and how humbled abased suffering Love is now Triumphant regnant glorified Love and therefore no less than in all its tender expressions upon Earth As Love is no where perfectly revealed but in Heaven so I can no where so fully discern it as by looking up by Faith to my Father and Saviour which is in Heaven and conversing more believingly with the heavenly Society Had I done this more and better and as I have persuaded others to do it I had lived in more convincing delights of God's Love which would have turned the fears of Death into joyfuller hopes and more earnest desires to be with Christ in the Arms in the World in the life of Love as far better than to be here in a dark a doubting fearing World But O my Father Infinite LOVE though my Arguments be many and strong my Heart is bad and my strength is weakness and I am insufficient to plead the cause of thy Love and Loveliness to my self or others O plead thy own cause and what Heart can resist Let it not be my word only but Thine that thou lovest me even me a Sinner speak it as Christ said to Lazarus Arise If not as thou tellest me that the Sun is warm yet as thou hast told me that my Parents and my dearest Friends did love me and much more powerfully than so Tell it me as thou tellest me that thou hast given me life by the consciousness and works of life That while I can say Thou that knowest all things Knowest that I love Thee it may include therefore I know that I am beloved of thee and therefore come to thee in the confidence of thy Love and long to be nearer in the clearer sight the fuller sense and joyfuller exercise of Love for ever Father into thy Hand I commend my Spirit Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Amen AN APPENDIX A Breviate of the Helps of Faith Hope and Love A Breviate of the proof of Supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity 1 TIM 3. 16. Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory THese are the Creed or Six Articles of the Gospel which the Apostles preached § 1. I. God manifested in the Flesh of Jesus is the first and great Article Believe this and believe all No wonder that believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is so often made in Scripture the description of saving Faith the Title to Baptism and Pardon and Salvation the Evidence of the Spirit c. He that truly and practically believeth that God came in Flesh to Man and that Christ is the Fathers Messenger from Heaven must needs believe that God hath a great value for the Souls of men and for his Church that he despiseth not even our Flesh that his Word is true and fully to be trusted that he who so wonderfully came to Man will certainly take up Man to him Who can doubt of the Immortality of Souls or that Christ will receive the departing Souls of the Faithful to himself who believeth that he took Man's Nature and hath glorified it now in Heaven in union with the Divine Who can ever have low Thoughts of God's love and Mercy who believeth this And who can prostitute his Soul and Flesh to wickedness who firmly believeth that he took the Soul and Flesh of Man to sanctifie and glorifie it § 2. II. The holy Spirit is the Justification of the Truth of Jesus Christ He is Christ's Advocate and Witness to the World He proveth the Gospel by these five ways of Evidence I. By all the Prophesies Types and Promises of Christ in the Old Testament before Christs coming II. By the Inherent impress of God's Image on the Person and Doctrine of Christ VVhich Propria luce sheweth itself to be Divine III. By the concomitant Miracles of Christ Read the History of the Gospel for this use and observe each History IV. By the subsequent gift of the Spirit to the Apostles and other Christians by Languages wonders and multitudes of Miracles to convince the VVorld V. By the undeniable and excellent work of Sanctification on all true Believers through all the VVorld in all generations to this day These five are the Spirits VVitness which fully justifieth the certain Truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God § 3. Quest But how are we sure who our selves never saw the Person Miracles Resurrection Ascension of Christ that the History of them is true Answ 1. We may be sure that the Spectators were not deceived II. And that they did not deceive them to whom they reported it III. And that we are not deceived by any miscarriage in the historical Tradition to us § 4. I. It was not possible that men that were not mad that had Eyes and Ears could for three Years and a half believe that they saw the Lame the Blind the Deaf and all Diseases healed the Dead raised Thousands miraculously fed c. and this among crouds of People that still followed Christ if the things had not been true One Man's Senses may be deceived at some one instance by some deceitful accident But that the Eyes and Ears of Multitudes should be so oft deceived many years in the open Light is as much as to say No Man knoweth any thing that he seeth and heareth § 5. II. That the Disciples who received the Apostles and Evangelists report of Christ were not deceived by the Reporters is most evident For 1. They received it not by hearsay at the second hand but from the Eye and Ear Witnesses themselves who must needs know what they said 2. They heard this report from Men of the same Time and Age and Countrey where it was easy to examine the case and confute it had it been false 3. The Apostles appealed to crouds and Thousands of Witnesses as to many of Christ's Miracles who would have made it odious had it not been
constantly used this same Scripture publickly and privately as the Word of God so that it could not be easily altered 2. They all knew that a Curse is pronounced against every one that addeth or diminisheth Which must needs possess them with fear of corrupting it 3. They took it to be the Charter of their own Salvation 4. The work of the Ministers was to expound it and preserve it against Corrupters 5. These Ministers and Churches were over much of the World and could not agree together to corrupt it And if some did it all the rest would soon detect it 6. Heresies and Quarrels were quickly too rife among them So that cross Interests and Animosities would soon have fallen upon the Corrupters 7. Some Hereticks made some adding and corrupting attempts which the Church presently condemned and turned it to their shame 8. In all the Disputations then managed the same Scriptures were appealed to 9. The Translations into various Languages shew that the Books were the same without any Momentous difference 10. To this Day when Sin and Tyranny have torn the Church into many Factions they all receive the same Canonical Scriptures except that some receive more Apocryphal Writings which yet make no alteration at all of our Gospel Faith Quest But doth not this laying so much on Tradition favour Popery Answ No The difference is here 1. Papists are for Tradition as a supplement to the Scripture as if this were but part of the VVord of God and 2. They plead for a peculiar power of being the Keepers and Judges of that supplemental Tradition which other Churches know nothing of But we 1. Plead for the Infallible Practical Tradition of the Essentials of Christianity by itself and in the Creed c. which is less than the Scripture 2. And next for the certain Tradition of the Scripture itself uncorrupted in all that Faith depends on which Scripture is the compleat Record of God's VVill and Law containing more than Essentials and Integrals So much of God 1. Manifested in the Flesh 2. Justified in the Spirit III. He was seen of Angels that is Angels were the Beholding Witnessing and admiring Servants of this great Mystery God manifested in the Flesh 1. Angels preached Christ at his Incarnation 2. Angels ministred to Christ in his Temptations Agonies c. 3. Angels were Preachers and VVitnesses of his Resurrection 4. Angels rowled away the Stone and terrified the Souldiers 5. Angels preached his return to them that gazed up at his Ascension 6. Angels opened the Prison Doors and set the imprisoned Apostles free once and Peter alone afterwards 7. Angels rejoice in Heaven at the Conversion of all that Christ brings home 8. Angels disdain not to be the Guardians of the least of Christs Disciples 9. Angels are protecting Officers over Churches and Kingdoms 10. Angels have preached to Apostles and been the Messengers of their Revelations 11. Angels have been the Instruments of Miracles and of destroying the Churches Enemies 12. Angels will ministerially convoy departed Souls to Christ 13. Angels will gloriously attend Christ at his return and sever the Wicked from the Just 14. Angels will be our Companions in the heavenly Chore for ever Therefore 1. We should love Angels 2. And be thankful to God for them 3. And think the more comfortably of Heaven for their Society 4. And Pray for the benefit of their Ministry on Earth especially in all our dangers IV. The Fourth Article is Preached to the Gentiles The Jews having the Covenant of Peculiarity were proud of their Priviledge even while they unworthily abused it And despised the rest of the World and would not so much as eat with them as if they had been God's only People And indeed the rest of the World was so corrupted that we find no one Nation that as such renounced Idolatry and was devoted in Covenant to the true God alone as the Jews were Now that God should be manifested in Flesh to reconcile the Heathen World to himself and extend greater Priviledges indefinitely to all Nations than ever the Jews had in their state of Peculiarity this was a Mystery of Godliness which the Jews did hardly yield belief to And that which aggravateth this wonder is 1. That the Gentile World was drowned in all Idolatry and Unnatural Wickedness such as Paul describeth Rom. 1. 2. Eph. 2. 3. 18 c. 2. And that God should suddenly and freely send them the Message of reconciliation and be found of them that sought him not is that wonder which obligeth us Gentiles who once lived as without God in the World to be thankful to him V. The Fifth Article is Believed on in the World The effect of the Gospel on the Souls of men in their Effectual Faith is one of the Evidences of the Christian Truth I told you before that the Fifth Witness of the Spirit on the Souls of all Believers I reserved to be here mentioned Here 1. It is a part of the wonder that Christ should be believed on in the World even with a common Faith For 1. To believe a mean Man to be the Mediator between God and Man and the Saviour of the World yea one that was Crucified as a Malefactor this must needs be a difficult thing 2. The very Jewish Nation was as contemptible to the Romans being one of their poorest subdued Provinces as the Gentiles were to the Jews And Christ was by Birth a Jew 3. The Greatness of the Roman Empire then ruling over much of the World was such that by Preaching and not by VVar to bring them to be Subjects to a Crucified Jew was a marvellous work and so to bring the Conquered Nations to become Christ's Voluntary Subjects 4. The Roman and Greek Learning was then at the height of its Perfection And the Christians were despised by them as unlearned Barbarians And that Learning Arts and Empire should all submit to such a King and Saviour was certainly a work of Supernatural Power Christ did not levy Armies to overcome the Nations nor did Victory move them but the Victors and Lords of the VVorld and these no Fools but the Masters of the greatest humane VVisdom were Conquered by the Gospel preached by a sort of inferior men 5. And this Gospel which Conquered them was still opposed by them and the Christians persecuted as a sort of hated men till it overcame the Persecutors It 's true that Heathenism hath the greatest part of the VVorld and Mahometans have as much as Christians But one sort got it by the Sword and the other by the Doctrine and Holy lives of a few unarmed inferiour men II. But I use this of the Extent of Faith but as a probable and not a cogent Argument But the main Argument is from the Sanctifying effect of Faith I know it will be said that many or most Christians are as bad as other men But it 's one thing to be of a profest Religion because it is the Religion of the
King and Countrey and therefore maketh for men's worldly advantage and they hear little said againft it This is the case of most in the World Christians Mahometans and Heathens And it 's another to be a serious Believer who upon trial and consideration chooseth Christianity And it is notorious that such serious Christians are all Holy Sober and Just and so greatly differing from the corrupted World as fully proveth that God owneth that Gospel which he maketh so effectual to so great a change Here consider 1. What that change is 2. How hard and great a work it is 3. That it is certainly a work of God 4. That the Gospel is the means by which God doth it 1. The nature of this Holy work on all serious sincere Christians is It sets all their Hopes and Hearts on the promised Glory of the Life to come and turns the very nature of their Wills into the predominant Love of God and Man and of Heaven and Holiness It mortifieth all fleshly Lusts and Subjects Sense to Reason and Faith the Body to the Soul and all to God It sets a Mans Heart on the sincere study of doing all the good he can in the World to Friends Neighbours and Enemies especially and most publick good to live soberly righteously and godly is his delight Sin is his chief hatred and nothing more grievous to him than that he cannot reach to greater Perfection in Faith Hope Obedience Patience and in heavenly Love and Joy It causeth a Man to contemn Wealth Honour and fleshly Pleasure and Life in comparison of God's Love and Life everlasting this change God's Spirit worketh on all true Believers Those that are ungodly have but the Name of Christians they never well understood what Christianity is nor ever received it by a true belief But all that understandingly and seriously believe in Jesus Christ are sanctified by his Spirit II. And this is a greater work than Miracles in excellency and difficulty 1. It is the very Health of the Souls It is Salvation itself it maketh Man in his measure like to God and is his Image It is a heavenly nature and is the earnest and preparation for Heaven It delivereth Man from the greatest evil on Earth and giveth him the firmest peace and joy in his peace with God the pardon of his Sins and the hope of everlasting Glory 2. It 's easy to discern how great a work this is by the deep roots of all the contrary Vices in the corrupted Nature of Man Experience assureth us that Man by vitiated Nature is proud and ignorant and savoureth little but the things of the Flesh and worldly Interest and is a Slave to his Appetite and Lust His bodily Prosperity is all that really hath his Heart Yea if God restrain them not all wicked men are bitter Enemies to all that are truly wise and holy even among Heathens and Insidels if any be but better than the rest the wicked are their deadly Enemies There is so visible an Enmity between Godliness and Wickedness the Seed of Christ and of the Serpent in the World as is a great confirmation of the Scripture which describeth it And it is not the Name of Christians that altereth mens Nature We here that have Peace from all the World are under such implacable hatred of wicked men that call themselves Christians that so many Bears or Wolves would be less hurtful to us 3. And the universal spreading of this wickedness over all the Earth in all Ages and Nations doth tell us how great a work it is to cure it 4. And so doth the frustration of all other means till the Spirit of God do it by setting home the Gospel upon the Heart Children will grow up in VVickedness against all the Counsel Love Correction of their Parents no VVords no Reason will prevail with them more than with drunken men or beasts 5. VVe find it a very hard thing to cure a Man of some one rooted sin much more of all 6. The common misery of the VVorld proclaimeth Man's Vice and the difficulty of the cure How else comes the VVorld to live in self-seeking falshood fraud malice and in bloody VVars worsâ— than VVolves and Serpents against each other 7. Lastly VVhere God cureth this by true believing it 's done with the pangs of sharp repentance and a great conflict before God's Spirit overcometh III. It is evident then that this Sanctification of Souls is an eminent work of God himself 1. In that it is yet done on so many of his chosen ones in all Ages and Places 2. In that as hard as it is he usually turneth the Hearts of Sinners to himself in a very little time Somtimes by one Sermon 3. It is a work that none can do but God who hath the power of Souls 4. It is a work so good that it beareth God's own Image It is but the writing of his Law and Gospel on mens Hearts None is so much for it as God Satan apparently fighteth against it with all the power he can raise in the VVorld Mark it and you will find that most of the stir that there is in the VVorld by false Teachers and Tyrants and private Malice is but Satans VVars against Faith and Holiness and Love Certainly it is not he that promoteth them IV. And it is evident in Experience that it is the Gospel of Christ which God useth and blesseth to do this great sanctifying work on Souls Among Christians none are converted by any other means And God would not bless a word of falshood and deceit to such great and excellent effects All that are made holy and heavenly and truly conscionable among us are made so by Christ's Gospel And all the wicked are Enemies to the serious practice of it or Rebels that despise it The effects daily prove that God himself owneth it as his Word If you say There are as good men among the Heathens and Mahometans as holy heavenly and just I answer It is none of my business to depretiate other men But I can say 1. That I have lived above Sixty seven years and I never knew one serious holy Person in England that was made such by the Writings of Heathens or Mahometans 2. Many excellent things are in the Writings of some Heathens Plato Cicero Hierocles Plutarch Antonine Epictetus and many others But I miss in them the expressions of that holy and heavenly frame of mind and life and that Victory over the Flesh and World which Christianity containeth 3. Christ is like the Sun whose Beams give some light before it is seen its self at its rising and after it is set The Light of Jews and Heathens was as the dawning of the Day before Sun rising And the light among the Mahometans is like the Light of the Sun which it leaveth when it is set Doubtless the same God who hath used Mahometans to be his dreadful Scourge to wicked Christians who abused the Gospel by a false Profession
hath also used them to do abundance of good against Idolatry in the Heathen World Where-ever they come Idolatry is destroyed Yea the corrupt Christians Greeks and specially Papists that worship Images Angels and Bread are rebuked and condemned justly by Mahometans But O that they who have Conquered so far by the Sword were Conquered by the Sacred Word of Truth and truly understood the Mystery of Redemption and the Doctrin of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Obj. But they think us Idolaters for saying that Christ is God and believing the Trinity I. As to the Trinity it is no contradiction that one Fire or Sun should have Essentially a Virtue or Power to Move Light and Heat Nor that one Soul should have a power of Vegetation Sense and Reason Nor as Rational to have a peculiar power of Vitality Intellection and Free-will Why then should the Trinity seem incredidible II. We do not believe that the Godhead hath any change or is made Flesh or the Manhood made God but that the Godhead is incomprehensibly united to the humane Nature by assumption so as he is united to no other Creature by and for those peculiar Operations on the humanity of Christ which make him our Redeemer They that well think that God is All in All things more than a Soul to all the World and as near to us as our Souls to our Bodies in whom we live and move and have our being will find that it is more difficult to apprehend how God is further from any Soul than that he is so much One with Christ Save that different Operations of God on his Creatures are apparent to us By all this we see that every sanctified Christian hath the certain Witness in himself that Christ is true He is truly a Physician that healeth and a Saviour that saveth all that seriously believe and obey him The Spirit of God in a New and Holy and Heavenly Nature of Spiritual Life and Light and Love is the Witness VI. The Sixth Article in my Text is Received up into Glory That Christ after Forty Days continuance on Earth was taken up into Heaven in the sight of his Disciples is a Matter of Fact of which we have all the forementioned infallible proof which I must not here again repeat And 1. If Christ were not glorified now in Heaven he could not send down his Spirit with his Word on Earth nor have enabled the first Witnesses to speak with all Tongues and heal the Sick and raise the Dead and do all the Miracles which they did A dead Man cannot send down the Holy Spirit in likeness of Firy cloven Tongues nor enable Thousands to do such VVorks nor could he do what is done on the Souls of serious Believers in all Ages and Nations to this Day He is sure alive that makes men live and in Heaven that draws up Hearts to Heaven 2. And this is our Hope and Joy Heaven and Earth are in his Power The Suffering and VVork which he performed for us on Earth was short but his heavenly Intercession and Reign is Everlasting Guilty Souls can have no immediate access to God All is by a Mediator All our receivings from God are by him And all our services are returned by him and accepted for his sake And as he is the Mediator between his Father and us his Spirit interceedeth between him and us By his Spirit he giveth us Holy desires and every Grace and by his Spirit we exercise them in returns to him And our glorified Saviour hath Satan and all our Enemies in his Power Life and Death are at his command All Judgment is committed to him He that hath redeemed us is preparing us for Heaven and it for us and receiveth our departing Souls to his own Joy and Glory He hath promised us that we shall be with him where he is and shall see his Glory He that is our Saviour will be our Judge He will come with Thousands of his Angels to the confusion of wicked Unbelievers and to be glorified in his Saints He will make a New Heaven and a New Earth in which Righteousness shall dwell Angels and Glorified Saints shall with Christ our Head make one City of God or holy Society and Chore in perfect Love and Joy to praise the blessed God for ever I. The differences between this World and that which I am going to I. THis World is God's Footstool That is his Throne II. Here are his Works of Inferiour Nature and of Grace There he shineth forth in Perfect Glory III. Here is gross Receptive Matter moved by Invisible Powers There are the noblest efficient communicative Powers moving all IV. This is the Inferiour subject Governed World That is the Superiour Regent World V. This is a World of Trial where the Soul is his that can win its consent That is a World where the Will is perfectly determined and fixed VI. Satan winning mens Consent hath here a large Dominion of Fools There he is cast out and hath no Possession VII Here he is a 〈◊〉 and Troubler of the Best There he hath neither Power to Tempt or Trouble VIII This World is as the dark Womb where we are regenerated That is the World of Glorious Light into which we are born IX Here we dwell on a World of sordid Earth There we shall dwell in a World of Celestial Light and Glory X. Here we dwell in a troublesom tempting perishing Body There we are delivered from this burden and prison into glorious liberty XI Here we are under a troublesom Cure of our Maladies There we are perfectly healed rejoicing in our Physicians praise XII Here we are using the Means in weariness and hope There we obtain the end in full fruition XIII Here sin maketh us loathsom to our selves and our own annoiance There we shall love God in our selves and our Perfected selves in God XIV Here all our Duties are defiled with sinful imperfection There perfect Souls will perfectly love and praise their God XV. Here Satans temptations are a continual danger and molestation There perfect Victory hath ended our temptations XVI Here still there is a remnant of the Curse and Punishment of sin Pardon and Deliverance are perfected there XVII Repenting Shame Sorrow and Fear are here part of my necessary work There all the troublesom part is past and utterly excluded XVIII Here we see darkly as in a Glass the Invisible World of Spirits There we shall see them as Face to Face XIX Here Faith alas too weak must serve instead of sight There presence and sight suspend the use of such believing XX. Desire and Hope are here our very Life VVork But there it will be full felicity in fruition XXI Our Hopes are here oft mixt with grievous doubts and fears But there full possession ends them all XXII Our holy Affections are here corrupted with Carnal mixtures But there all are purely Holy and Divine XXIII The coldness of our Divine Love is here our sin and
his Children In all our afflictions he is said to be afflicted to signifie that he afflicts not willingingly or without our provocation Justice is good and holiness is good and it 's good for us to repent and be weaned from the Flesh and World And all good must be loved and the means as such Sharp Heart-breaking Sermons are unpleasing to Nature and yet to be loved for their use And afflictions are God's powerful Sermons The proud and hardened are forced to hear them who scorn and prosecute Preachers for speaking the same things And shall Believers under sufferings be untaught Words are but Words but stripes go by forcible sense unto the Heart Obedient submission to the greatest pains is a serious acknowledgement of God's Dominion and of his Wisdom and Love and the certain hopes of a better life Impatience hath in it somwhat of Atheism or Blasphemy God is not duely acknowledged and honoured Job's Wife would have had him thus purposly provoke God to end his misery by Death As if she had said Speak no more well of him by whom thou sufferest so much nor honour a God that will not help thee But Patience saith Mic. 7. 7. I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my Salvation my God will hear me Impatience sheweth a misunderstanding of God's dealing with the afflicted but patience yieldeth because it understandeth whence all comes and what will be the fruit and end A Man that is let Blood for his life is not impatient with the Chyrurgion but a Beast will strive and a Swine or Child will cry Our burdens are heavy enough of themselves Impatience maketh them heavier and is more painful than the thing which we suffer Some have gone mad with crosses which oft to another would have been light Patience is our cordial and nepenthes yea the Health of the Soul by which it is able to bear its infirmities In our patience we possess our Souls Luk. 21. 19. whatever else we lose we lose not our selves He that keepeth his Faith and Hope and Love by patience keepeth his Soul But the impatient lose themselves as if their other losses were not enough A poor Man singeth that gets his living only by his Day-labour When a Lord or Knight would be tormented with sorrow if he were reduced to his degree Striving under our yoak and burden maketh it Gall the more And we cannot so hopefully or comfortably pray for deliverance from the pain which we make our selves as from that which God layeth on us Though also there we must pray for the Grace that must save us from our own impatience Patience preventeth many sins which impatience causeth Hard thoughts of God if not hard and unseemly Words Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly Impatience tempteth men to think that Piety and Prayer are in vain and to condemn the Generatition of the Just and to leave off Duty and say Why should I wait on God any longer yea and to venture on false and sinful means in hopes of deliverance and ease Were it to men we have much to allay our impatience But against God impatience hath no just excuse Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness can do nothing that deserveth blame We have God's Promise that All things shall work together for our good And is he not to be trusted Or is the means of our good to be accused Impatience is unseemly for them that believe that heavenly Rest and Glory are at hand where all their pains and sorrows will end Were a Man on the Rack and were sure to have all that he desired after it he would the more easily endure it Why else did the Martyrs so patiently suffer It 's incongruous to complain of any thing that brings a Man to Heaven Christ was himself Innocent and yet accused not God for his sufferings But we suffer justly for our faults and it 's so much less than they deserve that the sins which we suffer most for are said to be forgiven us in that the everlasting punishment is forgiven Should we so often sinfully please the Flesh and yet must it not smart Shall we so often grieve the Spirit of God and not be grieved Shall we lose our time neglect our duty forget our home fall in love with the World and yield to temptations and defile our Souls with filth and vanity and must not correction tell us of our sinful folly If we suffer for our faults and bear it patiently it is not thanks worthy 1 Pet. 2. 20. Our merciful Father doth use to shame us for our impatience by the blessed end of our Afflictions The End that God made with Job shewed the reasonableness of his Patience When our afflictions are over do not all Believers see cause of thankfulness for them and say It is good for me that I was afflicted The pain is past and the benefit remaineth And if all that 's past was Mercy to us why should we much fear that which is to come Heaven will end all and shame impatience for ever Our patience is much of our perseverance What a deal of labour do those impatient men lose that learn and pray and are somwhat Religious and have not patience at the last assault to bear the trial but fail when they seemed to be near the Crown Hold out then poor desponding Soul Lift up the Hands which hang down and the feeble Knees and run with patience the Race which is set before thee looking to Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross God will not deceive thy hopes Sin hath brought pain and death on Man but Christ hath sanctified it and is the Lord of Life Yet a little while and the heavenly Possession shall turn thy sorrows into everlasting Joy and thy moans and groans into thanks and praise and there shall be no more sickness pains or death O foolish unbelieving Hearts that cry out of suffering and fear deliverance that would fain be free from all affliction and yet fly from the only state of freedom That are impatient under their calamity and yet afraid of passing to the only rest § 12. But it is neither Pain alone nor Death alone that will sufficiently try our strength and exercise our Faith and Patience It must be Great Pain and often Long in order to a certain or expected Death These two conjunct were the Case of Christ The torment of his Agony Scourging Crucifying Piercing and Desertion and the certainty of Death that followed Great pain with hopes of recovery and ease may be born even by a worldly Man Because there is still the worldly hope of better and so there is no denial of All while Life it self is not denied We must receive the Sentence of Death in our selves if we will find that we trust in God alone and trust him as one that raiseth the Dead that is for another and better life As long as a Man hath any hope of life
It is with each others Souls in the Body that we converse together on Earth And it is not sluggish but lively Faith and fervent desire that must converse in Heaven with Moses and Elias and our living Head § 23. But how did Peter know Moses and Elias whom he had never seen before Perhaps glorified Saints do bear each one his notifying Signature and need not names and sound of words to make them known Perhaps Christ told the Disciples who they were that talked with him Perhaps he made them know it by Inspiration as Prophets have their knowledge Any of these ways God could notifie them It 〈◊〉 not needful that we know which of them it was But that they were known is certain We shall be no Strangers to any Saints in Heaven and therefore not to our old acquaintance Whether we shall have any greater love to them or delight in them for old acquaintance sake or because they were instruments of our good on Earth I know not But I know that our love to them with whom we had Holy comfort on Earth may well render Heaven more familiar to us now and more suitable to our desires O how great a number of my godly Friends are there They are so many that I cannot make a Catalogue of their Names but the Memory of abundance of them doth delight me And when we meet there we shall be far better known to each other then we were to the most intimate on Earth O let Christians now so converse together as remembring that they must meet in Heaven where all that was secret will be brought to light If we now put on any Vizor and seem better than we are if we hide any sin or base corruption if we by fraud or falshood deceive our Friends all this will be opened when we meet in Heaven It is a daily grief and shame to my Soul to think of the sins that I have committed against some that are now in Heaven which I either excused extenuated or hid And to think how much evil they will know of me there which on Earth they knew not by me But God who pardoneth them will cause his Servants there to forgive each other but the detected sin for all that will be an odious shameful thing Lying and Hypocrisie are there no cloak but an aggravation of the shame If we cannot confess and take shame to our selves by repentance upon Earth how shall we appear in the open light and see the Faces of those whom we wronged What diminution it will make of our joy I know not but it must needs be a dishonour to have been false to God or Man And especially when we meet where sin is perfectly hated to think how we either sinned together or that we tempted and ensnared one another in any sin how it will affect us then I do not fully know but it is now to me a far greater grief to think of any in Heaven whom I tempted or wronged than it was while they lived with me on Earth And I think there is somwhat of this Nature common to good and bad Even the Consciences of wicked men do haunt them for notable injuries to others especially concealed ones and especially for persecuting the Servants of God when they are dead more than while they lived In so much that though I doubt not of real Apparitions I am ready to think that some that say they are haunted by the sight and the voice of such as seem to them to be deceased Persons are rather haunted by their own Consciences which strongly represent those Persons to their imaginations But on the other side it is a great delight to me to think of the good which I received from many that are now in Heaven Of the profitable Sermons which I heard from some and the profitable conversation which I had with others How oft we sweetly consulted together of the things which concern everlasting life How many days in publick and private we spent in preparation and in some prospect of the Blessedness which now they enjoy And it is not a small Mercy to me that I can think of Multitudes now in Heaven of whose Conversion and Salvation God hath made my weak endeavours a prosperous means O what a Mercy is it to think on that while I am yet compassed with temptations and languishing in weakness and groaning in pain and worst of all burdened with a dark and sinful Soul so many are past all this with Christ by means of any help which he sent them by my labours It hath oft humbled me greatly to read in the lives of such men as John Janeway and Joseph Allen how much of their proficiency they ascribed to my Writings and how far they over-went me and left me quite behind them in Holy delights and praises of God! But how much more am I below a Multitude now in Heaven who called me Father here on Earth And if here I must rejoice with them that rejoice as well as mourn with them that mourn why should I not much more rejoice with all the blessed Society above And more familiarly with my old Acquaintance Pupils and dear Friends My Love should be most to the best and therefore more to them than to any other of my Friends And therefore my Union with them being closer and their Felicity far greater I should think with more Joy of them than of any left behind They are safe in the Harbour past all our dangerous storms and waves And though they know or will know more of my sins than they did on Earth and hate them more yet they that feel the comfort of the Pardon of their own will imitate God in pardoning me and rejoice in God's forgiveness of me Though their vile Bodies lie like common dust how much better do they now know the love of God the Mysteries of Grace the heavenly Glory the state of Spirits in the City of God than I do who was wont to preach it to them God that sent down Moses and Elias to shew that Saints in Heaven and on Earth have communnion will bring me and my Friends now in Heaven together again into a far sweeter Communion than ever we had here § 24. It is no great wonder that Peter should be transported with this glorious sight and greatly delighted with this heavenly Communion and say Master it is good for us to be here Would not a sight a glimpse of Heaven have transported any Holy Soul Yea even those that now lie in tears and fears and are overwhelmed with doubts and troubles When they are groping after God and groaning on their Knees because they feel more of his frowns than of his love if then they had such a sight as this what a change would it make upon them Perhaps you 'll say that the doubt of their own sincerity might still deprive them of the Joy No This sight would banish doubts and troubles It is a communication of Love
his saving Grace nor the presence of his Spirit as oft as it loseth heavenly delight Desire sheweth Love to him and to his Holiness And he never forsaketh those that love him As long as the Soul breatheth after Christ and after more communion with God and conscious of its imperfection would fain be perfect and resolveth to continue waiting for increase of Faith and Holiness in the use of the means which Christ hath appointed it is not forsaken Christ by his Spirit dwelleth and worketh in that Soul It may enter into a Cloud and Christ may be unseen and seem quite lost but the Cloud will vanish and he will appear and he will first find us that we may seek and find him If he appear to us but as in his humiliation and as crucified and thereby humble us and crucifie to us the World and the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof and cause us but to seek first his Kingdom and Righteousness he will raise us higher and shew us his Glory when Grace and Conquest and Perseverance have prepared us We are in a cloudy World and Body and our sins are yet a thicker Cloud between God's glorious Face and us But as God is God and Heaven is Heaven so Christ is Christ and Grace is Grace when we see it not but fear that we are undone and entring into outer darkness And at Sun rising all our darkness all our doubts fears will vanish § 32. Luke 9. 15. There came a Voice out of the Cloud This is my beloved Son hear him Had I heard such a Testimony from Heaven would it not have set my Faith above all doubts and unbelief For the Voice that thus owned Christ and his Word might embolden me fully to trust all his Promises as it bindeth me to obey his Precepts God's Love is effective and communicative and as his Life and Light cause Life and Light so his Love causeth Love and Christ that is called his Beloved Son is likest him in Love None loveth us so much as God our Father and his Beloved Son who is also as God Essential Love And shall I think with cold or little Love of such a God and such a Saviour It is as unreasonable to fly from God or Christ as fearing that he wanteth Love to a capable Soul as to fly from the Sun as wanting heat or light O what an unruly froward thing is the corrupted Soul of Man When we think of God's judgment and how we are in his hands as to all our hopes for Soul Body we fear and are uncomfortable lest he have not so much Love and Mercy as should cause us confidently to trust him We could trust some Friends with Life and Soul were we in their power but infinite love itself and a loving Saviour we can hardly trust so far as to quiet us in Pain or Death And yet when Christ to cure this distrust hath manifested his Love by the greatest Miracles that ever God shewed to mortal men even by Christ's Incarnation his Life his Works his Death Resurrection Intercession and the advancement of humane Nature in him above Angels the greatness of this Incomprehensible Love occasioneth the difficulty of our believing it as if it were too great and wonderful to be credible Thus dark and guilty Sinners hardly believe our Fathers Love whether it be exprest by ordinary or by the most wonderful effects § 33. As Christ is called the Son of God so also are all his Members We have so far the same title that we might partake of the same comforts He is God's only Son by Eternal Generation and the hypostatical union upon his miraculous conception But through him we are Sons by Regeneration and Adoption And shall not the love of such a Father be trusted and the presence and pleasing of such a Father be desired If Manoah's Wife could say If he would have killed us Re would not have accepted a Sacrifice of us I may say If he would have damned me or forsaken my departing Soul he would not have Adopted me nor made and called me his Son Christ was made his Incarnate Son that we might be made his Adopted Sons And we are made his Adopted Sons for the sake and by the Grace of Christ his Natural Son § 34. The Command Hear him is Relative as to Moses and Elias 1. Hear him whom the Law and the Prophets typified and foretold and were his Servants and Preparatory Instructors to lead us to him 2. Hear him before Moses and the Prophets where his Coming and Covenant abrogateth the Law of Moses and as a greater Light he obscureth the less He hath revealed more than they revealed and the same more clearly Life and Immortality is more fully brought to light by him His Gospel is as the Heart of the Holy Bible We use the Old Testament Books especially as the Witnesses of Christ § 35. And whom should we hear so willingly so obediently as Christ Abraham sent not Dives's Brethren to the King or to the High-priest to know what Religion he should choose or what he should do to escape Hell torments But it was Moses and the Prophets that they must hear But God from Heaven hath sent us yet a better Teacher and commanded us to hear Him Moses was faithful in God's House as a Servant but Christ as a Son His Authority is above Kings and High-priests and they have no Power now but from him and therefore none against him or his Laws All commands are null to Conscience which contradict him The examples in Da. 3. 6. and of the Apostles tell us whether God or Man should be first obeyed Therefore it is that the Bible is more necâ—ssary to be searcht and learned than the Statute Book or Canons Were Man to be heard before Christ or against him or as necessarily as he why have we not Law Preachers every Lord's day to expound the Statutes and Canons to all the People And why are they not Catechized out of the Book of Canons or Law as well as out of the Bible And sure if we must hear Christ and his Gospel before Priests or Princes or before our dearest friends much more before our fleshly Lusts and Appetites and before a profane and foolish Scorner and before the temptations of the Devil O had we heard Christ warning us when we hearkned to the Tempter and to the Flesh how safely had we lived and how comfortably might we have died § 36. But this word Hear him is as comfortable as obligatory Hear him Sinner when he calls thee to repent and turn to God Hear him when he calleth thee to himself to take him for thy Lord and Saviour to believe and trust him for Pardon and Salvation Hear him he when calleth Come to me all ye that are weaty and heavy laden Ho every every one that thirsteth come whoever will let him drink of the Water of Life freely Hear him when he commandeth and hear
all the rest particularly promised And we know in general that we have a heavenly City and Inheritance and shall see God and be with Christ in everlasting Happiness Loving and Praising God with Joy in the perfected glorious Church of Christ All this therefore we must explicitely believe But it 's little that we know distinctly of the consistence and operations of Spirits and separated Souls as to a formal or modal conception a great deal about the place state and mode their acting and fruition is dark to us but none of it is dark to Christ Here therefore an implicite Trust should not only bound and stop our selfish and over bold enquiries but also quiet and comfort the Soul as well as if our selves knew all O my Soul abhor and mortifie thy selfish Trust and unbelieving thirst to have that knowledge of Good and Evil thy self which is the Prerogative of thy Lord and Saviour This was the sin that first defiled humane Nature and brought calamity on the World God hath set thee enough to learn know that and thou knowest enough If more were possible it would be a perplexity and a snare and he that encreaseth such knowledge would encrease sorrow But when it is both unprofitable and impossible what a sin and folly is it to wast our time and tire and deceive our Minds in long and troublesom searches after it and then disquietly to murmur at God and the Holy Scripture and die with sad distrustful fears because we attain it not When all this while we should have understood that this part of knowledg belongs to Christ and the heavenly Society and not to sinful Mortals here and that we have without it as much as may cause us to live and die in Holiness Safety Peace and Joy if we can but Trust him who knoweth for us Christ perfectly knoweth what Spirits are and how they act and whether they have any corporeal Organ or Vehicle or none and what 's the difference between Henoch and Elias and those that left their Bodies here and what a Resurrection will add to Souls and how it will be wrought and when and what is meant by the Thousand year previous Reign and who they be that shall dwell in the New Earth and how it will be renewed All the dark passages of Scripture and Providence he can perfectly resolve He knoweth why God leaveth the far greatest part of the World in Satan's slavery darkness and wickedness and chooseth so few to real Holiness And why he maketh not men such as he commandeth them to be and why he leaveth serious Christians to so much weakness error scandal and division These and all other difficulties are fully known to Christ And it is not the Child but the Father that must know what food and cloathing he should have and the Physician that must know what are the ingredients of his Medicines and why Lord open my Eyes then to see what thou hast revealed and help me willingly to shut them to the rest and to believe and trust in Thee for both Not to stagger at thy sealed Promises nor selfishly to desire particular knowledge which belongs not to me as if I could trust my self and my own knowledge and not Thine Lord teach me to follow Thee even in the dark as quietly and confidently as in the Light having the general Light of thy Promise of Felicity I knew not the Mystery of thy Conception Incarnation or the way of the workings of thy Spirit on Souls No wonder if much of the Resurrection and unseen World be above my reach much more that thy Infinite Majesty is Incomprehensible to me How little do the Bruits that see me know of my thoughts or me I have no adequate knowledge of any one thing in the World but somewhat of it is unknown O blessed be that Love and Grace that hath given me a glorified Head in Heaven to know all for me which I know not Hear and Trust Him living and departing O my Soul who hath told thee that we shall be with him where he is and shall behold his Glory and that a Crown of Salvation is laid up for us and we shall Reign with him when we have conquered and suffered with him and hath bid us live in joyful Hope of our exceeding eternal heavenly Reward and at our Death to commend our Spirits into his hand Receive us Lord according to thy Promises Amen SHORT MEDITATIONS ON ROM 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad God's Love on the Heart by the Holy Ghost EXperience of the want of this Effusion of God's Love and some small tast of its Sweetness make me think the thoughts of this very suitable to one expecting Death The words contain a golden Chain of highest Blessings on all true Christians I. They are supposed to have Faith that is both a general Trust to God's Revelations and Grace and a special Trust in Jesus Christ as given by the Father's Love to be the Redeemer to Justifie Sanctifie and Glorifie his People I have oft proved this justifying Faith to be no less then our unfeigned taking Christ for our Saviour and becoming true Christians according to the Tenor of the Baptismal Covenant As to the Acts it is formally Trust One in three The Understandings Assenting Trust the Wills consenting Trust and the executive Powers Practical Venturing Obeying Trust II. All true Believers are justified Even all that consent to the Baptismal Covenant and choose God to be their God and Christ to be their Saviour and the Holy Ghost to be their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him by true resolution as their only Ruler Hope and Happiness though this be done with so great weakness as endeth not all doubts nor quieteth the Mind To be justified is not to be accounted such as have no sin but 1. To be made such by Pardon through Christ's Merits and by true Faith as God will take by special love and favour unto life 2. To be accounted such by God 3. To be virtually Sentenced such by the Law of Grace and Faith and to be just in Lawseâ—ce 4. At last we shall be judged such by publick Sentence 5. And be used as such Not justified by the Law of Innocency or of Moses but by Christ's Law of Grace Not justified perfectly till the time of Perfection Much punishment on Soul and Body is yet to be taken off And more sins daily to be pardoned and we before the World to be sentenced as just to life everlasting III. The justified have Peace with God They are reconciled and in a state of love and friendship It signifieth mutual Peace but with great inequality God's Love and favour to us is the stable constant part Our consent also and acceptance of his terms of Peace is constant in its truth But our sense of God's Love which is the Peace possessed by the Soul is weak and unconstant and too oft quite lost or obscured by ignorance mistake and
and ease a Man's Faith is not tried to the uttermost by actual forsaking all And yet an easy Death alone doth not fully try a Man For they that know that all must die may submit to this who cannot bear long pains before it But great and long pains and the Sentence of Death together are the trial And if God will so try me why should I repine Flesh will groan but the Mind may obediently submit It is but Flesh that Flesh that hath tempted and imprisoned my Soul I have too much loved it and am too loth to leave it And is it not Mercy from God to make me weary of it God is engaged against Idols that is all that is loved and pleased before him and if any thing that 's likest to be this Flesh It 's corruptibility tells us that both its pleasure and its pain will be but short Long pain is usually tolerable And intolerable pain will conquer Nature and not be long The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us and his strength is manifested in our weakness when he will not take the Thorn out of our Flesh though as Christ and Paul did we pray thrice or oftner And to be impatient with Death is to repine that we are born Mortal men and to fly from Heaven and all true Hopes and all the Felicity purchased by Christ And is this renouncing the World and trusting Christ for Life everlasting And why fear we that which endeth all our pains and fears A true Believer never suffereth so much but his Mercies are far more and greater than his sufferings His Soul is united to Christ His hopes of Heaven have a sure Foundation He is sealed up to Glory Rest and Joy are near at hand And former Mercies should not be forgotten And should not such men patiently endure O what a shameful contradiction is it to choose Heaven as our only Portion to believe in Christ for it and to seek it as the business of all our lives and yet to be loth to die that we may obtain it and to fly with fear from that which we so seek and hope for What a contradiction is it to call God our God and Father the God of Love and to call Christ our Gracious glorified Redeemer and yet to Fly from his presence with distrustful fear Almighty love may correct us may kill us but it cannot finally hurt true Believers So much of Moses and Elias discourse of the Sufferings and Death of Christ § 13. Sure it is not true that the Souls of the Fathers before Christ's coming did not enter into Heaven but lay in some inferiour Limbus For Moses and Elias came from Heaven their shining glory shewed that and their discourse with Christ and the Voice and glory that went with them And it is not to be thought that they were separated from the rest of the Souls of the Faithful and with Henoch were in Heaven by themselves alone and the rest elsewhere Though it 's said that God's House hath many Mansions and there are various degrees of Glory yet the blessed are all Fellow-Citizens of one Society and Children in one Family of God And they that came from East and West shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the believing Thief with Christ in Paradise § 14. It seems that Moses and Elias appeared thus to fore shew the Resurrection of Christ and of the Faithful and to make it easier to the three Disciples to believe it Why should they doubt whether Christ should rise when they saw Moses that was risen before him And why should they doubt of the Resurrection of the Faithful and the Glory following when they saw these glorified Saints Some think that this Apparition was for the strengthening of Christ himself whose humane Nature had use for such Ministry also of Angels But it 's more certain that it was for the strengthening of the Disciples Faith and of ours by their Testimony As it 's said Joh. 12. 30. This Voice came not because of me but for your sakes § 15. It is much worth our noting in what a Communion this Specimen of the Kingdom of Heaven was represented in the holy Mount Here was a Voice of God and a glimpse of his Glory Here was our Redeemer in a glimpse of his Glory Here was a Moses and Elias in a glimpse of their Glory And here were three beloved Disciples yet in the Flesh and in weakness of Faith which needed such confirmation God our Father and our Saviour the Saints of Heaven and those on Earth are all of one Society or Kingdom there is a near relation and a near communion among them all When the Eternal Word disdained not so wonderful condescension as to come to us in the form of a Servant even of a poor despised Crucified Man it 's less wonder that Moses and Elias should come down as his Witnesses and Servants Heb. 12. 23 c. The heavenly Jerusalem and City of the Living God of which we are Enrolled Burgesses or Heirs hath many parts There is the Assembly of the first Born and innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covâ—nant and God the Judge of all O what holy glorious joyful Company shall we have above Christ and his Angels will not despise the least of Saints § 16. But what was the Introduction to this Apparition and Transfiguration It was Christ's praying Luk. 9. 28 29. He went up into a Mountain to pray and as he prayed he was transfigured Surely this is written to invite and encourage us to pray We are in greater need than Christ It 's folly in Unbelievers to think Prayer vain because God is unchangeable We are not unchangeable And the exercise of Faith dependance on God and true desires being the Conditions required in a due Receiver maketh those Blessings become ourâ—s which else we had been uncapable of God who commandeth fervent Prayer hath promised to answer it Though we must not think to be the Rulers of the World nor have whatever our Flesh or solly doth desire because we ask it earnestly yet true Prayer is the appointed way for obtaining what we need and is best for us and we are fitted to receive And as Christ had this wonderful return to his Prayers his Servants have experience that their choicest Mercies for Soul and Body have come this way § 17. Though the three Disciples were admitted to this glorious Society how different was their case from that of Christ and Moses and Elias In the beginning of the heavenly concourse they were asleep with heaviness Even while this glorious Company stood near them Alas such is our infirmity in Flesh and such a Clog are these earthly Bodies to us that when God is present and Heaven is before us and we have the greatest cause to watch and pray a heavy weary sluggish Body even
fettereth an active Spirit and we sleep or turn away in wandering Thoughts when we should seriously converse with Christ and Heaven Alas what unworthy Servants hath our Lord Are such as these meet for his work his Love his Acceptance or his Kingdom But O how merciful a Saviour have we who taketh not his poor Servants at the worst but when they after served him thus in his Agony he gently rebuketh them Could you not watch with me one Hour and that with an excuse The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak § 18. It is a matter of great Moment to understand in what cases this excuse will hold and our weakness will not make the willingness of the Spirit unacceptable to God If a Drunkard Fornicator or other Sensualist should say My Spirit is willing to leave my sin but my Flesh is weak and in temptation doth prevail Video meliora proboque c. This excuse would not prove God's forgiveness If a Man live in known sin which he could forbear were he truly willing and say To will is present with me but to do I am unable it is not I but sin that dwelleth in me this would be but a frivolous excuse And yet to the sleepy Disciples it was a good excuse and I think to Paul Rom 7. where then is the dâ—fference There are some acts of Man which the will hath not power to rule and some that it can rule The will hath not power always to keep a sleepy Man awake This sleep might be of the Flesh without any will at all And this excuseth from all guilt There are some acts of Man which the will cannot rule but by a great degree of power and endeavour As perhaps with much ado by preventing and resisting diligence the Disciples might have kept awake In this case their sleep is a fault but a pardoned fault of weakness Some Persons are liable to inordinate Fear and Grief which so surprizeth them by the Constitution of their Bodies that the greatest unwillingness would not hinder them And some could do more to resist these passions than they do but very hardly with the greatest diligence These are accordingly excusable in degree Paul would have perfectly obeyed God's Law and never have sinned But there is no Perfection in this Life Meer Imperfection of true Grace which is predominant in the will doth not damn men But there are acts which are so subject to the will that a sincere will though imperfect can command them He that doth these or doth the contrary it is not because he sincerely would and cannot but because he hath but uneffectual wishes and is not sincerely willing if he know them to be what they are Especially if they be materially great sins which he yieldeth to which true Grace more strongly resisteth than it doth an idle word or thought or action In short all omissions or commissions in which the will is positively or privatively guilty are sinful in some degree but only these do damn the Sinner which are inconsistent with the predominant Love of God and Heaven and Holiness in the Soul § 19. When the Disciples awaked they saw these glorious ones in converse Did they hear what they said or did Christ after tell them The later is most probable Doubtless as Moses tells us how God made the World which none could tell him but by God's telling them first so the Apostles have written many things of Christ which they neither saw nor heard but from Christ that told it them by Word or Inspiration How else knew they what Satan said and did to him in his Temptations in the Wilderness and on the Pinacle of the Temple How knew they what his Prayer was in his Agony And so in this instance also But Christ's own testimony was enough to put them out of Doubt to them that daily saw his confirming Miracles § 20. How great a difference was there between Mount Sinai and this Mount When God delivered the Law to Moses that Mount was terrible in Flame and Smoak and Thunder so that the People trembled and fled But now here is nothing but Life and Light and Love from Heaven A merciful Redeemer whose Face shined as the Sun with heavenly Company appearing nearly to the Disciples pittying and bearing with their heaviness and infirmity strengthning their Faith and Hope and proving to them a Resurrection and a heavenly Kingdom by a visible Apparition of some of its Possessors This was not a frightful but a confirming delectable sight The Law in terrour was by Moses but Grace and Truth Peace and Pleasure are by Christ This was an inviting and delighting and not an affrighting Apparition Was it not a shameful infirmity and a sin that Peter should deny Christ after such a sight as this and the rest of the Disciples forsake him and fly What! after they had seen the Kingdom of God come in Power and Christ's Face shine as the Sun in its brightness Could they forget all this Or could they doubt whether he or his Persecutors were the stronger and liker to prevail at last O how frail how uncertain how bad a thing is depraved Man But though Christ found them asleep and though he foreknew that they would forsake him he forsook not them nor used them as they deserved but comforted them with a glimpse of Heaven For he died for his Enemies § 21. But this was but once in all the time of his abode among them It was an extraordinary Feast and not their daily Bread They had Christ still with them but not transfigured in Glory nor Moses and Elias in their sight We are too apt to think that if God give us a joyful extraordinary glimpse of Heaven we must have it always or that he forsaketh us and castus off when he denieth it us O that we were as desirous of Holiness and Duty as we are of the Joy which is the reward But our Father and not we must be the chooser both of our Food and Feast Moses did not dwell on Mount Nebo that he might still see the Land of Promise It was enough to have one sight of it before his death As Flesh and Blood cannot enter into Heaven so it 's little of Heaven that entereth into it § 22. When the Disciples awake they see his Glory and the two men that stood with him It must not be a sleeeping but an awakened Christian that will have a sight of heavenly Glory As we must love God with all the Heart and Soul and Might all must be awakened in seeking him and in attending him before we can have a joyful foretast of his Love Carnal security supine neglect and dull contempt are dispositions which render us uncapable of such delights Heavenly joys suppose a heavenly disposition and desires Angels sleep not nor are clogged with Bodies of Clay Earth hath no Wings It must be holy vivacity that must carry up a Soul to God notwithstanding the fetters of Flesh