he interwove in the constitution of his Nature at his first production and while he followed this light and turned not aside to the false fires of his depraved will he walked in safe and secure paths But when Men began to multiply upon earth Sin and Vice increased and the infectious steams of Iniquity soon grew into a cloud and obscured the light of the day and men forsook their ancient Guide and wandred about in Darkness and Error and the voice of Reason was not heard when Self-interest and Passion became the sole principles of action Hence it came to pass that in succession of time Mens discriminative faculties growing insensate and dull through the life and vigour of their Animal powers and their Criteria abating and loosing their quick and nimble tast and rellish of true good and happiness they choose only the present satisfaction and pleasure of their corrupt Appetites and embraced blindfold every inordinate motion and passion and it was too late now to curb and restrain their lawless and rampant Desires For although Divine Goodness which was never absent nor withdrawn from the World did in all Ages and Places raise up considerable and holy Persons to instruct the perverse Sons of Men in the wayes of Righteousness yet their Precepts and Admonitions were entertained by very few the rest of the World still slumbring in their old wickedness and stupidity and chusing such faint and glimmering flames to guide themselves by such weak and sickly Principles as might least distrub their fancied Peace and molest their desired Security Wherefore when this way proved unserviceable and unfit for Mans Restauration God entred upon a new Dispensation and revealed himself more plainly to the Jews selecting Jacob for his Portion and Israel for the lot of his Inheritance conducting them by an infant Religion which should make way and prepare their minds for the reception of that glorious Mysterie which in due time should be communicated to the World and delivering to them Laws Statutes and Judgments fencing and hedging in the impure eruptions of their debased Natures by Judicial Decrees and besiedging Vice and Iniquity by the actual promulgation of a Law But the main of this Oeconomy was only Thetical and Positive deriving it's obligation meerly from the Divine Command and adapted for the most part to the Plastick Powers of the soul for it consisting chiefly in external Performances which had no intrinsick Goodness contained in them nor any other Reason of their injunction but the will and pleasure of the Imposer it could not ascend higher then the Fancy or Imagination nor contribute any thing to the sublimating Reason and Intellect while all it's motions were determined in so low a spear And hence arose the great imperfection of the Mosaical Law in that it had only an Adumbration and presented a Landtschap of good things and not the very image and substance Heb. x. 1. and consequently was altogether destitute of a Vital and Energetical Power to promote true and substantial Holiness or extirpate and mortifie the exorbitant passions of corporeal life For indeed the whole body of the Judaical Service was only a Prefiguration of something more perfect and illustrious to be discovered to the World the most mysterious part of it being Typical and Emblematical carrying an abscondit signification under an External Symbol which the Author to the Hebrews seems to allude to when he sayes it was necessary that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. ix 23 24. The patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these And again Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The figures of the true But when notwithstanding this careful Discipline men were still corrupt and satisfied themselves with the bare observance of the letter of the Law neglecting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the weightier and more principal matters such as Justice Righteousness Truth and Goodness God grew weary of this Oeconomy and called more for the performance of the Moral then Ceremonial part of the Law and when the fulness of time was come resolved to bring about his last and most perfect determination which was to send down his well-beloved Son with full Power and Authority to communicate an Everlasting Righteousness and deliver to the World the Gospel which is the sum and substance the flower and quintessence of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exterior modes and schemes wherewith he instructed the Jewish Church of old and which retains only such Ceremonies as are necessary in regard of our frail and mortal state in which we are more affected with the propulsions and motions of sense then with Truths of a refined and intellectual constitution and is compounded and made up of such things as are naturally and immutably good such as have an eternal and indispensable obligation being nothing but the Idea's of our own souls which we had buried and obscured by our fall raised and brought to light again the results of Gods own Nature imprinted upon our minds and his moral Being explicated and dispread throughout our spirits The Gospel is nothing but God manifested in the flesh his Goodness Wisdom Justice and Mercy veiled under the Cortex of words and expressions adapted and fitted to our mean capacities and it 's highest aime and design is to make us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partakers of the Divine Nature and perfect us according to his own Image of Righteousness and Truth and in our due time invest us with the immortal robes of life and glory This was the Noble end of the Pythagorean Philosophy Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And questionless a Divine and Heroick spirit moved in those Philosophers veins and they knew and felt the irradiations of that Heavenly life which quickens and informs every Rational Being that puts no wilful stop and impediment to it's kindly operations But whether ever they obtained that high and excellent atchievement they aimed at by living up to the Precepts and Principles of their Philosophy I shall not now enquire Sure I am there was never any Oeconomy yet divulged to the World which more illustriously propagated the Divine Life and Nature or more effectually conduced to the drawing Men from Sin and Wickedness and weakning the Diabolical Kingdom then that Evangelical Mysterie which hath been hid from Ages and Generations but is now made manifest to Mankind by the appearing of Jesus Christ That we are deeply lapsed and degenerated from God is the universal consent of all Men although they differ in the manner of it's explication Plato taught that the Fall of Man consisted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the defluxion of the souls pinions whereby not being able any longer to bear her self up in the higher Regions she fell to the Earth and inhabited a Mortal body which the above named Author thus Paraphrases upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is As our departure from God and the
defluxe and moulting of our plumes whereby we soared aloft caused our descent into the region of Mortality and Wretchedness so it is the rejection of our bodily passions and the growth and springing of virtue as of new wings which will carry us to the pure habitations of Holiness and Divine felicity But whether our lapse were thus or not it makes little however it was this is certain that our Reascent to God must be in all points contrary to our Apostacy from him As we have polluted our Natures by a boundless regard and Adhesion to corporeal pleasures and sunk our selves deep into the material World so on the other side our reversion to our lost happiness must be effected by refining our souls from terrene dregs and conversing with our mind and intellect and subjugating our Animal powers to the dictates and Imperium of Reason As our descent came by listning to the impure whispers and titillations of the bodily life so our ascent and Resurrection must come by hearkning to the suggestions of the Intellectual Man And what more effectual and powerful means can be excogitated to recover mankind from the thraldom and bondage of sin then that sacred method divulged to the World in the manifestation of the Gospel whose great tendency and scope is to enforce the necessity of a good and vertuous life and mortifie all irregular and inordinate desires and reinthrone Divine Righteousness to it's just rights and possession in the hearts and minds of men To what other purpose are we commanded in the Gospel to extirpate every extravagant lust and passion and crucifie the spurious productions of Vice and prosecute with all diligence and affection their lovely contraries but because the one depresses our minds from their true state by subjecting them to a base and ignoble drudgery and the other recovers them to their first and genuine freedom and puts them into a capacity of immortality For all passions the more corporeal they are and participate of the body the more they draw and wind the soul to the center of the Animal life which by a copious emission of fuliginous rayes obnubilates the intellectual and perceptive powers and whoever purges himself from these shall be a vessel unto honour This purgation of Soul and Spirit was judged indispensably necessary for the recuperation of the Divine Image by the Pythagorean Philosophers and is called by Porphyry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ablation of every thing extraneous leaving only such forms in the soul as are congenit with it's own Nature It 's true as we come into the World we relish little else but the fond gratifications of the body and are taken up and inamour'd with the inescations and allurements of the plastick life whereby our better parts are dulled and stupified and in this degenerate state the soul is truly said in the Pythagorick sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pass into brutes not by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transfusion of the humane soul into Beasts but by it's descent into the brutish life and assimilating it self to ferine passions and inclinations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrian expresses it The great work therefore of the Gospel is to beat down and conquer the brutish and irrational part in us to eradicate our vile and depraved affections and to place the Divine life in a full and entire command over all our inferior faculties To the bringing about which blessed design and to compleat and perfect a through Purgation of our minds we are injoyned in the Gospel great Temperance Sobriety and Moderation of all terrestrial desires as the most conducive means to spiritualize and attenuate our minds whereas the contrary drowns * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr l 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them in corporeal effluxes and exsudations And moreover we are commanded an Universal abstinence from all wrong and injustice and a hearty love and good will to all mankind to hold fast that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil to abstract our hearts from Mundane and Temporal felicities and make treasures for our selves in heaven and to be no more sollicitous for terrene concernments then the Lillies of the field or the fowls of the air to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and to depend upon his Fatherly Care and Providence for the necessities of our lives to keep our selves pure and undefiled not only from outward and grosser but internal and more refined pollutions to be ready to do good and distribute to the necessities of our Brethren to live peaceably if it be possible with all men In a word Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever are pure whatsoever are lovely whatsoever are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise to think on those things These are the proper food and nourishment of our intellectual man and bring a present pleasure in the exercise of them far surpassing the choicest entertainments of sense For what truer and nobler delight can accrew to our spirits then to have done an act of Charity to have bound up an aking head dryed up a watry eye and relieved a naked and hungry body How sordid and base is the narrow and contracted mind that never looks beyond it self but moves in a sphear distinct from all the World beside as if it were some particular Being and not a part and member of the Universe What is there more noble and Divine than Love which neither envies nor seeks it's own but fills the mind of man with a solid peace and contentment and How broken and troublesom is the state of that man whose heart is continually corroded with Envie and Malice and cannot look upon his Neighbour without an evil eye What serenity and quietness of life is he possessed of who following the Precepts of the Gospel makes himself master of his passions and never suffers any impure and brutish lust to creep up into the bed of Reason and defile it but lives in a clear exercise of his discriminative faculties and subdues all his lower powers to the obedience of his mind and Intellect while he that renders himself captive to the passions and various motions and inclinations of sense which God gave to be his servants never possesses any true and real tranquillity but carries a Tempest within his breast which perpetually tosses him to and fro like those disconsolate spirits our Saviour mentions Matth. xii who walk through dry places seeking rest but finding none He that sincerely conforms himself to the Evangelical method of Truth and Righteousness forsakes the muddy and grosser World and ascends above the clouds in Divine and peaceful Contemplations and finds himself out of the reach of the storms and thunders of the troubled air he hath left behind him He apprehends God as the most lovely and desirable object in the whole World and then feels himself most at ease when he
36. to judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life Acts xiii 46. To reject or render ineffectual the Counsel of God against themselves Luke vii 30. Not that they do directly and principally intend any such thing but because they commit and act those things which do either naturally or by virtue of the Divine command produce such an event and consequence In like manner on the contrary Men are said to work out their Salvation Phil. ii 12. To save themselves 1 Tim. iv 16. To save their own souls Luke ix 24. because they act and prosecute those things which have an indisputable tendency to such a desired end For a Conclusion of this whole Discourse I shall briefly examine these two following Illations and Deductions of the Contra-Remonstrants from the Doctrine of Absolute and Irrespective Decrees 1. That none can be a true believer or sincere Christian who knows not when nor how he was regenerated and born again by the Spirit that is to speak in their language who cannot tell when he felt the mighty and efficacious power of the Divine Spirit dashing asunder his strong heart and gathering up the broken shivers and uniting them together and changing them into a heart of flesh and infusing new qualities into the will and raising the whole man from death to life See XI and XII Canons of the Dort Synod De homonis corrupt convers◠ad Deau 2. That every man who by those evidences signs and marks of True Believers prescribed to him can collect himself to be such that is to be in a state of Grace and Salvation may assuredly believe that he shall to the last Period of his life remain and 〈◊〉 a living member of the Catholick Church and undoubtedly partake of everlasting bliss and glory Attic. IX and X. of the Dort Synod De Perseverantia Sanctorum Against the first of these I shall lay down these Conclusions 1. That he is a true and sincere Believer who hath to his utmost endeavours so mortified and subdued the body of sin that he willingly harbours no vice nor takes any complacency in the impure motions of the brutish life but through a fixed belief in the Goodness of God displayed unto mankind through the Lord Christ resolutely presses forward to higher measures and degrees of Christian perfection and incessantly breaths after a fuller participation of the Divine Nature Such a man I look upon to be truly regenerate and born anew of the Spirit of God and to be affected according to his proportion as Christ himself was affected when he dwelt on earth and conversed with men And though this Divine life dispread and manifest it self by successive acts and shine not so full and bright as when it is near it's Center yet it is as truly a God-like Nature as an Infant is a Man though he be not so in growth and stature It is nothing but our self will which stands out against heaven and keeps such an impregnable fort against the grace of God and whoever is truly dead to it and receives the gentle impressions of the Divine Spirit into his soul and acts correspondently to so holy a principle he is certainly in the Land of Life and Truth and partakes of that blessed Nature which cannot rest among the dust and rubbish of this lower World but separates whatever is heterogeneous in the soul of man and by perpetual and successful attempts restores again those Divine forms which shone gloriously in humane minds before their unfortunate recession and retrogradation from the lucid fountain of their everlasting joy and happiness 2. The first actings of Grace in such a Man as I have above described are altogether undiscernible and imperceptible being nothing else but the preparatory Exertions of that Almighty Goodness the Source and Father of all things for the fitting and adapting Men to receive the Divine Image and Form of the Holy Jesus according to the words of the Lord Christ John vi 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and in this the Nature of Man is wholly passive and the only thing pertaining to him is to see that he do not obstruct and hinder the progress of that efficacious Love by a cowardly submission to the importunate motions of iniquity and unhallowed actions Now the effluxes and operations of this Vital Principle are coeval with the first actings of Reason and discriminative Perception and extend themselves according to the dimensions of the intellectual Powers but no man is any more conscious of it's energy then of the growth of his bones for so he that made the Nature of man and knows his frame hath told us Luke xvii 20. The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation And Mark iv 26 27. So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how And when men are born again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that incorrupible seed 1 Pet. i. 23. sown in their hearts by the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ calls his Father John xv 1. it breaks through the clods and springs up being cherished by the dew of heaven and the warmth of that immortal fire which passeth through the intellectual world and melts and refines every lapsed Being from the contracted filth of material concretions and no man can say Lo here I was caught by the breath of God or lo there was my resurrection from the comfortless grave of sin and death John iii. 8. For as the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit But this I would have understood of the ordinary way of Gods dispensing his Grace and not of that supernatural manner whereby he converted Saul casting him down to the Earth by a voice from heaven nor of the diffusion of the Spirit to the Heathens when first converted to the faith For such as also notorious and gross sinners may have some sensibility of Divine Vegetation and apprehension of some external circumstances attending the New-birth unto righteousness But for those who are born and educated under Christian Parents our Church hath excellently well determined in the service and office of Baptisme That they are Regenerated and born again not only of Water but of the Spirit by which their Natures are Sanctified as we read of the Prophet Jeremy and John the Baptist who received the spirit of holiness and were hallowed from their Mothers wombs and for any man to enquire of such or for them curiously to search after some preternatural stirrings and motions of the Divine Spirit in their souls by which to discern the first dawnings of the grace of God upon them is as impertinent as it would be to demand of them when first they heard or perceived
endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
would cast a fatal damp upon their attempts and endeavours after righteousness but being fully convinced as well of the Existence as that God will take care of their souls when they depart this obscure and evanid life and recompence their labour and trouble here with such great degrees of Happiness as shall farr surpass the highest calamity they can suffer in this World it cannot but inspirit their minds with life and resolution to break through all difficulties and discouragements and with a manly valour fight the good fight of Faith and never give over till they lay hold on Immortality and God Crown them as Victorious Conquerors with wreaths of immarcescible Glory It is but a groundless fancy in some to think that the intuition of the reward proposed to us in order to our further progress in Holiness and Virtue is acting upon Mercenary principles since that Christ himself in his greatest Agonies and conflicts supported the weakness of his Nature with the consideration of the reward he should receive as the compensation of his humiliation and sorrows for so we read That he endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. and despised the shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the joy that was set before him Besides they understand not the nature of the Reward promised to us in the Gospel for Glory Blessedness and Felicity are not Other things from Piety and Holiness but the consummation and perfection of that Divine Nature whose efformation is begun in this life Grace and Holiness is but Happiness wrapped up and closed and Glory is nothing but Holiness explicated and unfolded to it's due latitude and dimensions Piety is Heaven masked with a cloud of flesh and begirt with sorrow and Heaven is Virtue shining in it's native brightness and clothed with a Celestial splendour And that Ethereal and Paradisiacal body with which all believers shall be arrayed through the gracious bounty of the Lord Jesus at the Resurrection of the Just is the necessary appendage of our felicity and by it's easie and obsequious motions will raise in the exalted powers of the soul the highest sense of love and joy and delightful enravishments of spirit He then that loves Virtue for it's appendant reward does in effect love it for it self and is no whit behind him that is attracted by the naked pleasure resulting from it and thinks it eligible amidst the hoarse bellowings of Phalaris his Bull because the Reward hath a very great affinity and cognation with Virtue and is no otherwise attainable then by a full and perfect exercise of it This great happiness therefore accruing to the soul of Man when refined and purified from the dregs of Earth and Mortality is very rationally set forth in the Gospel to invigorate the minds of men and raise them to the free exertions of the Divine life and to animate their dying resolutions when they walk through a troublesome wilderness and are called to resist even unto blood And if it were not for the expectation of future Blessedness all Religion would fall to the ground the inward sense and feeling of the soul being so much weakned and debilitated by her continual imbibition and attraction of the dregs of the Earthly and mortal Nature whereby she is become sluggish and inactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her passions and apprehensions being in a manner wholly corporeal and Truth and Virtue be but idle names or dreams of a shadow existing only in the tongues and fancies of Men but never descending into the depth of the soul and impregnating it with their living Image These are the grand Instruments which the Spirit of God makes use of in the Gospel to induce and perswade the World to act under the Government of the Divine life which if skilfully applyed and managed will undoubtedly compleat and perfect that blessed work which Providence intended them for For we cannot think that Heaven would alarm the World with a false report or raise the expectations of Men by a great sound and noise of something extraordinary when in the conclusion it amounts but to some inconsiderable and trifling design The Eternal Son of God who was that Wisdom which is the delight of Heaven and rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth brought down with him from the seat of Majesty that Sacred and recondit method of recovering lapsed mankind which was carryed in the pregnant womb of Goodness from the dayes of Eternity and he became our Redeemer and pervades the very Centre of our Being and shapes and frams his Image of Wisdome and Righteousnes there strengthning our decayes and supporting our weakness and consuming and expelling all our dross and corruption by a subtle and powerful Energy which in Scripture phrase is to be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire We are fallen into a narrow and contracted state and those Divine forms in our union and fruition of which consisted our blessedness are quite defaced by our fond longing after and adhesion to corporeal features Now God manifesting himself in our flesh renews and perfects those glorious Images again and stamps his impress upon us and as the great conciliating Principle of the corporeal World figures and shapes out of prepared matter the body of a plant so the Holy Spirit frames and shapes out the Divine Nature in the lapsed World of Mankind But this great purpose of the Gospel this great design and plot which God hath laid to reduce Mankind to that blessed state from whence they fell is wholly frustrated and evacuated by the Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees And that I may not charge it with what it stands not guilty of I shall make it good by these two Instances 1. It renders ineffectual the purpose of God in the Gospel by lulling Men asleep in the lap of Security and Presumption of their good estate upon the groundless fancy of their Absolute Election from all Eternity For Men being once initiated and instructed in the Mysterie of this profound Doctrine will with much anxiety and vehemency of mind contend for the truth of that which they so passionately desire to be so and having withal so amorously courted and espoused their lusts and unruly passions and yet being terrified and affrighted with the lashes of their own Consciences they will with great easiness and zeal take sanctuary in so pleasing an opinion which both gives them a fair countenance to enjoy and reap the pleasure of their sensual passions and secures them from those domestick furies which perpetually hurried and tormented them and over and above sooths them up with a confidence of eternal bliss and felicity And he that can attain to this Plerophory or full perswasion of his Election from before the foundation of the World hath the White Stone given to him though he be so farr from eating of the hidden Manna that he feeds upon nothing but husks and vanities and his name is enrolled among the Stars and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out