was the habitation of the Spirit or Soul renewed and purged from sin that Spirit or Soul being it self the habitation of the Divine Spirit this Body because it hath still a relation to such a Soul loses its sinful taint while it moulders into dust and is raised a Body incorruptible and spiritual that is a habitation fit for the Spirit now made perfect and is filled thereby with the glory of life and immortality which is eternal life and all by virtue of that Divine Spirit that dwelt in that Soul while it was lodged and dwelt in that Body And herein lying the true substantial sense of this most weighty Paragraph of the Apostle how plainly doth it express the distinction of the Soul from the Body and that the Soul is a substance of it self independent upon Body and Body altogether dependent upon it even while it is most immers'd into Body For first The Soul it self gives all the life to its own impure pleasures and sinful reposes in bodily delights to which else Body is able to contribute no more than Oyl to the Flame which of it self we know always lyes still and dark 2. Spirit it self assisted by Grace retires into spiritual enjoyments and quenches and dryes up its own sensual affections to Body and blasts the satisfactions received from thence even before that Oyl be wasted by the decays of Body or dryed up by death Lastly It self carries its own fate if I may so call it and the fate of the Body along with it into eternity for according to what the Soul it self is so is its own happiness or misery and the Body of necessity follows its condition so that it self is plainly All and the Body only a Cypher attending the state of this principal Figure 3. The distinction of Spirit and Body in death is conveyed to us in very plain and easie terms and such as carry their meaning very open if not disturbed and prevented by ill interpretation Let us take a view of the clearness of Scripture herein First Solomon in his Ecclesiastes having considered with some passion and vehemency the little or no apparent preheminence of men above Beasts in their death that as one dies so dies the other they send out one common vital breath and go all to one place he then casts the account of this into the common heap of vanity and comes to a very warm enquiry Who knoweth Eccl. 3. 21. the Spirit of a man that goes upward and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward Yet thereby resolving the main case enough viz. that these outward appearances laid so much to disadvantage are but only in the Body and outside the difference between the Spirit of a man and the Spirit of a Beast is still very great as great as between Heaven and Earth and the motion as contrary when they dye as upward and downward but still he complains that this is not possible to be seen by Sense and there are very few that reach it to any purpose by Reason and Religion and this saith he is one of the great points of the vanity of all worldly condition that both so great a principle of Truth and so great a dignity of Humane Nature should lye so far off be so indiscernable Here is then an equality in the outside or Bodies of men a dying and Beasts but a great inequality or excellency of men above Beasts which comes home to what we are asserting And thus Solomon understood of the Spirit of a man as is now explained he makes us more certain when after his travel over all things he comes to describe man in his end and does it thus The Dust returning to the Earth Eccl. 12. 7. as it was and the Spirit returns to God that gave it he allots to the several parts into which he distributes man a several motion and a several rest according to the several originals of each The Dust or Body returns to the Earth from whence it was taken the Spirit survives and hastens back to God that gave it Agreeably the care of holy men at death or in any great apprehensions of danger that presented death to them was to commend their Spirit to God as David Into thy hand I commend Psal 31. 5. my Spirit which words were prophetick of the dying words of our Saviour Father into thy hand I commend Luc. 23. 46. my Spirit and thus Stephen breathed out his Soul Lord Jesus receive Acts 7. 59. my Spirit Now in that Solomon affirms of the Spirit of man in general that it returns to God the Judge of all whether it be the spirit of a good man or a bad man or whether it be for happiness or misery and that thereupon holy persons recommended their Souls into the hands of God as a faithful Creator I know not how any thing can be more determinative of the distinction of Body and Soul in death For such words are not words of meer resignation of life back again to the Fountain of Life but an entrustment and dependent recommendation and not of a life to be secured only for the Resurrection but of a Spirit immediately going to God for else they might with as much care have committed Body to him who weighs the dust of the Earth in a Ballance much more that of the Bodies of men whom he will raise again most of all that of his Saints which he will raise to glory If there were not such an immediate return of good mens Spirits to God why doth the Apostle chuse to be Phil. 1. 23. dissolved or set at liberty that he might be with Christ Or why doth he profess in the name of Christians in general we desire rather to be absent 2 Cor. 5. 6. from than at home in the body that we might be present with the Lord What tolerable account can be given of such speeches for what composition is it that suffers dissolution that some part and what part is that might have immediate being with Christ Or who is it that would be set at liberty Or that is absent from the body or at home in it if not this supreme man the Soul Or why should death be preferred for the sake of a nearer and more immediate presence with Christ if all the man dye with the body Or what man is it that the Apostle speaks of caught up into the third Heaven and makes a doubt whether in the body or out of it Or how could there be such a being in the body or out of the Body if the body were all if there were nothing but body Or lastly why doth our Saviour amplifie the dread of the vengeance of God upon man above theirs that kill the body and have no more that they can do whereas the hand of God destroys Luc. 12. 4 5. both body and soul in Hell For let it be expounded to the greatest advantage of the opinion that encounters the Souls immortality
herein This then is the Eternity of God his always alike Being infinitely Happy infinitely Blessed This is the Eternity of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Son of God eternally begotten that though he proceeded and came forth from God the Father yet he made no new Date no Beginning Eternally begotten without the least shadow of turning to denominate Time as the Creatures do by Beginning but as a Beam from the Sun as soon as it is making no new thing in the Sun or as Apprehension from the Mind as soon as the Mind is or as the immediate Image and Likeness of the Face as early as the Face is thus and infinitely more even incomprehensibly is Christ the Son of the Father coeternal with him This is the Eternity of the Son of God but what is the Fathers Name or what is his Sons Name in Eternity none Pro. 30. 4. can tell for who can declare his generation but Before all things that were made and by being made made a Beginning before all things that beginning to be cast the shadow of Time even before all things is the Col. 1. 17. Saviour of the World that is he is Eternal Indeed as he is the Son of Man he gave great and the greatest Characters to Time it hath the richest Aera and Epochs it hath His Incarnation in dating it self from which Latter Time glories and triumphs His Death and Passion his Resurrection and Ascension His Appearance the second time from Heaven to give a Period to Time Thus as the Son of Man he hath enrich'd and ennobled Time But as the Son of God he onely governs Time that is the Things of Time and changes Times and Seasons by setting up and pulling down what he pleases whence Time is variously imboss'd but by any Change in himself he doth not give the least Shade of Time The Eternity of Angels is much below this perfect this absolute Eternity for they had a Beginning they came out of the State of Not Being into Being but this of Eternity they have that their Being given them continues for ever lasts for ever Indeed even this Duration is not by any necessity of Nature as in the Son of God the onely begotten of the Father for he can neither have begun to be begotten nor cease to be begotten but it must make a Change in God a substantial Change Thus also incomprehensibly stands the Eternity of the Divine Spirit proceeding Eternally from the Father and the Son But the Everlastingness of Angels hath its certainty from the Purpose of God unchangeable concerning it Further Their Eternity is not like to the Eternity of the Divine Being the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit in that as they receiv'd a Beginning so there was a Space wherein their Condition was alterable as appears by the Fall of some and the generally receiv'd Confirmation of others And that it is alterable in Degrees may be argued by their daily increase in Knowledge Additions to which Good Angels receive from the Church while they stoop down to look into the things of the Gospel daily Experience in both sorts Increases of Glory to the Holy ministring Spirits as a Reward of their Ministry Aggravations of Punishment to the Fallen Angels for their many and great Hostilities to God his Son and Servants The Complement therefore of either State is not till the Day of Judgment be past These things already spoken lead to the Description of the Eternity of the Souls of Men consisting in three things 1. That they shall continue for ever in Being the unchangeable Decree of God upholding them in a never-ending Existence 2. That the Substance of their Condition shall never be alter'd upon which account the Scripture often speaks of a For Ever as a Happiness incorruptible and that fadeth 1 Pet. 1. 4. not away on the other side of Eternal Punishment of a Worm that never Mat. 25. 46. Marc. 9. 44. dies a Fire that is never quenched All which speak as much as Words can convey to us such an unchangeable State 3. There is no Interruption or Alteration in the Degrees of their State there are no Marks of Distinction that these Souls should say Now more happy now less happy Now more miserable now less miserable But as highest Delight takes away all sense of the Motion of Time in this Life as sense of extreme Pain makes an Hour like an Age how much more in Eternity does the Perfection of Happiness and the Extremity of Misery the substantialness and absoluteness of either State swallow up all Notes of Distinction God is no more Happy by any addition of Moments we suppose in the Duration of his Happiness I say we suppose for indeed he is his own Happiness and his own Duration So in proportion this State is its own Duration Heaven one intire united Moment of endless Delight Hell of Misery 1. Now this State of the Souls of Men in Eternity arises first from the fitness such a Nature as Mans Soul is of that is a Spiritual Nature as I have already discours'd to be Everlasting A Nature which God hath with Infinite Wisdom and Power contriv'd to be a resemblance of himself Thus the Heavens as they are more durable are also of choicer Matter and less corruptible than other Parts of the Creation And those things that by God are design'd for For Ever are made so perfectly agreeable to their State that they need not be altered as if a Vessel of purest Metal were made so substantial that it could suffer no change in the Quantity Weight Figure Oriency of it either by Fire Hammer or the several Accidents that fall out in length of Time nor that there could be so much as a possible Reason to desire the change of it 2. From the Will of God and his unchangeable Decree that it should be so which he makes good and effectual by continually feeding these Beings with Eternity that is from himself he sends them all the Powers of Life and Motion So that to ask When shall these Souls and the several States of them in Happiness or Misery have end is to ask When will a Stream be dry that is fed by a Fountain that can never be exhausted nor the Supply of it be possibly cut off from that Stream His Favour is an Eternal Principle of Life and Blessedness His Presence of Wrath and the Glory of his Power set against us is as great a Source of Misery and Torment While therefore he will uphold our Beings and Faculties and keep up their Motion so long they must be and while he pleases either to shine out graciously upon us or to dart against us the Lightning of his Displeasure so long we must be either happy or miserable And when either of these is done to the height and perfection of either as they are in the World to come then according to the Revelation of his Will guided with that Wisdom by
is the Favour of God in Christ his Frown Wrath and Rebukes are the most fundamental reason of Misery His Favour and reconciled Face on one side his Wrath for sin on the other We are not able yet to understand the absolute dependence of the Soul hereupon because the present course of Providence allows men in their seeming subsistencies upon the Comfort they receive from the Creatures of this World God himself in the mean time retiring from their Observation But this is certain the smiles of God unexpressibly enliven encourage and bear up the Soul his Rebukes daunt deject and amaze it However these are now for the most part closely conveyed under the appearances of the Creatures for us or against us yet God is indeed under them but it is much more plain and manifest in the more immediate angry or gracious touches of God upon the Conscience and will be far more evident in the state of the World to come His loving kindness is better than life and when he with rebukes corrects Man for iniquity he maketh his beauty to consume away like a moth whatsoever seems most flourishing being so blasted withers immediately All the horrours we have heard or read of have received their sting from this Wrath and all Consolations from his Favour for in his Favour is life the Eyes of all Creatures are upon God Every created Thing in its proper way turns its Eye upon the Creator much more the Soul the Spirit immortal turns upon God the Father of Spirits that it may live It is not consistent with the Glory of God that he should allow any Thing to be Happiness but Himself and his Favour Even all the inward Rectitude of Mind cannot be this Happiness immediately For as if there were a Goodness of which Gods Nature were not the Rule and Measure and that Will which always stands just with that Nature that would be above God and so God would not be the Supreme Righteousness that is Not God So if there were any implanted Happiness in any Creature and that it needed not God as to the Essence of its Happiness God would not be God to it or if its happiness were in any Thing out of it self and not in God that would be a God to it This Consideration presses to this That Happiness is in the Light of Gods Countenance shining out upon the Rational Soul There is nothing necessary as the Fountain of Happiness but God nothing can supply his place In thy presence is fulness of Joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore with thee is the Fountain of Life In thy Light shall we see Light but if thou hidest thy Face we are troubled if banished and driven from thy everlasting presence we are for ever miserable for whom can we have in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth besides thee 2. Subordinately to this there can be no peace but in the Heart made truly and inwardly Good besides all storms from without there is an estuation a tide from corruption within full of trouble and vexation Every sin loved and delighted in is a secret hollow where an Earthquake is bred it is a wound that secretly disquiets it All impure Affections Passions of Dishonour in the Soul make it like the troubled Sea that cannot rest Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost make their repose in Righteousness The effect of Righteousness is quietness and assurance Isa 32. 17. for Ever Even as the Favour of God never embraces any but a holy Soul so hath he ordained that the Evil and corrupt Heart should be in it self unpeaceful and full of turmoil within both in regard of the foulness and deformity very horrible to the Thoughts whenever understood as also in regard of the great distraction and horrible convulsion the mind is forced into when it comes to any thing of true Sense 3. The actuation or gracious motion of the Favour of God towards the Soul and the actuation of his Holy Spirit upon the Soul made inwardly Holy and Good are highly necessary for the making the Spirit of a Man truly sound and vigorous in encountring Evil happy and comfortable in it self for else the Soul may be becalmed if these Motions of Grace from God lye still and not able to bear up it self And therefore Men sincerely good are often in great discomposures when God withdraws himself from them In the cloudings of his Face they are troubled in retreats of his Grace not exciting them they languish and cannot stir up themselves to take hold of him and then their sinful Calm ends in trouble On the other side the reasons of horrour and amazement are not seen by senseless and secure Men till Conscience enlightened discovers them and the flamings of Divine Displeasure make them boil up These then are the true substantial solid and natural Reasons of Happiness or Misery rejoycing or tribulation to the Soul and the Soul is plainly the Sense of them And as for the lesser and smaller interests of this present World and the life of it the observation of these two following Principles will determine and state the case of the soul in relation to them and so that it will further appear that all the touches of Good and Evil upon Man are originally and principally in his Soul 1. The first is That if God is pleased to let out his Favour in any of these outward Things and to moderate the desires and motions of the Soul so that there is a proportion between those motions and desires and the condition in which a Man is there is nothing further of necessity to him he is well enough But whenever the desires run out beyond the measures and proportions of his Condition it is with great disquiet and incredible restlesness of Mind though the thing beyond what he has be but small in it self and nothing compared with what is enjoyed When Haman had that abundance of Esth 5. 13. Glory yet his desires running out to a very little thing beyond what he had a very nothing to it the obeisance of poor Mordecai yet it made a nothing of all he had for it all availed him nothing 2. When the goodness of God is pleased to restrain outward Evils in fit degrees and to preserve the mind from ingaging it self by too close reflexions upon any disadvantage or to bend it so close upon better considerations to lessen and make tolerable that disadvantage the Spirit of a Man thus guarded will bear any infirmity but when the Spirit is let out to a continual pondering and aggravating to it self a very small Counter-accident and the Reasons that should abate it are hidden and carryed off from it a very little thing becomes unappeasably vexatious and the Spirit so wounded is it self its own insupportable burden Who can when God gives a sting to such a Cross bear it And when the Spirit of a Man runs forcibly upon it that Man may turn back and
turns them for Creation Conservation or the Change of Things as he pleases What is his Favour or Displeasure but the highest Efficacies of Kindness or Severity of Joy unspeakable and full of Glory or of weeping and wailing without all ease or remedy How do all Spirits Good and Holy cast their Crowns before him and laud him with eternal Acknowledgments of both their Being and Happiness to his Grace and Goodness and Acclamations to his Praise And that Stream from himself that feeds with Being and Spirituality those so unhappy and wretched Spirits deposed from their Glory and Perfection necessitates them to survive the Instances of his Justice and Holiness to the admiration and everlasting wonderment of the Blessed yet with profoundest Reverence of unstain'd Holiness and their own astonishment and horror without end 2. If the Soul is a Being so excellent how foul is Sin that defiles it like a Poyson that presently darkens a Diamond or infects the very Beams of the Sun or soils the Light We should ever resist Temptations to sin with the sad consideration of defiling so excellent and immortal a Spirit 3. It shews how excellent the Price must be that redeems such a Spirit Great is the Redemption of the Soul by Christ the Renovation of the Soul by the Holy Spirit 4. We should consider this Spirit that though now it is enclos'd in the Body yet seeing it is prepar'd to much higher and more excellent motion it must burst out it cannot be always held it must have a freedom that it may expatiate it self Else so great Powers having so little Action now must have been prepar'd in vain 5. We should meditate much upon this great Character of a Spirit It cannot die It is so it-self that it cannot die It s very Being is Intellect Life and Motion so that it cannot cease to live except it cease to be God who alone hath power over it hath design'd it to be for ever and fram'd it for perpetuity and so that it can have no Adversary of its Life or Being It is so separate from all things else that nothing of Body can come near its Essence or Life What Sword or Fire can cut off or consume Thought much less the Soul the Original or Spring of it What most subtle thing in Nature can destroy the Affection of Love or Fear much less so attaque the Judgment or Reason as forcibly to suppress them They can kill the Body but they have no more that they can do No created Spirit how principal soever can come near the Being of the lowest orbed Soul thus to touch it Sathan the great Enemy of Spirits knows this so hopeless an attempt as never once to plot it All his intendments against Humane Spirits are onely to sway them to Evil and so precipitate them into Misery but yet they cannot be master'd by the highest Archangel so much as in the Government of themselves except they surrender and betray their own Absoluteness One Spirit may imprint Thought upon another offer Argument endeavour to induce Affection but the Soul is at its own choice for acceptation and whether it accept or not its Being is still the same its Power of Self-reservation the same so double-guarded is the Soul in this great Privilege of being It self Guarded in its Essence or Life guarded in its Liberty and Freedom which argues it a Being of greatest account Now in that it must always live Holiness and Happiness the enjoyment pleasure and perfection of its Life are with greatest earnestness and upon greatest necessity to be sought Sin and Misery such a degradation of its Life that the Scripture calls them Death are by all means to be avoided and escaped from And seeing it hath a Secret of its own Freedom that no Spiritual Principality or Power can enter into or invade it can onely charge its Ruine upon it self But in the Supreme Spirit God himself is all its strength who perpetuates his first Inspiration maintains its Immunities guides its Motions aright when it had lost it self redeems it from that great enemy-Enemy-Spirit by his Son the Lover and great Friend of Souls governs it by his own Holy and Good Spirit and is the Happiness and Glory of it for ever Oh the care that is due to such a Soul as this A care due from it self to it self yet miserably neglected by it self in its true self for it self as engag'd in a Body out of which it is yet always hasting and leaves it in death it self being in greatest danger of a death exceedingly worse though of another nature in the bringing about of which the malice of Hell is always busie and employ'd chusing that as a much higher effect of its spite and cruelty than Annihilation if it had been within the Power of Devils to turn a Soul into nothing 6. Lastly What unspeakable Sentiments of Happiness or Misery doth a self-moving a self-communicating Spirit enter into when it enters into its own place For there it meets those immense Objects God his Favour or Displeasure the true appearances of Sin and Holiness the General Assembly of Spirits happy and miserable with their universal and endless Condition It self appearing to it self in its full extent of Nature Duration and Relation to all these Now its self-motion and self-communication which are its very Being and therefore perfect in its own native Element are active to the highest Self-motion turns it every way with unutterable swiftness upon these Objects and Self-communication makes all its own converts unintermittingly all its Observations upon them into most beatifying or afflictive Resentments according to the Order it stands in to those Objects of Happiness or Misery Two principal Accounts of the Soul of Man are now dispatch'd the first of Invisible Beings the second of the Nature of a Spirit in which I laid down for a Ground That the Right apprehension of the Divine Nature and Being is the Key of the Knowledge of Mans Soul As therefore I endeavour'd to explain those two Points by it so I come now more fully to pursue the Resemblance the Soul of Man hath with God and in this next place to speak of it in the Potency Force and Excellency of its Being and Faculties first taking occasion to make this industrious Reflexion upon the Souls likeness to God It is an usual Observation That every Creature resembles God in that very regard that it hath a Being however obscure it be and the more any Creature advances in Being the clearer the Representation of God till the Scale of Creatures leads us up to those that God hath exalted into the nearest likeness to himself that Created Natures are capable of and these are Rational Spirits Angels and Souls of Men of which Angels are a higher Order and at greater Freedom being out of Bodies and the Souls of Men a lower Order being under the disadvantage of Bodies yet in themselves like to God and like to Angels Now it is the Privilege
of it are presently heard and resented through the whole and the Soul so much it self under several names that what is in one Faculty of it is immediately in all if the impression be indeed to the life saving only that since the degeneracy of Mankind there remains as I have already shewn a single Light in the higher Understanding that may be refused in its dictates by the rest of the Soul Suppose then the Understanding beyond the possibility of Resistance convinced by such a manner of Demonstration that it cannot but receive of those things that are the true and perfect Reasons of Joy or Sorrow and in their perfection also the Soul must needs be in the same manner affected it is now when we plainly and undeniably find our selves within the embraces of any great good or the gripes of Evil but with this difference that so much as the perceptiveness of the Understanding surmounts at any time or the Good and Evil themselves surpass so much must the Joy or Grief surmount and surpass also Although therefore it be true that the multitude of Men and Women are but half perswaded of those Things wherein Heaven Hell consist yet this is only because God is not yet pleased to excite the Understanding after that powerful manner of Conviction he can use but still every man is at the Mercy of Divine Power and Pleasure when he will do it He may do it now but in Eternity he will do it and with such a clear representation as rises up into immediate Bliss or Woe 2. The next Faculty to be considered is the Great Will that is the Spring of all Affections and their Motions How endless are the Motions of this Will With what a great Covetousness doth it covet Good and how long What an immense aversation and abhorrence of Evil hath it Let then this Will be denyed Good or pressed upon with Evil or let it be gratified with Good and secured from Evil what either joy or pain will follow Yet further Let us weigh the Active part of both these Faculties and then the Enjoyment or Suffering will rise much higher 1. First then apprehend but Thought mightily set on work which is the Understanding in its natural Motion and if this be but earnestly moved though it be without tormenting matter yet how painful is it When there is not an Oyl a pleasantness and sweetness dropping down upon Thought it is like stretching the Joints and Sinews of the Body by immoderate motion which if moderate would have been refreshing or like a great blow that carries the whole force along with it and falls into the Air only upon which all the weight of the Body is ready to follow with a violence most ungrateful to Nature When a man hath a multitude of Thoughts he had need have the comforts of God to delight his Soul A Man had need have good bounds for his Thoughts else he loses himself in the Wild of them he had need of good matter to feed them with else they inflame like Millstones feeding on themselves make but this good a Man may think For Ever and it will easily appear he may be happy or miserable For Ever For let these thoughts be such as interest a Man in the Reasons of Torment Pain and Horrour and how grievous may be his state What experience may every one have of the trouble and turmoil of the anguish of Thoughts a Man may lye easier upon a Rack than upon some disquieting vexatious Thoughts On the other side how sweet and pleasant are Thoughts full of the Ravishment of Divine Consolations How delightful is the entertainment they give without tediousness or satiety 2. Imagination is something beyond Thought for Thought runs upon things nearer to what they are in themselves but Imagination makes them something beyond themselves or aggravates according to their true circumstances with greatest life Indeed Imagination cannot exceed in Divine or Everlasting Things yet it is of use to bring in and represent to and fill the Thoughts it reflects things with a multiplicity of Images like the Parelii of the Sun and stays those Images with great Effect and so it is of great use in Comfort or Discomfort 3. The Memory which doth revive and call things together and present them anew to the Thoughts and Imaginations summoning and congregating and staying Things their due time for consideration This is a great Instrument too of Happiness or Misery I will remember the Years of the Right Hand of the most High was the Relief of and Recovery of Davids Spirit Remembring my affliction and Lam. 3. 19 20. my misery the wormwood and the Gall my Soul hath them still in remembrance and is bowed in me Remembring this Vale of Tears exalts the lightsome state of the Holy Hill of God and Remembring the Good things of this Life an inflammation of misery 4. The Conscience is a high and most curious Engine fitted by God to these ends What Joy like the Testimony of Conscience good and serene The very office of which is to applaud the Soul and give it greatest Joy in its acceptance with God and likeness to him and on the other side to make acclamations to the Justice of God and condemn the guilty and impure Soul within it self to its greatest horrour and amazement Come we now to the Active part of the Will that is the Affections which are but the Will boiling up with great love to its Happiness or abhorrence of its Misery and according as the Affections are stirred with desire of Good and flight from Evil so are they either unexpressibly gratified in an union with that Good and the utmost distance of the Evil or enraged with the despair of the Good that is at an infinite remove from its enjoyment and detestation of the Evil so abhorred yet pressing and forcing on it self to be endured from which different Motion of the Affections spring plainly and sensibly those different conditions of Happiness or Misery Lastly When the Understanding hath been both the Theatre and Spectator of all these Motions it comes to examine over again whether there because for them and when upon strictest enquiry it finds the cause deserves the whole that hath passed and being by the Divine Power held close to this Observation it then passes it self into that grand Act of the Soul we call Judgment upon which all the powers of the Soul either everlastingly triumph and shout in loud praises to infinite Mercy or the Veins of Conscience open and bleed afresh and as by a most undoubted authority the Heart renews and continues its everlasting Plaints The fundamental capacities of the Soul for Happiness and Misery being now settled I come now to discourse the correspondent fundamental accounts of that Happiness or Misery as they are united with the Soul and its actuations of it self And these first in relation to its eternal condition 1. The first and most essential account of Happiness
as half measures of our selves and provisions accordingly 3. We have need to pray That God would draw out our whole Minds upon himself and Christ our Lord in a way of Desire and Affection of Joy and satisfaction and that we may be replenished with such assurances of the love of the Father in his Son that we may have no occasion to be cruel to our selves For as extremity of want and hunger turns men as Tygers upon their own Flesh so the Horrours arising from the Wrath of God and the unappeasable want of him enrage the Soul against it self but the enjoyment of him infinitely blesses and satiates it with pleasure sweetens it into greatest love and kindness to its own self And the Spirit thus supported will bear any other infirmity as David having God for his Light and Salvation feared nothing Habakkuk deprived of all favourable appearances neither the Fig-tree blossoming nor any Fruit on the Vines the labour of the Olive failing the Flock cut off from the Fold and no Herd in the Stalls yet he rejoyced in the Lord and gloried in the God of his Salvation In the second place We may upon this Head of Discourse make these doctrinal Recollections 1. There is a high pitch of Happiness or a very low degree of Misery to which every Man is prepared For the further description of which let us consider the two great Orders of Spirits Happy and Miserable Spirits to one of which we shall ever have a likeness The Head the Supreme the Prince of the first Order is Jehovah himself who in the highest and most perfect Act of his own Infinite Understanding and Will and the highest Satisfaction in Himself and enjoyment of Himself lives from Eternity to Eternity the most Happy and only Potentate with his Eternal Son and Spirit without any Dissatisfaction Discomposure Weariness or Tediousness to Himself or the least Shadow of impression upon him from Without This is infinitely clear concerning God In his Presence is fulness of Joy at his Right Hand are Pleasures For Evermore If we could imagine as indeed we cannot because Experience so mightily contradicts it that any Prince should live in all those Delights and Pleasures the most splendid Court affords without any tediousness or satiety ten thousand years what a dark representation were this of God though he could do and enjoy all he would Let us then imagine higher That a Prince of wisest most refined and delightful Speculation could live in the Height and perfect Rest of a most pleasurable Contemplation without the least disquiet how lowly an Emblem would this be of the infinite Blessedness of God Now God made Man in his own Image and likeness so that the Soul of Man is capable of a communication of this Blessedness in the perfection of his Understanding and Will enjoying God with unexpressible Joy and Peace and yet in the highest Life of Action Under God are the Blessed Angels of whom the Scripture speaks both of their Knowledge Perfection and Power joined with Holiness and Obedience to God who have been Participants of the Glory and Blessedness of God from the first Dawn of Creation and in all this time have not had least tiredness or satiation but highest Bliss and Joy Next to these are the Spirits of Just Men made perfect who are by succession as they go out of the World taken into this Happiness Now in all these Instances it plainly appears to what a height of Happiness Holy Men are designed being made like God equal to Angels in the assurance of which good Mens Souls enjoy the Consolations of that better state in this and are daily removed into it when they dye For the Order of Spirits Miserable and Unhappy Spirits of which the Devil is the Prince although indeed there cannot be such a Misery as should stand a counterpoise to Gods Happiness for Misery is but a retreat from God and his Happiness from his Favour and Grace as Darkness is from Light and being under the Executions of his Wrath yet all this is within the inclosure of a Finite Being and were there not an unchangeable Will of God and a Decree of his Justice that he will not reverse all Misery might be removed off from the most Unhappy of Beings and taken quite away But as things are The Misery of Spirits may be thus understood in the great Exemplar of it the Misery of Fallen Angels and the Prince of them the Devil 1. There is a Height and utmost stretch of Action The Devil is represented as always in Motion from the first beginning of Misery he hath no Rest even while he is in Chains as fierce Mastives he moves as far as he can and rages at the shortness of his Chain he hath had no sleepy moments of Non-action since the day of his fall no Breathing Time no Truce Thus the Soul in Misery is extended as we now speak day and night that is perpetually without intermission with an endless Action and Motion Consider what is Rest and Sleep to a Man of a tormented Mind and wearied Thoughts a Sleep wherein he is not scared with Dreams and terrified with Visions how unhappy doth he think himself in the want of it how unwilling is he to be awakened out of it And from thence understand the Misery of being perpetually awake in Misery 2. There is an ignobleness a baseness in all his Motions he goes upon his Belly and eats Dust he hath no Motion that can give him comfort from any glimmering of worthiness or generosity in it in all the multitude of his Motions he has none that can in the least cool the Furnace of his tormented Thoughts Any Degree of Worthiness in his Action would abate his Unhappiness All is full of Cruelty Envy Black and Malicious Design breathing the Fire and Smoak of Hell He goes up and down Angry Fierce Malecontent Cruel to himself and full of Rage against others as a Ravening roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour This is the state of miserable Souls There is a continual gnawing and scorching of wickedness without any thing to cool the tip of the Tongue any the least intention and motion of Goodness that might cool one flaming hellish Thought There is a Rage against God an Envy at the Blessedness of Heaven returning with unexpressible Misery upon those unhappiest of Beings a Hatred an Execration of themselves 3. There is a Horrour Amazement and trembling Sense of the Supreme Justice Holiness and Power of God over him with the Conscience of his own Guilt The Devils believe Jam 2. 19. and tremble The Fountain of Life Beauty and Happiness is Hell from Heaven to them because they find nothing in themselves but distance and contrariety horrid enmity and hatred They are convinc'd of that High Justice and Righteousness in the midst of so great Wrath and Vengeance upon them and this without leisure or intermission and therefore perpetually shake with Fear and Horrour while
to be always conformed to that exemplar shine forth together the created in subordination to the increated Of all which Body is altogether insensible and utterly incapable In the original therefore of man there is according to Scripture a clear distinction betwixt Spirit and Body 2. That the Scripture doth plainly own the distinction of the Soul from the Body in a state of conjunction with it I argue especially from the powers of mind and the actions of those powers wherein are laid and to which are directed continually all the Discourses and those pressing Reasonings Exhortations Admonitions and Reproofs we find in sacred Writings These powers according to the universal speech of mankind it calls Vnderstanding Faculty of Reason Conscience Judgment and the actions proceeding from these it names Thought Apprehension or Perceiving Consideration Reasoning Accusation and Apologie or Defence of Conscience Judging of Things and all these powers working out into these acts it comprehends in this word the Spirit of man and unites these acts with it speaking of these powers as the Essence of a man and of the acts as most connatural to that Essence to which also every mans knowledge and feeling within himself give as clear testimony and as full as the parts of Body give of themselves to Sense For the Spirit of a man knows the things of a man within him Now it is plain All these things are most improper to Body or so much as a brutal Spirit especially when they lift up themselves to the sense of a God and extend themselves to religious concernments when they receive those high proposals of the Gospel and Mysteries that lye out of the whole region of Sense so that though the organs and instruments of the body are sometimes spoken of and to in these cases yet it is only upon this account because they are such as by which the mind acts or are symbols and representations of this rational sense and motion These things being then so well known and every where met with in inspired Writings they are as great a demonstration of their consciousness to another greater and more excellent Being in man than Body as can be required seeing Body hath no fitness nor possible sublimation to these things that Scripture so wholly insists upon in relation to man There must be therefore another man a more excellent man within or else all thus spoken must have been in vain such powers and actions cannot be ascribed originally to the most excellent temper of Body or Tune of motions but must have a proper and peculiar substance to reside in and that whatever any one else will call it is that Scripture and common speaking calls Spirit And this being so plain and clear and of so general consent the Scripture without any industry as in a case presumed speaks of Spirit as one thing and Body as another distributes 1 Thess 5. 23. man into Body Soul and Spirit Body is well enough known Soul is either Spirit as it contains within it self the faculties of sensitive nature and takes the Government of them upon it self and the care and feeling of things that concern Body and the life of it or as it moves in the most excellent parts of Body that mediate betwixt body and mind and are fittest for the more immediate motions of Spirit in Body and so called Spirits Spirit is pure mind exalted to its own objects and the highest of those objects Divine Things This Spirit is that Inward Man holy 2 Cor. 4. 16. Writing speaks of renewed and repaired every day not in its substantial nature but in gracious and heavenly qualities of which it is the only residence and receipt and which are its true health and strength Lastly In this distinction of Soul and Body is founded that excellent discourse of the Apostle Rom. 8. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. of Being in the flesh and in the Spirit of being carnally minded or of the carnal mind and of being spiritually minded or of the spiritual mind By which on one side he describes this mind allured and drawn down to Body and Flesh which comes to pass first through nearness to Body and closest sympathy with all those natural and sensitive motions which it self inspires Body with but chiefly by degeneracy the Soul comes to feel it self and places its enjoyments wholly in flesh and makes that the Center of its reigning passions and affections and so it self becomes carnal and sensual and cannot please God On the other side is described Mind lifted up above Body and out of Flesh by Grace and the Divine Spirit to an inseparable adherence to God and Christ and eternal things to which it advances its own motions in Body also presenting them a living and acceptable Sacrifice which is the rational service of a man consisting of Soul and Body Thus the Flesh and the Heart together cry out for the living God In the mean time this Spirit of the mind subdues and restrains its own motions arising from unholy Bodily inclination and affection Now to be carnally minded is death The mind unpurged and glued to Body dyes in that sense a Spirit can dye that is a death of separation from God and deprivation of Divine Beauty and Happiness and the Body whose ministery it uses and makes it the seat of its carnal pleasures and sensualities perishes also leaving no possible satisfaction any longer from them and yet that Body because it was the Body of that unpurged Soul and retains its order to it remains guilty and foul dust and rises again so that the Soul may suffer and its misery may be seen in a Body even as it sinned in Body which is the second death But to be spiritually minded is life and peace For Mind renewed and made the habitation of the Holy Spirit and its righteousness cannot it self dye no not as Spirits dye because of that blessed and immortal allyance for it lives in the enjoyment of God likeness to him lively motions of it self in all goodness and blessedness And though the Body is dead that is is under the sentence of death to be unavoidably fulfilled in the separation of the Soul from the Body upon which the Body becomes a dead lump and further it must dye that the Soul may obtain a perfect purification from sin which it cannot have while cemented with Body sin being so lodged in that Cement that there can be no perfect purification till that Cement be dissolved Then when that Cement is dissolved the separated Soul becomes perfect Spirit and Divine through the almighty efficacy of the Divine Spirit resiant in it and bearing it up to the perfection of the Divine life for ever Thus the Spirit is life because of righteousness And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you That is The Body that
Rays about it that have broken out from it self In its Creation in its Native Splendour to allude to that of the Prophet It was an anointed Cherub upon Ezek. 28. 13 14. the Holy Mountain of God it walk'd up and down in the midst of the Stones of Fire and every Precious Stone was its Ornament It was of an Angelical Brightness near to God and Divine Glories and all the Excellencies of Understanding were its proper Lustre and in Eternity it will again rend all its Clouds and shine without interruption and For Ever The Soul of Man is a Light begotten of the Father of Lights and the James 1. 17. Heb. 12. 9. Father of Spirits Lights and Spirits explain one another for Rational and Intellectual Spirits and their Intellectual Accomplishments are all Lights The Increated and All-creating Spirit is the Father of them with whose perfect Light there is no variation nor shadow of turning He is Light as well in that as he is All-understanding as All-pure and in him is 1 John 1. 5. no Darkness at all either of Ignorance or Unrighteousness The Son of God is The Light To the All-knowing Spirit the Light shineth John 1. 7 8. Psal 139. 12. as the Day The Darkness and the Light are both alike to him because Himself is All Light The Angels are Seraphims shining and burning Lights He maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a Flame of Fire The Life of the Souls of Men that is their Life of Reason is Light lighted from the Son of God for his Life communicating it self is the Light of Men He is that True Light John 1. 9. that inlightneth every Man that cometh into the World Light then being chosen by the Divine Wisdom as the most easie and familiar Conveyance of the Nature and Excellency of Spirits in general as they are Intellects and particularly of Mans Soul as it is an Understanding Let us consider the principal Sense and Intention avoiding the Notices of lower and collateral Similitude between Light and the Soul of Man That which will best conduct us to our main purpose is the Description the Apostle gives us of Light That it makes manifest For whatever says Ephes 5. 13. he makes manifest is Light To which our own Experience fully agrees for we can make no Discovery nor Judgment of Things but by Light that expounds all things to us and is the first and plainest Commentary upon Nature When we therefore say Man's Soul is a great Light reflected upon it self we speak this Sense The Understanding of Man manifests and lays open and makes known within the Soul and within it self for it self is the Soul whatsoever is known to the Soul or the understanding of man is that which discovers and discloses to it self all that is known to it for thus our Saviour says The light of the body is the Eye because it receives the light and sees by it so the Understanding is the Eye of the Soul and further it is its own light so that it is its own Eye and its own Light but the manner and way how this is to be understood and by which the Understanding discharges this great Function is of further enquiry There can be no doubt of the thing it self for besides the great proofs the Soul of man hath given hereof in those many successful Experiments it hath made in all kinds of knowledge even those that have denyed a Soul distinct from Body and Matter in its Essence yet cannot but acknowledge There is some excellent motion in man by which he understands and perceives more than the Beasts of the Field There is in some sense or other A Spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding This then being out of doubt let us consider the infinity of Divine Knowledge and so attain the measures of Humane Understanding in the resemblances of him in whose likeness it was made We read of the Son of God the true Light that he perceived Mark 2. 8. in his own Spirit the thoughts of men The Son of God an omniscient Spirit knows all things in the light of his own Spirit in that infinite understanding essential to him created Spirits the Souls of men having a measure of this perfection a communication of it though not as Christ may also in a degree perceive in and by their own Spirit God then understands all things within himself he being all Eye all Light able perfectly to see into and comprehend all things that either are or are possible to be or that can possibly stand in the place of Object and all this within himself For himself being fully known to himself as an infinitely seeing and self-reflected eye other things that are or may be are also within himself as the original of all Being and Motion And as his own Understanding and Contrivance what they should be and his pleasure they should be what he contrived them gave them being and motion and there is no other way of being and motion thus and on this account and infinitely beyond what we can conceive and express God knows what is what is done by the virtue that is in himself and continually goes out of himself so that by virtue of himself perfectly known to himself all other things are perfectly known to himself also Thus known to God are all his Works from the foundation Act. 15. 18. of the World Even to him who is all Eye all Light all Object and before whose infinite eye all things stand present at once as one single point so naked and open that they are all perfect surface and outside while it self rests on them The Soul made in this Image is in its degree Eye and Light an intellectual Eye an intellectual Light The motions of the reasoning contemplating Soul are like the motions of the Sun an illuminating motion light and sparkles flye out the openings of its faculties are like the openings of the Eye-lids of the morning like some Eyes that see in the dark by their own fire for what can the motions of an Understanding Conscience Reason intellectual Memory be but moral and intellectual Light It s very self is its Eye and its motion it s inlightened air Thus it bears the Image of the Divine Understanding in its visive power And that it may in some lower degrees perceive in its own Spirit we may very rationally suppose there are some fundamental Ideas some Images some Notions or Verities pourtrayed upon and given to the Soul that are as so many rays from the Father of Lights and Truth and make it like the Eye full of Light and it being natural to the Soul to move it self at least assoon as ever it is excited by Object from without it first makes a survey upon things abroad with the observation of which it immediately retires into it self to find what is within and when ever the Soul thus moves through the intimacy of these
the Soul quick of apprehension that presently enlarges much further upon it and many Instances there are of those who have cut their own way to Knowledge and such a one as hath been altogether untrodden before them Notwithstanding this the advantage of Instruction is evident and most evident in that part of Knowledge which concerns us towards God the Knowledge of his gracious Intentions towards us and our Duty to him wherein Divine Revelation hath been always the first and is ever the most sure and undoubted Guide Yet even in this the Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord For God doth not that he may make known himself create any new Understanding but applies himself in Grace to his first Creation the Soul of Man of which there is no abolition by Divine Illumination but as the Scripture speaks of the Sun the Light of it grows seven-fold The Candle that burnt dim and was even choak'd up is trimm'd and becomes Light on all sides and sends out its Beams from every part The Sum then is this The Soul of Man is the same Candle of the Lord whose Natural Power of Understanding is rais'd and made more clear by the Irradiation of Instruction whether the Power be an innate Force of Trying and Judging of Things by it self as it is a Faculty able to try and judge by the Nature of its Being or by some implanted Sentiments given to it with its Being or by Maxims to be collected by it self through the ministery and mediation of Sense However these things be it is always of the Nature of Understanding that there be a Resentment and Feeling of the agreeableness of Truth to it self There must be a Knowing in its own Spirit by every Intelligence the Reasonableness and Verity of the Things propos'd or there can be no Understanding Even Faith it self is an Intellectual that is an Explicite not an Implicite Act else it would be but a meer childish Memory of what hath been receiv'd as Catechism But all true Acts of Understanding have a Taste and Relish and what is propos'd to Mind must have a Gustfulness to it Knowledge and Faith not at all differing in this but onely that in things of Knowledge the Understanding arrives at that Knowledge or at least acquiesces in it upon Grounds more its own in things of Faith by Assurances more out of it self yet having Instruments of its own for the acceptation of such when so offer'd Characters and Tests within it self of what is offer'd whether it be worthy to be believ'd Resentments within it self of Pleasure or Trouble according to the Quality of what it hath receiv'd when so offer'd To draw all this that hath been spoken to what is mainly to be intended that is That the Understanding is the Candle of the Lord especially lighting us to himself Let us therefore inquire after some Principles that are Standards in the great Concernments we have with God which whether they are settled in the Soul by the Hand that created it or do immediately result from the Observation of Things without improved by the Mind running through its own Circuits and Trains of Reason concerning them or whether it is led into them by the Instructions God is still giving into the World or whether all these concur to their establishment in the heart of Man yet they are such as are universally consented in and are the Foundation of Religious Practice and also such a Receptacle for supernatural Revelation that there it may be tasted acknowledged and savoured as Divine with these as with a Helm the great Governour of Spirits turns them whither soever he listeth either for Conviction or Conversion Repentance and Reformation or as he pleases to Self-condemnation And all the boisterousness of their contrary affections are overrul'd and controll'd hereby Such Principles I esteem these Four Princip 1 That there is a God The Soul cannot move but it acknowledges God a Soul cannot look up but it sees God and this Principle in the Soul is a great Light God hath so carved himself into Understanding that there cannot be an Understanding in Motion and Activity but there must be a sight a conception an apprehension of such a Being as God as the Eye cannot open but it sees the Light or if it seems to lye hid yet upon the least collision as between the Flint and Steel upon any conflict of Thought with it self or with the Propose of this Truth from without this Light breaks forth It is manifest in men because God hath shewed it to them Rom. 1. 19. that is In the very making them Souls he hath set it in them In the first solemn action of the Understanding the acknowledgment of a Supreme Being rebounds and leaps up to them the Soul no sooner sees any thing by inward sense but it sees God the Author as a Man that sees the impression in the Wax presently thinks of the Seal Many Men endeavour to reject and disannul this Principle but they cannot deface it much less wear out the apprehension And when the Soul hath considered further and more vehemently the more it reasons the more it confirms and settles it self in the assurance of the Divine Being even when it endeavours to Reason out this Belief of it it prevails the more And besides what it hath within concerning God The invisible Things V. 20. of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the Things that are made and done even his eternal Power and Godhead So that the Soul can neither consider without nor within but it sees God Princip 2 That we have a Soul Many have violently oppressed this Sense thus far as to deny a Soul a Spirit distinct in its Essence yet they cannot but acknowledge a vehemency of Motion an Activity that teaches us more than the Beasts of the Field Every man must say There is a Spirit in Man above any other Creature a force and excellency of Motion the Motion of Reason and Understanding No Man can stir but he finds There is a Breath of the Almighty that gives him Vnderstanding Now these two Principles as they do mutually enlighten one another so they give great and illustrious light to all holy Practice they enlighten themselves for he that apprehends a God whose very Being is absolute Perfection retires out of all things bodily and weak to conceive aright of him and find him out and when he is thus understood the Notion of an inferiour and subordinate Spirit that yet hath a likeness to him is easie And whoever finds out in himself a diviner part than Body hath an easie ascent to God in whom all the lesser Perfections of his own Being are transcended and at the height And how do they both shine upon holy Practice seeing God is the great both Exemplar and Argument of all Goodness And no Man can suppose himself to have received such great powers of Understanding for mean much
and concealed The similitude with himself he at first enstamped them with shall be plainly discovered It shall then be seen what Understandings Wills Affections Consciences he hath given them and that a Soul is not so small a Thing as it seems to be in the Worlds History of Beings And these two things are very subservient to the discovery of one another the Excellency of God and the Valuableness of the Soul for God revealing himself and his own Holiness and Happiness in their full Beauty and Greatness the Soul that was shrivell'd up in ignorance of true Good opens and stretches out it self as the Eye to the Sun or as the Appetite to the most gustful or delicious meat and when the Soul is drawn out to its own Largeness then will it know the vanity of all things besides God and that its great Affections and Desires cannot be satisfied by any thing Lower or Lesser than he is but shall feel the extremities of want the necessities of inraged and unsatisfied desire in the loss of him and the great Motions of Mind will make fiercest reflections on the Evil of Sin and the Righteous Displeasure of God But on the other side Happiness in the Favour and Enjoyment of God shall flow in upon the extended Desires and Affections and the excellency of the Mind shall adore and admire the greatness of Divine Glory and the blessedness of enjoying it 3. God hath resolved upon Degrees of Happiness and Punishment Now the more the Soul is enlightened and its Faculties heightened the more capable it is of Glory Thus one Star differs from another in Glory having a greater Orb for the reception of Light having a purer and quicker Light So also the more the Faculties are enlarged the more capable they are of Woe and Punishment and to be beaten with more stripes The more therefore any one finds his Faculties now quickened and opened the more he may apprehend and so be the more excited to fear the danger and lay hold on the Happiness 4. Seeing all depends upon the Actuation either of the Mercy and Goodness of God or his Indignation from hence appears both the Freeness of his Grace and Mercy in Christ in the glorification of his Saints and the Liberty of his Indignation and Wrath in the Punishment of wicked men For though all things that God does in these things are contrived into the greatest Conveniences and Aptness to their several Ends yet if he did not continually move them in whom all things live move and have their Beings that do live and move or have any being all would lye still and there is no other Power that could excite them for who can move before him or besides him seeing he moves all himself and he who is moved only by himself and from himself can receive no Motion from any other The Apostle therefore thus expresses both sides of these things What if God willing to shew his Wrath and Rom. 9. 22. make his power known and that he might make known the Riches of his Mercy So then he hath mercy on V. 18. whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth These things being thus fixed let us further enlarge upon them by way of Consectary And first we are led by them to these three Petitions 1. Let us pray that God would keep and contain our Desires and Reflexions within due bounds that we may not exceed our Condition by unruly Appetite nor pore too much upon the Disadvantages and Vexations of our Condition For if our Souls are let out above due measure how full of Torment and Agony may we be He fashions the hearts of Men alike or to an equality to their Condition for he as the Potter moulds the Clay and fits it to this or that Figure The Father of Spirits forms the Spirit of Man within him and he doth it in Mercy or Judgment as he pleases yet with righteousness and plenty of Justice Most necessary it is therefore that into his Hand we at all times commend our Spirits not only when we are going out of the Body into those unknown Regions but while we are here in the Body that we may be kept within due Measures Further It is most necessary to pray That God would feed us with Food Prov. 30. 8. 1 Chron. 4. 10. convenient for us that he would bless us indeed and enlarge our Border to just proportions and that he would keep away Evil from us in such a degree that it may not grieve us piercing us too deep that we may not fall into Temptations murmurings and discontents against God into Rages and Fury against our selves This is to bless us indeed when our Minds and our Condition are equally poiz'd when Divine Providence proportions our Condition to our Minds and our Minds to our Condition When God does not thus preserve Mens Souls how do they fall as Saul under an Evil Spirit forsaken of God They fall first upon the edge and point of their own edged pointed Thoughts and then upon their Sword And thus it would be with all Men did not God sweeten their Spirits with his Blessings of Goodness as with the joys of Harvest and sustain them with his benign Influences as with the gladness of Corn Oyl and Wine God gives us many Documents of the force and vehemency of our Souls in the examples of some transported with Divine Joy even to Ravishment another falling into greatest Agonies of Mind and Thought in the dark and sad part of whose condition we are not to think that they had greater sins or sharper thoughts than others but they are our Examples and teach us what we should be if God did not qualifie us now and what we shall be in Eternity if not reconciled to God and thereby also to our selves we shall fall with greatest Fury and Rage upon our selves For it is but a little thing what a Man executes with his own Hand upon his Body now in comparison of those Rages wherewith he will fall upon himself in Eternity 2. We have need to pray That God would draw out our Souls now that we might see them and know them for we do not enough understand our Souls we consider them not because we lye still But why should it be hard to conceive That as Mens Souls are now awakened by Study Observation Action so much more by entring into another World the most stupid Soul may be awakened being let loose out of the Body It should be therefore our most earnest Prayer that God would open us to our selves that we may not make provision for our selves only as so little as we seem to be and lest when we come to dye we fall into those horrible amazes that will arise from being mistaken in our selves but that seeing and knowing what we are we may make so great a provision for our selves as our case requires and so not be for ever miserable through our not so much
represented to our sense and however the display of these things may pass into the Body and be all seen there yet we know the most excessive pleasures of Body interrupt the proper motions of Soul in which true Happiness or Misery lye for neither is a man drenched in an irrational pleasure nor tormented and he knows not why but there is an orderly motion a sense of sin and guilt of the supreme Justice of God in his righteous Executions of Judgment in Happiness an adoring of Infinite Grace and Mercy a Rational Taste of Holy and Divine Pleasures I shall now as a Conclusion draw up all this Discourse into these practical Conclusions flowing from the whole 1. Hereby I understand I have an immortal and everlasting Soul to take care of we look upon our selves as Flesh and Blood but we do not consider these Immortal Spirits and their great Powers Understanding Imagination Will Conscience Affections and the motion of these to be Everlasting We do not examine whether our Souls have a true Health Peace and Safety and a good Provision made for them Whether our Consciences are quiet and upon good grounds Whether our Affections are purified and holy For a man to consider his Soul thus is indeed to consider a mans self What shall it Luc. 9. 2â— profit a man if he gain the whole World and lose himself The Soul is a true Self and how dreadful will the mistake appear to men who have counted the Body and the Interests of that the only Self and this other true the greatest Self starts out A Self that now lyes under as many Covers as a Body under a multitude of Garments and so is concealed But then it breaking out and not being provided for that great principle of self preservation finding now its greatest Object will force a man to cry out with a most dreadful Ejulation and Complaint Oh this false Self that I have laboured for how hath it deceived me My very Self I never thought of and so have lost it What shall I give now in exchange for this my true Self 2. I hereby understand I am made for Holiness as the true Peace and Greatness of my Spirit for a converse with God for an attendance upon him for an observation of his Favour and Countenance towards me and that herein is the Life of my Spirit and on the other side I am very apt to be tempted to sin and drawn away from God to live at a distance from him to lose him and herein at last will be found the Torment and Hell of Souls and therefore I have greatest reason to be awakened about these things and earnestly to pray to God that he would put me into a high and vigorous action concerning them and to be extremely unsatisfied when I find my self insensible concerning them and therefore to labour earnestly to be in a good state and condition in relation to them 3. I hereby understand I am made and designed and shall certainly be unexpressibly Happy or Miserable to extremity and who can say this to himself without highest concern upon his own Soul If any one should tell us we were ordained to be one of these extraordinarily happy and prosperous or deplorably unhappy and were about to read our Fate or Doom to us and that we had considerable Reasons to believe such a one who would not with a most trembling suspense of mind wait what it should be When any one is to receive the Issue of his Cause from a Judge or Jury how high and impatient is his expectation But how much more should our Thoughts wait for this Issue of Things and God hath placed it in the motions of these our own Thoughts for when they move enlightened with his Countenance cleansed and annointed with his Grace ennobled with his Spirit delighted with his Consolations this is Heaven begun this is Happiness growing up When they are base for want of his Spirit impure with Lust and dishonourable Affections full of rancour and bitterness and all spotted and stained with guilt this is Hell in the Foundations of it laid And however my Soul lye still now yet when I see how many things draw out mens Souls even in this Life Education better Converse Solitude some great danger or loss in the world higher Condition Sickness some notable Discourse as in Foelix how much more must I needs think the change into Eternity will do it and therefore no silence of my Soul now can encourage me upon serious consideration to be careless of it 4. I hereby understand my unspeakable dependence upon the Grace of God and his Free Favour and hence learn to humble my self before him to nothing seeing my Happiness consists in those free Beams of his Favour in the light of his Countenance in his setting my Soul into a gracious Motion by his Spirit and raising the Motions of my Spirit to a high communion with him in Bliss for seeing I can so little yield my self the accounts of Happiness and receive them all from him and can so little move my self upon them when they are offered by him I am inconceivably bound and beholden to him both to open the Fountain of Life that is himself to me and to move me by his Spirit that I may move On the other side If he leaves me to my self what Evils shall I run into and treasure up torment and sharpen stings against my self by it and how can he inflame my Soul with his Indignation and to what degrees he pleases both now and for ever For if he hide the face of his Mercy who can behold him What Reason have I therefore to reverence him with Godly Fear and to acknowledge him with greatest dependency I humbly therefore say as the Apostle not only by the Grace of God I am what I am but by the Grace of God alone I hope what I hope to be 5. I hereby understand what a great necessity I have of Jesus Christ my Lord the Son of the Wisdom Glory Power and Holiness of God the Son of his Love for he is the Attonement His Blood offered by the Eternal Spirit is the most excellent Thing in Heaven or Earth and that only which can purge the Conscience the most excellent and divine Instrument of Pacification with God and within the Conscience it self Through him the Holy Spirit is given by him is there an entrance into that Holy of Holies that Heaven within the Veil for as the value of Souls for which our Lord gave himself exalts his Redemption the greatness of the Misery from which they are rescued the greatness of the Happiness to which they are exalted all glorifie the Saviour of Souls so do these Souls of a Nature so supreme require so great a Ransom and Mediator no lower no lesser a Price can countervail them and it argues them to be a Nature so supreme that so great a Mediator undertook so infinitely for them 6. Hereby I understand