Slaves or to be such There is a sort of People as was once said born to Slavery to whom it is a Birthright They have it in their Natures and no other State as he most aptly spake is agreeable or becoming to them Quos non decet esse nisi servos They know not what to do with Liberty any more than that silly Creature that us'd to haunt the Dunghil with the Pearl Therefore they can but sutably value the Restorers and Assertors of it No Irons can be heavier or less tolerable to them than a generous and a Christian State of Freedom Therefore if none else will do them the kind Office to put them into gentler Shackles they grow so unnaturally cruel as to shackle themselves in the ignoblest sort of Bondage They are held in the Cords of their own Sins and make the Chain whereby they are to be dragg'd Brutish Appetites and Inclinations are to them severer Taskmasters than it can ever be in their Power to become to others They can themselves at the utmost but domineer over other Mens Externals but these have subdu'd their Wills and tyrannize in their very Minds Thus 't is with them in relation to their Governing and their being Governed And their Policy and Religion come both out of the same Mint To them this Season of Sorrow is a time of Festivity and Laughter who when they have suffered a more monstrous Transformation themselves can easily turn the House of Mourning into that of Mirth The wise Man tells us what sort of People they are whose Heart is in this latter House and what is to be thought of such Mirth and Laughter And indeed without a serious Repentance by which Men do resipiscere or become wise theirs is like to prove the Sardonick Laughter a certain Prelude to Death and Ruine But 't is to be hoped this sort of Men do dwindle into a not-much-regardable Paucity The Current of the Nation runs against them which must turn and constrain them to fall in with it For We had upon the late sad Occasion a Panegyris We find that Word in the introductive Part of the Text and tho it is more commonly apply'd to a Multitude gathered on other Occasions it disagrees not to that orderly great Concourse on that mournful Occasion a General Assembly that is a National One met then on purpose to mourn a Nation assembled and mourning in their Representative It was decent it should be so A Loss so National so general a Sorrow were with no Congruity otherwise to be resented and express'd Our Mourning was therefore by all the Estates of the Kingdom the Head only mourning with greater and more decent Majesty in Retirement or being as is usual in solemn Mournings hid and covered on that Day So was the whole Legislature concern'd in that Sorrow as if it were ordained by Statute or as if our Mourning were as that for an excellent Prince also 2 Chron. 35. 25. by an Ordinance in our Israel And as if our Tears and Lamentations were as before they were by Merit to be also made due by Law Death march'd in State and Triumph that Day The King of Terrors took the Throne and fill'd that Part which it had made vacant having pluck'd away from thence not only so bright an Ornament but so glorious an Instrument in our Government And all the Orders of the Realm as Captives attended the Chariot of the Conqueror England had lost its Delight its pleasant Comeliness and even half its Soul Nothing could correspond to such a Case but a National Groan as of an half-expiring Kingdom ready almost to breath its last and give up the Ghost It must be confess'd our just Tribute to the Memory of our admirable Queen can never be said to be fully paid nor can this Discourse leave out occasional Reflections that may be of this Import But my present Design is to endeavour our Minds may be drawn upwards and to make that Improvement of this most instructive Providence unto which this chosen Text will direct Not to entertain you with her Character and Praises for it is the same thing to characterize and to praise her that Part is performed in divers excellent Discourses which I have read as I believe many of you have and I hope with Fruit as well as Approbation and as there is Cause with great Admiration of the Divine Goodness that so illustriously shone forth in her and that vouchsafed so long to entrust the People of England with so rare a Jewel whose Lustre was yet exceeded by its real Vertues By which also we may make our Estimate of the Displeasure wherewith it is so soon withdrawn and caught away from us so as to entertain the Age as our Divine Herbert with A Mirth but open'd and shut up again A burning and a shining Light for so she also was in a true Sense and in her proper Sphere in the Light whereof we rejoiced but a Season But every such Providence hath its dark Side and its bright View it downward as it looks upon us who remain beneath and we behold Blackness and Darkness and an horrible Tempest Such a State of things we may fear our Queen hath left unto us who stay below while we do so But look we upon it upwards whither she is ascended and whither we are professedly tending and are in some sort come if we be Followers of them who thorow Faith and Patience have inherited the Promises and we find 't is to Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable Company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the First born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of just Men made perfect And hither that we may fetch Instruction out of Terror out of the Eater Meat and Life out of Death let us bend and apply our selves We have had a mournful sad Solemnity and Assembly tho decently pompous and great England's Glory clad in Sables and glittering in a Cloud But now let us lift up our Eye and endeavour it may penetrate through this Darkness and behold the glorious Spectacle which this Context presents us with Funeral Solemnities even for pious and holy Persons and that were of greatest Use in the World are dull and gloomy Spectacles if they are only considered in their Retrospection without Prospect or if they only solemnize their Exit out of this World of ours but be understood to have no reference to their Ascent and Entrance into the Regions of Immortality and Bliss above And without this we see our selves outdone by the Egyptians themselves with whom their Funeral Apparatus had reference to a subsequent Immortality These Words are allusive and promiscuously refer partly to things known and famous among the Greeks but are more principally accommodate to these Christian Israelites or Hebrews to whom they are writ and in a Scheme
A DISCOURSE RELATING To the Much-lamented DEATH AND Solemn Funeral Of Our Incomparable and most Gracious Queen MARY Of most Blessed Memory By JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons in Cornhill MDCXCV TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE RACHEL Lady RUSSELL MADAM I Can be at no loss for inducements to prefix Your Ladyship's Name to this Discourse I know the Subject is grateful to You And if I only give you the occasion hereby of revolving in Your mind this sublime context You will entertain Your self from it with more enlarged and exalted thoughts than this Discourse especially confined within so narrow Limits can suggest And Your Ladyship knows so much of the incomparable Queen that You can the more easily believe the rest I reckon You Madam a great Frequenter of that Assembly above to which She is now adjoyn'd You have besides the greater Attractives that are common to all serious Christians a very peculiar One to draw Your Mind often thither A Joint-Root with You is there by Transplantation And a Noble Branch from You both and in whom Two Illustrious Families meet is under Your Care shooting upwards also All indeed that have true honour for Him will earnestly covet He may be long Serviceable to the most valuable purposes in this world and that by the Blessing of Heaven upon his approaching Nuptials with One from whom may be expected all that so sweet and tender a Bud now beginning to open can promise He may in due time spread forth many Branches that may flourish here But it is to be hoped He will be found to have a Greater Mind than can be confined to so low and little a thing as this Earth is The thought may much the better be digested that Terrestrial Nuptials will some time end in Funerals if once by God's prescribed methods it can be made certain to us also that those Funerals shall end in Celestial Triumphs Your Ladyship's Eyes which better serve for Heaven than Earth being observably much directed upward will give aim and direction to theirs who depend upon you to look the same way and withal draw down from thence continual Blessings upon Your self and them Which is the serious Desire and Hope of MADAM Your Ladyship 's Most Obedient and Obliged Humble Servant JOHN HOWE HEB. 12. 23. latter part And to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect LET me invite back your Eye to the foregoing Words that are in nearer Connection with these Vers. 22. But ye are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable Company of Angels Vers. 23. To the general Assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect We have had this last Week a publick Solemnity that was becomingly Great and Magnificent upon a sad and mournful Occasion the last Act of a doleful Scene that hath lasted many Weeks You know I have taken notice to you my usual Hearers of the first and saddest the leading part in this Tragedy once and again Nor would I have this last to pass us without some instructive Observation and Remark It will the more instruct us the less it detains us or if only taking a due not I mean a slight and too hasty but yet a transient notice of it we be prompted by it to look forward from what was in its own kind most deservedly Great to what is incomparably Greater in a more excellent kind In such a Funeral Solemnity for so Great and Excellent a Personage there is what may most fitly entertain a while there is not that which ought finally to terminate a Wise and a Judicious Eye Honours done to the Memory of Great Persons deceased have by the Wisdom of all Nations been counted Decencies and even Debts when especially the deceased have been sometime and might have been much longer publick Blessings Then indeed it is that such Rites are most fitly as they are usually called Justa But we are too prone to be taken only with the meer Pomp of such Spectacles and which is the Infirmity of our too-degenerate Spirits to be wholly possess'd with Phanciful Ideas as those were intimated to be which were from a Spectacle of the same common kind tho on a very diverse Occasion by that elegant Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as do but amuse our Imagination a while but must of course vanish and cannot stay long with us But we need that somewhat greater and too latent to strike our Eye should another way enter and teach our Mind making such Impressions there as may claim an abode and that ought to remain and dwell with us You read of a very solemn Funeral Gen. 50. The whole Countrey into which the March was made was amus'd at the State and Greatness of that mournful Cavalcade wherein ' is said v. 9. there were Chariots and Horsemen even a very great Company That which you have many of you so lately seen and no doubt all of you heard of was a most august Funeral Solemnity such as whereof less concerned foreign Spectators might say as the Canaanites by mistake did of that v. 11. This is a grievous Mourning to the Egyptians They were indeed antiently the most celebrated Mourners for such as died from amongst them in all the World in respect of their Funeral Rites and of their Monuments for the Dead of which they are said to have taken more care than of the Habitations of the Living accounting these they were to inhabit only a short time but those they reckon'd their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their eternal Habitations An Imagination which how wild soever it were of the Habitations of Souls which only could be supposed capable of being pleased with them yet imply'd their Belief of their Immortality whereof some have groundlesly thought them the first Assertors But the Canaanites were as was intimated mistaken in apprehending that to be chiefly an Egyptian Mourning The true Israelites those that were such indeed were the true concerned Mourners The Father of Israel was dead As now with us the Mother A Political tho not a Natural nor merely an Oeconomical one A Mother not in the narrower and more minute but in the larger and most noble Sense not of a single Family only but of Nations The Egyptians assisted to make up the Shew in that Mourning but were probably the prepared as their Posterity were the active Instruments of the Slavery and Misery of that People with whom they were now seeming Sharers in Lamentation Ours was a Mourning not less grievous than theirs Nor more grievous than just to the English Nation i. e. to whom the Soil and the Genius are together native that are not of an Egyptian Spirit Unto which as things happen to its Power or to its Impotency there is a radical innate Disposition either to make
them imitate him if they can What Persuasion among us can produce a greater Example than we have been now considering or more worthy the imitation even of Private Christians 2. The Spirits of the Just on Earth are in a great propinquity and have a near alliance to Heaven They are not there to have the first foundations laid of their blessed state but are only to be made perfect They have in them here the first Principles the Elements of their final blessedness Heaven in little As the Acorn contains the Tree or the Embrio the Man 3. The Just in this World are of the Church in Heaven They are come to the General Assembly the Church of the First-born c. All sincere Christians whether in Heaven or Earth as hath been noted make but one Family Ephes. 3. 15. Good God! Can our little differences here set us at greater distance than Heaven and Earth The Observation is worth considering of that Wise and Noble Person It will be found a matter of great moment and use to define what and of what latitude those points are which discorporate men from the body of the Church And if any think this hath been done now long ago let them seriously consider with what sincerity and moderation the same hath been performed c. And if it had not been done with due sincerity and moderation in his days it 's much to be doubted whether it have since In the mean time it is to be consider'd that what differenceth any thing constitutes it And if a Church of whatsoever denomination be constituted in its superstructure though its foundation be good of Hay and Stubble of things that can belong to no Church as a Church it must some time or other suffer loss And though the Builders be saved it must be by a more penetrative than an imagined Purgatory-fire 4. Angels must have kind propensions towards men especially good men in this World knowing these are of the same Society and Church with them though the Divine Wisdom hath not judg'd it suitable to our present state of probation there should be an open and common intercourse between them and us 'T is however a great incongruity we should have strange uncouth shy frightful or unfrequent thoughts of them in the mean time 5. When we find any excellent Persons in our World attain far and high towards the perfection of the Heavenly State it ought to be a great encouragement to us and is an obligation to aspire to some like pitch We see it is not an impossible or an unpracticable thing and should disdain to crawl now as Worms when we are to soar as Angels 6. We ought hereupon to acknowledge and adore the Munificence and Power of Divine Grace that it should design the making of such Abjects as we fit to be associated with such an Assembly the innumerable company of Angels and the spirits of the just made perfect and will not fail to effect it if we comply with the apt methods appointed for that blessed purpose 7. When such ascend and are taken up from us that God had eminently prepared for translation we should take great care lest we unduly regret it That we do not envy Heaven it s own To which they are more a-kin than to our Earth And which had a greater right in them than we could pretend 8. We should look upon Funeral Solemnities for such with more prospect than retrospect and consider them as directing our Eye less downward to our own forsaken World than upwards to the Celestial Regions and Inhabitants To such to dye is to be born They dye only out of our mean World and are born into a most glorious one Their Funerals should be celebrations of their ascent and an exulting Joy should therefore in that case not be quite banisht from Funeral Sorrows but be allow'd to mingle therewith as Sun-beams glittering in a Cloud When the greatest Person was leaving this world that even lived in it He says If you loved me you would rejoice that I say I go to the Father We should bear our part in the joys of heaven upon this Occasion if we relate to it And when we are told there is joy there among the Angels of God for the conversion of such who are thereby but prepared to come to their Assembly we may conclude there is much more for their glorification when they are fully come and joined to it Funeral Solemnities are very dull melancholy shews without such references forwards and upwards With how different a temper of mind would two Persons have been the Spectators of Jacob's Funeral The one of whom should have lookt no further than the Canaanites or Egyptians did who would only say some great Person is dead But the other by Divine Illumination is enabled to apprehend This dust here mingles with the earth of this Land to presignify this People of whom he was the Head must possess it Yea moreover here the Great God will fix his Residence and Throne Upon such a Mount shall be the Palace of the Supream King Here after great Mutations and Revolutions and great Destructions both of the Egyptians and Canaanites shall this People have a long succession of Princes and Rulers that shall be of themselves And all this but as representing a King and Kingdom that shall rule and spread over all the Earth and reach up at length into Heaven Canaan shall be an Holy Land Unto Sion's King shall Tributary Princes bring their Gifts out of Egypt and Ethiopia stretch out her hands and all Nations serve him His Empire shall confine with the Universe and all Power be given him both in Heaven and Earth With what a large and raised mind would such a One have beheld this Funeral What better Canaan than we now behold we shall have in this world God knows And we should be the less solicitous to know intermediate things when we are so fully ascertain'd of the glorious end of all things And let us reflect upon the solemn Pomp of that late Mournful Assembly that lamented our Queen's departure out of our world comparing it with the transcendent Magnificence of that Triumphant Assembly into which she is received above FINIS Some Books Printed for Brab Aylmer THE Blessedness of the Righteous opened and further Recommended from the Consideration of the Vanity of this mortal Life Of Delighting in God The Reconcileableness of God's Prescience of the Sins of men with the Wisdom and Sincerity of his Counsels Exhortations and whatsoever means he uses to prevent them In a Letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq To which is added a Postscript in Defence of the said Letter Self-Dedication Discoursed in the Anniversary Thanksgiving of a Person of Honour for a great Deliverance The right use of that Argument in Prayer from the Name of God on behalf of a People that profess it A Funeral Sermon on the Decease of that Worthy Gentlewoman Mrs. Margaret Baxter Wife of the Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter The above are by the Reverend Mr. John Howe A Discourse of the great Disingenuity and Unreasonableness of Repining at Afflicting Providences And of the Influence which they ought to have upon us on Job 2. 10. Published upon Occasion of the Death of Our Gracious Sovereign Queen Mary of most Blessed Memory With a Preface containing some Observations touching Her Excellent Endowments and Exemplary Life By Edward Lord Bishop of Gloucester The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and the New with Annotations and Parallel Scriptures To which is Annex'd the Harmony of the Gospels As also the Reduction of the Jewish Weights Coins and Measures to our English Standard And a Table of the Promises in Scripture By Samuel Clark Minister of the Gospel Printed in Folio of a very Fair Letter The like never before in One Volume The Four last Things viz. Of Death Judgment Heaven Hell Practically Considered and Applied in several Discourses By William Bates D. D. A Sermon Preached upon the much Lamented Death of Our Late Gracious Sovereign Queen Mary To which is added the Address of Condolence to His Majesty by the Dissenting Ministers By W. Bates D. D. Acts 25. 23. Diod. Sic. l. 1. Herod Euterp Plin. Paneg Prov. 5. 22. Sen. Trag. Eccl. 7. 4. Chap. 2. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys. in loc Heb. 7. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ibid. Plutar. 1 Joh. 3. 3. Col. 3. 10. * Blessedness of the Righteous p. 69 c. Psal. 132. Gen. 49. Min. Fel. Lord Viscount Verul Adv. of Learn lib. 9.
for the Encouragement of Christians unto a faithful Perseverance through all the Difficulties of this their present conflicting imperfect State is this glorious Representation made of the blessed Issue their Labours and Sufferings shall have at last Whither they shall be gathered at the finishing of their Course and how God like how worthy of Himself the End shall be into which he will run up all Things when the State of Probation and Preparation is over with his intelligent Creatures and the stable permanent eternal State comes to take place which because it is final can admit no more Changes and because it is perfect can no more need any Hither Christians are to come and in some Sense the Sincere are said to be come already And now upon this part of the Term of their Access viz. that they are come to the Spirits of the Just made perfect we are to stay a while and shall consider I. The Perfection the Spirits of the Just do finally arrive to in their future State II. In what Sense Sincere Christians in their present State can be said to be come to them who are so made perfect I. For the former of these we may easily admit this being made perfect to be an Agonistical Phrase as some of great Note and Worth have expounded it and unto which that in the Beginning of this Chapter of running the Race set before us q. d. the Way laid out between the Lines on each Hand doth plainly lead us But it should hereupon be remote from us to think that a meer relative Dignity or any external Honours are the Things we must principally understand to be conferr'd or which these Adepti must be now thought to have obtain'd 'T is a real inward subjective Perfection by which they all become most excellent Creatures that must be chiefly meant Perfection taken in the Moral Sense doth in the Language of the Holy Scriptures contain a threefold Gradation First At the lowest Sincerity as when our Saviour proposes to that Querist Mat. 19. 21. if he would be perfect to sell all he had and give to the Poor following him with the Expectation of no other Recompence but of a Treasure in Heaven If a Man's Soul be not in a Disposition to comport with such Terms upon a sufficient Signification of our Lord's Pleasure that he shall now do so or if at any Time this be the Case that he must either forgo all this World and even Life it self or else renounce Christ and Christianity he is not yet in a right Posture towards his last End He hath not taken the Lord for his God and best Good his Heart more strongly adheres to this present World But if he have arrived hither which is his first Step resolving upon his true and right End which he will supremely pursue against whatsoever Competition of less valuable Things he is now in the lowest Sense perfect i. e. a resolved thorough Christian. Secondly An eminent Improvement greater Maturity in Divine Knowledg and all other Christian Vertues As when the Apostle blaming the slower Progress of the Christian Hebrews chap. 5. 13 14. that they were yet so unskilful in the Word of Righteousness and only capable of Milk not the strong Meat fit for Persons come to a more grown Age nor had their Senses as yet well exercised c. he exhorts them chap. 6. 1. leaving the first Principles of the Christian Doctrine to go on to Perfection The Third is the consummate State of a Christian so is a perfect Man expounded by being come to the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ That State to which all Gifts given by our ascended conquering crowned Redeemer the whole Gospel the Apostolate the entire Ministry the whole Frame and Constitution of the Christian Church all Evangelical Truths and Institutions with whatsoever Illuminations and Influences we can suppose superadded to all these have ultimate and final Reference and the State to which all shall come Eph. 4. 8 12 13. is this most perfect State in respect whereof the Apostle says of himself that he had not yet attained nor was already perfect Phil. 3. 12. I do not reckon the meer natural Perfection either of the Inner or Outer Man to be here necessarily excluded but that the moral is chiefly intended and of that the ultimate consummative Degrees still reserving room for such Additions as will follow the final Judgment And I doubt 't is not enough considered how much the Felicity of the future State depends upon such Perfection of the Subject of it Concerning the Object of Felicity we are agreed it can be no other than the blessed God himself the all-comprehending Good fully adequate to the highest and most enlarged reasonable Desires But the Contemperation of our Faculties to the holy blissful Object is so necessary to our satisfying Fruition that without that we are no more capable thereof than a Brute of the Festivities of a quaint Oration or a Stone of the Relishes of the most pleasant Meats and Drinks That Meetness which the Apostle speaks of Col. 1. 12. To be Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light is of no small Importance to our Participation it self We are too apt to fill our Minds with Idea's of an Heaven made up of external out-side Glories forgetting we must have the Kingdom of God within us hereafter in its perfect as well as here in its initial State A Kingdom that consists in Righteousness first an universal holy Rectitude of all our Powers then consequently in Peace and Joy The perfect Cure of all the Distempers of our Spirits and a confirmed most perfectly happy Temper is of most absolute Necessity to the Blessedness of the heavenly State and without it any imagined external Glory will signify no more to our Satisfaction than rich and gorgeous Apparel can give the desired Content and Ease to an ulcerous diseased Body or as the Moralist speaks a Diadem to an a king Head a gay Slipper to a pained Foot or a Gold Ring to a sore Finger Let a Soul be supposed actually adjoined to that glorious Assembly and Church above that is yet unacquainted with God strange and disaffected to him alienated from the divine Life still carnally minded loving most and looking back with a lingring Eye towards this present World and State of things full of Pride Haughtiness and self-magnifying Thoughts of Envy Wrath Hatred Contentiousness of Deceit Guilefulness and Dissimulation fill'd with ravenous Lusts and inordinate insatiable Desires after impossible Things Such a Soul will only seem to have mistaken its Way Place State and Company and can only be a sit Associate for Devils and infernal Spirits It s Condition would be equally uneasy to it self and all about it the Outrage of its own Lusts and Passions would create to it an Hell in the midst of Heaven and be to it as a thousand Devils both for Wickedness and for Torment But to give you a
can any way be concern'd with With the blessed God himself they are most of all concerned For him they are eternally to adore and enjoy Therefore that their Perfection should be virtually included in Divine Knowledg is congruous to the State of their Case and to the Language of the Holy Scriptures which expresses their most perfect State by the Vision of God in the mention'd 1 John 3. 2. and Mat. 5. 8. Heb. 12. 14 c. Which Phrase is not borrowed from the Sight of the Eye and transferr'd to that of the Mind at random or without most probable Design It most aptly signifies the great Facility of this Knowledg that it is not toilsom there is little Labour in it 't is not such as requires great Pains It is but Intuition not a cautious wary Ratiocination wherein we use to be very solicitous lest we draw any irregular or untrue Consequences We do very easily and on the sudden without Suspicion or Fear of Error only behold what is offer'd to our View This is a great Perfection of Mind with these blessed Spirits to be capable of knowing the greatest things so easily and so soon to know by seeing And their Aptness hereto is a moral Perfection for the Clearness of the Discovery infers their greater Obligation to attend and not to divert from what shall cost them so little The blessed God's Manifestation of himself in that brightest and most glorious Light is not only evidently supposed for in his Light only can we see Light Psal. 36. 9. but it is emphatically express'd in the before-mention'd Text 1 Cor. 13. 12. of seeing Face to Face which signifies on his part gracious Vouchsafement his offering his blessed Face to view that he hides it not nor turns it away as here sometimes he doth in just Displeasure And his Face means even his most conspicuous Glory such as in this State of Mortality 't would be mortal to us to behold For no Man not so divine a Man as Moses himself could see his Face and live And it signifies on their part who are thus made perfect their applying and turning their Face towards his viz. that they see not casually or by fortuitous Glances but Eye to Eye by direct and most voluntary Intuition which therefore on their part implies moral Perfection the Will directing and commanding the Eye and upon unexpressible Relishes of Joy and Pleasure forbidding its Diversion holds it steady and intent Here our Ignorance of God is culpable being voluntary not liking to retain him in our Knowledg Rom. 1. 28. There our Knowledg is inculpable and sinless being chosen purposed and always principally for its most proper Ends the perfect Adoration and Fruition of the blessed Object we so fixedly behold and so earnestly covet to know 'T is also fit to be noted that the very Fruition of the blessed God it self which the holy Scripture includes in our Vision of him is not only our very Blessedness it self but it is our Duty too It is a thing enjoin'd us and comprehended in that first and great Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and Soul and Might and Mind which who can perfectly do without a complacential Acquiescence and final Rest of their Will in him as the best the most perfect and all-comprehending Good And hereupon tho we are wont to distinguish our glorifying God and enjoying him they are most manifestly coincident and but notionally distinct For in this our fruitive Acquiescence of Will in him stands our highest Veneration our most practical most significant Acknowledgment and Testimony concerning him as the highest the most compleat and most absolutely perfect Good in that we seek no further but take up our final Rest in him This is to give him the proper Glory of his Godhead to glorify him as God And therefore this being the fullest Sense of that great and summary Command it is only a commanding us to be happy As on the other hand the Misery of the intelligent Creature is his greatest and most injurious Iniquity an Aversion of Will from the blessed God a Testimony against him as none of the best Good and the greatest Indignity which created Nature can put upon him who is Goodness it self Thus then is the Knowledg or Vision of God even as it is fruitive a moral Perfection But the divine Knowledg more at large of these Holy Spirits though it be principally conversant about God as its noblest Object excludes not their applying their Minds to other Objects too according to their Concernment with them And yet 2. How aptly this Perfection is included in such Knowledg will further appear if you consider the manner of knowing or the special nature and kind of this Vision or Knowledg viz. that it is not that slight ineffectual meerly notional insipid Knowledg which unregenerate Minds are now wont to have of the most evident Truths viz. that for instance that God is the most excellent the most perfect the most desirable as well as the most adorable Good which Knowledg because it answers not the true End of divine Knowledg is called Ignorance Whereupon they are said to be alienated from the Life of God through the Ignorance that is in them Eph. 4. 18. But that Ignorance is paraphras'd by Blindness of Heart i. e. a most perfectly voluntary and chosen Ignorance founded in Aversion of Will And elsewhere Jer. 9. 3 6. by a refusing to know God a saying to him Depart from us we desire not the Knowledg of thy Ways Job 21. 14. Whereupon the Light that is in such is said to be very Darkness and then how great is that Darkness Mat. 6. 23. This Knowledg or Vision now in Perfection is most deeply and inwardly penetrative efficacious and transforming admits a Light which spreads and transfuses it self through the whole Soul So it is at first in every truly regenerate Spirit whereby such an one is begotten into the Divine Likeness his Image is impress'd upon it which as hath been noted is said to be renewed in Knowledg Col. 3. 10. So that as by solemn Message to the Sons of Men God is declared to be pure Light 1 John 1. 5. This then is the Message which we have heard of him and declare to you that God is Light and with him is no Darkness at all And as he is the Original the paternal Light the Father of Lights Jam. 1. 17. so they that are born of him are said to be Light it self and the Children of Light Ye were Darkness but now are you Light in the Lord walk as Children of Light Eph. 5. 8. And they are therefore said as the Sons of God to shine as Lights Phil. 2. 15. or required to do so for the Words bear either Form This so energetical efficacious Light is in the mentioned Texts manifestly intended to connote Holiness as it doth also Rom. 13. 12. which the Antithesis there shews Works of Darkness and Armour of Light
and in many other Places Accordingly the whole even of Practical Religion and Godliness is in the holy Scriptures express'd by the Knowledg of God 2 Chron. 30. 22. 'T is signified to be in its own Nature sanctifying and inconsistent with prevailing Sin 1 Cor. 15. 34. in which they that live are therefore said to be destitute of it who are also upon the same Account said not to have had any Sight of God 3 John v. 11. He that sinneth the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Doer or Worker of Sin hath not seen God The Light which this Vision of God receives must much more in the perfected Spirits of the Just be supposed so prevalent and victorious as quite to have chas'd away and expell'd all Remainders of this impure Darkness Every such Spirit is therefore become as it were an Orb of purest most operative and lively Light an intellectual and a self-actuating Sun full of Fervour and motive Power besides mere Light Whereupon whatsoever this Light and Knowledg discovers it is fit for such a Soul to be it is and fit for it to do it can never fail to do it Therefore the making of such Spirits perfect must be understood in greatest part to consist in restoring the Order of their Faculties towards each other which was broken by the Apostacy to that degree and they so debilitated and become so languid so impotent and enfeebled that neither could the one Faculty lead nor the other follow Whence Light even about the most practical and the most important Matters imaginable true Notions right Sentiments signified no more to command to govern to form and direct the Inclinations and Motions of the Soul than if as to all its Sentiments about these Matters you did put false instead of true wrong instead of right most absurd most impossible instead of most congruous most necessary Take for instance the Idea of God Let it be supposed to comprehend as every one grants it doth whether he acknowledg his Existence or no all conceivable all possible Excellencies that it means an infinite eternal everliving self-subsisting Being most perfectly intelligent wise true holy righteous powerful and blessed the Original of Life Being and Blessedness to the Creation according to the several Kinds Natures and Capacities of his Creatures the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of all to whom it belongs to govern and dispose of what he hath made of most immense and abounding Goodness and Benignity most bountiful to the indigent compassionate to the miserable reconcilable to the guilty propitious to the penitent most complacentially kind with highest delight to the holy and the good severe only to the obstinately impenitent and implacable that will by no means or methods be reclaimed Take we again from hence the Measures by which we are to judge what ought to be the dispositions and deportments of his reasonable Creatures towards him That they be entirely compos'd and made up of Love Reverence Humility Dependance Devotedness Subjection Gratitude and Adoration And suppose we that in the Theory this be as it generally is admitted and acknowledg'd as the just and most regular Consequence of the former And let us again suppose That we being made after his Image which in the Natural Part remains and is still common to Mankind and as to the Moral Part is restor'd in all that are regenerate and born of God And that therefore we ought to love universally all mankind to wish and do well to them as to our selves and no more to injure any man than we would destroy pull in pieces or offer violence to our own Life and Being And that we ought with a more peculiar delectation to embrace and love all holy and good men without other distinction than as any appear more to excel in goodness Our Light about these things is so clear they are so little disputable and so difficult it is to form any argument to the contrary that few ever set themselves by any explicite or formed thoughts to oppose or contend against them It is not at least not generally so much as attempted to disprove them or assert contrary Principles in opposition to them Therefore that the dispositions and common Practice of men do so little agree with these Principles is not that their Notions are herein doubtful but spiritless their Light is not uncertain but weak and impotent And hereupon their Knowledge signifies as little to its proper End as if their apprehensions touching these things were none at all or quite contrary to what they are They as much neglect and slight the Blessed God or decline to be concern'd with him as if they denied all the things of him which his Idea contains or as if they affirmed all the things of him which it most directly excludes They shun they fly from him as if they thought him the Worst of Beings while they acknowledge him the Best and most Excellent Good Disobey and affront him as if they thought he had no Right to rule them while they confess him the Sovereign Lord of all the World And steer their course both towards him and one another in as direct repugnancy to his Rules as if they thought them all ranvers'd and that the most opposite System of Laws and Precepts were given them by some undoubted Authority to regulate all their Practice It would amaze a Thinking Man that all this should be so That Intelligent Creatures that the Reasonable Living Immortal Spirits of men should be sunk to so low a Pitch of Degeneracy and Vileness But much more that it being so apparently thus it should be so seldom reflected on that men are not afraid of themselves that they appear not as so many frightful Monsters each in their own eyes That they consider not What are these Faculties for Why have I such Notions of Truth in my mind Why have I a Will whereby to chuse resolve act and be accordingly What a distorted mishapen Creature is this Soul of mine Every thing in me running counter to right and fit Whatever hath thus fatally perverted all their Powers hath stupify'd them too so as not only not to find fault but to applaud and be well pleased with themselves for all this But now shall we not take our advantage from hence to conceive and be enamour'd of the Rectitude the amiableness of this most excellent State of the Perfected Spirits of the Just Now doth Comely Order succeed instead of the most Horrid Deformity distorted Limbs are set right the Ligaments and Connection of the dis-jointed Faculties to each other are restored and whatsoever the enlightened Mind suggests as fit and due presently obtains No Complaint remains of seeing what is better and doing what is worse or that when good should be done evil is present There is nothing but perfect Regularity Harmony and Agreement All things move smoothly and with constant Equability and Decorum Right Dictates of the leading Faculty and ready Compliance of such as are