and his eye towards Heaven with some strong groane in the declaring of his newly conceived opinion and that he frequently used this phrase of the glory of God c. these men I say are by and by of another opinion supposing to themselves that God hath made known some further truth unto them for they are unestablished in any way and are constrained to tast of all waters if they be zealous in the bodily workings for of such I speak and not of prophane worldlings nor of luke-warme professors but of devout zealousnes such as have a zeal of God but not conform to knowledge Now all this excessive bodily working and the varieties thereof do plainly shew and declare the emptiness of the heart for as much as the true worship of God is more inward and spiritual as God himself is a spirit The true service of God is in a profound silence and inward intention towards God declared to God by groanes which partly the soule cannot and partly it will not express And if this truly devout soule fall into any bodily exercise as often it doth such as is the uttering of the mind to God by vocall tearmes then is he in his Chamber or place of most private repose and his door shut or at least himself hid from the eyes of men as much as may be And if by his place or degree in the Church or Familie he be urged to performe duties Religious either more or less publique then in such performance be laboureth more to forget such affected gestures and actions as is the sadness of the countenance c. then any way to frame his body thereunto and so serveth God in more depth of spirit and heart-cleaving to the love of truth Hence it cometh to passe that when the bodily performers behold this mans service they by and by judge him weake or cold in religious exercises but the wise in heart perceive that he is inward with God CHAP. 8. The hearts progression towards true happiness NOw in the eight place we are to consider the progression or going forward of the heart to true happiness in the handling whereof we are to observe a very speciall and peculiar difference between this eight Chapter and all the former for all the former parts have their use and exercise in a natural man but this and consequently all that follow is proper to the elect Children of God for thus the case standeth that the naturall motion of the heart declared in the second Chapter doth press mainly towards rest but it is so violently interrupted and hindered by the enemy Sathan in the subtill use of those Engines the objects of our senses and phantasies spoken of in the fifth Chapter that the heart of the naturall man can never find any out-gate from his sensualities and formalities or make any progression to any properly called supernaturall good but sticketh still in one created good or another either more grossely or more closely to a sensuall life or at least standeth inlived in the bodily performance of some religious exercise according as it hath been declared in the Symptomes of the conceited happiness Chap 7. but contrariwise the heart moved by the finger of God though for a time it may be hindered by created contentments as was Salomon yet at the last it breaketh out as a prisoner from the prison from all those things wherein it was insnared And as a Ship having a faire wind waigheth Anchor and delayeth not so the soule in feeling a sweet gayle of grace filling her sayle which is desire doth put forward for a more happy Haven then yet she hath been acquainted withall And this is the progression of the heart toward true happiness In handling whereof let us consider 4. things First the truth of the assertion that there is such a progression Secondly in the nature of it and wherein it doth consist Thirdly the consimilitude that is between this man and a natural man before this Progression Fourthly the dissimilitude that is between this man and all such as have not entered their foote into this progression For the first that there is such a progression and out-going of the heart from sensuality c. it is most cleare in Salomon who for a time did wallow and sport himself in all sensuall delights and in them expected a rest to his soul but at the last was forced to confesse that all is but vexation of the spirit he maketh progression toward the feare and love of God as his book of retractions doth declare The prodigall Sonne did for a time seeke contentments in vanity at the last set saile towards his Fathers house St. Paul doth not unaptly point at such a progression when in the Philipians he saith Phil. 3.13 he did forget those things which were behind and did reach forth unto those things which were before And though in speciall manner he hath respect in that place to the degrees of Christianity and in the further conforming of the man to the Image of Christ yet cannot Paul have forgotten that out-going of his heart from all that fleshly and worldly glory wherein according to the flesh he had cause to rejoyce verse 4. of that third Chapter doth that place give a slender confirmation of this truth where Paul saith that when he was a Child he spake as a Child c. But when he came to be a Man he put away Childishness The truth of this expression is so well known to the soule experienced in the truth of Godliness that it needeth no proofe and the Mystery of it is so great â—nd so farre above the naturall â—an that it is altogether hyperâ—olicall and incredible The second point is to shew the â—ature of this progression what 〈◊〉 is and it standeth in two â—hings First the putting off of all â—onceipts and comprehensible â—ood Secondly in putting on pure â—esire towards the unknown and â—omprehensible good For the first The Child of God is brought to a true dissilence distract in all his carnall â—nd created confidence whether â—hey were sensuall pleasures or externall religious exercises or â—oth And as we read of the Snake that creeping through a hedge she leaveth her skin behind her even so the Christian heart iâ— truly stript of all putten-on contentments either in this thing or in that thing and so is become truly poor miserable and naked so that notwithstanding he could say aâ— St. Paul If any man have causâ— to rejoyce in the flesh much more lâ— yet will this man glory in nothing save only in infirmities that to the shame and confusioâ— of his own face And thus will the Kings Daughter he forsaketh his Fathers house and with Abraham leaveth his native Countrey to seeke dwelling in a Land as yet unknown The second point is putting on of desire The poor soule beaten by the ministery of Christ out of its contentments is now dissolved into desire and is nothing else in sensuality but pure
this point considering it first in the rude and sensuall multitude and then in the more seeming religious and we shall evidently perceive that the religious exercises of men do most strongly deceive and delude the Heart of happinesse the rude multitude of sensuall livers whose belly is their best god which in truth of heart do no sacrifice but to Bacchus Apollo or Venus c. these I say are not so much deceived of hearts happinesse by their sensuall exercises though by them they be hindered as they are by the exercises of their Religion such as it is better or worse for in that they have the name of Christians put upon them in Baptisme and for as much as they do often repeat the Lords Prayer the Apostles Creed and the ten Commandements and in that they come sometimes to divine Service and to heare a preaching upon Gods good Sunday as they say and seeing that at Easter they do receive their Riteings or the Lords Supper Hence it is that these people will not be perswaded but that their condition is most happy and he that goeth about to discover their haplesse estate undertaketh a most fruitlesse undertaking Now did not these men performe any exercise of Religion it were much more easie in the eye of reason to perswade such men that their case were miserable and wretched but now when any man reprehendeth their vaine condition and bewrayeth their vanity they by and by flie to the Castle of their religious exercise and in it they shroud themselves as being equall in profession with the best of Christians and quid ultra what needeth any more But God forgive me or the like abrupt ejaculations and if such men as these have after some drunken fit or after some fearfull blasphemous Oaths any inward dejection of spirit though far short of Ahab both in nature and time then they conclude themselves very penitent persons and thus they set up themselves in their religious condition As well may a man perswade these men that they are not men as perswade them that they are not true believers and in a most happy condition if it were possible to perswade these men that they are irreligious and unbelieving and that they were of their father the Devill whose work they doe then were they in the way towards happinesse but the first is not likely therefore not the second Thus in the very rude multitude we see that religious exercise doth most strongly deceive it was the too much confidence the Ephesians had of their Diana that kept them from the receiving the faith of Christ even so it is at this day with many they have a forme of believing and of serving God which secretly they doe adore and worship accounting it so good and so great a Diana or God-service that they neither can nor will receive any light of truth It is strange to consider how contrary men are to themselves for it is every mans opinion and conceit that faith without works is a dead faith and no faith and this is most true notwithstanding these men themselves living most ungodlily and wickedly will not acknowledge that they want faith nor hear that they are unbelievers so strongly are they conceited of their Faith and Religion It was a good saying of Alexander Severus and some others that the best learning was to unlearne what was learned amiss so I say that it were the best lesson for all seeming religious men to unlearn their faith and religion and to acknowledge it for no faith and no Religion But to passe from this demonstration drawn from the prophane multitude in whom this truth is least apparent let us come to consider it in the more precisely religious and it wil appear that by how much more men have been strictly exercised to the view of the world by so much more they have been deceived Of all the people in the world the Jewes were most religiously exercised and amongst them the Pharisees were most devout yet Christ telleth the Jewes that they did not know the things which concerned their peace The Pharisees had a good opinion of their Religion as is plaine in him that would give God thanks that he was not as other men were and yet for all this they received not Christ the Son of Peace without which no true peace can be established And as of old so in these our days those that are most devout and forward in the exercises of Religion are in that their performance most mystically deceived in this point of true peace The Papists and the most devour amongst them the Jesuites plainly shew that they have no inward peace in that they daily plot so many policies to augment their degrees of preferment whereas if they were at peace in the inwards of their hearts then had they preferment enough though in never so low a condition Hence it is that they as we and we as they run from opinion to opinion and can abide in no condition with any content because we have not this inward peace of the heart Hence spring all Sects and all divisions amongst both Papists and Protestants And to conclude this point it is most apparent even amongst us both Preachers and Professors which to our selves and to the eye of the world seem most religiously exercised that we have no peace for though we in the secrets of our hearts praise God that he hath called us from our vanities and that he hath made us to abhor those vices in the which our neighbours do wallow and tumble and so blesse our selves in a conceit of a better estate notwithstanding it is most clear that the true peace of the heart we have not known in so much that every one of us for the most part do seek our selves and our own ends in all our courses and are glad to patch and piece out our contentments with gain and glory and vaine boasting of our owne praises oftentimes opening our mouths against others secretly begging commendations to our selves And more then all this we must have our dishes our dainties and our sweet morsells to support our empty hearts yea our possessions must be inlarged our buildings must be beautified and too little to satisfie our restlesse soules and which do clearly shew that though we have a Religion that speaks of peace yet our Hearts are not established in the God of peace for were the soule once at rest and so the heart made truly happy in God then as we did injoy one thing above all so should we injoy all things in one and in that one thing would all other things be contemned as dung and as things of no esteem but this earthly hungering sheweth the Hearts emptinesse in all Now what hath deceived us even our conceit of the goodnesse of our Religion Quest But some will demand a reason why religious exercises do so mystically deceive Answ To which question I thus answer The Lord according to his divine wisdome hath
endles To this we may adde that worldly wollowing of the coÌ„mon worldlings in all sensual pleasures eating till gluttony and drinking till drunkenness Others in their apparell braving it and out-braving it not only according to but much exceeding their meanes though still short of their ambitious minds Others there be which persecute their luxurious and beastly pleasures in which they manifest the emptiness of their hearts Thus in short the common prophaneness of the rude multitude doth plainly shew that there is no peace established in the heart seeing that notwithstanding their religious exercises they lye drowned in sensuality in which secretly their hearts seeke and for a while finde peace And here let us note by the way that the emptiness of mans heart in the want of God is the spur to all prophaneness and ungodliness whatsoever whether more gross or more close The second Symptome or signe of the hearts emptiness is a more close sensuall life and this is to be applyed to the civill honest man and to the most part of the verball professors of Religion for it is true that some men partly for feare and partly for shame do take the bit of reason into their mouthes and with the reynes of discretion they bridle and refrain the grosser part of sensuality so that the world can not tax them of whordoms drunkenness blasphemies c. notwithstanding those which have eyes enlightened by the light of grace may plainly see and perceive that these men live in a very sensuall life But it is more closely and covertly then the prophane man doth for some are wise to do evill saith the Prophet and such are all close sensuall livers who by crafty wyles work their wickedness These close sensuall livers declare the love of their hearts to the sensuall objects by secret self-seeking in all matters of moment and high consequence for if we mark them they do cunningly steale praise and commendations to themselves and underneath communicate with increase of riches sumptuous buildings curious dyet in all which the peace of their heart standeth not in God and but that these things are maintained to the contentment of their sensuall appetites their hearts would break with grief and sorrow through the emptines thereof And though these wise men carrie their sensuall life so close that they are not so commonly perceived as the gross sensualls are yet doth it so farre appeare to the godly wise as to bewray the emptiness of their hearts in God and in Christ and often times God doth discover these Hypocrites that they shall drink either to drunkenness or to fulness and some times their close-carried luxury breaketh out to a publique declâ—ring wherein the contentment and peace of their hearts did stand when they seemed to the world to be at rest in God This close sensuall life is a manifest signe of the hearts emptiness The third signe is a vain glorious bâ—asting in religious performances such as are publique prayer and Thanksgiving reasoning and disputing of Religion framing of a sorrowfull countenance pittifull formes of speech abrupt eiaculations smiting of the breast rowling of the eyes upward towards Heaven with a passionate moving of the hand to which is annexed many a sigh and groane Rom. 8.26 which are not those inutterable ones proceeding from the spirit But those Pharisaicall ones proceeding from vaine glory Thus the body being artificially framed and all the members and motions thereof fitly composed to a seeming-holy declaring of a very zealous condition Now the corruptions of the time are blamed the Antichristian Government of the Church is condemned the condition of the prophane is highly adjudged and in all this himself secretly justified Now though such things as I have named do in the nature thereof arise and proceed from true zeale yet do they carry the party into his private Chamber or closet or other secret place where the soule doth inwardly mourn for the corruptions of it self and others Jer. 13.17 as witnesseth the Prophet in a phrase worth the noting Our Saviour Christ doth in express words forbid the sad countenance and the disfiguring of the face and doth appoint secrecy as the upper place of all religious performance Mat. 6.16 For well knew our Saviour Christ that that heart which was full in God needed not the eccho of vain glory to supply its want But the truth is that all such frothy and windy foolishness is a plain declaring of the hearts emptiness For then do Hogsheads sound lowdest when they have least within them The fourth and last signe is an excessive exercise of religious performance together with the mutation of such exercises And this St. Paul did perceive to be the very God of some men in his time and therefore telleth Tymothy that he might instruct others that bodily exercise profiteth little and as some reade nothing and doth oppose thereunto godliness 1 Tim. 4.8 as being another thing then bodily exercise saith that it is profitable c. But such is the mystery of iniquity at this day that many men know no other godlines but bodily exercises and can hardly admit of any distinction between them These bodily exercises the exces thereof is manifest to be manifold in all sects and sorts such as is their often fasting often seeming to pray I say seeming for many pray and pray not because prayer is nothing else but the conference of the soule with God as well saith St. Augustine To this we may adde the bareing of the knees the putting on a shirt of hair whipping scourging much preaching to the wasting of the spirits and consuming of the body and this is called a constant performance of duties These exercises are mutable and variable according to mens knowledge and the streame and straine of that Ministery under which they live so that all sorts have their severall services yet all bodily and for the most part only bodily And it must needs be so for men having no rest nor peace in God do labour to establish a peace to themselves in the multiplicity of bodily exercises hence it is that if they omit their service they have no peace all that day and if they perform their devotions then they have peace whereby it is plain that their peace is only in bodily working And it cometh to passe that so many gawdies must be run over so many prayers and repetitions must be used so many Chapters must be read so many Psalmes sung c. or otherwise the heart is unquiet Now these men hearing of any new way of worship which cometh in the cloak of Scripture-learning and hath a shew of truth founded from the letter of the bible which worship seemeth more devout and zealous then that in which they are established as it will easily so appear to a zealous and devout bodily worker especially if the teacher of that new way can but frame a sad and demure countenance and with a grace lift his hand