how then is it possible for us to conceive aright of the divine nature as it is in it self but only in a daâ—…k generall way we guesse at his Majesty by the glorious emanations of his power wisdome the rayes thereof which he displayes abroad in all the works of his hands and from all these concurring testimonies evidences of his Majesty we gather this confused notion of him that he is the fountain-self-independent being the originall of all these things and more absolute in the world then the soul is in the body the true Anima mundi the very life and the light of men the soul that quickens moves forms all this visible world that makes all things visible and himself invisible Therefore it is that the Lord speaks to us in the Scripture of himself according to our capacities of his face his right hand arm his Throne his Scepâ—…er his back parts his anger his fury his repentance his grief and sorrow none of which are properly in his spiritual immortall unchangeable nature but because our dulnesse anâ—… slownesse in such in apprehending things spiritual it being almost without the spâ—…e comprehension of the soul while in the body which is almost addicted unto the senses of the body Therefore the Lord accommodates himâ—… unto our termes and notions balbutit nobiscum he like a 〈◊〉 father stammers wiâ—…h the stammerinâ—… chilâ—…ren speakes to them in their own dialect but withall would have us conceive he is not really such a one but infinitely removed in his own being fâ—…om all these imperfections So when you hear of these teâ—…ms in Scripture O beware ye conceive God to be such a one as your selves but in these expressions not beseeming his Majesty because below him learn your own ignorance of his glorious Majesty your dulnesse and incapacity to be such as the Holy One must come down as it were in some bodily appearance ere you can understand any thing of him III. If God be a Spiâ—…it then he is most perfect most powerfull all imperfection all infirmity and weaknesse in the creature is founded in the grosse material part of it you see the more matter and bodily substance be in any thing it is the more lumpish heavy and void of all action it is the more spiritual pure and refined part of the creation that hath most activity in it and is the principle of all motions and actions You see a little flye hath more action in it than a great mountain because there are spirits in it which move it The bottom of the world contains the dregs of the Creation as it were a masse lump of heavy earth but the higher and more distant bodies be from that the more pure and subtile they are and the more pure subtile they be the more action vertue and efficacy they have the earth stands like a dead lump but the sea moves the air being thinner and purer than both moves more easily and swiftly but go up higher and still the motion is swifter and the vertue and influence is the more powerfull What is a dead body when the soul and spirit is out of it It hath no more vertue nor efficacy than so much clay although by the presence of the spirit of it it was active agill swift strong nimble so much then as any thing hath of spirit in it so much the more perfect and powerfull it is Then I beseech you consider what a one the God of the spirits of all flesh must be the very fountain-fountain-spirit the self-being spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the soul of a man or the spirit of a horse hath so much vertue to stirre up a lump of earth and to quicken it to many diverse operations even though that soul spirit did not nay could not make that piece of earth they dwel in then what must his power and vertue be that made all those things Who gave power and vertue even to the spirits of all flesh their horses saith God are flesh and not spirit Isa. 30. Because in comparison of his Majesty the very spirits in them are but like a dead lump of flesh If he should draw in his breath as it were they would have no more vertue to save the Israelites noâ—… so many lumps of flesh or clay for he is the spirit of all spirits that quickens actuates and moves them in their severall operations influencies Anima mundi anima animarum mundi an Angel hath more power than all men united in one body Satan is called the Prince of the air God of this world for he hath more efficacy and vertue to commove the air and raise tempests then all the swarmes of multiplied mankind though gathered into any army if the Lord did not restrain and limit his power he were able to destroy whole Nations at once An Angel killed many thousands of Senacheribs Army in one night what would many Angels do then if the Lord pleased to apply them to that work O what is man that he should magnifie himself or glory in strength or skill Beasts are stronger than men but mans weaker strength being strengthned with more skil proves stronger than they but in respect of Angels he hath neither strength nor wisdome IV. If God be a Spirit then he is not circumscribed by any place and if an infinit spirit then he is every where no place can include him and no body can exclude him He is within all things yet not included nor bounded within them he is without all things yet not excluded from them intra omnia non tamen inclusus in illis extra omnia nec tamen exclusus ab all is You know every body hath its own bounds limits circumscribed to it shoots out all other bodily things out of the same space so that before the least body want some space it will put all the universe in motion make every thing about it to change its place and possesse another but a Spirit can passe thorow all of them and never desturb them A Legion may be in one man have room enough If there were a well of Brasse or Tower having no Open neither above or beneath no body could enter but by breaking thorow and making a breach into it but an Angel or Spirit could storm it without a breach and pierce thorow it without any division of it How much more doth the Maker of all Spirits fill all in all the thicknesse of the earth doth not keep him out nor the largenesse of the heavens contain him How then do we circumscribe and limit him within the bounds of a publick house or the heavens O how narrow thoughts have we of his immense greatnesse Who without division or multiplication of himself fills all the corners of the world whose indivisible unity is equivalent to an infinite extension and divisibility How often I pray you do you reflect upon
creature that are among the rest of the creatures meet all in man as their Center for this purpose that he may return with them all to the glorious Fountain from whence they issued thus we stand next God and in the middle between God and other creatures This I say was the condition of our creation we had our being immediatly from God as the beginning of all and we were to have our happiness and well-being by returning immediatly to God as the end of all But sin coming in between God and us hath displaced us so that we cannot now stand next God without the intervention of a Mediator we cannot stand between God and the creatures to offer up their praise to him but there is one Mediator between God and man that offers up both mans praises and the creatures songs which meet in man Now seeing God hath made all things for himself and especially man for his own glory that he may shew forth in him the glory and excellency of his power goodness holiness justice and mercy It is not only most reasonable that man should do all things that he doth to the glory of God but it is even the beauty and perfection of a man the greatest accession that can be to his being to glorifie God by that being We are not our own therefore we ought not to live to our selves but to God whose we are But you may ask what is it to glorifie God Doth our goodness extend to him Or is it an advantage to the Almighty that we are righteous No indeed and herein is the vast difference between Gods glorifying of us and sanctifying of us and our glorifying and sanctifying of him God calls things that are not and makes them to be but we can do no more but call things that are and that far below what they are Gods glorifying is creative ours only declarative He makes us such we do no more but declare Him to be such this then is the proper work that man is created for to be a witness of Gods glory to give testimony to the appearances and out-breakings of it in the wayes of power and justice and mercy and truth Other creatures are called to glorifie God but it is rather a Proclamation to dull and senseless men and a provocation of them to their duty As Christ said to the Pharisees If these children hold their peace the stones would cry out So may the Lord turn himself from stupid and senseless men to the stones and woods and seas and sun and moon and exhort them to mans duty the more to provoke and stirre up our dulness and to make us consider that it is a greater wonder that man whom God hath made so glorious can so little express Gods glory then if stupid and senseless creatures should break out in singing and praising of his Majesty The creatures are the books wherein the lines of the song of Gods praises are written and man is made a creature capable to read them and to tune that long They are appointed to bring in Brick to our hand and God has fashioned us for this imployment to make such a building of it We are the mouth of the creation but ere God want praises when our mouth is dumb and our ears deaf God will open the mouths of ashes of Babes and Sucklings and in them perfyte praises Psal. 8. 1. 2 Epictetus said well Si Luscinia essem canerem ut Luscinia cum autem homo sim quod agam Laudebo Deum nec unquam cessabo Is I were a Lark I would sing as a Lark but seeing I am a man what should I do but praise God without ceasing It is as proper to us to praise God as for a bird to chaunt All beasts have their own sounds and voices peculiar to their own nature this is the naturall sound of a man Now as you would think it monstruous to hear a melodious bird croping as a Raven so it is no less monstruous and degenerate to hear the most part of the discourses of men savouring nothing of God If we had known that innocent estate of man O how would we think he had fallen from heaven We would imagine that we were thrust down from heaven where we heard the melodious songs of Angels into hell to hear the howlings of damned spirits This then is that we are bound unto by the bond of our Creation this is our proper office and station God once set us into when he assigned every creature it s own use and exercise this was our portion and O the noblest of all because nearest the Kings own person to acknowledge in our hearts inwardly and to express in our words and actions outwardly what a one he is according as he hath revealed himself in his word and works It 's great honour to a creature to have the meanest imployment in the Court of this great King But O what is it to be set over all the Kings house and over all his Kingdom But then what is that in respect of this to be next to the King to wait on his own person so to speak therefore the godly man is described as a waiting maid or servant Psal. 123 2. Well then without more discourse upon it without multiplying of it into particular branches to glorifie God is in our souls to conceive of him and meditate on his Name till they receive the impression and stamp of all the letters of his glorious Name and then to express this in our words and actions in commending of him and obeying of him Our soul should be as wax to express the Seal of his glorious Attributes of justice power goodness holiness and mercy and as the Water that receives the beams of the Sun reflects them back again so should our spirits receive the sweet warming beams of his love and glorious excellency and then reflect them towards his Majesty with the desires and affections of our souls All our thoughts of him all our affections towards him should have the stamp of singularity such as may declare there is none like him none besides him our love our meditation our acknowledgement should have this character on their front There is none beside thee Thou art and none else And then a soul should by the cords of affection to him and admiration of him be bound to serve him Creation puts on the obligation to glorifie him in our body and spirits which are his but affection only puts that to exercise All other bonds leaves our natures at liberty but this constrains 2 Cor. 5. 13. it binds on all bonds it tyes on us all divine obligations Then a soul will glorifie God when love so unites it to God and makes it one spirit with him that his glory becomes its honour and becomes the principle of all our inward affections and outward actions It is not alwayes possible to have an expresse particular thought of God and his glory in every action and
meditation but for the most part it ought to be so And if souls were accustomed to meditation on God it would become their very nature altera natura pleasant and delightsome However if there be not alwayes an express intention of Gods glory yet there ought to be kept alwayes such a disposition and temper of spirit as it may be construed to proceed from the intention of Gods glory and then it remains in the seed and fruit if not in it self Now when we are speaking of the great end and purpose of our Creation we call to mind our lamentabel and tragicall Fall from that blessed station we were constitute into All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God Rom. 3. 23. His being in the world was for that glory and he is come short of that glory O strange short-comming short of all that he was ordained for What is he now meet for For what purpose is that chief of the works of God now The salt if it lose its saltness is meet for nothing for wherewithall shal it be seasoned Mark 9. 50. Even so when man is rendered unfit for his proper end he is meet for nothing but to be cast out and trod upon he is like a withered branch that must be cast into the fire Ioh. 15. 6. Some things if they fail in one use they are good for another but the best things are not so Corruptio optimi pessima As the Lord speaks to the house of Israel shal wood be taken off the vine tree for my work even so the inhabitants of Ierusalem Ezech. 15. 2 3 4 5. If it yeeld not Wine it 's good for nothing so if man do not glorifie God if he fall from that he is meet for nothing but to be cast into the fire of hell and burnt for ever he is for no use in the Creation but to the fuell to the fire of the Lords indignation But behold the goodnesse of the Lord and his kindnesse and love hath appeared towards men not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us through Iesus Christ Tit. 3. 4 5. Our Lord Jesus by whom all thing were created and for whom would not let this excellent workmanship perish so therefore he goes about the work of Redemption a second Creation more laborious and also more glorious than the first that so he might glorifie his Father and our Father Thus the breach is made up thus the unsavory salt is seasoned thus the withered branch is quickned again for that same fruit of praises and glorifying of God This is the end of his second Creation as it was of the first we are his workmanship created to good works in Christ Iesus Eph. 2. 10. This is the work of God to believe in him to set to our seal and to give our testimony to all his Attributes Ioh. 6. 29. and 3. 33. We are bought with a price and therefore we ought to glorifie him with our souls and bodies he made us with a word and that bound us but now he has made us again and paid a price for us and so we are twice bound not to be our own but his 1 Cor. 6. ult And so to glorifie him in our bodies and spirits I beseech you gather your spirits call them home about the businesse We once came short of our end Gods glory and our happinesse but know that it is attainable again we lost both but both are found in Christ Awake then and stir up your spirits else it shal be double condemnation when we have the offer of being restored to our former blessed condition to love our present misery better Once establish this point within your souls and therefore ask why came I hither To what purpose am I come into the world If you do not ask it what will you answer when he asks you at your appearance before his Tribunall I beseech you what will many of you say in that day when the Master returns and takes an account of your dispensation You are sent into the world only for this businesse to serve the Lord Now what will many of you answer If you speak the truth as then you must do it you cannot lie then you must say Lord I spent my time in serving my own lusts I was taken up with other businesses and had no leisure I was occupyed in my calling c. even as if an Embassadour of a King should return him his account of his negotiation I was busie at Cards and Dice I spent my mony and did wear my cloaths Though you think your plowing and borrowing and trafficking and reaping very necessary yet certainly these are but as trifles and toyes to the main businesse O what dreadfull account will souls make they come here for no purpose but to serve their bodies and senses to be slaves to all the creatures which were once put under mans feet Now man is under the feet of all and he has put himself so If you were of these creatures then you might be for them you seek them as if you were created for them and not they for you and you seek your selves as if you were of your selves and had not your descent of God Know my beloved that you were not made for that purpose nor yet redeemed either to serve your selves or other creatures but that other creatures might serve you and ye serve God Luk. 1. 74 75. And this is really the best way to serve our selves and to save our selves to serve God Self-seeking is self-destroying self-denying is soul-saving He that seeketh to save his life shal lose it and he that loseth his life shal find it and he that denies himself and follows me is my disciple Will ye once sit down in good earnest about this businesse It is lamentable to be yet to begin to learn to live when ye must die ye will be out of the world almost ere you bethink your self Why came I into the world Quidam tunc vivere incipiunt cum definendum est imò quidam ante vivere defiêrunt quam inciperent this is of all most lamentable many souls end their life before they begin to live For what is our life but a living death while we do not live to God and while we live not in relation to the great end of our life and being the glory of God It were better saith Christ that such had never been born You who are created again in Jesus Christ it most of all concerns you to ask Why am I made and why am I redeemed And to what purpose It is certainly that you may glorifie your heavenly Father Mat. 5. 16. Psal. 58. 13. And you shal glorifie him if you bring forth much fruit continue in his love Ioh. 15. 8. And this you are chosen and ordained unto ver 16. And therefore abide in him that you may bring forth fruit ver 4. And if you abide in him
therefore there are many differences between us the brethren because we are not one perfectly in him therefore we are not one as he and the Father is one But when he shal be in us and we in him as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father then shal we be one among our selves then shal we meet in the unity of the faith into a perfect man into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Eph. 4. 13. Christ is the uniting Principle while the Saints are not wholly one uni tertio they cannot be perfectly one inter se among themselves Consider this I beseech you Christs union with the Father is the foundation of our union to God and our union among our selves this is comfortable the ground of it is laid already Now it is not simply the unity of the Father and the Son in essence that is here meant for what shadow resemblance can be in the world of such an incomprehensible mystery But it is certainly the Union and Communion of God with Christ Jesus as Mediator as the head of the Church which is his Body Therefore seeing the Father is so wonderfully well pleased and one with Christ his wel-beloved Son Messenger of the Covenant chief party contracting in our name he is by vertue of this one with us who are his seed and members And therefore the members should grow up in the head Christ from whom the whole body makes increase according to the effectuall working of the spirit in it Eph 5. 15 16. Now if the union between the Father and Christ our Head cannot be dissolved and cannot be barran and unfruitfull then certainly the spirit of the Father which is given to Christ beyond measure must effectually work in every member till it bring them to the unity of the Faith and to the measure of the perfect man which is the fulnesse of Christ. So then every believing soul is one with the Father as Christ is one because he is the Head and they his members the day is coming that all the members shal be perfectly united to the Head Christ grow up to the perfect man which is the stature of Christs fulnesse and then shal we all be made perfect in one we shal be one as he is one because he and we are one perfect man Head and Members Now to what purpose is all this spoken I fear it doth not stirre up in our souls a desire after such a blessed life whose heart would not be moved at the sound of such words Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son we are made perfect he in us and we in him Certainly that soul is void of the Life of God that doth not find some sparkle of holy ambition kindled within after such glorious and blessed condition But these things sevour not and taste not to the most part the naturall man knows them not for they are spiritually discerned How lamentable is it that Christ is come to restore us to our lost blessednesse and yet no man almost considers it or layes it to heart O how miserably twice miserable is that Soul that doth not draw near to God in Christ when God hath come so near to us in Christ that goes a whoring after the lust of the eyes and flesh and after the imaginations of their own heart and will not be guided by Christ the way and life to glory Thou shalt destroy them O Lord Psal. 73. 27. All men are far off from God from the womb Behold we may have accesse to God in Christ woe to them that are yet far off and will not draw near they shal all perish I exhort you to consider what you are doing The most part of you are going away from God you were born far off and you will yet go further know what you will meet with in that way Destruction Ye have never yet asked in earnest for what purpose you came into the World What wonder you wander and walk at randome seing you have not proposed to your selves any certain scope and aime It is great folly You would not be so foolish in any petty businesse But O how foolish men are in the main businesse The light of the body is the eye if that be not light the whole body is full of darknesse If your intention be once right established all your course will be orderly but if you be dark and blind in this point have not considered it you cannot walk in the light your whole way is darknesse The right consideration of the great End would shine unto you and direct your way but while you have not proposed this end unto your self the enjoyment of God you must spend your time either in doing nothing to that purpose or doing contrary to it All your other lawfull businesse your callings and occupations are but in the by they are not the end nor the way but you make them only your businesse they are altogether impertinent to this end And the rest of your walking in lust and ignorance is not only impertinent but inconsistant with it and contrary to it If you think that you have this before your eyes to enjoy God I pray you look upon the way you choose Is your drunkennesse your swearing your uncleannesse your contentions and railings and such works of the flesh are those the way to enjoy God Shal not these separate between God and you Is your eating and drinking sleeping as beasts and labouring in your callings are these all the means you use to enjoy God Be not deceived you who draw not near God by Prayer often in secret and by faith in his Son Christ as lost miserable sinners to be saved and reconciled by him you have no fellowship with him and you shal not enjoy him afterward You whose hearts are given to your covetousnesse who have many lovers and idols besides him you cannot say Whom have I besides thee in the earth No you have many other things beside God You can have nothing of God except you make him all to you unlesse you have him alone My undefiled is one Cant. 6. 9. He must be alone for his glory he will not give to another If you divide your affections and pretend to give him part your lusts other part you may be doing but he will not divide his glory so he will give no part of it to any other thing But as for those souls that come to him and see their misery without him O know how good it is It s not only good but best yea only good it is bonum it is optimum yea it is unicum there is none good save one even God and there is nothing good for us but this one to be near God and so near that we may be one one spirit with the Lord for he that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit Rejoice in your portion and long for the
desired tasting of it only begets a kindly appetite after it the more tasted still the fresher and more recent But yet it is above both desire and fruition thou cannot see my face c. All our knowledge of God all our attainments of experience of him do reach but to some dark confused apprehension of what he is the clearest and nearest sight of God in the world is as if a man were not known but by his back which is a great point of estrangement It 's said in the heaven we shall see him face to face and fully as he is because then the soul is made capable of it Two things in us here puts us in an incapacity of nearnesse with God Infirmity and Iniquity Infirmity in us cannot behold his glory it 's of so weak eies that the brightnesse of the Sun would strike it blind and Iniquity in us he cannot behold it because he is of pure eyes that can look on no unclean thing it 's the only thing in the Creation that Gods holinesse hath antipathy at and therefore he is stil about the destroying of the body of sin in us about the purging of all filthinesse of the flesh and spirit and till the soul be thus purged of all sin by the operation of the Holy Ghost it cannot be a Temple for an immediate vision of him an immediate exhibition of God to us Sin is the wall of partition and the thick cloud that eclipses his glory from us it is the opposite Hemesphere of darknesse contrary to light according to the accesse or recesse of Gods presence it is more or lesse dark the more sin reigns in thee the lesse of God is in thee and the more sin be subdued the readier nearer is Gods presence but let us comfort our selves That one day shal put off both Infirmity and Iniquity mortality shal put on immortality and corruption be cloathed with incorruption we shal leave the rags of mortall weaknesse in the grave and our menstruous cloaths of sin behind us then shal the weak eyes of flesh be made like Eagles eyes to behold the Sun and then shal the soul be cloathed with holinesse as with a Garment which God shal delight to look upon because he sees his own Image in that glasse We come to the Lords satisfying of Moses desire and proclaiming his Name before him it is himself only can tell you what he is it is not Ministers preaching or other discourse can proclaim that Name to you we may indeed speak over those words unto you but it is the Lord that must write that Name upon your heart he only can discover his glory to your spirit There is a spirit of life which cannot be inclosed in Letters and Syllables or transmitted through your ears into your hearts but he himself must create it inwardly and stir up the outward sense feeling of that Name of those Attributes Faith indeed comes by hearing and our knowledge in this life is thorow a glasse darkly thorow ordinances and senses but there must be an inward teaching and speaking to your souls to make that effectuall the anointing teacheth you all things 1 Ioh. 2. 27. Alas its the separation of that from the word that makes it so unprofitable if the spirit of God were inwardly writing what the word is teaching then should our souls be living Epistles that ye might read Gods Name on them O be much in imploying of depending on him that teacheth to profit who only can declare unto your souls what he is These names expresse his Essence or Being his Properties what he is in himself what he is to us in himself he is Jehovah or a self-being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we heard in the 3. Chap. I am that I am and EL a strong God or Almighty God which two hold out to us the absolute incomprehensible perfection of God eminently and infinitely enclosing within himself all perfections of the creatures the unchangeable and mutable being of God who was and is is to come without succession without variation or shadow of turning and then the Almighty power of God by which without difficulty by the inclination and beck of his will pleasure he can make or unmake all create or annihilate to whom nothing is impossible which three if they were pondered by us till our souls received the stamp of them they would certainly be powerfull to abstract and draw our hearts from the vain changeable and empty shadow of the creature gather our scattered affections that are parted among them because of their unsufficiency that all might unite in one and joyn with this self-sufficient and eternal God I say if a soul did indeed believe and consider how All sufficient he is how insufficient all things else are would it not cleave to him and draw near to him Psal. 73. ult It is the very torment and vexation of the soul to be thus racked distracted divided about many things therefore many because there is none of them can supply all our wants our wants are infinit our desires insatiable the good that is in any thing is limited bounded it can serve one but for one use and another for another use and when all are together they can but supply some wants but they leave much of the soul empty But often these outward things crosses one another and cannot consist together and hence ariseth much strife and debate in a soul his need requireth both and both will not agree But O that you could see this one universall good One for all and above all your souls would choose him certainly your souls would trust in him ye would say Ashur soal not save us we will not ride on horses Creatures shal not satisfie us we will seek our happinesse in thee and no where else since we have tasted this new wine away with the old the new is better I beseech you make God your friend for he is a great one whether he be a friend or an enemy he hath two properties that make him either most comfortable or most terrible according as he is at peace or war with souls Eternity and Omnipotency You were once all enemies to him O consider what a Party you have an Almighty Party and unchangeable Party if you will make peace with him and that in Christ then know he is the best friend in the world because he is unchangeable and Almighty if he be thy friend he will do all for thee he can do and thou hast need of But many friends willing to do yet have not ability but he hath power to do what he will and pleases Many friends are changeable their affections dry up of themselves die and therefore even Princes friendship is but a vain confidence for they shal die then their thoughts of favour perish with them but he abides the same for all Generations there is no end of his
this God is near hand every one of us Who of us think of a Divine Majesty nearer us than our very souls and consciences in whom we live and move and have our being How is it we move think not with wonder of that first Mover in whom we move How is it we live persevere in being do not always cōsider this fountain-being in whom we live and have our being O the Atheism of many souls prosessing God! We do speak walk eat and drink go about all our businesses as if we were self-being independent of any never thinking of that all-present quickning Spirit that acts us moves us speaks in us makes us to walk and eat and drink as the barbarous people who see hear speak reason and never once reflect upon the principle of all these to discern a soul within This is bruitish in this Man who was made of a straight countenance to look upward to God to know himself and his Maker till he might be differenced from all creatures below is degenerated and become like the beasts that perish Who of us believes this al-present God We imagine that he is shut up in heaven and takes no such notice of affairs below but certainly he is not so far from us though he shew more of his glory above yet he is as present and observant below V. If he be a Spirit then as he is incomprehensible and immense in being so also there is no comprehension of his knowledge The nearer any creature come to the nature of a Spirit the more knowing and understanding it is life is the most excellent being and understanding is the most excellent life Materia est imers mertua the nearer any thing is to the earthly matter as it hath lesse action so lesse life and feeling Man is nearer an Angel then beasts and therefore he hath a knowing and understanding Spirit in him There is a spirit in man and the more or lesse this spirit of man is abstracted from sensual and material things it lives the more excellent and pure life and is as it were more or lesse deliverd from the chains of the body These souls that have never risen above retired from sensible things O how narrow are they how captivated within the prison of the flesh But when the Lord Jesus comes to set free he delivers a soul from this bondage he makes these chains fall off leads the soul apart to converse with God himself and to meditate on things not seen sin wrath hell and heaven the further it goes from it self the more abstracted it is from the consideration of present things the more it lives a life like Angels And therefore when the soul is separated from the body it is then perfectly free and hath the largest extent of knowledge A mans soul must be almost like Pauls whether out of the body or in the body I know not if he would understand aright spiritual things Now then this infinite spirit is an al-knowing spirit al-seeing spirit as well as al-present There is no searching of his understanding Isa. 40. 28. and Psal. 147. 5. Who hath directed this spirit or being his counsellour hath taught him Rom. 11. 34. Isa. 40. 1◅ He calls the Generations from the beginning and known to him are all his works from the beginning O that you would alwayes set this God before you or rather set your selves alwayes in his presence in whose sight you are alwayes How would it compose our hearts to reverence fear in all our actions if we did indeed believe that the Judge of all the World is an eye-witnesse to our most retired and secret thoughts and doings If any man were as privy to thy thoughts as thy own spirit and conscience thou wouldst blush and be ashamed before him If every one of us could open a window into one anothers spirits I think this assembly should dismisse as quickly as that of Christs when he bade them that were without sin cast a stone at the Woman we could not look one upon another O then Why are we so little apprehensive of the al-searching eye of God who can even declare to us our thought before it be How much Atheism is rooted in the heart of the most holy We do not alwayes meditate with David Psal. 139. on that al-searching and al-knowing spirit who knows our down-sitting up-rising understands our thoughts a far off and who is acquainted with all our wayes O How would we ponder our path and examine our words and consider our thoughts before hand if we set our selves in the view of such a Spirit that is within us and without us before us and behind us He may spare sinners as long as he pleases for there is no escaping from him you cannot go out of his dominions nay you cannot run out of his presence Psal. 7. 8. 9. He can reach you when he pleases therefore he may delay as long as he pleases Joh. 4. 24. GOD is a Spirit c. THere are two common notions engraved on the hearts of all men by nature That God is and that he must be worshipped and these two live and die together they are clear or blotted together According as the apprehension of God is clear distinct and more deeply engraven on the soul so is this notion of mans duty of worshipping God clear imprinted on the soul and when ever the actions of men do prove that the conception of the worship of God is obliterate or worn out when ever their transgressions do witnesse that a man hath not a live◅y ◅otion of this duty of Gods worship that doth al◅o prove that the very notion of a God-head is worn out and cancelled in the soul For How could souls conceive of God as he is indeed but they must needs with Moses Exod. 34 make haste to pray and worship It is the principle of the very Law of Nature which shall make the whole world inexcusable because that when they knew God they gloriesied him not as God A Father must have honour and a Master must have fear and God who is the common Parent absolute Master of all must have worship in which reverence and fear mixed with rejoycing and affection predomines it is supposed and put beyond all question that it must be He that worships him c. It s not simply said God is a Spirit must be worshipped no for none can doubt of it If God be then certainly Worship is due to him for who is so worshipfull And because it is so beyond all question therefore woe to the irreligious world that never puts it in practice O What excuse can you have who have not so much as a form of Godlinesse Do you not know that its beyond all Controversie that God must be worshipped Why then do you deny it in your practice which all men must confesse in their conscience Is not he God
crosse thy corruptions and evidence the stamp of God on thy affections the more divine it is And therefore to serve God in these is to serve him in truth Practice hath more of truth in it then a profession When your Fathers executed judgement was not this to know me Duties that have more opposition from our natures against them and lesse sewel or oyl to feed the flame of our self love and corruption have more truth in them and if you should worship God in all other duties and not especially in those you do not worship him in truth Next let us consider the manner of Divine Worship And this is as needfull to true Worship as true matter that it be commanded and done as it is commanded that compleats true worship Now I know no better way or manner to worship God in than so to worship him as our worship may carry the stamp of his Image upon it as it may be a glasse wherein we may behold Gods Nature and Properties For such as himself is such he would be acknowledged to be I would think it were true worship indeed which had engraven on it the Name of the true living God if it did speak out so much of it self That God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him diligently Most part of our service speaks an unknown God carries such an inscription upon it To the unknown God There is so little either reverence or love or fear or knowledge in it as if we did not worship the true God but an Idoll It is said that the fool sayes in his heart that there is no God because his thoughts and affections and actions are so little composed to the fear and likenesse of that God as if he did indeed plainly deny him I fear it may be said thus of our Worship It sayes There is no God it is of such a nature that none could conclude from it that it had any relation to the true God our prayers denie God because there is nothing of God appears in them But this is true worship when it renders back to God his own Image and Name Unde repercussus redditur ipse sibi As it is a poor clean Fountain in which a man may see his shaddow distinctlie but a troubled fountain or myre in which he cannot be hold himself So it is pure worship which receives and reflects the pure Image of God but impure and unclean worship which cannot receive it and retain it I pray you Christians consider this for it is such Worshippers the Father seeks and why seeks he such But because in them he finds himself so to speak His own I mage and superscription is upon them His mercy isengraven on their faith confidence His Majestie power is stamped on their humility and reverence His goodnesse is to be read on the souls rejoicing His Greatnesse and Justice in the souls trembling Thus there ought to be some engravings on the soul answering the Characters of his glorious Name O how little of this is among them that desire to know something of God How little true Worship even among them whom the Father hath sought out to make true Worshippers But alas How are all of us unacquainted with this kind of Worship We stay upon the first principles practices of Religion and go not on to build upon the foundation Sometimes your Worship hath a stamp of Gods holinesse and justice in fear terrour at such a Majesty which makes you to tremble before him But where is the stamp of his mercy grace which should be written in your faith and rejoycing Tremble and fear indeed but rejoyce with trembling because there is mercy with him Sometime their is rejoycing and quietnesse in the soul but that quickly degenerates into carnal confidence makes the soul turn grace into wantonness and esteem of it self above what is right because it is not counterpoised with the sense and apprehension of his holinesse and justice But O to have these joyntly written on the heart in worship fear reverence confidence humility and faith That is a rare thing it is a divine composition and temper of spirit that makes a divine soul For the most part our Worship savours and smels nothing of God neither his power nor his mercy and grace nor his holinesse and justice nor his majesty and glory a secure saint formal way void of reverence of humility of servency and of faith I beseech you let us consider as before the Lord how much pains and time we lose and please none but our selves profit none at all Stir up your selves as in his sight for it is the keeping of our souls continually as in his sight which will stamp our service with his likenesse The fixed and constant meditation of God and his glorious properties this will beget the resemblance between our worship and the God whom we worship and it will imprint his Image upon it then it should please him then it should profit thee and then it should edifie others But more particularly The Worship must have the stamp of Gods spiritual Nature and be conformed to it in some measure else it cannot please him There must be a conformity between God and souls this is the great end of the Gospel to repair that Image of God which was once upon man and make him like God again Now it is the way that Jesus Christ repairs this Image brings about this conformity with God by the souls worshipping of God sutable to his Nature it is the more and more like God and happy in that likenesse Now God is a Spirit therefore saith Christ you must worship him in spirit truth The worship then of Saints must be of a spiritual nature that it may be like the immortal divine Spirit It is such Worshippers the Father seeks he seeks souls to make them like himself and this likenesse and conformity to God is the very foundation of the souls happinesse and eternall refreshment This is a point of great consequence I fear not laid to heart The Worship must be like the Worshipped It is a Spirit must Worship the Eternal Spirit it is not a body that can be the principle and chief Agent in the businesse What Communion can God have with your bodies while your souls are removed far from him more than with beasts All society and fellowship must be between those that are like one another A man can have no comfortable company with Beasts or with Stones and Trees It is men that can converse with men and a Spirit must worship the self-being-spirit Do not mistake this as if under the dayes of the Gospel we were not called to an external and bodily Worship to any service to which our outward man is instrumentall this is one of the deep delusions of this Age into which some men reprobate 〈◊〉 the Faith hath fallen That there should be no externall
Ordinances but that Christians are now called to worship all Spirit pure Spirit c. This is one of the Spirits spiritual Doctrines that call themselves so which ye must not receive for it is neither spirit of God nor of Christ that teacheth this nor the spirit of God the Creator because he hath made the whole man body and soul and so must be worshipped of the whole man He hath created man in such a capacity as he may offer up external actions in a reasonable manner with the inward affections as the Lord hath created him so he should serve him every member every part in its own capacity the soul to preceed and the body to follow the soul to be the chief worshipper and the body its servant imployed in the worship True worship hath a body and a soul as well as a true man and as the soul separated is not a compleat man so neither is the soul separated a compleat worshipper without the body the external Ordinances of God is the body the inward soul-affection is the Spirit which being joyned together makes compleat worship Neither is it the Spirit of Christ which teacheth this because our Lord Jesus hath taught us to offer up our bodies and spirits both in a reasonable service Rom. 12. 1 2. The sacrifice of the bodily performance offered up by the spiritual affection and renewed mind is a living sacrifice holy acceptable and reasonable That spirit which dwelt in Christ above measure did not think it too base to vent it self in the way of externall Ordinances He was indeed above all above the Law yet did willingly come under them to teach us who have so much need and want to come under them He prayed much he preached he did sing and read to teach us how to worship and how much need we have of Prayer and Preaching This was not the Spirit Christ promised to his Disciples and Apostles which spirit did breath most lively in the use of the external Ordinances all their dayes and this is not the spirit which was at the hour in which Christ spoke The hour is come and now is ver 23. in which the true worship of God shal not be in the external and Jewish Ceremonies and rites void of all life and inward sense of Piety but the true worship of God shal be made up of a soul and body of spirit and truth of the external appointed Ordinances according to the word of truth and the spirit of truth and of the spirit and inward soul-affection and sincerity which shal quicken and actuate that external performance There were no such worshippers then as had no use of Ordinances Christ was not such his Disciples were not such therefore it is a new Gospel which if an Angel should bring from heaven ye ought not to receive it As it is certain then that both soul and body must be imployed in this businesse so it is sure that the soul spirit must be the first mover and chiefest agent in it because it is a spiritual businesse and hath relation to the fountain-spirit which hath the most perfect opposition to all false appearances and externall shews that part of man that commeth nearest God must draw near in worshipping of God if that be removed far away there is no real communion with God man judges according to the outward appearance and can reach no further than the outward man but God is an all-searching spirit who tryeth the heart and rins and therefore he will passe another judgement upon your worship then men can do because he observes all the secret wandrings and escapes of the heart out of his sight he misses the soul when you present attentive ears or eloquent tongues there is no dallying with his Majesty painting will not deceive him his very Nature is contrary to Hypocrisie dissimulation and what is it but dissimulation when you present your selves to Religious exercises as his people but within are nothing like it nothing awaking nothing present O consider my beloved what a one you have to do with It is not men but the Father of Spirits who will not be pleased with what pleases men of your own flesh but must have a spirit to serve him Alas what are we doing with such empty names and shews in Religion Busied in the outside of worship only as if we had none to do with but men who have eyes of flesh all that we do in this kind is lost labour and will never be reckoned up in the account of true worship I am sure you know and may reflect upon your selves that you make Religion but a matter of outward fashion and externall custome you have never almost taken to heart in earnest you may frequent the Ordinances you may have a form of godlinesse consisting in some outward performances priviledges and O! how void and destitute of all Spirit and Life and Power not to speak of the removall of affection and the imploying of the marrow of your soul upon base lusts and creatures or the scattering of your desires abroad amongst them for that is too palpable but even your very thoughts mindâ—… are removed from this busines you have nothing present but an ear or eye your minds is about other businesse your desires your fears your joyes and delights your affections never did run in the channel of religious exercises all your passion is vented in other things but here you are blockish stupid without any sensible apprehension of God his mercy or Justice or wrath or of your own misery and want You sorrow in other things but none here none for sin you joy for other things but none here you cannot rejoyce at the Gospel Prayer is a burthen not a delight if your spiriâ—…s were chiefly imployed in Religious duties Religion would be almost your Element your pleasure and Recreation but now it is wearisome to the flesh because the Spirit taketh not the chief weight upon it Oh be not deceived God is not mocked you do but mock your selves with external showes while you are satisfied with them I beseech you look inwardly and be not satisfied with the outward appearance but ask at thy Soul where it is and how it is Retire within and bring up thy spirit to this work I am sure you may observe that any thing goes more smoothly and sweetly with you then the Worship of God because your mind is more upon any thing else I fear the most part of us who endeavour to some measure to seek God have too much drosse of outward formality much scumof filthy hypocrisie and guile O pray that the present furnace may purge away this scum It is the great ground of Gods present controversie with Scotland but alas the Bellows are like to burn we not be purged our scum goes not from us we satisfie our selves with some outward exercises of Religion custome undoes us all it was never more
possession of it Let all your meditations and affections and conversion proclaim this Whom have I in heaven but thee and none in the earth beside thee And certainly he shal guide you to the end and receive you into glory then you shal rest from your labours because you shal dwell in him and enjoy that which you longed and laboured for Let the consideration of our end unite the hearts of Christians here O what an absurd thing is it that those who shal lodge together at night be made perfect in one should not only go contrary wayes but have contrary minds and affections Of the SCRIPTURES 2 Tim. 3. 16. All Scriptures is given c. WE told you that there was nothing more necessary to know then what our end is and what the way is that leads to that end We see thâ—… most part of men walking at random running an uncertain race because they do not propose unto themselves a certain scope to aim at and whither to direct their whole cours According to mens particular inclinations humors so do the purposes designs of men vary and often do the purposes of one man change according to the circumstances of time his condition in the World We see all men almost running crosse one to another one drives at the satisfaction of his lust by pleasure another fancies a great felicity in honour a third in getting riches and thus men divide themselves whereas if it were true happinesse that all were seeking they would all go one way towards one end If men be not in the right way the faster they seem to move toward the mark the farther they go from it wandering from the right way suppose men intend well will put them farther from that which they intend Si via in contrarium ducat ipsa velocitas as majoris intervalli causa est Therefore it concerns us all most deeply to be acquainted with the true path of blessednesse For if we once mistake the more we do the swister we move the more distant we are from it indeed And there is the more need because there are so many by-paths that lead to destruction What say I by paths No high wayes beaten-paths that the multitude of men walk in never challenge nor will endure to be challenged as if they were in an error In other journeys men keep the plain high way and are afraid of any secret by-way lest it lead them wrong At hîc via quaeque tritissima maximè decipit Here the high pathed way leads wrong and O far wrong to Hell This is the meaning of Christs Sermon Enter in at the strait gate but walk not in the broad way where many walk for it leads to destruction Therefore I would have this perswasion once begotten in your souls that the course of the world the way of the most part of men is dangerous is damnable O consider whither the way will lead you before you go further Do not think it a folly to stand still now examine it when ye have gone on so long in their company Stand I say and consider be not ignorant as beasts that know no other thing than to follow the drove quae pergunt non quae eundum est sed quae itur they follow not whither they ought to go but whither most go You are men and have reasonable souls within you therefore I beseech you be not composed and fashioned according to custome and example that is brutish but according to some inward knowledge and reason Retire once from the multitude and ask in earnest at God what is the way Him that fears him he will teach the way that he should choose the way'to this blessed end is very strait very difficult you must have a guide in it you must have a lamp and a light in it else you cannot but go wrong The principles of reason within us are too dark dim they will never lead us through the pits and snares in the way these indeed shined brightly in Adam that he needed no light without him no voice about him But sin hath extinguished it much and there remains nothing but some little spunk or sparkle under the ashes of much corruption that is but insufficient in it self and is often more blinded and darkned by lusts so that if it were never so much refined as it was in many heathens yet it is but the blind leading the blind and both must fall into the ditch Our end is high and divine To glorifie God and to enjoy Him therefore our reason caligat ad suprema it can no more stedfastly behold that glorious end move towards it then our weak eyes can behold the Sun Our eyes can look downward upon the earth but not upward to the Heavens So we have some remnant of reason in us that hath some petty and poor ability for matters of little moment as the things of this life But if once we look upward to the glory of God or eternal happinesse our eyes are dazled our reason confounded we cannot stedfastly behold that Eph. 4. 18. 2 Cor. 3. 13. 14. Therefore the Lord hath been pleased to give us the Scriptures which may be a Lamp unto our feet a guide unto our way whereunto we shal do well to take heed as unto a candle or a light that shines in a dark place till the day dawn 2 Pet. 1. 6. These are able to make us wise unto salvation Let us here what Paul speaks of Timothy 2 Tim. 3. 16. All Scriptures is given c. Where you have two points of high concernment The Authority of the Scriptures and their Utility Their Authority for they are given by Divine Inspiration Their Utility for they are profitable for Doctrine c. and can make us perfect and well furnished to every good work The Authority of it is in a peculiar way divine of him and through him are all things All Writings of men according to the truth of the Scriptures have some Divinity in them in as much as they have of truth which is a Divine thing Yet the Holy Scriptures are by way of excellency attributed to God for they are immediatly inspired of God Therefore Peter saith that the Scriptures came not in old time by the will of Man but holy men spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1. 21. God by his Spirit as it were acted the part of the soul in the Prophets and Apostles and they did no more but utter what the Spirit conceived The holy Ghost inspired the matter the words they were but tongues pens to speak write it unto the people here needed no debate no search in their own minds for the truth no inquisition for light but light shined upon their souls so brightly so convincingly that it puts it beyond all question that it was the mind and voice of God You need not ask How they did know that their dreams or
visions were indeed from the Lord And that they did not frame any imagination in their own hearts and taught it for his Word as many did I say you need no more ask that than ask How shal a man see light or know the Sun-shine light makes it self manifest and all other things it s seen by its own brightnesse even so the holy men of God needed not any mark or sign to know the Spirits voice his revelation needed not the light of any other thing it was light it self he would certainly over power the soul and mind and leave no place of doubting God who cannot be deceived and can deceive no man hath delivered us this Doctrine O with what reverence should we receive it as if we heard the Lord from heaven speak If you ask How you shal be perswaded that the Scriptures are the Word of God his very mind opened to men made legible Truly there are some things cannot be well proved not because they are doubtfull but because they are clear of themselves and beyond all doubt and exception Principles of Arts must not be proved but supposed till you find by triall and experience afterward that they were indeed really true There are no question such characters of Divinity and Majesty imprinted in the very Scriptures themselves that whosoever hath the eyes of his understanding opened though he run he may read them and find God in them What Majesty is in the very simplicity and plainnesse of the Scriptures They do not labour to please mens ears and adorn the matter with the curious garments of words and phrases but represent the very matter it self to the soul as that which in it self is worthy of all acceptation and needs no humane eloquence to commend it Painting doth spoil native beauty external ornamēts would disfigure some things that are of themselves proportioned and lovely therefore the Lord choses a plain and simple style which is foolishnesse to the world but in these swadling cloaths of the Scriptures and this poor Cottage the Child Jesus the Lord of Heaven and Earth is contained There is a jewel of the mysterious wisdom of God and mans eternal blessednesse in the Mineral What glorious and astonishing humility is here What humble and homly Glory and Majesty also He is most high and yet none so lowly What excellent consent and harmony of many writters in such distant times Wonder at it All speak one thing to one purpose to bring men to God to abase all glory and exalt him alone Must it not be one Spirit that hath quickned all these and breathes in them all this one heavenly Song of Glory to God on high and good will towards men Other Writers will reason these things with you to convince you and perswade you and many thinks them more profound and deep for that reason and do despise the basenesse of the Scriptures But to them vvhose eyes are opened the Majesty and authority of God commanding and asserting and testifying to them is more convincing from its own bare assertion then all humane reason Although there be much light in the Scriptures to guide mens vvay to Gods glory and their own happinesse yet certainly it vvill all be too smal purpose if the eyes of our understanding be darkned and blinded If you shal surround a man vvith day-light except he open his eyes he cannot see The Scriptures are a clear Sun of life and righteousnesse but the blind soul compassed vvith that light is nothing the vviser but thinks the lamp of the Word shines not because it sees not it hath its own dungeon vvithin it therefore the Spirit of God must open the eyes of the blind enlighten the eyes of the understanding that a soul may see vvonderfull things in Gods Law Psal. 119. 5. 8. Ioh. 1. 5. The light may shine in the darknesse but the darknesse cannot comprehend it I vvonder not that the most part of men can see no Beauty no Majesty no excellency in the holy Scriptures to allure them because they are natural and have not the spirit of God and so cannot know these things for they are spiritually discerned 2 Cor. 2. 14. c. Therefore as the inspiration of God did conceive this writting at first and preached this Doctrine unto the world so there can no soul understand it or profite by it but by the inspiration of the Almighty Verily there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding saith Iob. When the spirit comes into the soul to engrave the Characters of that Law and truth into the heart which were once engraven on Tables of Stone and not written with Pen and Ink then the spirit of Christ Jesus writes over and transcribes the Doctrine of the Gospel on fleshly Tables of the heart draws the lineaments of that faith and love preached in the word upon the soul then the soul is the Epistle of Christ written not with ink and pen but with the spirit of the living God 2 Cor. 3. 3. And then the soul is manifestly declared to be such when that which is impressed on the heart is expressed in the outward man in walking that it may be read of all men Now the soul having thus received the Image of the Scriptures on it understands the Spirits voice in them and sees the truth and divinity of them The eye must receive some species and likenesse of the object before it see it it must be made like to the object ere it can behold it Intelligens in actu fit ipsum intelligible So the soul must have some inspiration of the holy Ghost before it can believe with the heart the inspyred Scriptures Now for the utility and profit of the Scripture who can speak of it according to its worth Some things may be over-commanded nay all things but this one God speaking in his word to mankind Many Titles are given to humane writings some are called accurate some subtile some ingenious and quick some profound and deep some plain some learned But call them what they please the Scriptures may vindicate to it self these two Titles as its own prerogative Holy and profitable The best speaker in the world in many words cannot want sin The best Writer hath some drosse refuse but here all is holy all is profitable Many Books are to no purpose but to feed and inflame mens lusts many serve for nothing but to spend drive over the time without thought most part are good for nothing but to burden and over-weary the world to put them in a fancy of knowledge which they have not many serve for this only to nourish mens curiosity and vain imaginations and contentions about words and notions but here is a Book profitable all profitable If you do not yet profit by it you can have no pleasure in it it s only ordained for souls profiting not for pelasing your fancy not for matter of curious speculation not for
contention and strife about the interpretation of it Many Books have nothing in them but specious Titles to commend them they do nothing lesse then what they promise they have a large and fair entry which leads only into a poor Cottage but the Scriptures hath no hyperbolick and superlative styles to allure men they hold out a plain and common gate and entry which will undoubtly lead to a pleasant Palace others prodesse volunt delectare but these certainly prodesse volunt possunt they both can profite you and will profit you I wish that souls would read the Scriptures as profitable Scriptures with intention to profit If you do not read with such a purpose you read not the Scriptures of God they become as another Book unto you But what are they profitable for For Doctrine and a Divine Doctrine A Doctrine of life and happinesse It s the great promise of the New Covenant You shal be all taught of God the Scriptures can make a man learned wise learned to salvation It is foolishnesse to the world but the world through wisdom know not God Alace what do they then know Is there any besides God And is there any knowledge besides the knowledge of God You have a poor petty wisdom among you to gather riches and manage your businesse others have a poor imaginary wisdom that they call learning and generally people think To pray to God is but a paper-skill a little Book-craft they think the knowledge of God is nothing else but to learn to read the Bible Alace mistake me not it is another thing to know God The Doctrine of Jesus Christ written on the heart is a deep profound learning and the poor simple rudest people may by the Spirits teaching become wiser than their Ancients than their Ministers O! it s an excellent point of learning to know how to be saved What is it I pray you to know the course of the Heavens To number the Orbs and the Stars in them To measure their Circumference to reckon their motions and yet not to know him that sits on the Circle of them and not to know how to inhabite and dwel there If you would seek unto God leek eyes opened to behold the mystery of the World ye would become wiser then your Pastors you would learn from the Spirit to pray better you would find the way to heaven better then they can teach you or walk in it Then it is profitable for reproof and correction It contains no Doctrine very pleasant to mens naturall humours it is indeed most pleasant but to a fight ordered taste You know the distemper of the eye or the perverting of the taste will mis-represent pleasant things sweet things to the senses make them appear ill favoured and bitter But I say to a discerning spirit there is nothing so sweet so comly I have seen an end of all perfection but none of thy Law Thy Word is sweeter to me than the hony or the hony comb If a soul be pre-possessed with the love of the world the lusts of the world it cannot favour and taste to them that vitious quality in the mind will make the pleasant Gospel unpleasant I piped unto you and you have not danced But however the Scriptures are then most profitable when they are least pleasant to our corruptions and therefore it is an absolute and intire Piece Et prodesse volunt delectare Omne tulit punctum qui miscuitutile dulvi There are sharp reproofs sad corrections of his holy Law which must make way for the pleasant and sweet Gospel This is a reproof of life a wounding before healing that who so refuse them despise their own soul but the car that heareth them abideth among the wise Prov. 15. 31. Woe unto that soul that correction or reproof or threatning is grievous unto He shal die ver 10. He is brutish Prov. 12. 1. There is a generation of men thaâ—… can endure to hear nothing but Gospel-promises that cry out against all reproving of sins and preaching of Gods wrath against unbelieving sinners as legall and medling with other mens matters especially if they reprove the sins of Rulers their publick State-enormities As if the whole Word of God were not profitable as if reproofs were not as wholsome as consolations as if threatnings did not contribute to make men flee from the wrath to come into a City of refuge Let such persons read their own Character out of wise Solomon Correction is grievous to them that forsake the way Reprove a wise man and he will love thee and he will be yet wiser Pro. 9. 9. If we were pleasers of men then were we not the servants of Jesus-Christ Let us strive to profit men but not to please them Peace peace which mens own hearts fancie would please them but it were better for them to be awakened out of that dream by reproof by correction and he that will do so shal find more favour of him afterward than he that flattereth him with his tongue Prov. 28. 23. Well then let this be established in your hearts as the foundation of all true Religion that the Scriptures are the Word of the eternal God and that they contain a perfect and exact Rule both of glorifying God of the way to enjoy him they can make you perfect to every good work I shal say no more on this but beseech you as ye love your own souls be acquainting your selves with them You will hear in these dayes of men pretending to more divine spiritual discoveries and revelations than the Scriptures contain But my brethren these can make you wise to salvation these can make you perfect to every good work Then what needs more All that is beside salvation and beyond perfection count iâ—… superfluous and vain if not worse if not diabolicall Let others be wise to their own destruction let them establish their own Imaginations for the Word of God and Rule of their Faith but hold you fast what you have received contend earnestly for it add nothing and deminish nothing Let this Lamp shine till the day dawn till the morning of the Resurrection and walk ye in the light of it and do not kindle any other sparkles else ye shal lye down in the grave in sorrow and rise in sorrow Take the Word of God as the only Rule the perfect Rule a Rule for all your Actions Civil Natural and Religious for all must be done to his glory and his Word teacheth how to attain to that End Let not your Imaginations let no others Example let not the Preaching of men let not the Conclusions and Acts of Assemblies be your Rule but in as far as you find them agreeing with the perfect Rule of Gods holy Word All other Rules are regulae regulatae they are but like publications and intimations of the Rule it self Ordinances of Assemblies are but like the Herauld-promulgation of
but a name they have some outward priviledges of Baptism and hearing the Word and it may be have a form of knowledge and a form of worship but in the mean time they are not baptized in heart they are in all their conversation even conformed to the Heathen world they hate personall reformation and think it too precise and needlesse Now I say such are many of you yet ye would not take it well to have it questioned whether ye shal be partakers of Eternall life you think you are wronged when that is called in question Oh that it were beyond all question indeed But know assuredlie That you are but Christians in the Letter in the Flesh and not in the Spirit Many of you have not so much as a form of knowledge have not so much as the Letter of Religion You have heard some names in the preaching often repeated as Christ and God and Faith and Heaven and Hell you know no more of these but the name you consider not and meditate not on them And those who know the truth of the Word yet the Word abideth not nor dwelleth in you you have it in your mouth you have it in your minde or understanding but it is not received in love it doth not dwell in the heart Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly Col. 3. 16. you have it imprisoned in your minds and shut up into a corner where it is useless can do no more but witnesse against you and scarce that as the Gentils incarcerated and detained the truth of God written by nature within them in unrighteousnesse Rom. 1. 18. So do many of you detain the knowledge of his word in unrighteousness it hath no place in the heart gets no libertie and freedom to walk through the affections and so to order the conversation of men And therefore the most part of men do but fancie to themselves an interest and right to eternall life you think it and do but think it it is but a strong imagination that hath no strength from the grounds of it no stabilitie from any evidence or promise but meerly from it self or it is but a light and vain conjecture that hath no strength in it because there is no question or doubts admitted which many try the strength of it But then I suppose that a man could attain some answerable walking that he had not onlie a form of knowledge but some reality of practice some inward heat of affection zeal for God and godlinesse yet there is one thing that wants and if it be wanting will spoil all And it is this which Christ reproves in the Jews You will not come to me to have life The Scri-Scriptures testifie of me but you receive not their testimonie Suppose a man had as much equitie and justice towards men piety towards God sobriety towards himself as can be found among the best of men let him be a diligent reader of the Scriptures let him love them meditate on them day and night yet if he do not come out of himself and leave all his own righteousnesse as dung behind him that he may be found in Jesus Christ he hath no life he cannot have any right to life eternall You may think this a strange assertion that if a man had the righteousnesse holinesse of an Angel yet he could not be saved without denying all that and fleeing to Christ as an ungodly man And you may think it as strange a supposell that any person that reads the Scriptures and walks righteously and hath a zeal towards God yet are such as will not come to Christ and will not hear him whom the Father hath sent But the first is the very substance of the Gospell There is no other Name by which men may be saved but by Iesus Christ Acts 4. 12. Life eternall is all within him All the treasures of grace and wisdom and knowledge are seated in him Col. 1. 19. and 2 3. All the light of life and salvation is imbodied in this Sun of Righteousnesse since the Eclipse of mans felicitie in the Garden Adam was a living soul but he lost his own life and killed his Posterity Christ Jesus the second common man in the world is a quickning Spirit he hath not only life in himself but he gives it more abundantly and therefore you have it so often repeated in Iohn who was the Disciple most acquainted with Christ In him was life and the life was the light of men 1. 4. And he is the bread of life that gives life to the World Joh. 6. 33. and 35. He is the resurrection and the life 11. 25. and The way the truth and life 14. 6. The Scriptures do not contain eternall life but in as far as they lead to him who is life and whom to know and imbrace is eternall life And therefore saith he These are they which testifie of me Men lived immediatlie in God when he was in innocencie he had life in himself from God but then he began to live in himself without dependance on God the fountain of life and this himself being interposed between God and his life it evanished even as a Beam by the interveening of any grosse body between it and the Sun Now mans light and life being thus eclipsed and cut off the Lord is pleased to let all fulnesse dwell in his Son Jesus Christ and The fulnesse of the God-head dwels in him bodily Col. 2. 9. that since there was no accesse immediatly to God for life a flamming fire and sword of Divine Justice compassing and guarding the tree of Life left man should touch it there might be accesse to God in a Mediator like unto us that we might come to him and might have life from God by the intervention of Jesus Christ. Look then what is in the holy Scriptures and you shal find it but a letter of death and ministration of condemnation while it is separated from him Christ is the very life and spirit of the Scriptures by whose vertue they quicken our souls if you consider the perfect Rule of Righteousnesse in the Law you cannot find life there because you cannot be conformed unto it the holiest man offends in every thing and that holy Law being violated in any thing will send thee to hell with a curse Cursed is he that abideth not in every thing If you look upon the promise of life Do this and live What comfort can you find in it except you could find doing in your selves And can any man living find such exact obedience as the Law requires There is a mistake among many They conceive that the Lord cannot be well pleased with them if they do what they can but be not deceived the law of God requires perfect doing it will not compound with thee and came down in its tearms not one jot of the rigour of it will be remitted If you cannot do all that is commanded all you do
will not satisfie that promise therefore thou must be turned over from the promise of life to the curse and there thou shalt find thy name written Therefore it is absolutely necessary that Jesus Christ be made under the Law and give obedience in all things even to the death of the Crosse and so be made a curse for us and sin for us even he who knew no sin and thus in him you find the law fulfilled Justice satisfied and God pleased in him you find the promise of life indeed established in a better surer way than was first propounded you find life by his death you find life in his dying for you And again consider the Ceremonial Law What were all those Sacrifices and Ceremonies Did God delight in them Could he savour their incense and sweet smels and eat the fat of Lambs and be pacified No he detastes and abhorres such imaginations because that people did stay in the Letter and went no further then the Ceremony he declares that it was as great abomination to him as the offering up of a Dog while they were separated from Jesus Christ in whom his soul rested and was pacified they were not expiatious but provocatious they were not propitiations for sin but abominations in themselves But take these as the shadows of such a living substance take them as remembrances of him who was to come and behold Jesus Christ lying in these swadling cloaths of Ceremonies untill the fulnesse of time should come that he might be manifested in the flesh and so you shal find eternall life in those dead beasts in those dumb Ceremonies If you consider this Lamb of God slain in all these Sacrifices from the beginning of the world then you present a sweet smelling savour to God then you offer the true propitiation for the sins of the world then he will delight more in that sacrifice than all other personall obedience But what if I should say that the Gospel it self is a killing Letter ministration of death being severed from Christ I should say nothing amisse but what Paul speaketh that his Gospel was a savour of death to many take the most powerfull Preaching the most sweet discourse the most plain Writings of the free grace salvation in the Gospel take all the preachings of Jesus Christ himself and his Apostles you shal not find life in them unlesse ye be led by the Spirit of Christ unto himself who is the resurrection and the life It will no more save you than the Covenant of works unlesse that word abide and dwell in your hearts to make you believe in him and imbrace him with your souls whom God hath sent suppose you heard all and heard it gladly and learned it and could discourse well upon it and teach others yet if you be not driven out of your selves out of your own righteousnesse as well as sin and persued to this City of refuge Jesus Christ you have not eternal life Your knowledge of the truth of the Gospel and your obedience to Gods Law will certainly kill you and as certainly as your ignorance and disobedience unlesse you have imbraced in your soul that good thing Jesus Christ contained in these truths who is the Diamond of that Golden Ring of the Scriptures and unlesse your souls imbrace these promises as soul-saving as containing the chief good and worthy of all acceptation as well as your mind receive these as true and faithfull sayings 1 Tim. 1. 15. Thus ye see Christ Jesus is either the subject of all in the Scriptures or the end of it all he is the very proper subject of the Gospel Paul knew nothing but Christ crucified in his preaching and he is the very proper end and scope of the law for righteousness Rom. 10. 3. All the preaching of a covenant of works all the curses and threatnings of the Bible all the rigidexactions of obedience all come to this one great design not that we may set about such a walking to please God or do something to pacifie him but that we being concluded under sin and wrath on the one hand and an impossibility to save our selves on the other hand Gal. 3. 22. Rom 5. 20 21. may be pursued into Jesus Christ for righteousness life who is both able to save us and ready to welcome us Therefore the Gospel opens the door of salvation in Christ the Law is behind us with fire and sword and destruction pursuing us and all for this end that sinners may come to him and have life Thus the Law is made a Pedagogue of the soul to lead to Christ Christ is behind us cursing condemning threatning us and he is before us with stretched-out arms ready to receive us blesse us and save us inviting promising exhorting to come and have life Christ is on mount Sinai delivering the Law with thunders Act. 7. 38. and he is on mount Sion in the calm voice he is both upon the mountain of cursings and blessings and on both doing the part of a Mediator Gal. 3. 19 20. It is love that is in his heart which made him first cover his Countenance with frowns and threats and it is love that again displayes it self in his smilling countenance Thus souls are inclosed with love pursuing and love receiving And thus the Law which seems most contrary to the Gospel testifies of Christ it gives him this testimony that except salvation be in him it is no where else The Law sayes it is not in me seek it not in obedience I can do nothing but destroy you if you abide under my jurisdiction The Ceremonies and Sacrifices say if you can behold the end of this Ministery if a Vail be not on your hearts as it was on Moses face 2 Cor. 3 13 14 you may see where it is it s not in your obedience but in the death sufferings of the Son of God whom we represent Then the Gospel takes all these Coverings and Vails away and gives a plain and open testimony of him There is no Name under heaven to be saved but by Christ's The Old Testament speak by figures and signs as dumb men do but the New speaks in plain words and with open face Now I say for all this that there is no salvation but in him yet many souls not only those who live in their grosse sins and have no form of godlinesse but even the better sort of people that have some knowledge and civility and a kind of zeal for God yet they do not come to him that they may have life Rom. 10. 1 2 3. they do not submit to the righteousness of God Here is the march that divides the wayes of Heaven and Hell coming to Jesus Christ and forsaking our selves the confidence of these souls is chiefly or only in that little knowledge or zeal or profession they have they do not as really abhore themselves for their own righteousnesse as for their unrighteousnesse they make that the covering of
their nakednesse and filthinesse which is in it self as menstruous and unclean as any thing It is now the very propension and naturall inclination of our hearts to stand upright in our selves Faith bowes a souls back and take on Christs righteousnesse but presumption lifts up a soul upon its own bottom How can ye believe that seek honour one of another The engagement of the soul to its own credit or estimation the engagement of self-love and self-honour do lift up a soul that it cannot submit to Gods righteousnesse to righteousnesse in another And therefore many do dream and think that they have eternall life who shal awake in the end and find that it was but a dream or night-fancy Now from all this I would enforce this duty upon your consciences to search the Scriptures if you think to have eternall life search them if you would know Christ whom to know is eternal life then again search them for these are they that testifie of him Searching imports diligence much diligence it s a serious work it s not a common seeking of an easie and common thing but it s a search and scrutiny for some hidden thing or some special thing It s not bare reading of the Scriptures that will answer this duty except it be diligent and daily reading and it s not that alone except the Spirit within meditate on them and by meditation accomplish a diligent search There is some hidden secret that you must search for that is inclosed within the covering of words and sentences there is a mystery of wisdome that you must apply your hearts to search out Eccles. 7. 5. Jesus Christ is the Treasure that is hid in this field O precious treasure of eternall life Now then souls search into the fields of the Scriptures Pro. 2. 4. for him as for hid treasure It is not only truth you must seek and buy and not sell it but it is life you would search Here is an object that may not only take up your understandings but satisfie your hearts Think not you have found all when you have found the truth there and learned it no except you have found life there you have found nothing you have missed the treasure If you would profite by the Scriptures you must bring both your understandings your affections to them and depart not till they both return full If you bring your understanding to seek the truth you may find truth but not truly you may find it but you are not found of it you may lead truth captive and unclose it in a prison of your mind and encompasse it about with a guard of corrupt affections that it shal have no issue no out going to the rest of your soul and wayes and no influence on them you may know the truth but you are not known of it and brought in captivity to the obedience of it The Treasure that is hide in the Scriptures are Jesus Christ whose intire and perfect Name is Way Truth and Life He is a living truth and true Life Therefore Christ is the adaequat object of the soul commensurable to all its faculties He has Truth in him to satisfie the mind and he has Life and Goodness in him to satiate the heart therefore if thou wouldst find Jesus Christ bring thy whole soul to seek him as Paul expresseth it He is true and faithfull and worthy of all acceptation then bring thy judgement to find the light of truth and thy affections to imbrace the life of goodnesse that is in him Now as much as ye find of him so much have ye profited in the Scriptures If you find commands there that you cannot obey search again and you may find strength under that command digg a little deeper you shal find Jesus the end of an impossible command when you have found him you have found life and strength to obey you have found a prepitiation and sacrifice for trantgressing not obeying If you find curses in it search again you shal find Jesus Christ under that made a curse for us you shal find him the end of the curse for righteousnesse to every one that believes When you know all the Letter of the Scripture yet you must search into the Spirit of it that it may be imprinted into your spirits all you know does you no good but as it s received in love unlesse your souls become a living Epistle the Word without be written on the heart you have found nothing As for you that cannot read the Scriptures if it be possible take that pains to learn to read them O if you knew what they contain whom they bear witnesse of you would have little quietnesse till you could read at least his love-epistle to sinners And if you cannot learn be not discouraged but if your desires within be servent your endeavours to hear it read by others will be more earnest But it is not so much the reading of much of it that profiteth as the pondering of these things in our hearts and digesting them by frequent meditation till they become the food of the Soul This was Davids way and by this he grew to the stature of a tall well-bodied Christian. Eph. 2. 20. And builded upon the foundation of the Apostles c. BElievers are the Temple of the living God in which he dwels and walks 2 Cor. 6. 16. Every one of them is a little Sanctuary and Temple to His Majesty Sanctifie the Lord of Hosts in your hearts though he be the high lofty one that inhabits eternity yet he is pleased to come down to this poor Cottage of a creatures heart and dwell in it Is not this as great a humbling and condescending for the Father to come down off his Throne of Glory to the poor base foot-stool of the creatures soul as for the Son to come down in the state of a servant and become in the form of sinfull flesh But then he is a Temple and Sanctuary to them and he shal be to you a Sanctuary Isa. 8. A place of refuge a secret hiding-place Now as every one is a little separated retired Temple so they all conjoyned make up one Temple one visible body in which he dwels Therefore Paul calls them living stones built up into a spiritual house to God 1 Pet. 2. 5 All these little Temples make up one house Temple fitly joyned together in which God shews manifest signs of his presence and working unto this the Apostle in this place alludes The Communion Union of Christians with God is of such a nature that all the relations and points of conjunction in the creatures are taken to resemble it hold it out to us We are Citizens saith he Domesticks houshold men so dwel in his house and then we are his House beside Now ye know there are two principal things in a House the Foundation and the Corner-stone the one supports the building the
that Jesus Christ may be the only foundation of thy soul as God hath laid him in the Church for a sure foundation That who so believeth in him may not be ashamed What ever beside a soul be established on though it appear very solid and the soul be setled fixed upon it yet a day will come that will unsettle that soul and raze that foundation either it shal be now done in thy conscience or it must be done at length when that great tempest of Gods indignation shal blow from heaven against all unrighteousnesse of men in the day of accounts then shal thy house fall and the fall of it shal be great But a soul established upon the sure promises and upon Christ in whom they are Yea and Amen shal abide that storm and in that day have confidence before God have wherewith to answer in Jesus Christ all the challenges of divine justice and the accusations of conscience He that trusteth in him shal be as Mount Sion which cannot be moved You see all things else change and therefore mens hopes and joyes perish even here the tentations and revolutions of the times undermines their confidence and joy and the blasts of the Northern wind of affliction blows away their hopes Now as Christ is the Foundation so he is the Corner-stone of the building It is Christ who hath removed that Partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles even the Ceremonies of the one and the Atheism of the other He is our peace who hath made of two one The two sides of the House of God are united by this Corner-stone Jesus Christ. Thus we who were the Temples of Satan are made the Temples of God thus poor stranger-Gentiles who had no interest in the Covenant of Promises come to share with Abraham Isaac and Iacob and to be founded upon the Doctrine of the Prophets who taught the Jewish Church Christ is the bond of Christians this is the Head into which all the members should grow up into a Body Distance of Place difference of Nations distinction of Languages all these cannot separate the Members of Jesus Christ they are more one though consisting of diverse Nations Tongues and Customes and dispositions than the people of one Nation or Children of one Family for one Lord one Spirit unites all Alas that all are not united in affection judgement why do the sides of this House contend and wrestle one against another when here is such a Corner-stone joyning them together Are not there many Christians who cannot endure to look one upon another who are yet both placed in one building of the Temple of God Alace this is sad and shamefull But that which I would especially have observed in this is that Jesus Christ is such a foundation that reacheth throughout the whole building and immediatly toucheth every stone of the Building it 's such a Foundation as riseth from the bottom to the top and therefore Jesus Christ is both the Author and finisher of our Faith the beginning and the end the first stone the last 〈◊〉 of our building must rise upon him and by him the least degree of grace and the greatest perfection of it both are in him and therefore Christians should be most dependent creatures dependent in their first being and in after well-being in their being and growing wholly dependent upon Christ that out of his fulnesse they may receive grace and then more grace for grace that all may appear to be grace indeed Now I beseech you my beloved in the Lord to know whereupon ye are builded or ought to be builded There are two great errours in the time take heed of them one is the Doctrine of some and another is the practice of the most part Some do prefer their own fancies and night-dreams and the imaginations of their own heart to the Word of God and upon pretence of Revelation of new Light do cast a mist upon that Word of God which is a light that hath shined from the beginning Be not deceived but try the Spirits whether they be of God or not There are many pretend too much of the Spirit and therefore cry out against the Word as Letter as Flesh But my Brethren believe not every Doctrine that calls it self a Spirit that spirit is not of God that hears not Gods voice as Christ reasons against the Jews seek ye more of the Spirit of Christ which he promiseth who is a Spirit that teacheth all things and bringeth to remembrance these blessed sayings and leads us to all truth It shal be both safest and sweetest to you to meditate on the word of the Prophets and Apostles and the entrance into it shal give you light an old light which was from the beginning therefore a true light for all truth is eternall and yet a new light to your sense and feeling It 's both an old command and a new command an old word a new word if thou search by the Spirits inspiration that old word shal be made new that Letter made spirit and life Such are the words that Christ speaks But yet there are many who do not reject the Scriptures in judgement who notwithstanding do not build on them in practice Alas it may be said of the most part of professed Christians among us that they are not builded upon the foundation of the Prophets Apostles but upon the sayings of fallible and weak men What ground have many of you for your Faith but because the Minister saith so You believe so the most part live in an implicite faith and practice that in themselves which they condemne in the Papists You do not labour to search the Scriptures that upon that foundation you may build your faith in the questioned truths of this Age that so you may be able to answer to those that ask a reason of the Faith that is in you Alas simple souls you believe every thing and yet really believe nothing because you believe not the Word as the Word of the living God but take it from men upon their authority Therefore when a temptation cometh when any gainsayings of the truth you cannot stand against it because your Faith hath no foundation but the sayings of Men or Acts of Assemblies And therefore as men whom you trust with holding out light unto you hold out darknesse in stead of light you embrace that darknesse also But I beseech you be builded upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles not upon them but upon that whereon they were builded the infallible truths of God You have the Scriptures search them since you have reasonable souls search them other mens faith will not save you you cannot see to walk to heaven by other mens light more than you can see by their eyes You have eyes of your own souls of your own subordinate to none but the God of Spirits and Lord of Consciences Jesus Christ therefore examine all that is spoken to you from the Word
of Salvatiō Unbelief of the Law of God did first destroy man now the belief of the Gospel saves him The not believing of the Lords threatnings was the beginning of his ruine the believing of his precious promises is his Salvation I say more as our Destruction began at the Unbelief of the Law so our salvation must begin at the belief of it The Law and Divine Justice went out of his sight and so he sinned now the Law entring into the Conscience discovers a mans sinnes makes sin abound and that is the beginning of our remedy to know our disease But as long as this is hid from a Mans eyes he is shut up in unbelief he is sealed and confirmed in his miserable estate and so kept from Jesus Christ the remedy Thus unbelief first and last destroyes Faith might have preserved Adam and Faith again might restore thee who hath fallen in Adam There is a great mistake of Faith among us some taking it for a strong and blind confidence that admits of no questions or doubtes in the soul and so vainly perswading themselves that they have it and some again conceiving it to be such an assurance of Salvation as instantly comforts the soul and looseth all objections and so foolishly vexing their own souls disquieting themselves in vain for the want of that which if they understood what it is they would find they have it I say many souls conceive that to be the best Faith that never doubted and hath alwaies lodged in them and kept them in peace since they were born But seeing all men were once aliens from the common wealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of Promise and without God in the World so without Christ also it is certain that those souls who have alwaies blest themselves in their own hearts and cryed peace peace and were never afraid of the wrath to come have imbraced an imagination and dream of their own hearts for true Faith It is not big and stout words that will prove it men may defy the Devil and all his works and speak very confidently yet God knows they are captives by him at his pleasure and not farre from that misery which they think they have escaped Satan works in them with such a crafty conveyance that they cannot perceive it and how should they perceive it For we are by nature dead in sins and so cannot feel nor know that we are such It is a token of life to feel pain a certain token for dead things are senselesse You know how Juglers may deceive your very senses and make them believe they see that which is not and feel that which they feel not O how much more easie is it for Satan such an ingenious and experimented spirit assisted with the help of our deceitfull hearts to cast such a mist over the eyes of hearts and make them believe any thing how easily may he hide our misery from us and make us believe its well with us And thus multitudes of souls perish in the very opinion of Salvation that very thing which they call Faith that strong ungrounded perswasion it 's no other thing than the unbelief of the heart unbelief I mean of the Holy Law of Divine Justice and the wrath to come for if these once entered into the souls consideration they would certainly cast down that strong hold of vain confidence that Satan keeps all the House in peace by Now this secure and presumptuous despising of all threatnings and all convictions it is vernished over to the poor soul with the colour and appearance of Faith in the Gospell They think to believe in Christ is nothing else but never to be afraid of Hell whereas it is nothing else but a soul fleeing into Christ for fear of hell fleeing from the wrath to come to the city of Refuge Now again there are some other souls quite contrary minded that run upon an other extremity they once question whether they have Faith and alwayes question it You shal find them alwayes out of one doubt into another and still returning upon these debates whether am I in Christ or not And often peremptorily concluding that they are not in him that they believe not in him I must confess that a soul must once question the matter or they shal never be certain nay a soul must once conclude that it is void of God and without Christ but having discovered that I see no more use and fruit of your frequent debates and janglings about interest would say then unto such souls that if you now question it it is indeed the very time to put it out of question And how Not by framing or seeking answers to your objections not by searching into thy self to find something to prove it not by meer disputing about it for when shal these have an end But simply and plainly by setting about that which is questioned Are you in doubt if you be Believers How shal it be resolved than but by believing indeed It is now the very time thou art called to make application of thy soul to Christ if thou thinkest that thou cannot make application of Christ to thy soul If thou cannot know if he be thine then how shal thou know it but by choosing him for thine and embracing him in thy soul Now I say if that time which is spent about such unprofitable debates were spent in solid and serious endeavours about the thing in debate it would quickly be out of debate if you were more in the obedience to those commands then in the dispute whether you have obeyed or not you would sooner come to satisfaction in it This I say the rather because the weightier and principall parts of the Gospel are those direct acts of Faith and Love to Jesus Christ both these are the outgoings of the soul to him Now again examination of our Faith and Assurance are but secondary and consequent reflections upon our selves are the soul-returning in again to it self to find what is within Therefore I say a Christian is principally called to the first and alwayes called it is the chief duty of man which for no evidence no doubting no questioning should be left undone If you be in any hesitation whether you are Believers or not I am sure the chiefest things most concerning is rather to believe then to know it it is a Christians being to believe it is indeed his comfort and wel-being to know it but if you do not know it then by all means so much the more set about it presently let the soul consider Christ and the precious promises and lay its weight upon him This you ought to do and not to leave the other undone 2. Secondly I say to such souls that it is the mistake of the very nature of Faith that leads them to such perplexities and causeth some inevidence It is not so much the inevidence of marks and fruits that makes them doubt
as the misapprehension of the thing it self for as long as they mistake it in its own nature no sign no mark can satisfie in it You take Faith to be a perswasion of Gods love that calms and quiets the mind Now such a perswasion needs no sign to know it by it is manifest by its own presence as light by its own brightnesse It were a foolish question to ask any How they knew that they were perswaded of anothers affection The very perswasion it self maketh it self more certain to the soul then any token So then while you question whether you have Faith or not and in the mean time take Faith to be nothing else but such a perswasion it is in vain to bring any marks or signs to convince you that you have Faith for if such a perswasion assurance were in you it would be more powerfull to assure your hearts of it self than any thing else and while you are doubting of it it is more manifest that you have it not than any signs or marks can be able to make it appear that you have it If any would labour to convince a blind man that he saw the light and give him signs tokēs of the lights shining the blind man could not believe him for it is more certain to himself that he sees not than any evidence can make the contrary probable You are still wishing and seeking such a Faith as puts all out of question Now when Ministers bring any marks to prove you have true Faith it cannot satisfie or settle you because your very questioning proves that ye have not that which ye question if you had such a perswasion you would not question it So then as long as you are in that mistake concerning the nature of Faith all the signs of the word cannot settle you But I say if once you understood the true nature of Faith it would be more clear in it self unto you than readily marks and signs could make it especially in the time of temptation If you would know then what it is indeed Consider what the Word of God holds out concerning himself or us the solid belief of that in the heart hath something in the nature of saving Faith in it The Lord gives a testimony concerning Man That he is born in sin that he is dead in sin and all his imaginations are only evil continually Now I say to receive this truth into the soul upon Gods Testimony in a point of Faith the Lord in his Word concludes all under sin and wrath ◅o then for a soul to conclude it self also under sin and wrath is a point of Faith Faith is the souls testimony to Gods truth the Word is Gods Testimony Now then if a soul receive this testimony within whether it be Law or Gospel it 's an act of Faith if a soul condemn it self judge it self that is a setting to our seal that God is true who speaks in his Law so it s a believing in God I say more To believe with the heart that we cannot believe is a great point of found belief because it 's a sealing of that Word of God The heart is desperatly wicked and of our selves we can do nothing Now I am perswaded if such souls knew this they would put an end to their many contentions and wranglings about this point and would rather blesse God that hath opened their eyes to see themselves then contend with him for that they have no Faith It is light only that discovers darknesse and Faith only that descerns unbelief Its life and health only that feels pain sicknesse for if all were alike nothing could be found as in dead bodies Now I say to such souls as believe in God the Law-giver believe also in Christ the Redeemer and what is that It is not to know that I have Interest in him No that must come after it is the Spirits sealing after believing which puts it self out of question when it comes and so if you had it you needed not many signs to know it by at least you would not doubt of it more than he that sees the light can question it But I say to believe in Christ is simply this I whatsoever I be ungodly wretched polluted desperate am willing to have Jesus Christ for my Saviour I have no other help or hope if it be not in him it is I say to lean the weight of thy soul on this foundation stone laid in Zion to embrace the promises of the Gospel albeit generall as worthy of all acceptation wait upon the performance of them It is no other thing but to make Christ welcome to say even so Lord Jesus I am content in my soul that thou be my Saviour to be found in thee not having my own righteousnesse I am well pleased to cast away my own as dung find my self on other not an ungodly man Now it is certain that ◅any souls that are still questioning whether they have Faith yet do find this in their souls but because they know not that it is Faith which they find they go about to seek that which is not Faith and where it is not to be found and so disquiet themselves in vain and hinder fruitfulnesse Now the Faith of a Christian is no fancy it 's no light vain imagination of the brain but it dwells in the heart with the heart man believes and it dwels with love Faith and love we need not be curious to distinguish them it is certain that love is in it from it it s in the very bosome of it because faith is a soul embracing of Christ it 's a choosing of him for its portion and then upon the review of this goodly portion and from consideration what he is and hath done for us the soul loves him still more is impatient of so much distance from him We find them conjoyned in Scripture but they are one in the heart O that we studied to have these joyntly engraven on the heart as they are joyned in the word so our heart should be a living Epistle Faith and Love are two words but one thing under different notions they are the out-goings of the soul to Christ for life the breathings of the soul after him for more of him when it hath once tasted how good he is Faith is not a speculation or a wandring thought of Truth it 's the truth not captivated into the mind but dwelling in the heart getting possession of the whole man you know a man and his will are one not so a man and his mind for he may conceive the truth of many things he loves not but what ever a man loves that and he in a manner becomes one with another Love is unitive it 's the most excellent union of distant things The will commands the whole man and hath the office of applying of all the faculties of their proper works Illa imperat aliae exsequuntur
joyntly to God it is certainly a great slight of that deceitful destroyer the Devill to possesse your minds with an opinion of Religion in such vain bablings that he may with-draw both your ears your hearts from the publick worship of God for when every one is busied with his own prayers you cannot at all joyn in the publick service of God which is offered up in your name The like I may say of stupid forms of prayer tying your selves to a plat-form written in a book or to some certain words gotten by the heart who hath commanded this Sure not the Lord who hath promised his spirit to teach them to pray and help their infirmities who know not how nor what to pray it is a device of your own invented by Satan to quench the spirit it of supplication which should be the very naturall breathing of a christian But there are some so grossely ignorant of what prayer is that they make use of the ten commands Beleef as a Prayer so void are they of the knowledge and spirit of God that they cannot discern betwixt Gods commands to themselves their own requests to God betwixt his speaking to men and their speaking to him between their professing of him before men and praying and confessing to him all this is but forged imaginary worship worship falsly so called which the Father seeks not and receives not But what if I should say that the most part of your worship even that which is commanded of God as Prayer Hearing Reading c hath no truth in it I should say nothing amiss for though you doe those things that are commanded yet not as Commanded without any respect to divine appointment only because you have received them as traditions from your fathers and because you are taught so by the precepts of men and are accustomed so to do therefore the stamp of Gods will and pleasure is not engraven on them but of your own will or of the will of men Let me pose your Consciences many of you what difference is there between your praying your plowing between your hearing and your harrowing between your reading of the Scriptures and your reaping in the Harvest between your Religious Service and your common ordinary actions I say what difference is in the rise of these You do many civill things out of custome or because of the Precepts of men is there any other principle at the bottom of your religious performances Do you at all consider these are divine appointments these have a stamp of his authority on them and from the Conscience of such an immediat command of God and the desire to please him and obey him do you go about these I fear many cannot say it O I am sure all cannot thogh it may be all will say it therefore your religious worship can come in no other account than will-worship or man-worship it hath not the stamp of truth on it an express conformity to the truth of God as his truth But we must presse out this a little more Truth is opposed to a ceremony shadow The ceremonies of old were shadows or the external body of Religion in which the soul and spirit of godlinesse should have been enclosed but the Lord did alwaies urge more earnestly the substance and truth then the ceremony the weightier matters of the Law Piety equity and sobriety than these lighter external Ceremonies he sets an higher account upon mercy then sacrifice upon obedience then Ceremonies but this people turned just contrary they summed up all their Religion in some ceremonial performance and separated those things God had so nearly conjoyned they would be devout men in offering sacrifices in their washings in their rites and yet made no conscience of heart and Soul-piety toward God upright just dealing with men Therefore the Lord so often quarrels them rejects all their service as being adevice and invention of their own which never entred in his heart Isa. 1. from 10. to 16. Ier. 7. throughout Isa. 66. to 6. Isa 28. Now if you will examine it impartially it is even just so with us there are some externall things in Religion which in comparison with the weightier things of faith and obedience are but ceremonial in these you place the most part if not all your Religion and think your selves good Christians if you be baptized and hear the Word and partake of the Lords table and such like though in the mean time you be not given to secret prayer reading and do not inwardly judge and examine your selves that you may flee unto a Mediator thogh your conversation be unjust and scandalous among men I say unto such souls as the Lord to the Jews Who hath required this at your hands who commanded you to hear the VVord to be baptized to wait on publick Ordinances Away with all this it is abomination to his Majesty though it please you never so well the more it displeases him If you say why commands he us to hear c. I say the Lord never commanded these external Ordinances for the sum of true Religion that was not the great thing which was in his heart that he had most pleasure unto but the weightier matters of the Law piety equity sobriety a holy and godly conversation adorning the Gospell What hath the Lord required of thee but this O man To do justly and walk humbly with thy God So then thou dost not worship him in Truth but in shadow the Truth is holinesse and righteousnesse that externall profession is but a Ceremony while you separate these external Ordinances from these weighty duties of piety justice that they are but as dead body without a soul. If the Lord required truth of old much more now when he hath abolished the multitude of Ceremonies that the great things of his Law may be more seen and loved If you would then be true worshippers look the whole mind of God especially the chief pleasure of Gods mind that which he most delights into and by any means do not separate what God hath conjoyned do not divide righteousness towards men from a profession of holiness to God else it is but a falshood a counterfeit coyn do not please your selves so much in externall Church priviledges without a holy and godly conversation adorning the Gospel but let the chief study endeavour delight of your souls be about that which God most delights into let the substantials of Religion have the first place in the soul Pray more in secret that he will be the life of your souls you ought indeed to attend publick ordinances but above all take heed to your conversation walking at home and in secret prayer in your Family is a more substantiall worship then to sit hear prayer in publick and prayer in secret is more substantiall then that The more retired and immediate a duty be the more weighty it is the more it
undoing then vvhen indignation and vvrath is pursuing it O that you vvould ponder vvhat you lose by it both the sweetnesse and advantage of godlinesse beside the dishonour of God You take a formall neglegent and secure vvay as the most easie vvay and the most pleasing to your flesh and I am perswaded you find it the most difficult vvay because you vvant all the pleasant sweet refreshment soul-delights you might have in God by a serious and diligent minding of Religion The pleasure and sweetnesse of God tasted and found vvill make diligence and pains more easie then slothfulnes can be to the slothfull this oyls the wheels and makes them run swiftly formality makes them drive heavily thus you live alwayes in a complaining humor fighing and going backward because you have some stirring principles or conscience vvithin vvhich bears vvitnesse against you and your formall sluggish disposition on the other hand refuseth to awake and work you are perplexed and tormented between the two when thy spirit and affections goes one way thy body another then thy conscience drives on the Spirit and thy affections draw back it must needs be an unpleasant businesse Deut. 6. 4. Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord. 1 Joh. 5. 7. There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one GReat is the mystery of Godlinesse 1 Tim. 3. 16. Religion and true Godlinesse is a bundle of excellent mysteries of things hid from the world yea from the wise men of the world 1 Cor. 2. and not only so but secrets in their own nature the distinct know ledge whereof is not given to Saints in this estate of distance and absence from the Lord There is almost nothing in Divinity but it is a mystery in it self how common soever it be in the apprehensions of men for it is mens overly and common and slander apprehensions of thē which makes them look so commonly upon them there is a depth in them but you will not know it till you search it sound it the more you sound you shal find it the more profound But there are some mysteries smal and some great there is a difference amongst them all are not of one statu◅e of one measure The mystery of Christs Incarnation and D◅ath and Resurrection is one of the great mysteries of Religion God manifested in the flesh yet I conceive there is a greater mystery than it and of all mysteries in nature or divinity I know none to this the Holy Trinity and it must needs be greatest of all and without controversie greatest because it is the beginning and end of all fons finis omnium all mysteries have their rise here and all of them return hither This is furthest removed from the understandings of men what God himself is for himself is infinitly above any manifestation of himself God is greater than God manifested in the flesh though in that respect he be too great for us to conceive There is a naturall desire in all men to know and if any thing be secret and wonderfull the desire is more inflamed after the knowledge of it the very difficulty or impossibility of attaining it in stead of restraining the curiosity of mans spirit doth rather incense it Nitimur in vetitum is the fruit the sad fruit we plucked and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil If the Lord reveal any thing plainly in his Word to men that it despised and set at naught because it is plain whereas the most plain truths which are beyond all controversie are the most necessary and most profitable for our eternal salvation but if there be any secret mystery in the Scriptures which the Lord hath only pointed out more obscurely to us reserving the distinct and clear understanding of it to himself Deut. 29. 26. that is the Apple which our cursed natures will long for and catch after though there be never so much choice of excellent saving fruit in the Paradise of the Scriptures besides If the Ark be covered to keep men from looking into it that doth rather provoke the curious spirit of man to prye into it 1 Sam. 6. 19. If the Lord shew his wonderfull glory in the Mount charge his people not to come near left the glorious presence of God kill them he must put rayles about it to keep them back or else they will be medling such is the unbridled licence of our minds and the perverse dispositions of our natures that where God familiarly invites us to come what he earnestly presseth us to search and know that we despise as trivial and common and what he compasseth about with a divine darkness of inaccessible light and hath removed far from the apprehensions of all living that we will needs search into and wander into those forbidden compasses with daring boldnesse I conceive this holy and profound mysterie is one of those secrets which belongs to God to know for who knowes the Father but the Son or the Son but the Father or who knoweth the mind of God but the Spirit Yet the foolish minds of men will not be satisfied with the believing ignorance of such a mysterie but will needs enquire into those depths that they may find satisfaction for their reason but as it hapeneth with men who will boldly stare upon the Sun their eyes are dazled and darkned with its brightnesse or those that enter into a Labyrinth which they can find no way to come out but they further go into it the more perplexed it is and the more intricate even so it befalls many unsober and presumptuous spirits who not being satisfied with the simple truth of God clearly asserting that this is endeavour to examine it according to reason and to solve all the objections of carnal wit and reason which is often enmity to God not by the silence of the Scriptures but by answers framed according to the severall capacities of men I say all this is but daring to behold the infinite glorie of God with eies of flesh which makes them darkned in mind and vanishing in their Expressions while they seek to behold the inaccessible light while they enter into an endlesse Labyrinth of difficulties out of which the threed of reason and disputation can never extricat them or lead them forth But the Lord has shewed us a more excellent way though it be more despicable to men man did fal from his blessednes by this curious and wretched aime at some higher happinesse and more wisdom The Lord hath chosen another way to raise him up again by faith rather thā knowledge by believing rather than disputing therefore the great command of the Gospell is this to receive with a ready and willing mind whatsoever the Lord saith to us whatsoever it may appear to sense reason to dispute no more to search no more into the secret of Divine mysteries as if by
searching we could find them out unto perfection but to believe what is spoken till the day break and the shadows flee away and the darknesse of ignorance be wholly dispelled by the rising of the Sun of Righteousnesse We are called then to receive this truth that God is one truly one and there are three in this one the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost This I say you must believe because the wisdom of God faith it though you know not how it is or how it can be though it seem a contradiction in reason a Trinity in Unity yet you must lead your reason captive to the obedience of faith silence it with this one answer The Lord hath said it If thou go on to dispute and to enquire how can these things be Thou art escaped from under the power of Faith and are fled unto the tents of humane wisedom where thou mayest learn artheism but no Religion for the world through wisedom knew not God 1 Cor. 1. And certainly who ever he be that will not quiet his conscience upon the bare word of truth in this particular but will call in for the help of reason and disputation how to understand and maintain it I think he shall be further from the true knowledge of God and satisfaction of mind than before There is no way here but to flee into Pauls Sanctuary Who art thou O man that disputes When ever thou thinks within thy self How may this be how can one be three and three one then withall let this of Pauls sound in thine ears Who art thou O man who disputes Think that thou art man think that he is God Believing ignorance is much better than rash presumptuous knowledge ask not a reason of these things but rather adore and tremble at the mysterie and Majesty of them Christianity is foolishnesse to the world upon this account because it 's an Implicite faith so to speak given to God but there is no fear of being deceived though he lead thee blind by a way thou know not yet he cannot lead thee wrong This holy simplicity in believing every word of God trusting without more trying by disputation is the very Character of Christianity and it will be found only true wisdome for if any will become wise he must be a fool in mens account that he may be wise he must quite his reason to learn true Religion which indeed is a more excellent and divine reason neither is it contrary to it though it be high above it In this place of Moses you have the Unity of God asserted The Lord thy God is one Lord And that is indeed engraven on the very hearts of men by nature That God is One for all may know that the common notion and apprehension of God is that he is a most perfect being the Originall of all things most wise most powerfull infinite in all perfections Now common reason may tell any man that there can bee but one thing most perfect Excellent there can be but one infinite one Almighty one beginning and end of all one first mover one first cause of whom are all things and who is of none Again in this place of Iohn ye have a Testimony of the blessed Trinitie of Persons Father Son and holy Ghost in that holy Unity of Essence The great point which Iohn hath in hand is this fundamentall of our Salvation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Saviour of the World in whom all our confidence should be placed and upon whom we should lean the weight of our souls this he proves by a twofold testimony one out of Heaven another in the Earth There are three bearing witnesse to this truth in heaven The Father the word that is Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God whom this Apostle calls the word of God or wisdom of God Ioh. 1. 1. and the Holy Ghost The Father witnessed to this truth in an audible voice out of Heaven when Christ was baptized Mat. 3. 17. This is my wel-belovd Son hear him here 's the Fathers Testimony of the Son when he was baptized which was given very solemnly in a great congregation of people and divinely with great glory and Majesty from Heaven as if the heavens had opened upon him and the inaccessible light of God had shined down on him which was confirmed in the transfiguration Mat. 17. 5. VVhere the Lord gave a glorious evidence to the astonishment of the three Disciples how he did account of him how all Saints and Angels must serve him Him hath God the Father sealed saith Iohn Indeed the stamp of divinitie of the divine Image in such an excellent manner upon the man Christ was a Seal set on by God the Father signifying confirming his approbation of his well-beloved Son and of the work he was going about Then the Son himself did give ample Testimony of this this was the subject of his Preaching to the VVorld I am the light and life of men He that beleeveth on mee shall be saved and therefore he may be called the word of God and the wisedom of God Joh. 1. 1. Prov. 8. Because he hath revealed unto us the blessed mysterie of Wisdom concerning our Salvation He is the very expression and Character of the Fathers person and Glory Heb. 1. In his own Person and he hath revealed and expressed his Fathers mind and his own Office so fully to the World that there should be no more doubt of it Out of the mouth of these two witnesses this Word might be established But for superabundance behold a third the Holy Ghost witnessing at his baptisme in his Resurrection after his Ascension the Holy Ghost signifieth his presence and consent to that work in the similitude of a Dove the Holy Ghost testified it in the power that raised him from the dead the Holy Ghost put it beyond all question when he descended upon the Apostles according to Christs promise For the other three witnesses on earth we shal not stay upon it only know that the work of the regeneration of souls by the power of the word and spirit signified by water the justification of guilty souls signified by the blood of Jesus Christ the Testimony of the spirit in our Conscience bearing witnesse to our Spirits is an assured Testimony of this that Jesus Christ in whom we believe is the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth The changing pacifying and comforting of souls in such a wonderfull manner cryes aloud that he in whom the soul believes is the true and living God whom to know is eternal life But mark I pray you the accuracy of the Apostle in the change of the speech these three witnesses on earth saith he agree in one in giving one common testimony to the Son of God and Saviour of Sinners But as for the heavenly witnesses the Father the Word and Holy Ghost how ever they be three after an inconceivable manner
creature but it had some ingravings of God upon it some curious draughts and lineaments of his Power Wisdome and goodnesse upon it and therefore the Heavens are said to shew forth his glory c. But whatever they have it is but the lower part of that image some dark shaddows and resemblances of him but that which is the last of his works he maketh it according to his own image tanquam ab ultima manu he therein gives out himself to be read and seen of all men as in a glasse other creatures are made as it were according to the similitude of his footstep ad similitudinem vestigii but man ad similitudinem faciei according to the likenesse of his face in our image after our likenesse It is true there is one only Jesus Christ his Son who is the brightnesse of his glory and the express substantiall image of his person who resembleth him perfectly and throughly in all properties so that he is alter idem another-self both in nature properties operations so like him that he is one with him so that it is rather an onenesse than a likenesse but man he created according to his own Image and gave him to have some likenesse to himself likenesse I say not samenesse or onenesse That is high indeed to be like God The notion and expression of it imports some strange thing how could man be like God who is infinite incomprehensible whose glory is not communicable to another It is true indeed in these incommunicable properties he hath not only no equal but none to liken him in these he is to be adored admired as infinitely transcending all created perfections conceptions but yet in others he has been pleased to hold forth himself to be imitated and followed and that this might be done he first stamps them upon man in his first moulding of him if ye would know what these are particularly the Apostle expresses them Col. 3. 10. in knowledge in rightousnesse and holinesse Eph. 4. 24. This is the Image of him who created him which the Creator stamped on man that he might seek him and set him apart for himself to keep communion with him and to bless him There is a spirit given to man with a capacity to know and to will And here is a draught and lineament of Gods face which is not engraven on any sensitive creature It is one of the most noble and excelâ—…ent operations of life in which a man is most above beasts to reflect upon himself his Creator There â—…re naturall instincts given to other things naturall â—…ropensions to those things that are convenient to â—…heir own nature but none of them have so much â—…s a capacity to know what they are or what they â—…ave they cannot frame a notion of him who â—…ave them a beeing but are only proportionate â—…o the discerning of some sensible things and can â—…each no further He hath limited the eye within coâ—…ours and light he hath set a bound to the care that 〈◊〉 cannot act without sounds and so every sense he â—…ath assigned his own proper stanse in which it moves â—…ut he teaches man knowledge and he enlarges the â—…hear of his understanding beyond visible or sensible â—…hings to things invisible to spirits this capacity â—…e hath put in the soul to know all things and it self â—…mong the rest the eye discerns light but sees not it â—…lf but he gives a Spirit to man to know himself and â—…is God and then there is a willing power in the soul by which it diffuses it self towards any thing that is conceived as good the understanding directing and the will-commanding according to its direction and then the whole faculties and senses obeying such commands which makes up an excellent draught of the image of God There was a sweet proportion and harmony in Adam all was in due place and subordination the motions of immortall man did begin within the lamp of reason did shine give light unto it till that went before here was no stirring no chusing or refusing when reason which was one sparkle of the divine nature or a ray of Gods light reflected into the soul of man when once that did appear to the discerning of good evil this power was in the soul to apply the whole man accordingly to chose the good and refuse the evil it had not been a lively resemblance of God to have a power of knowing and willing simply unlesse these had been beautified and adorned with supernaturall and divine graces of spiritual light and holinesse righteousnesse these make up the lively colour and compleat the image of God upon the soul. There was a Divine Light which did shine in upon the understanding ever till sin interposed Eclipsed it and from the light of Gods countenance did the sweet heat warmnesse of holinesse uprightnesse in the affections proceed so that there was nothing but purity and cleannesse in the soul no darknesse of ignorance no muddinesse of carnall affections but the soul pure and transparent to receive the refreshing and enlightning rayes of Gods glorious countenance and this was the very face and beauty of the soul it is that only that is the beauty and excellency of the creature conformity to God this was throughout in understanding and affections the understanding conformed to his understanding discerning between good and evil and conformed it behoved to be for it was ouâ—… a ray of that Sun a stream of that fountain of wisdom and a light derived from that primitive light of Gods understanding and then the will did sympathize as much with his will approving and chusing what he approved refusing that which he hated I dem velle atque idem nolle ea demum firma est amicitia that was the conjunction and it is more strict than any â—…ye among men there was not two wills they were as it were one the love of God reflecting into the soul did as it were carry the soul back again unto him that was the conforming principle which fashioned the whole man without and within â—…o his likenesse to his obedience Thus man was â—…ormed for communion with God this likenesse behoved to be or they could no joyn as friends But now this calls us to a sad meditation to think â—…om whence we have fallen and so how great our fall â—…s to fall from such a blessed estate that must be great misery Sathan hath spoyled us of our rich treasure â—…hat glorious image of holinesse And hath drawn â—…pon our souls the very visage of hell the lineaments â—…f his hellish countenance but the most part of men 〈◊〉 stupid insensible of any thing as beasts that are felâ—…d with their fall that can neither find pain nor rise 〈◊〉 we could but return and consider what are all those â—…d and woefull consequences of sin in the world what 〈◊〉 strange distemper it hath put in the Creation What
and glory to his ever glorious Name for whom are all things There is none but they will allow God some government in the world Some would have him as a King commanding and doing all by Deputies and Substitutes Some would have his influence generall like the Suns upon sublunary things but how shallow are all mens thoughts in regard of that which is God has prepared indeed his Throne in heaven that is true that his glory doth manifest it self in some strange and majestick manner above but he whole tenour of Scripture shews that he is not shut up in heaven but that he immediatly cares for governs disposes all things in the world for his kingdome is over all It is the weaknesse of Kings not their glory that they have need of Deputies it is his glory not basenesse to look to the meanest of their creatures it is a poor resemblance empty shadow that Kings have of him He rules in the Kingdomes of men to him belongs the dominion the glory he deserves the name of a King whose beck Heaven earth obeyes Can a King command that the Sea flow not Can a Parliament act and ordain that the Sun rise not or will these obey them Yet at his decree and command the Sun is dark the Sea stands still the Mountains tremble at thy rebuke the Seafled Alas What do we mean that we look upon creatures act our selves as if we were independent in our being and moving How many things fall out you call them casuall attribute them to Fortune How many things do the World gaze upon think upon and discourse upon and yet not one thought one word of God all the time What more contingent than the falling of a sparrow on the grōnd And yet even that is not unexpected to him but it flows from his will counsel What lesse taken notice of or know than the hairs of your head yet these are particularly numbred by him and so no power in the World can add to them or diminish from them without his counsell O what would the belief of this do to raise our hearts to sutable thoghts of God above the creatures to encrease the fear faith and love of God and to abate from our fear of men our vain and unprofitable cares and perplexities How would you look upon the affairs of men the counsels contrivances endeavours successes of men when they are turning upside down and plotting the ruine of his people establishing themselves alone in the earth What would you think of all these revolutions at this time Many souls are astonished at them and stand gazing at what is done and to be done and this is the very language of your spirits and wayes The Lord hath forsaken the earth the Lord seeth not this is the language of our Parliaments and people they do imagine that they are doing their own businesse and making all sure for themselves But O what would a soul think that could escape above them all and arise up to the first wheele of present motions A soul that did stand upon the exaled Tower of the Word of God and looked off it by the prospect of faith would presently discover the circle in which all these wandrings and changes are confined and see Men States Armies Nations and all of them doing nothing but turning about in a round as horse in a Mill from Gods eternall purpose by his Almighty Power to his unspeakeable glory you might behold all these extravagant motions of the creatures inclosed within those limits that they must begin here and end here though themselves are so beastly that they neither know of whom nor for whom their counsels and actions are Certainly Satan cannot break without this compasse to serve his own humour principalities and powers cannot do it if they will not glorifie him he shal glorifie himself by them and upon them Gen. 2. 17. In that day thou eatest thou snalt die the death Gen. 1. 26. Let us make man according to our image THe state wherein man was created at first you heard was exceeding good all things very good and he best of all the choisest externall visible peece of Gods workmanship made according to the most excellent pattern after our Image though it be a double misery to be once happy yet seeing the knowledge of our misery is by the grace of God made the entry to a new happinesse it is most necessary to take a view of what man once was that we may be more sensible of what he now is You may take up this Image and likenesse in three branches First there was a sweet conformity of the soul in its understanding will and affections unto Gods holinesse light A beautifull light in the mind dirived from that fountain-light by which Adam did exactly know both divine and naturall things What a great difference doth yet appear between a learned man and an ignorant rude person though it be but in relation to naturall things the one is but like a beast in comparison of the other O how much more was there between Adams knowledge and that of the most learned The highest advancement of Art and Industry in this life reaches no further then to a learned ignorance of the mysteries in the works of God and yet there is a wonderfull satisfaction to the mind in it But how much sweet complacency hath Adam had whose heart was so enlarged as to know both thing higher and lower their natures properties vertues and severall operations No doubt could trouble him no difficulty vex him no controversie or question perplex him but above all The knowledge of that glorious eternall Being that gave him a being and iniused such a spirit into him the beholding of such infinite treasures of wisdome and goodness power in him what an amiable and refreshfull sight would it be when there was no cloud of sin and ignorance to interpose and eclipse the full enjoyment of that increated light When the Aspect of the Sun makes the Moon so glorious beautifull What may you conceive of Adams soul framed with a capacity to receive light immediatly from Gods countenance How fair and beautifull would that soul be until the dark cloud of sin did interpose it self Then consider what a beautifull rectitude and uprightnesse what a comely order and subordination would ensue upon this light and make his will and affections wonderfull good Eccl. 7. 29. God made man upright There was no throw or crack in all all the powers of the sou bending upright towards that fountain of all gooness now the soul is crooked bends downward towards those base earthly things that is the abasement of the soul then it looked upright towards God had no appetite no delight but in him and his fulnesse and had the Moon or changeable World under its feet there was a beauty of holynesse and righteousnesse which were the colours that did perfect
that so many do abide in themselves and trusting to their own good purposes resolutions endeavoâ—…s do think to pacifie God and help themselves out of their misery But O look again and look in upon your selves in the glass of the Word and there is no doubt but you vvill straightway be filled vvith confusion of face and be altogether spoiled of good confidence and hope as you call it you vvill find your self plunged in a pit of misery and all strength gone and none on the right hand or the left to help you and then and not till then vvill the second Adams hand stretched out for our help be seasonable That vvhich next follows is that vvhich is the companion of sin inseparably Death hath past upon all and that by sin Adams one disobedience opened a port for all sin to enter upon mankind and sin cannot enter vvithout this companion Death Sin goes before and Death follows on the back of it and these suite one another as the vvork and the vvages as the tree and the fruit they have a sibness one to another sowing to corruption reaps an answerable harvest to vvit corruption Sowing to the vvind and reaping the vvhirlewind how suitable are they That men may know how evil and bitter a thing sin is he makes this the fruit of it In his first Law and sanction given out to men he joyns them inseparably sin and death sin and vvrath sin and a curse By Death is not only meant bodily death which is the separation of the soul from the body but first the spiritual death of the soul consisting in a separation of the soul from Gods blessed enlightning enlivening and comforting countenance Mans true life wherein he differs from beasts consists in the right aspect of God upon his soul in his walking with God and keeping communion with him all things besides this are but common and base and this was cut off his comfort his joy and peace in God extinct God became terrible to his conscience and therefore man did flee and was araid when he heard his voice in the garden Sin being interposed between God and the soul cut off all the influence of heaven Hence arises darkness oâ—… mind hardness of heart delusions vile affections horror of conscience Look what difference is between a living creature and a dead carcase so much is between Adams soul upright living in God and Adams soul separated from God by sin Then upon the outward man the curse redounds the body becoms mortal which had been incorruptible it 's now like a besiedged City now some outward sorts are gained by diseases now by pains and torments the outward wals of the body are at length overcome and when life hath fled into a Castle within the City the heart that is at last all besiedged so straitly and stormed so violently that it must render unto death upon any terms The body of man is even a seminary of a world of diseases and grievances that if men could look upon it aright they might see the sentence of death every day performed Then how many evils in estate in friends and relations in imployments which being considered by Heathens hath made them praise the dead more then the living but him not yet born most of all because the present life is nothing else but a valley of misery and tears a sea of troubles where one wave continually prevents another and comes on like Iobs messengers before he speak out his woâ—…ul tydings another comes with such like or worse But that which is the sum and accomplishment of Gods curse and mans misery is that death to come eternal death not death simply but an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power An infinite loss because the loss of such a glorious life in the enjoyment of Gods presence and an infinite hurt and torment beside and both eternal Now this is that we would lay before you you are under such an heavy sentence from the womb a 〈◊〉 of the Almighty adjudging you for Adams guilt and your own to all the misery in this world and the next to all the treasures of wrath that are heaped up against the day of wrath and strange it is how vve can live in peace and not be troubled in mind vvho have so great and formidable a party Be perswaded O be perswaded that there shal not one â—…ot of this be removed it must be fulfilled in you or your Cautioneâ—… and vvhy then is a Savior offered a City of refuge opened and secure sinners vvill not flee into it But as for as many as have the inward dreadful apprehension of this vvrath to come and knows not vvhat to do know that to you is Jesus Christ preached the second Adam a quickning Spirit and in that consideration better then the first not only a living soul himself but a Spirit to quicken you vvho are dead in sins one that hath undertaken for you and vvill hold you fast Adam vvho should have kept us lost himself Christ in a manner lost himself to save us And as by Adams disobedience all this sin misery hath abounded on man know that the second Adam his obedience and righteousness is of greater vertue and efficacy to save and in stead of sin to restore righteousness and in stead of death to give life therefore you may come to him and you shal be more surely kept then beâ—…ore 1. Tim. 1. 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Iesus Christ came in the world to save sinners OF all Doctrines that ever vvere published to men this contained here is the choisest as you see the very preface prefixed to it import And truly as it is the most excellent in it self it could not but be sweet unto us if we had received into the heart the belief of our own wretchedness misery I do not know a more soveraign cordial for a fainting soul then this faithful saying That Iesus Christ came into the world to save sinners And therfore we are most willing to dwel on this â—…ubject and to inculcate it often upon you That without him ye are undone and lost and in him you may be saved I profess all other subjects howsoever they might be more pleasing to some hearers are unpleasant and unsavory to me This is that we would once learn and ever be learning to know him that came to save us and come to him We labored to show unto you the state of sin and misery that Adams first transgression hath subjected all mankind unto which if it were really and truly apprehended I do not think but it would make this saying welcome to our souls Man being plunged into such a deep pit of misery sin and death having over-flowed the whole world and this being seen and acknowledged by a sinner certainly the next question in order of nature is this Hath God left all to perish in this