Father and himself would come and make their abode in such an one ver 23. The Abode of the Father and the Son in such an one is in a glorious manifestative way such as gives an experience of their being there and where the Father and the Son are there also is the holy Spirit Thus our Saviour in the 16. and 17. verses of that Chapter saith That the Spirit should abide in them and abide in them in a manifestative way Ye know him for he dwelleth with you saith he And in the 20th verse he saith At that day that is the day of the Spirits in-dwelling Ye shall know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you Oh what rich glorious Experiences of the Sacred Trinity are here and how happy the Faith and Obedience which arrives at them Godly Men should labour to perfect Holiness to walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to get to the top of Godliness and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks Tit. 3.14 to be Masters and eminent Presidents in good Works that they may arrive at this great Experiment Thus far touching that center of Divinity the Sacred Trinity In the next place I proceed to the rare Supernatural Truths touching Jesus Christ all which Faith may experiment And here I shall begin with his Incarnation Venit universitatis Creator venit ad homines venit propter homines venit homo saith St. Bernard He was Immanuel God with us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God and Man in one Person The Eternal Word was made flesh 1 Joh. 1.14 God was manifest in the Flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 And what say the Socinian Rebels to this Truth Rationi sanae repugnat duae substantiae proprietatibus adversae coire in unam personam nequeunt ut sunt mortalem immortalem esse principium habere principie carere mutabilem immutabilem existere saith the Racovian Catechism One and the same Person cannot be Mortal and Immortal have a Beginning and no Beginning or be Mutable Immutable But reason it self though too low a bar for this Truth to appear at will absolve this truth from repugnancy Body and Soul meet in one Person adverse in Properties the one being Corporal the other Spiritual the one Visible the other Invisible the one Rational the other Irrational the one Mortal the other Immortal This is done naturally how much more may it be done Supernaturally It would be against reason to say That Christ were Secundum idem Mortal and Immortal having a Beginning and none Mutable and Immutable But it is not repugnant to say That he is so in respect of the two Natures Humane and Divine Had not Christ been Man he could not have suffered had he not been God he could not have satisfied The Blood was from the Humane Nature and the excellent Merit from the Divine He that disbelieves either must cast away Scripture which asserts both This Truth stands firm in Scripture as might be shewed at large but for the Point in hand Faith may experiment it The Believer may find in himself such fruits of Christs Incarnation as carry a resemblance thereunto and are a kind of inward Seal thereof The humane Nature of Christ was not brought forth of the blessed Virgin generatione sed jussione not in an ordinary way by knowing a man but in an extraordinary by the power of the highest and overshadowing of the Holy Ghost Answerably in the Believer the new Creature is not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God John 1.13 He that is such hath not known man nor his power in this great Work but hath had the holy Spirit and its gracious overshadowings on the heart They that dwell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in his shadow shall return saith the Prophet Hos 14.7 Unless the mighty Power of God come upon us we shall have no hearts to return to him This resemblance is excellently set forth by Fulgentius Forma praecessit in carne Christi quam in nostrá side spiritualiter agnoseamus De Incarnat Christi cap. 20. ex eodem spiritu renati sumus ex quo natus est Christas eodem Spiritu Christus formatur secundum fidem in corde uniuscujusque credentis quo Spiritu secundum carnem formatus est in utero Virginis The very same Spirit which formed Christ in the womb forms him in the heart The Humane nature in Christ was united to the Divine in an Hypostatical Union God and Man met in one Person that they might meet in the Covenant of Grace Answerably the Believer is united unto God in a spiritual Mystical Union He is made one Spirit with the Lord 1 Cor. 6.17 Christ was one flesh with us and we are one Spirit with him God is at one with us in Christ and we may approach to God with holy boldness The Humane Nature of Christ had no natural Subsistence but subsisted in the eternal Word sutably the new Creature hath no spiritual Subsistence in it self but subsists in God and his Grace By the grace of God I am what I am 1 Cor. 15.10 St. Paul looked on his spiritual Being to be only by Grace In Christ God was manifested in the flesh and tabernacled in it nay the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in it Col. 2.10 As low abject a thing as Humane nature is the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in it and will dwell in it for ever sutably in Believers the Tabernacle of God is with men he dwells and walks in them and they may be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes 3.19 that is have abundance of his gracious Presence with them A Believer may find that he hath these resembling fruits in himself and withal that unless the Son of God had been incarnate none of them would have been no new Creature but all men lying in the old rubbish of the Fall no Union but an unpassable gulf such as is between Heaven and Hell no spiritual Subsistence but a corrupt one upon the dregs of Free-will no heavenly Fulness but a vacuity of all Grace And from hence he may have an experimental proof of Christs Incarnation the Mystical Union being a proof of the Hypostatical and God manifest in the Spirit of God manifest in the Flesh St. John lays down this as a glorious Truth That Jesus Christ is the Son of God 1 John 5.5 and for proof of it he produces six Witnesses Three in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost ver 7. and Three on earth the Spirit and the Water and the Blood ver 8. By the Spirit we may understand the holy Spirit breathing in the Scripture and witnessing in the heart by the Water the sanctifying Graces and those sealed in Baptism and by the Blood the precious Sufferings of Christ which pacifie the Conscience A Believer may experience all these three Witnesses on Earth
authority of the word take away that and conscience is no more conscience the inward Eccleiastes is silenced and hath nothing to say My conscience beareth witness in the holy Ghost saith the Apostle Rom. 9.1 Observe it beareth witness in the holy Ghost Spiritu Sancto duce ac moderatore saith Beza on the place Conscience is no supream thing the holy Spirit must command and moderate in it if not in an immediate way as in Prophets and Apostles yet in and by the sacred Scriptures as in ordinary Christians To conclude with that of an ancient Scripturis non loquentibus quis loquetur the Scripture being silent none can speak no not conscience it self in a regular way wherefore our supream rule must be sought no wher else but there Thus far I have treated touching what manner of belief of Scripture this must be But to proceed on Secondly What are the consequents of this belief in order to that resignation which is the last thing in faith I answer the holy spirit having lodged such a belief of Scripture in the heart doth reflect and turn the Scriptural light inwards and manage it in order to resignation by so me such steps as these following First It strikes in the holy light in that manner as to work a clear conviction of sin and this conviction is manifold First There is a conviction of sin in its kinds Actual and Original I name Actual first as being most obvious and first in the discovery There is a conviction of Actual sin the believed Law comes home to the heart and gives it a charge as Nathan to David thou art the man these and those things are sins against the great God saith the holy Law and so and so thou hast done saith the awakened conscience God who before had sowed and sealed up his iniquities in a bag as the phrase is Job 14.17 now opens the bag and pours out a vast sum of guilts and exactly tells over all the smothered light and abused love and spirit-quenchings and sorfeited creatures and buried talents and broken promises and horrible presumptions in all amounting to wonderful arrearages and at last enforcing the poor sinner to cry out Guilty Guilty And after this follows a conviction of Original sin The sinner traces up his sins to the impure fountain and follows every lust home to the black nest in the heart there there is the root of bitterness the seed-plot and spawn of all iniquity Indeed in every actual sin we may if we have our spiritual senses about us hear the sound of its Masters feet even of the reigning corruption within in every act of rebellion we may cry out of the Pharaoh within which saith who is the Lord in every act of unbelief we may complain of the Jew in the heart which will not receive Christ we may tast Adams apple in every sensual sin and perceive his imaginary Godhead in every spiritual self-excellency in our lives we have many sins but all in our heart there is a stench in vitious actions but the filthy sink of all is within After some such way as this doth God fill our faces with shame that we may seek him and resign Secondly There is a conviction of sin in its guilt The sinner comes to see that whilest he is in his sin he is but a condemned man and sin unless pardoned will chain him to hell and eternal wrath God seems to speak to him as once to Abimelech behold thou art but a dead man thou catest and drinkest and sleepest but all the while under wrath thou art jolly abroad among the creatures but fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest hangs over thy head God makes the sinner know where he is as the Syrians when their eyes were opened saw themselves in the midst of Samaria so he when his mind is inlightned sees himself at the brink of hell and death without such a sense of wrath man is too proud to resign he is naturally a Manasseh a forgetter of God and will not turn till he be in chains Laish-like he sits quiet and secure till Dan the judgment come hell must drive him to heaven or else he will never come there the fiery Law must melt him or else he will never run into the Gospel-mould Thirdly There is a conviction of the filthiness of sin the soul in every turn from God loses its light and in every turn to the creature gathers soil and pollution the sinner will never resign up himself to be washed in the Evangelical laver unless he first seo sin as it is mire and dirt and superfluity of naughtiness and find his pretious soul lying in a sordid manner in a sink of pleasure or a cave of covetousness or some other lust which is as an unclean place miserably defiling it whilest it abides therein Fourthly There is a conviction of the power of sin sin is a Baal a Lording tyrant and the sinner a vassal to it in sensual sins he drudges in Sodom and Egypt and in spiritual he is carried away to Babylon the sinner is as a captive in his chains and which is the great wonder a willing captive the iron is entred into his soul the chain is in his very will the Principle of freedom a vassal he is and loves to be so The more freely he sins the more is his slavery the more imperiously he sins the more is his weakness thus the Prophet how weak is thy heart seeing thou doest the work of an imperiou whorish woman Ezek. 16.30 unless God make men in some measure feel the power of sin and go as David over Olivet weeping because of the Absoloms the rebellious lusts which come out of their own bowels and make war upon heaven they will not resign and take up the yoke of Christ as they ought Secondly Upon such a conviction of sin ensue great straits and humiliations of soul When the poor sinner sees things as they are an host of sins round about the soul nay and within it an hell flashing out of the guilt thereof a defiling filthiness in it such as makes him ashamed to lift up his soul to God and withall such bonds and fetters therein as he cannot break by his own power then he becomes a Magor-missabib terror round about his heart more or less bleeds in tears travels in pangs of conscience breaks under a damning Law and droops and swoons away in fits of self-confusion and self-desparation and at last is ready to cry out Oh sin Oh wrath what shall I do whither go can I fly from the Omnipresent grapple with the Almighty or stand before the holy One all 's impossible can I endure an hell abide a never-dying worm or dwell with consuming fire 't is intolerable May my time be unravelled my sins undone or my self unborn it cannot be Oh! sinful forlorn creature that I am wo wo unto me for ever Such straits as these make way for resignation all the sons of
the Suavities and dictates all the comfortable words in conscience is the Holy Spirit The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God saith the Apostle Rom. 8.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the Gifts or Graces but the very Spirit it self beareth witness that not only out wardly in the Word but in wardly in and with our spirit and its Testimony is That we are the children of God And the import of that Testimony over and above the title of Sonship is That our Faith which makes us his children Gal. 3.26 is true and our Love and other Graces which manifest us such are so also And what a Testimony is this To call it dubious or opinionative or conjectural is blasphemy Cornelius a Lapide as one under a necessity confesses this Testimony certain in it self but as a Salvo to the Doctrine of doubting adds That it is not certain to us But this is to forget the Apostles words That the Spirit witnesseth it in and with our spirit and withal absurdly to say That the Spirit indeed witnesseth but would not be believed or rather That it witnesseth and witnesseth not because an unheard Testimony is as none Bellarmine saith The Spirit witnesseth not by an express word but by an Experiment of internal peace and suavity which begets but a conjectural certainty I answer It 's true that it is not by an express word but as Learned Dr. Ward well observes The Question is not de modo Testandi but de Re. It is certain there is such a Testimony and that proceeding from the Spirit of Truth must be infallible and being made to our spirit must be known to us and so beget a true certainty in our hearts Nevertheless to illustrate this Point I shall a little consider the Modus of it The Spirit bears witness to ours partly by an application of the Promises to the heart partly by an irradiation of the Graces there These two make up the sealing of the Spirit of Promise given after believing Ephes 1.13 The Spirit applies the Promises to the Heart that is one part of the Seal As the spirit of bondage applies threatnings and thereby makes a kind of Hell in Conscience so the Spirit of Adoption applies Promises and by it makes a kind of Heaven there The same Spirit which endited the Promises of Pardon and put them into Scripture Seals and in a way of appropropriation puts them upon the Heart as if it should say This and that Promise is thine like that in the Prophet Speak to her heart that her iniquity is pardoned Isa 40.2 Now when the Promises come so close and pour out their sweetness into the heart the Believer may not guess only but know that true Faith and Repentance are there God and his Promise speak peace only to Saints and not a comfortable Word to impenitent sinners I have read of one who apostatized from his profession and on his sick-bed began to apply the Promises to himself but alas after a little seeming ease he cried out in despair That the Plaister would not stick God only can make it do so and he makes it do so only to penitent Believers and they may conclude the Truth of their Graces when the Gospel and its Promises come to them in the Holy Ghost and in much Assurance as the Expression is 1 Thessal 1.5 Again as another part of he Seal The Holy Spirit irradiates the Graces in the Heart The same Spirit which formed them there at first comes and owns them as its own off-spring bringing in such a Divine light and making such an efficacious representation thereof that the Believers Conscience may as the Apostle speaketh in another case Rom. 9.1 Bear witness in the Holy Ghost and say This is sound Repentance indeed and that is Love undissembled and the other is Faith unfeigned and so of other Graces in the new Creature These Graces carry in themselves a kind of heavenly light rendring them visible But when the Spirit comes it puts such a gloss and oriency on them that the Believer may know them to be freely given to him of God that this and that Grace are so given and such and such are the sure marks of the truth thereof Such a Testimony as this made learned Rivet at his dying hour break forth into these words Expecto credo persevero dimoveri nequeo Dei Spiritus meo spiritui testatur me esse ex filiis suis O amorem ineffabilem I expect believe persevere and cannot be moved Gods Spirit witnesseth to mine That I am one of his Children Oh ineffable Love This anointing is truth and no lye as St. John tells us 1 Joh. 2.27 It manifests its testimony and it self together The Believer cannot doubt who the Witness is or what he speaketh both are plain and satisfactory Our Saviour Christ speaking of the Spirit of Truth tells his Disciples Ye know him for he dwelleth with you Joh. 14.17 If the Spirit do but pass by and drop in an holy motion into the heart he may be known in it much more when he dwells and witnesses there Cul. White-stone The eloquent Culverwell compares him to the Sun The Sun saith he by its glorious Beams does Paraphrase and Comment upon its own glittering Essence and the Spirit Displays himself to the Soul and gives a full Manifestation of his Presence And a man may sooner take a Glow-worm for the Sun than an experienced Christian can take a false Delusion for the Light of the Spirit We have heard the two Witnesses the Holy Spirit by an application of Promises and irradiation of Graces witnessing to the Conscience and the Conscience ecchoing and resounding that Testimony to the Believer And hence it appears That he may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon It remains to treat of the second thing that is That he may be assured of his perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation He knows That his Graces are true and withal That they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things having or containing Salvation Heaven buds and Eternal Life begins in them He that believeth hath everlasting life Joh. 5.24 He hath it in the first-fruits and irrevocable earnest of it The Seed of God in him will grow up into Immortality the Well of living Water will spring up into everlasting Life Only it may be alledged That these Graces may be lost Unto which I answer Abstractively in their meer creature-essence they may but in their dependance they cannot Their Standing if on mans Will only might fail but their Foundation on the Covenant of Grace cannot The Believer may not only see his own Graces but beyond them that Eternal Election which is the great Fountain thereof Reflecting on the true Graces in his heart he may say Here is the Faith of Gods Elect and Here is the Love and Patience of Gods Elect. Spiritual Blessings are given according to Election
God come out of Egypt out of the straits of sin and pass through a wilderness of wants and extremities towards the Land of promise the valley of Achor trouble and perplexity for the accursed thing is a door of hope husks and hunger make the Prodigal come to himself and his father Thirdly Upon this humiliation and strait of soul there ensues a deliberation a standing as the King of Babylon did Ezek. 21.21 at the parting of the way to make a true enquiry Lo saith the afflicted soul in a self-parley here is the way of life and there of death this is the way everlasting and that 's the way of time If you live after the flesh you must dye but if you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live if you sow unto the flesh you must reap corruption if unto the spirit life everlasting O my soul be not deceived God and sin Christ and Belial heaven and hell cannot mix together Say then O my soul what wilt thou have the mess of pottage or the birth-right the pleasures of sin or those at Gods right hand the worlds trinity of lusts or communion with the blessed Trinity in heaven Thus the soul sits down and casts up the cost sin on and burn in hell for ever turn to God and shine in eternal glory spare thy lusts and damn thy soul slay thy lusts and save it Oh! what a fearful cheat is sin it proffers a profit or a pleasure and asks a soul it holds out a moment or two and would have eternity in pawn for it it tickles the sense and stabs the conscience it courts and flatters like the strange woman and leads down to hell and death Such deliberations as these make way for resignation an indeliberate resignation is but a flash and away but a deliberate one is fit to endure Fourthly After all this the holy spirit doth so far press in the holy light as to work a denial of a mans self and his lusts in some measure I say in some measure for without some measure of self-denial a man will never resign up himself to God and Christ Thus our Saviour If any man will come after me let him deny himself Mat. 16.24 first deny himself and then go to Christ and again Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden Mat. 11.28 first be weary of sin and then go to Christ no man can serve two Masters he that will follow Christ must do as Peter and Andrew did leave his nets all the entangling lusts of his heart and so follow him Whilest a man sits at the receit of custome driving on a trade of sin he cannot follow him First he must with Mathew rise up from thence and then he may follow him Also I say in some measure for the self-denial before precious faith must be distinguished from the self-denial after it self-denial before faith is wrought in us by the holy spirit making impressions and darting in light into the heart in a transient way self-denial after faith is wrought in us by the holy spirit dwelling in the heart by faith and acting therein as an abiding principle of all grace Before faith it is in a far lesser measure and degree after faith it grows up to a full stature before faith it doth in some sort cast off the soveraignty of sin the soul no longer chuses to live under its dominion but looking upon it as cruel bondage casts off its allegiance after faith it strikes at the very life of sin in the work of mortification What is said of the beasts in Daniel their dominion was taken away and yet their lives were prolonged Dan. 7.12 the same may be said of sin first it loses its crown and then its life The holy spirit in the first measure of self-denial doth as it were dethrone sin in order to resignation and in the after-measure thereof it mortifies and nails it to the cross there to dye and expire Now this measure of self-denial which precedes resignation stands in divers things First There is a denial of a mans reason Reason as the candle of the Lord is not to be denied but reason as it is a false light as it pleads for Baal the lording lust of the soul as it plays the serpent seducing from holy truths as it sows pillows under presumptuous sinning as it laughs at holiness and divine mysteries above its comprehension is surely to be denied We must become fools that we may be wise put out our lamp that it may be lighted by the spirit and crucifie our why's and wherefores that we may believe the Gospel Abraham having Gods promise for a seed considered not Rom. 4.19 and staggered not or as in the original discerned not v. 20. he did not play the critick upon the dead body and dead womb he laid by his discretion that he might give glory to God by believing Secondly There is a denial of a mans will This is the forbidden fruit and womb of concupiscence unless this be renounced there is no hope of resignation our own will is a thing of Belial and unless subdued by grace will not take Christ's yoke it is an inward Antichrist and unless consumed by the divine spirit and brightness will exalt it self above the will of God Saul must have a light from heaven and a fall to the earth a fit of trembling or else he will not resign and say Lord what wilt thou have me to do Act. 9.6 the will must be un-selved and the man become as a little child without any will of his own or else there can be no resignation Thirdly There is a denial of a mans carnal affections These are the camels which cannot go thorough the needles eye the weights and plummets which press down the soul from God unless these be cast off there can be no resignation our Saviour is positive in it how can ye believe which receive honour one of another Joh. 5.44 A soul breathed into vain-glorious air or drowned in sensual pleasures or laden with the thick clay of the world cannot resign he that will offer up himself to God must leave the world behind his back his affections must be gathered in from earth and Angel-like ascend in the flame of faith the vail of time must be put by and an entry made upon eternity Fourthly There is a denial of a mans own power Proud persons puft up in their fleshly mind vainly dream that their Reason can span all mysteries and their Will teem out all graces no temptations are too strong for them nor duties too weighty Alass these are so far from resignation that they are not come to illumination through prodigious blindness they are strong in their impotency rich in their poverty free in their chains and something in their nothingness And what should they go to God for as yet they are not so much as in the way thither but let the man put off his false ornaments and
here I recommend three things to thee To walk as in Gods presence To have an universal respect to his Commands and To carry a pure intention towards his Glory All these have a great tendency to Assurance Walk as in Gods Presence Remember that he is every-where Thou needest not a Vision or Jacobs Ladder where-ever thou art thy Faith can tell thee that God is in the place and it is too dreadful to sin in His Presence besets thee behind and before and thou canst not break away from it thy ways are all before him nay thy very heart He knows the make of it and stands by the inward Frame and secret Springs thereof seeing what is a forming there upon the Wheel and what thoughts are taking their flight from thence All is naked and open as in an Anatomy before his Face He is intimior intimo tuo nearer to thee than thou art to thy self Walk as in his Presence Live as under his all-seeing Eye Seneca would have us set a Cato or a Laelius before our eyes and to compose our Lives as in their Presence Magna pars peccatorum tollitur si peccaturis testis assistat saith he A present witness would prevent a great deal of sin Think thus with thy self Cave Spectat Deus Take heed God seeth Keep fresh apprehensions of him in thy thoughts Think purpose speak act do every thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of and in an holy congruity to his Presence Walk with him that thou mayst be translated though not as Enoch corporally into Heaven yet as a sincere Believer mentally into the Suburbs of it in the Manifestations of Gods Favour Look stedfastly constantly unto him that thou mayst have sweet Aspects and Love-glances from him Thou mayst have his Favourable Presence whilst thou livest under his Awful one The upright shall dwell in thy presence Psal 140 that is in thy gracious Presence They set him before them and he causes his Grace and Love to pass before them In the next place Have an universal respect to his Commands It is a vulgar Rule among the Jewish Doctors That men should single out some one Command out of the Law and exercise themselves therein that God may be their Frsend and bear with them other things But this is to Indent and Article with God upon our own Terms The Hypocrite as one elegantly expresses it like a globous body touches the Law in some one point in some particular Command but the Upright at least in desire and endeavour lies close and level to all the Will of God The Pharisees seemed to be very much for the First Table but after all their Fasting and Prayer they could swallow down Widows Houses and so give the lye to all their Devotions The Moralist seems to be as much for the Second Table but as fair as his Life is towards Man he is very unjust to God stealing away that heart which is infinitely more due to him than the justest of Debts can be to our Neighbour If thou wouldst be assured thou must have an universal respect to his Command do not pick and chuse among them but as David be for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the Wills of God as Zachary and Elizabeth walk in all his Commandments Wherever the Divine stamp is there let thy Obedience be that thou mayst have a great Reward Light is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal 97.11 Upon sincere Obedience a crop of Comfort comes up and because by Promise much surer than that of the Husbandman which is under Providence only The righteous Lord loveth righteousness his countenance doth behold the upright Psal 11.7 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their faces behold the upright the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Three Persons in the Sacred Trinity do all look with a loving Aspect upon such an one Our Saviour hath told us as much If a man sincerely keep the holy Words The Father and the Son will come to him and make their abode with him John 14.23 And a little after follows a Promise of the Holy Spirit as a Comforter verse 26. Walk uprightly and thou art in a posture to receive sweet manifestations of Love from the whole Sacred Trinity In the last place carry a pure Intention towards Gods Glory This is the single eye in the Body of Duties all our good Works lie in the dark without it the want of this was as a black line drawn over Amaziah's vertue He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord but not with a perfect heart 2 Chron. 25.2 Jehu was anointed and appointed by God to destroy Ahabs House and yet for want of a pure Intention was reckoned as a Murderer for doing so Hos 1.4 That which is true Prayer when it comes from Zeal may be but howling when it comes from Lust Hos 7.14 Those Moral Vertues which are very glossie in the Matter may in the End be no better than splendid sins The End is the purest off-spring of a rational Spirit and a cardinal circumstance in every Action The Soul conceives all its Thoughts before the End as Labans Ewes did their young before the Rods. As the End is earthly or heavenly so is the Man and his Acting Remember O Believer that thou wast not made a Man or a Saint Thy Lamp of Reason was not set up at first or new-lighted afterwards by Grace that thou shouldst center on any thing less than God himself or take thy aim lower than his Glory Set thy heart on that great End look right on it with a single eye whether thou eatest or drinkest or prayest or hearest or whatever good work thou art about carry on the great Design That God in all may be glorified How taking this is with Christ He himself hath told us Thou hast ravished my heart my Sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes with one chain of thy neck faith he to his Church Cant. 4.9 A pure Intention is that single eye and Obedience that chain of the neck which in Believers doth excordiate and ravish the heart of Christ himself And what sweet returns will he make upon such taking Graces Their Graces ravish his Heart and his Comforts will ravish theirs Their thoughts are upon Gods Glory and Gods are upon their Peace With the upright he will shew himself upright with the pure he will shew himself pure They are upright in Duties and he will be upright in Promises They give him pure Intention and he will give them pure Mercy such as is the sealing of his Love upon their Hearts The pure in heart shall see him not in the bliss-making Vision only but before in those Love-glances which are the First-fruits of Heaven here below Again If thou wouldst be assured be much in charity and doing good As the Elect of God put on bowels of Mercy Open thy heart to the poor in Pity and thy hand