am still with Thee The mind may slip from God and sometime be taken up with other things but cannot be long kept from him because God is its Center and it 's natural for a holy mind to move toward God as for a needle touch'd with a Load-stone to point toward the North Pole Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord alway before me This was the practise of Christ our Head Acts 2. It 's applyed to him though spoken by David as the Type You and I may suspect our hearts if there be an elongation of our minds from God if our minds be scattered up and down the world If our business be not with him we have reason to look sadly upon our selves for where God hath no place with us wee have none with him A good man must be with God he hath many things puts him upon it and inclines him to it he wants much and therefore cannot forbear Can a man forget to drink that is athirst can a man forget to eat his meat that is hungry Certainly when David Psal 102.4 saith He forgot to eat his bread sorrow had taken away his stomack that he found not the want of his meat but a man that feels his want cannot forget it neither can a man forget God that lives in the sensible want of God his Soul is still breathing after God Love will send out a mans thoughts and not suffer a man to live at home but to be where it is best of all to be Can a Bridegroom forget his Bride or a Bride her attire Jerem. 3.32 Men cannot forget what they love Can a mother forget her childe Isai 49.14 and can a man forget God that loves God There 's a necessity that a man should be minding what he loves he will send his understanding on errands to Heaven that it may bring him matter of delight from the Visions of God to refresh his Soul And not onely so but Christ awakens the heart and calls it forth Indeed were it left to us should we have no more heavenly-mindedness and meditations of God then our own spirits bring forth it would be little or none but Christ calls to the spirits of his people as he called to John Come up hither and see he knocks at the door that we may open and go forth with him The King led me into his wine celler Cant. 1. She was there but how came she in the King led me Christ will not be long from his if their hearts come not up to him he will come into them and if he be there all is taken up with attending upon him as you may see abundantly by experience Though the heart stands still like a Clock when the plummets are off and the wheels move not yet when Christ comes in he puts all into motion If a Loadstone be cast among many Needles though they did he still yet now how do they all move and hang about it So all the affections run towards him and the thoughts go out like motes in the Sun the mind is at work hard The presence of Christ not only excites the mind but contracts it and makes the working of the mind more strong It 's reported of the Flower de luce That when the Sun goes down it opens and scatters it self abroad but when the Sun appears it shuts and contracts it self There is in the presence of Christ such a contracting of the heart towards himself Mary when she saw Christ though her mind were scattered before and about the Sepulchre yet now â—t concenters in Christ A man that loves God cannot live in a course of forgetfulness of God either want brings him or love constrains him or Christ draws him here cannot be a lusting alienation of mind in those that belong to God CHAP. IV. Disconformity to the forementioned Principles a great fault in Christians The Discovery of it Slumbering Eyes and wandering Hearts â— Exerâ—ise HAving spoken something to the opening of the thing I shall now endevor that you and I may lay our selves to this pattern and compare our selves with this Rule Do you thus mind God Let me ask you where your Eyes are The truth is the Eyes of the whole World are misplaced all the World either wholly dwell out of God or extreamly wander from God all sorts of men are extreamly guilty of notorious forgetfulness of God and of this God complains and that often and that not only in reference to the dead and dark part of the world who have eyes and see not but are like Images but with respect to his own My people my people have forgotten me days without number Ier. 2.32 negligently have they suffered me to be out of their minds and that for a long time My work now shall be to lay before you the Fault and the Causes of it The fault with respect to the godly and ungodly that both may see how guilty they stand and may see whence it is that their understandings are so alienated and estranged from God As for the godly their frequent excursions from God their inordinate affections to the world their sad dejections of spirit their many withdrawings and a world of these are too clear and deplorable demonstrations that their eyes are not always upon God The Fault I 'le express in these four things 1. In not sending out the understanding toward God not pointing of the mind towards its Maker The mind of man is a nimble thing nothing is of that agility it 's the swiftest creature God hath made next the Angels yet towards God it must be moved directed ordered and pointed For though the way on high was natural yet man not keeping his first state it 's now become a way hardly passable that the Soul cannot walk it of it self neither can it dwell on high more then we can live in the Ayr without the drawing and holding of divine Power I have written saith the Apostle 2 Pet. 3.1 to stir up your pure minds to awaken you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it was but need See how David calls upon himself Psal 103. Praise the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits be sure to remember God Psal 5.3 In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee or I will set it in order I will order my self in my addresses to Thee And in Psal 57.8 Awake my glory Though his spirit was holy and set towards God yet it had need to be called on that it might be put forward in a right motion towards God and answer the voyce that calls Come up hither Awakening is a word imports rouzing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as birds that provoke their young ones by flight to make use of their wings or as men call one upon another to their business Judg. 5.12 Awake awake Deborah awake awake utter a song Men do not thus call on themselves It 's a great fault that a man loseth that watch and that
ask the possession of it You cannot ask more then he is intended to give you He takes more contentment in giving I do not say then you can take in asking though that be much but then you can have in enjoying The Propriety you have in God is by a Mediator so that he by whose means you come by this Propriety hath all things put into his hand and he is in stead of God to you as it is said of Joseph that he was in stead of God to his Brethren He that hath obliged us to be whatsoever we can to those that are ours hath much more obliged himself to be all that he can for us Christ was made so great not for his own sake but for our sakes if he be set on the Throne it is for our sakes What shall we need to fear when we come to ask any thing of him He stands more obliged to us then we can be to ours because it is easier for him to do what his place calls upon him for then it is for us for the engagement is strongest where the performance is easiest and because we are dearer to him then ours are to us the dearest child is not so dear to its mother as we are dear to him and the hurt that would come to those that are beloved of God if he should fail them is greater then can come to children by the neglect of their parents Again The honor that Christ hath engaged is of infinite more concernment If a father be unnatural that is a stain upon him but what is a spot of dishonor upon a piece of dirt But if the Prince of Glory should be unnatural this would highly reflect dishonor upon him How may we walk with confidence and security and account our selves richer then Princes and stronger then Armies Though all this nothing concerns those that stand out and are as strangers and aliens that will call God Father whether he will or no that are not taught it from above but have learned it of themselves If a man cannot call God his Father and his God upon good grounds what a miserable state is that man in He is nothing he hath nothing and there is nothing between him and everlasting misery but a moment of time He goes up and down pleasing himself with vain shews pleasing himself with painted Butterflies but hath nothing to live on he is utterly unprovided for Eternity CHAP. IV. Saints have not only the Portion but the Spirit of Children Ingenious walking greatly requisite in those who pretend Interest in God God more easily pleased with his people then with others Tastes of Gods sweetness are obligatory Careless walking weakens hope in prayer Vse 2d IF the sight of our Interest in God be the life of Saints then let those who plead an Interest in God walk worthy of it It is precious for it is their life it is worth all that is required of you That which God calls for at your hands takes nothing from your happiness but adds much to it It is the Apostle's exhortation Col. 1.10 Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing Let me propound to your Considerations a few things to put you on to this First You are deeply obliged to please God and thereby to walk worthy of him for being in so near relation to him you have not only the portion but the spirit of children Because you are sons therefore he hath sent the Spirit of Adoption into your hearts Gal. 4. Other relations This was touched in the foregoing Sermon because they want strength are not always beautified and sweetened with a convenient spirit The relation of a husband cannot communicate a meek spirit to his wife nor the relation of a parent to the child because of their impotency their will is strong but their hand is short But God in that gracious relation wherin he stands unto his own gives them a Spirit like unto himself that so he may have Children answerable to himself and to his Will In Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his He that is joyned to the Lord saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 6.7 is one Spirit As persons conjoyned in marriage are one flesh so he that is married to the Lord that is brought into that near relation unto him is one Spirit they are one in their affections propensions dispositions and designs As we say of a multitude they are of one heart and of one spirit when they conspire in one so God and his people are one Spirit because they center in one he in governing them and they in subjection and subordination to him so one as things ruled and the Rule is one This argument the Apostle urgeth in 2 Tim. 1.7 God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power Love and of a Sound Mind He had in the words before exhorted to this Therefore saith he I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God that is in thee by the putting on of my hands But Timothy might say How can I do that Why saith the Apostle we have received not the spirit of fear but of power It is a time of danger indeed and a hard work to preach the Gospel in such days as these but he that is gifted and fitted by Christ to that work hath received a spirit of courage and power by which he is able to mannage the things that he hath received of God Then I say having received the Spirit of children the obligation lyes the stronger upon you to walk as children This is a Rule The more proportionably a man hath received strength and ability to his work the more he is bound to it therefore the more of the Spirit you have received the more you are obliged And this Spirit of Christ in his people acts according to its primitive original Pattern as it wrought in Christ so it will work in you according to your proportion This moving will be strong because it moves upon the highest grounds that which is most taking and prevailing it moves upon hopes and sense of eternal life If you walk not so as to please God you walk with much frowardness of heart and your sin is the greater It 's true though you have received this Spirit yet there is much of the spirit of this world in your hearts but this is our duty and our work not to suffer the better Spirit to be quel'd and damp'd by the other But yet again that you may see it more fully remember if you please not God you act against your own Interest and advantage for your life is bound up in the favor of God when you therefore act against God you act against your selves The Apostle useth such an argument in Ephes 5. where he exhorts husbands to love their wives for no man ever hated his own flesh He means this that they being one the husband cannot cease to love his wife
and tremblings of the hearts of his people are for want of the light of his face Pharaoh's daughter looking upon a strange child found her bowels and compassions moved within her Do you think Gods compassions are not richer and fuller to his own A child sometimes may complain but it 's not to the honor of his father My life is uncomfortable because my father loves me not shews not his love to me though perhaps there be cause for it And there is cause that God should deal so with us but he hath said he will not If we turn from the evil of our ways and repent he will multiply pardons Isai 55. Again A thing that may be easily done will not be denyed when it 's asked when it 's not only what we need but what we beg This Christ shews in the Parable of the unjust Judg. Importunity will move a stone how much more will the affectionate tears of an ingenuous child move the compassionate heart of a tender father A third Encouragement is That this is simply necessary to the right fulfilling of the Law of our Relation and to the enjoyment of the priviledges of it What is thy relation to God but of a child to his Father What Law lies upon a child but to obey and that not as a slave but with a filial spirit How can you be cheerful in your work when you have this cloud upon your spirits this pang upon your Souls I know not whether God be my God Again The Law of a child is to live a life of cheerful dependance upon his father But how can a man live thus upon God when he doubts whether God be his or no How can I be confident to receive great things of a stranger much less of an Enemy But God appears in these forms to me so far as he appears not to be my God Again This Law lies upon a child to live with cheerfulness of heart upon his fathers fulness This the Scripture calls for We are to rejoyce and rejoyce evermore and with all joy Colos 1.11 and in the worst times Account it all joy when you fall into divers temptations Jam. 1.2 I 'le add but this That those desires that are after God after the knowledg and assurance of his being our God are from himself God hath planted them in us and God hath invited called and set us a longing and a thirsting after him And will he tell us of a Fountain of Life and not let us drink of it Will he call us to himself and when we come to him will he hide himself Certainly we are very much mistaken when we go to God to beg this grace to have our Souls refreshed with the sight of his Love if we go ingenuously with a cheerful resignation of our selves to him if we go not with a cheerful expectation that God will hear our prayer CHAP. XII They are not right who are careless to clear their Evidence Wisdom and Love make the Saints seek after full satisfaction Two sorts of Content in the want of God A Third Argument is this If you seek not and that industriously and in earnest to put this Question out of question you are not right It 's an Evidence against a mans sincerity and his real fellowship with that invisible world when he is not careful to know what Interest he hath in it The Saints desire nothing more with them there is nothing above the Love of God that they seek and nothing beneath it that they can rest in Whom have I in Heaven but Thee and there is none in all the world that I desire in comparison of Thee Psal 73. David had whatsoever the heart of man could desire in this world he had all sorts of accommodations and contentments and yet he was still athirst till he could come to the Well-head and drink of the Water of Life He was painfully athirst in Psal 63. There are two great Springs of these desires and tendencies of Soul after God 1. A spirit of Wisdom that represents God as he is in that amiableness and glory which takes them it represents him in goodness and greatness as one in whose hands all things are so that nothing is concluded to be of that concernment with them as to have God to be their God They that know thy Name will put their trust in Thee Psal 9.10 2. The second is a spirit of Love The Saints have their hearts knit to God there is nothing which they so much prize as him they are taken with him above all things therefore cannot be content without him their desires after him are infinite till his infinite goodness fills up their whole capacities and leave no more place for hope till he hath blessed them with the full enjoyment of himself You know Reason in things of importance will not be easily satisfied While we are in any doubt we have no rest Men must have things cleared to them that are of weight and much more should they in this which is the greatest of all They say and cannot but say as David doth in Psal 86.17 though his own spirit often told him that God was his God yet he looks up to Heaven and saith Shew me a token for good And so in Psal 80.3 Cause thy face to shine upon us and we shall be saved The shining of Gods face puts a man into a state above men and Devils and all things Love is both eager in the prosecution of its end and very curious in its judgment It is eager in the prosecution of its end it will not be easily put off it finds out its Object and knows it and will not take a shadow for the thing if it be not satisfied it rouls restlesly and sinks and dyes in it self like Noah's Dove that fluttered up and down the world but found no rest for the sole of her foot It is death to the man that loves God not to see that God loves him They therefore are not right they are not Believers in earnest there is not a through work upon their spirits that can dally with God and be at rest when they are not clear in this that God is their God There be two very great Evils in this thing 1. That such a man lives in contempt of God This is contempt to be content to be without God That which I know not to be mine I am without That which I know not to be mine is as if it were not if I be content therefore to live so that I know not God to be my God I am content to be without God There is a contentment that is opposed to murmuration to froward perturbation of mind and fretting this must not be no not in the midst of clouds and darkness and in the depth of our disputes about this great thing Whether God be my God and my sins pardoned and whether my Soul shall be saved And in case I be not satisfied in the thing
to be separated from this world in his affections that he can steer through the world untouched that he may be in the use of creatures but not come in bonds under the power government and force of them Now when a man sees God to be his God this makes him to be as Christ speaks of his They are not of this world as I am not of this world Joh. 17. This comfort dissolves all bonds and sets free from a confederacy with other things and now the whole world is of little force with him Moses is a pregnant example of 〈…〉 this in Hebr. 11.24 By faith Moses when he was come to years or when he became great refused to be called the Son of Pharaohs daughter chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season What was the Reason The Text gives you these Reasons that he had respect to the recompence of reward at the twenty sixth Verse and because he had seen him who was invisible at the 27. Verse So that the sight of God and the sight of our Interest in him lays the world dead casts a darkness upon the glory of it and the soul is taken with nothing in comparison of him Thirdly The sight of our Interest holds the soul in bonds unto God it doth not onely bind it but hold it bound The love of Christ saith the Apostle constrains us 2 Cor. 5.14 It holds us to God that though there be something in us that makes us apt to excursions to go out from him yet we are held in by bonds of love This Interest must needs be of a mighty force to those that see it because its the highest Interest in the sweetest way God gives us such an Interest in himself as a child hath in his Father and as a Spouse hath in her husband which are Interests of greatest Love It s an Interest of constant communion there are constant effluxes out-flowings of the kindness of God upon that soul that knows God to be his which do bind him every day more and more and leave him less his own This is the nature of the Spirit of Adoption that makes a man cry Abba Father it makes him more a child as willing to acknowledg himself in that state of subordination as a child as he is to look up to God in a way of hope as he is the Father of mercies The assurance of the love of God as it comforts so it conquers the soul It doth not work it into a strange kind of mad rejoycing such as the Spirit that is gone forth begets in the hearts of many at this day who are strangers to the life of God yet boast as if they had drunk deep of the cup of consolation whereas they are loose and careless and can do all evil against God and be free from him and not have their hearts touch'd with it at all But now true Gospel comfort that which he who is the God of all comfort gives by the manifestation of himself in conjunction with the creature doth overcome the heart and put it into a willing necessity and strengthens it to walk in all well-pleasing before him so that the soul cannot go from him In Psalm 63. v. 7. David expresseth this Because thou hast been my help therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce my soul cleaveth unto thee for thy right hand upholdeth me As if he should say Thou hast done me good and thine hand hath supported me else I should fall at every step I live upon thee therefore my soul followeth after thee or is glued to thee the expression of thy love and constant goodness towards me is that which binds my soul unto thee Fourthly When a man knows God to be his God and there is no more remembrance of sin against him and that he is received into the inheritance of the Saints and of Christ himself and that God is become his Father Now all his ways are made easie this facilitates all For what are those things that are wont to burden a mans spirit in the race which is set before him It is either because there are such sad things in his way or because a man fears whether his work and service shall be accepted or because he doth not like his work or because he is not satisfied about his wages Now it is manifest that the knowledg of this that God is our God removes all these things he cannot dislike his way that sees God in it he cannot dislike that work which God sets him about he cannot but think he is accepted and that his wages is more then sufficient recompence that knows God to be his God 1 Joh. 5.3 4. the Apostle saith That to him that loves the Commandment is not grievous It is no burthen in comparison so far as a man loves so far his work is easie and sweet to him What 's the reason It s given in the next words follwing Because he hath overcome the world for there is nothing except darkness upon a mans spirit which is a spring of fear and doubt concerning his acceptance with God that clogs a mans spirit in the ways of God that sharpens and imbitters the things which we must grapple withall I say nothing can hurt him but this Now a man that sees God to be his God hath overcome the world And if his case be dangerous such wherein he is tempted on the right hand he saith with Paul I pass not I care not for all these things as Moses cared not for all the riches of Pharaohs Court And as Paul when he was tempted upon the left hand I pass not for all these things neither shame trouble reproach stripes imprisonments and the like And Esth 4.16 In that service for the people of God I see saith she it 's the will of God I should do it I le go and If I perish I perish such an impression doth the sight of God leave upon the Spirit that nothing can stop the soul in its course no more then the Sun in the firmament Others go heavy and are soon tyred as God complains in Mal. 1.13 They say also What a weariness is it that is to attend upon God in his worship And they snuff at it in way of dislike or as men that would blow away something which lies in their way and which they dislike Upon all these Considerations nothing promotes holiness more then the knowledg of this that God is ours To that which hath been said I will only add a double advantage that this assurance gives to our meeting with God 1. That it doth allay that unquietness that is ready to rise upon the thoughts of dissolution and the remembrance of that day of Doom when one word determines a mans estate to all Eternity To know that a man is going to his God and Father to be able to say as Christ said I go to my Father
is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Redire faciam ad cor and in the Margin This I made return to my heart Things are apt to be gone with most men they are apt to lose the sight of God but he did recall again the thoughts that were vanisht and sunk This then is one thing that belongs to the work That Eying of God is not onely a turning of the minde towards God and setting it upon God but a fastening and holding it towards him 2. Minding of God is a willing work the will is in it there be many thoughts fly at random they get out of the Mind but are not sent out The Mind of a Man is a most profuse thing and nothing in the world spreadeth it self into so many actings as the Mind doth The Sun is not so full of beams as the Mind is full of thoughts which spreads it self more then a thousand Suns But these acts of the Mind which flow forth as Bees from their hive are not this work but when the Mind is sent out upon this errand the heart putting forth the understanding upon advice and makes it mind God when the heart puts the mind upon the wing to fly upwards within the vail to see him that fits upon the Throne this is somewhat And it 's a chearful minding of God a man is pleased in it when he is himself It 's good for me to draw near to thee Psal 73. ult Good how good better then perfume My meditation of him shall be sweet Psal 104.34 My meditation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or my word of thee is sweet it signifies a word secretly spoken the heart speaks of God and those words are musick in the Soul the word imports a sweetness with mixture like compound Spices or many flowers such a sweetness this thought of God yields to him whose heart is towards him every thought is pleasant and the whole working of the Mind makes up a sweet delight Again It 's better then wine Cant. 1.4 We remember his love more then wine There is more content in contemplating on God more refreshing to the spirit then wine gives to the body Psal 63.5 My Soul is filled as with marrow and fatness when or if I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches When I do this I am as one satisfied with marrow and fatness Psal 139.17 David tells you there is a preciousness in the thoughts of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifieth to be of weight authority or in honor that word signifies precious in every sence Look in what kind soever you account a thing precious so precious are the thoughts of God to a man whose heart is in a right frame Some thoughts are driven out toward God as a messenger sent and driven out upon an unwelcome message in a way and to a person whom he loves not Many cast an eye sometime upon God because they think they must not always live in forgetfulness of him they do it as a duty not a refreshment to them as a work not wages because they must do it not because they love it Yet by some men God will be thought on though they would not The Devils cannot forget God God hath made such a stamp of himself upon their natures that they cannot forget him that 's their unhappiness they wish they could be out of Gods sight and God out of theirs and if it could be their misery would be the less So God will be in the eyes of some men that they cannot cast him out of their thoughts but the impression of God fastens and abides upon their Souls so the sight of God followed Judas to a continual amazement and distraction of his mind But the more a man that is right finds a conjunction of God and his mind the more sweet it is to him he reckons this like the gate of Heaven such a day is as one of the days of Heaven When the Soul is thus taken with God it loves every glance of God the more it sees the more it loves Abraham saw my day afar off and was glad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It signifies a rejoycing with gesticulation as much as Luke 6.13 Rejoyce and leap or highly rejoyced Joh. 8.56 This work then of eying and minding of God is a willing work not a work whereto the heart is drawn and driven and wherein it hath no content but such a work that is both work and wages CHAP. III. Holy thoughts of God are mixed with awful love leave deep impressions transform the spirit and are the Trade of good Souls IT 's not only a serious setling of the mind toward and upon God but a holy pointing and fastening of the mind upon him holy in the manner and holy in the end of it 1. In the manner not like the bold practise of men that know not God who cast an eye upon him with as little regard as upon a post or pillar This minding of God must be according to the nature of God You cannot look upon a friend a stranger and a Prince with one and the same eye You cannot look upon God as he is god but you will love him nor as powerfl but you will fear him nor as he is excellent but you will admire him c. These things will work with you either in a way of assimilation or delectation or admiration c. 2. Holy in the end of it a man may do think much of God and yet do no work of holiness There is a meditation of God that we may call the meditation of a Student who studies God as he studies other things by which means he heaps together many notions concerning God but hath no impression of the holiness of God upon his heart but is a stranger to God and hath no communion with him But this work is holy in the end of it A man eyes God that he may have more of God He that minds God truly hunts and seeks after something of God he would have more of his presence light favor and Image he is seeking the beloved of his Soul and the love of his beloved therefore would fain be near him and looks toward him that he may receive that from him which his Soul so much prizeth he minds God and as one that desires to present as an offering to him those fruits of his love which by the love of God are begotten in his heart so that this work is holy 4. This minding of God is a work of course not to be done now and then and layd down again but it 's the trade of that man that doth it right It is his every days work and his constant employment to be mindful of God David describes the good man thus Psal 1.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et adhuc His meditation is in the Law of the Lord day and night Psal 139.17 When I awake I
command over his spirit which he should have so that his mind either stands still as a lake or if it move it runs at waste as indeed a mans mind doth if it be not toward God and for God A great fault it is when men take not pains with themselves as the Prophet complains Isai 64.7 No man stirs up himself to take hold on God It 's said in Exod. 35.28 They came every one whose heart stir'd him up Your hearts had need be stir'd up else they will not do their work Is it fit that so noble a faculty then which there is none under Heaven more glorious as that understanding which God hath entrusted you withall should be no more improved Was this golden Candlestick given you for any other light then that which is from above that may shew you the way to union with God and enjoyment of him Were these golden Cabinets given you and have you the keys of them that you should keep them empty when you might fill them with heavenly treasure which is invaluable David calls his Soul his glory you stain the crown of your glory when you make such glorious creatures to lacquey after every creature which should be in attendance upon God like Angels in the presence of their Father When the mind runs after vanity you become vain Jer. 2. What iniquity have your fathers found in me that they run far from me and walk after vanity and are become vain The vain out-goings of your minds and spirits will make you vain yea worse then nothing What injury do you do your selves that have such nimble winged messengers that can mount up to the highest Heavens can walk with Angels can lodg themselves in the bosom of the glorious God can present all your Cases to him can bring back again reports of mercy to you if you use them not Do you not see how God is sending out to you continually The thoughts of his heart are Love eternal Love and the fruits of his Love are always sent out like the beams of the Sun He hath sent out his own Son and will not you send out your thoughts towards him Will not you order your thoughts toward him who hath directed his greatest Love towards you What is your life but a continual emanation and emission of divine Love And is God thus flowing forth to you and will you stand still and not have your minds runing out to him 2. In the next place As this is a fault that there is not that sending out of the thoughts toward God and that setting of the mind to this work so this is another fault that there is not a bending of the mind in this work Oftentimes the mind looks up but it 's so feeble that a mans thoughts are like an arrow shot from a Bow weakly bent which reacheth not the mark It 's wise counsel that the Wise-man gives Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do do it with all thy might I am sure in nothing more it concerns us to act with all our might then when we act towards God in whom all our life is 1 Chron. 22.19 Now set your hearts and souls to seek the Lord your God This is our work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 give your hearts to act with life and vigor when you go to take into your eyes the greatness of that glory which you hear of God The Apostle's phrase is Have the loyns of your mind girt when you are upon this work I ask you that question which Christ put to some in another case What went you out to see When you crawl and move as if you had no heart nor spirits whom go you forth to see What him that is the Lord of Glory the only Potentate What are such heavy and lazy aspects to take in such a Glory You see in what large streams your thoughts fly forth to other things and are you only languishing weak and feeble in things of so great concernment Mal. 1.14 Cursed be the deceiver that hath in his flock the sound and the strong but offers the blind and lame Certainly this is the way to procure a curse to be so exceeding remiss in your addresses to God hence it is you get no more Then God comes most to the heart when the eyes are most set upon him The child that draws with strength is soonest filled The Brests of Consolation are full but therefore you are empty and complain because you bend not your selves to draw from the Wells of Salvation You take not pains with your selves to make your way to God lively 3. As this is a fault not to send our your minds toward God and not to bend your minds to the work so this is another the not binding of your minds to it You should not only go to God but stay with him The right minding of God is not a transient glance and sudden cast of the eye that is presently wheel'd off from God again Psal 143.5 I remember the days of old I meditate on all thy works I remember them and not only bring them to remembrance but I meditate on them my mind talks of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the force of the word I muse and stand looking on the works of thy hands this is that which fires the heart when a mans eye is fixed on God Psal 39.4 5. My heart was hot within me while I was musing the fire kindled then spake I with my tongue c. Indeed that is a season of kindling when the mind is musing but when the mind is fleeting and floating little impression is made little good comes of it There are many days at Court wherein strangers come to see and are soon gone and what get they Nothing But they that abide in the presence of the Prince live by him It 's not a pointing and casting of your eye towards Heaven that makes God your portion If you do not dwell with him he useth you like strangers Think well of it Certainly where the Eye abides not it 's because either the thing displeaseth or there is some better thing that draws away your hearts What is there in Heaven or in Earth should draw away your minds from these Visions When you look upon him who is most glorious is he not worthy on whom your Souls should dwell and your minds rest themselves with all their might Certainly what we love that will hold us that will be in our thoughts we need not call out our minds and if once the eye be set upon it it holds as the Loadstone having drawn the Iron keeps it fast to it self Christ himself acknowledgeth such an operation of love upon himself Cant. 6.5 Turn away thine eyes Or taken away mine heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excordiasti me for they have overcome me And in Cant. 4.9 Thou hast ravisht my heart my Sister my Spouse with one of thine eyes Christ was as one that had lost his heart
are called a weakening of the hands in Jer. 38.4 Melting of the heart Deut. 1.28 Breaking of the heart Numb 32.7 All to shew that a man under discouragements is made unfit and unmeet for service 1. Says one I like this well and you speak to my heart when you speak of this eying and minding of God and my wishes keep pace with the Rule I am ready to say I would it were so with me but the work is too hard for me I find no strength to it Answ Suppose you do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed commonly the best things are hard though this be hard yet it 's a necessary work and you must never plead necessity against Duty You are bound to it all Law requires this Is it hard but is it not good doth not the work pay you wages My meditation of him shall be sweet saith David Again You say it 's hard but not so hard as is pretended and all the hardship that is in it we have brought into it let us not then complain though we sweat at the work let us be willing to do it And remember what I tell you though you have lost the command you had over your spirits yet if you be in Christ it 's in part restored to you You see how you can send out your understandings and how they can shout out thoughts upon other things and will you not use a command over them in this in directing them toward God for the beholding of him What is the renewing of your mind but the giving it a powerful propensity to move towards God and the things of God If then you are in part renewed the difficulty is in part removed You have reason therefore in regard of the necessity and sweetness of the work to set your minds to it Besides Your minds are swift of motion you should not speak of difficulty when in an instant you can start from Earth to the highest Heavens Again When you look to God and Jesus Christ you look to one that opens to you If you draw near to God he will draw near to you If the Journey be long he will meet you more then half way Isai 64. He meets them in the way that rejoyce and work righteousness So that if you set to the work you are not like to be as one that launcheth out into the deep Sea where he sees no bounds or like one in a Desart wandering alone on foot but you go forth to one that comes forth to you CHAP. VI. False Meditation subdueth not the heart A wicked heart hath no joy in the thoughts of God What 's done and not according to Rule is as if it were undone The heart which mindeth not God in a constant course is not right THere is a generation of men 3 Exercise whose course is quite cross to Davids Whereas he saith Mine eyes are Ever towards the Lord they may say Mine eyes are Never towards the Lord God is not in all their thoughts Psal 10.4 God reckons a thing as not done in several respects 1. When it 's not done to purpose when a work is done but reacheth not its end Jer. 8.6 No man repents saying What have I done Yet Isai 59.12 God acknowledgeth something upon record to be done they confest that their transgressions were multiplied before him and their sins testified against them yet he complains No man repents c. because it was not done to purpose the work was not home Psal 119.59 I considered my ways and turned my feet unto thy Testimonies I made haste and delayed not to keep thy Testimones Here was a work to purpose Then a man looks toward God to purpose when the thoughts of God are the possessions of his heart when the eye is so set on God that the heart is changed into the likeness of God Though a man should give a thousand glances every day toward Heaven if there be no effectual impression upon the heart God takes it as if a man ever lookt from him and never cast an eye toward him Psal 50. They are called a people that forget God Surely 't was not a total forgetfulness for the Law of God was in their mouths and they had made a Covenant with him by sacrifice but their remembrance of God was not effectual it did not subdue their hearts to God therefore though they talkt of him yet God chargeth them with forgetfulness of him 1 John 3.6 the Apostle saith that they that live in sin have not seen God neither known him A true sight o◠God separates a man from himself it 's the the destruction of the sins he lived in as ignorance and forgetfulness of God is the strength of sin Forgetting and not regarding are put one for another in Scripture I forget saith the Apostle Phil. 3. those things that are behind i.e. they were of no weight with him he regarded them not So when men forget God it argues they regard him not at all as God is said to forget men when he will do nothing for them then a man is as forgotten as a thing that is not Jer. 23.39 See how this is exprest I even I will utterly forget you Obliviscendo obliviscar or in forgeting I will forget you and I will utterly forsake you and cast you out of my presence and bring everlasting reproach upon you and perpetual shame that shall not be forgotten A terrible place for all forgetters of God 2. God reckons that as not done which men would not have done Sometimes men think of God but they know not how to shun it God breaks in upon their spirits but their natural temper is to suffer themselves to be drunk up and diverted by other objects A natural man abhors the thought of God nothing so sweet to a Saint My meditation of thee shall be sweet A good man could be content to live out of himself to live in God It 's a good work the work of Angels they who once have been used to this employment know not how to wish to change One Eudoxius wisht that he might be admitted to come near the body of the Sun to have a full view of it though it devour'd him He was something rash in his wish But there is something proportionable in a godly spirit he so loves God that he could be content to be swallowed up in the beholding of him 'T is said of some Rom. 1.28 That they liked not to retain God in their knowledg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Haimo and God gave them up to a Reprobate Mind They liked not that is they not only neglected but despised it seemed not good to them so the Syriac It was a very unpleasing thing to them to know and to mind God It 's usual in Scripture that verbs negative are put for their contraries Zech. 8.7 Love not a false Oath Love not that is hate it Heb. 13.2 Forget not to entertain strangers that is
Job took it that his friends had forgotten him My kinsfolk have failed and my familiar friends have forgotten me c. As God is your friend so all you have is in his hand My times saith David Psal 31. are in thy hands O God And can you forget him in whose hands are all your concernments If you had but a piece of your estate in a mans hand you could not but mind him God hath all that you have for Soul and body to Eternity in his hands and shall we forget him It was the aggravation of the sin of Belshazzar in Dan. 5.23 that he did not glorifie God in whose hands his life was Thy God in whose hands thy breath is thou hast not glorified Again You have all from him all the good of every kind that you receive is all from God and will you not mind him Deut. 32.18 God complains that the people were unmindful of the Rock that begot them and forgot God that formed them Shall we so dishonor our selves and live so cross to all principles of Reason and Justice as to be taken with the things we receive from God and forget him Shall we receive all that comes from him and shut him out of doors It was never Gods intent that when he had deckt our ways with all flowers of comfort we should sink into an ungrateful unmindfulness of him These are so many memento's to excite us to remember him It was the commendation of Abraham Heb. 11. that he sojourned in the Land of Promise as in a strange Country He did not sit down as at home and make glad his heart in the enjoyment of mercies but reckoned himself as in a strange Country that he might enjoy him that is better then all It is upon record that God had said often to his own people the Jews Beware lest you forget me when you come into that good Land It is spoken to you also Take heed you forget not me in your habitations in your relations and friends in your goods in all your enjoyments Isai 44.21 Thou art my servant O Israel I have formed thee thou art my servant thou shalt not be forgotten of me or not forget me the force of the word is thou shalt not bear me away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non oblivisceris mei but let me be in thy heart and in thy mind and remembrance always as I 'le not bear thee away thou shalt not be forgotten of me Thus you see much in him whom you are to mind to draw and hold your eyes toward him The last Argument It is a very fundamental Duty all your intentions purposes dispositions and affections in your whole course comes to nothing except they receive life from this for this is the foundation of all In the sight of God lies your Rule of direction for all your actions and all the Reason of your holy walking The mind is the Leader and it leads according to the object where it is set Job 31.7 My heart hath not followed my eye That is the natural course for the heart to follow the eye where the eye is set there the heart will be also See how the Prophet expresseth Isai 59.2 I have stretched out my hand to a rebellious people that walk in a way that is not good they follow their own thoughts They walkt in a way that was not good What led them Their own thoughts Thoughts do mould men a man that thinks much of the world grows worldly and a man that thinks much of God grows godly as he thinks so he is saith Solomon Prov. 23. And we beholding the glory of Christ saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 3.18 are changed from glory to glory If there be any comfort of hope if any flames of love if any life of faith if any vigorous dispositions or motions toward God if any meltings of a softened heart these flow from the knowledg of God not habitual but actual Quod appositio vel adaptatio ligni est ad ignem corporalem hoc est rememoratio recogitatio beneficiorum ad ignem spiritualem Gul. par de virtut c. 11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Habitual knowledg is as meat in the Cubboard and as precious water in a glass but actual knowledg is those things in use and enjoyment We are renewed day by day saith the Apostle how by looking on things that are eternal 2 Cor. 4.16 Heb. 11. it is reported that Moses did many excellent things How came he by that excellent spirit he saw him that was invisible Plato saith that it is Philosophy to love God for that is the end of it to bring men unto God Upon all these considerations and many more that might be urged give up your selves unto this work There is not a man free but the bonds of this counsel are upon him The sum of it is this Often have your eye on God dwell in the contemplation of him let that day be as one of the days of Hell and of darkness wherein you have nothing to do with God This is certain if God be your God you cannot let your minds run at waste To turn aside from God will be very chargeable and expensive to you you will pay dear for it Children that wander from home get the rod The rod is not far from that man that loves not to stay with God God can make the thoughts of thy heart to be like Hell it self and to minister more bitterness to you then if a whole legion of Devils were about you I beseech you therefore mould your selves into this Doctrine that you be not found Despisers of the great God who will not speak in vain One of these two things will be made good upon all either the Word will subject your Souls unto the Command of God or unto the Vengeance of God and if you cannot now look up to him with delight you may know the day in which you may look up and curse Isai 8.21 Now you may look up towards God and live but the time may come that you may be in that distress that you will curse God and the world and your selves when bitterness shall be on your Souls for your neglect of this work CHAP. X. Directions concerning Eying of God Truths to be received in their power Saints are to keep in their hearts a meetness for their work Saints are to preserve their capacities for God Saints must maintain a deep sense of divine engagements A lively sense of necessities is useful Pure hearts are meet for divine converse The mind will'd without Sanctification I Shall now set before you some helpful Counsel that may enable to this great work from which the heart of man doth so hang off Certainly there is nothing which men are more hardly brought to then to this to keep the remembrance of God fresh in their spirits and to let their understandings run in this channel constantly As men do intend an end so they eye the
means indeed the means lie in the way to the end yea they are the way it self and the end is in them I will therefore offer some means to you First Entertain the Rule in the power of it When any Command of God comes armed with his own strength it makes man weak he cannot make resistance but falls down conquered in the assault The heart naturally stands out against and is estranged to every voyce of God it will give him the hearing and admit the sound but not the strength it will keep the Word at a distance either by non-attending or by voluntary diversions and forgetfulness Indeed the things of God are very strange to us though they were our best and nearest acquaintance in our primitive state and therefore now we are hardly brought to own them and receive them The not entertaining of the Truth in the power of it is that which frustrates so many thousand Sermons so that though everyday one thing or other is called for and pressed yet matters are as they were God speaks but few regard he cals but few answer He saith Do this and do that but all is undone still Then the Word and Counsel of God is received in its power when a man doth acknowledg it and hath the sense of the weight and efficacy of it and this was the commendation of them 1 Thes 1.5 that they receive the Gospel not in word only but in power and what was the effect of it see vers 6. And they became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction And observe John 8.37 what the Reason was that the Jews were in so desperate a course against Christ that they sought to slay him Christ himself gives the Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My word hath no place in you Christ had preached unto them as he doth unto us but that word which he then spake had little entrance or little abode at least in the spirits of men And so at this day either the door is shut against the Word or it is soon cast out of doors again It is not a faint yielding of your spirits unto the call of God when he speaks of such a thing as this is The thorny ground had much of this When the Gospel came and call'd on them to look to God and Jesus Christ they were very yielding there was a sprouting of many affections and great appearances of the efficacious working of the Word on them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but all came to nothing Many while they are under the ministration of the Word are under some operation of the Spirit that attends it and they are ready to say as they in Exod. 19. We will do whatsoever the Lord saith But I may take up that wish O that there were such a heart to do even this one thing now call'd for to walk in more mindfulness of God and that it might be said of you as it is of them Rom. 6.17 Thanks be to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you have obeyed from the heart that form of Doctrine into which you were delivered The receiving of the Counsels of God in their power is not as you may think only a present entertaining of them nor is it the present taste of the sweetness and vigor of them in your spirits but it is the abiding of this Word in the power of it upon your hearts There are many that are much struck in their spirits by the Word but yet what saith the Scripture of them They cast the Word of God behind their backs and no more look after it therefore they are unfruitful hearers of it all their days 1 John 2.24 see what the Apostle John saith Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning if that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you ye shall also continue in the Son and in the Father Men know not what they do when they let their hearts depart from the Word many invaluable Counsels from Heaven in which their Souls are bound up are lost and made nothing of as to them This is Satans gathering of the Corn that is sowed before it come to maturity Those whom God carries through obedience to eternal life he doth cause to lay up his Word to be their companion and unto them as the Covenant that was layd up in the Ark of God I have hid thy Word in my heart saith David Psal 119.11 It is such a hiding as men are wont to use when they hide their treasure that by no means it may be lost God writes on the minds of those whom he loves his Law and he leaves impressions of himself that he will be minded He that is our Pattern hath said that the Law of God was in his heart Psal 40.9 And it is the name that the Prophet gives unto the people of God Isa 51.7 that they are such in whose heart is his Law This then you should do lay up the Word and have often recourse to it and lay your selves and your practises to this Rule and often say Where am I where is my mind whither is my understanding wandering what path hath my Soul been treading in have I been walking with God have I been minding him have I been serious in my spirit in the contemplation of him Thus often have recourse unto the Word it is a dangerous thing to let our minds go far without a check It was the great fault charged upon those that were near to destruction Jer. 6.8 No man repented saying What have I done This Commandment of minding God is a Commandment backed not only with Authority and Reason from the equity and excellency of it which all Precepts have but it is also accompanied with special Ordinances besides the natural Ordinance of the Creation which is a memorial of God that you may be ever promped unto the fountain of it There are special instituted Ordinances appointed to this end that you may remember him What is Baptism and what is the Lords Supper but the representation of Jesus Christ to us memorials of him that in the celebration of them you might remember him Therefore labour to make your hearts sensible of the Authority and Majesty that is in this Command when God speaks from Heaven unto you that you would walk in all mindfulness of him and that is the first thing The second thing that I would commend to you is this To get and keep your hearts in a meetness and fitness for this work As God hath put work on his people so he doth expect that there should be a fitness in them for it as the Apostle speaks 2 Tim. 2.21 A vessel made meet for his Masters use and service I will express this meetness in a few particulars One is to keep the mind as free as you can Our understandings though they are mighty things yet they are limited When they are held much
God Sanctification is a great thing What is the body until Sanctification comes but an untamed monster as a wilde beast O with what numberless outragious passions doth it blind and carry away the Soul Until it be sanctified it puts a man into an incapacity of conversing with God it lies not only open to all temptations but it snatcheth after them it 's a weight that lies upon the spirit of a man Pray for Sanctification which is the sequestration of the spirit of a man from vanity and the consecration of it unto God it is the putting of it into his possession the planting in it a new disposition to move towards God and to converse with God this the Apostle calls the renewing of the mind CHAP. XI Advantages that come by minding of God are to be duly considered The more we mind God the more we may Those which eye God most know themselves best Those which eye God most have most of God Forgetfulness of God cuts the nerves of Holiness Forgetfulness of God betrays to Apostacy NOw let me add another Help Weigh well with a deep sense the high Advantages which a due discharge of this work doth bring upon you this will facilitate the work The more you mind God the better you may Men cry out the work is hard It is good and sweet but hardest to those that do it least easiest to those that do it most Living in this work doth advantage and enlarge your spiritual strength and put you into more meetness and fitness into more proportion of ability for the discharge of it That as the Apostle speaks of the sinful use of the eye and of the sinful effusions of the spirit in way of evil that it works unto a necessity of sinning so that they have eyes full of adultery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that cannot cease to sin 2 Pet. 2.14 So the more you live in mindfulness of God the more are you wrought into a most excellent and sweet necessity of living in this course Gods entertainment is very gracious unto a friend that minds him that he cannot long have God out of his eye De coelo descendit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This advantage you will also have by it the discovery of your self and truly that is a great matter for a man to know himself We are therefore so little our selves because we know our selves so little all that monstrous pride and self-love that foolish indulgence that is usual toward our selves is because we know not what we are This will make you know your selves more for when your eye is on God it is upon your Rule the Rule of all perfection the most absolute Pattern of all spiritual beauty therefore you may see what proportion and similitude there is between God and you This will breed a self abhorrency because of that infinite disagreement that is in the spirit of a man and his ways to the holy God Job in the sight of God abhor'd himself in dust and ashes Job 42.4 Here you may see how your hearts and the Rule agree Now also you may observe what impressions the sight of God leaveth upon you You say you mind God Well and I pray what comes of it what fear what faith what hope what tenderness What watchfulness is there wrought in your spirits by your minding of God What a hard heart is that which is layd under the very beams of the Sun of Righteousness and melts not What an obdurate spirit is that which in the sight of God yields no more We should come to see better what we are if we were more in this work This advantage too you shall have you shall be filled more with God What is the moaning of your Souls O saith the Saint that I might enjoy him O that God might be my God! and that his presence might be with me where ever I am All spiritual life hath its birth and growth in this work the first sight of God lays the foundation all after-sights do superstruct The first sight of God is the planting of holiness in the Soul after-sights are waterings unto more encrease and fruitfulness at the first sight of God God enters into the Soul but the after-sights of God fills and fills until they fill up the Soul If therefore it be so great an advantage consider it and let it provoke you unto this work One Rule more to help unto this work Possess your selves deeply with the apprehensions of the great sinfulness of the neglect of this Therefore men and their sins are so near together because they see not their sins more sinful When sin appears out of measure sinful then it sets the heart at the greatest distance from it Look on the sinfulness of it in the Cause of it Whence is it thou wandering Soul thou sleeping spirit thou man possessed with the world that thou sayst thou breathest after God and yet shuttest thy eye from him It is from a most woful frame of spirit Faith is dead and love dead all principles of life are put into a state of astonishment it is deep night all the spiritual powers are asleep bound up hence it is thou mindest God no more Poor Creature thou art not thy self thy heart is gone other things have born it away thou art like the Prodigal until God brings thee unto thy wits and right mind again Now see what the state of that man is by the true original of the sin of neglecting to remember God and look a little further into this matter to see it in the Effect of it Forgetting of God dissolves the bond between the Soul and God and sets it free from God It is the minding of God that doth beget and preserve a capacity of him and propensity toward him then forgeting of God shuts up thy heart from him and doth byass thy Soul unto a contrary motion to a departing from him puts thee into a state wherein thou canst not be according to the calling whereunto thou art called Thou canst not walk in the place of a servant toward thy Lord for how canst thou do his Will whom thou rememberest not If all the Reason of holy walking lies in this then the nerves and sinews of Holiness are cut in sunder when forgetfulness of God raigns in men There is this evil also thou betrayest thy Soul as much as in thee lies into the state of the Devils themselves What makes Hell but want of God and what makes the unhappiness of Devils but separation from God And this thou dost practise upon thy own self I could give a notorious and sad Instance of this truth to every one that doth voluntarily forget God in an Apostate Professor whom I knew who said The turning point and first beginning of his declining from God was his neglect of communion with Jesus Christ Therefore when you give your selves to a voluntary forgetfulness of God you betray your selves into a state of Apostacy and backsliding from
to unbelief perplexity and dissettlement While unbelief works in us it must needs be that there will be a great want of that through knowledg of Interest Another Cause of this great misery of man is That Gods communications of himself to us and entertainments of us are not always in intelligible forms so that we cannot presently take them up and understand the meaning and good-will of God in them The fault is in our minds The print is good but cannot be read because the eye is dull and dark Sometimes God comes to us wrapt up in Clouds and indeed he varies his dispensations that he may attain his End His End is this that he may work his people to a strength of Faith and Love mixt with Fear that 's the proper constitution of a Christian and the truest temper of one that is marked out to eternal life Therefore God sometimes displays his greatness in the sight of his people far above all the manifestations of the sweetness of his mercy that the spirit of a poor man is overborn shakes and trembles at the presence of God So it was with Moses Heb. 12.21 The sight was so terrible though God meant no ill to Moses that Moses shakes and quakes for fear he was sore afraid Sometimes God comes with the manifestations of his fatherly displeasure and dislike and then how can it be but the Soul must dwell in bitterness mourning heaviness and trembling must needs possess us A third Cause why so little is known of this Interest that God is our God though he be so is our unhappy diversions We are oftentimes turned off from that one thing necessary and our spirits run otherways out of light into darkness Alas Solomon minded not this matter or to little purpose when he poured out his Soul after vanities and for this God pleaded with him 1 King 11.9 that he had departed from him The Lord was wrath with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appeared to him twice CHAP. XVI How the knowledg of blessed Interest in God may be attained Desires to have the question determined A spirit free to yield to the determination Arguments proper for the deciding of the question Those that have an Interest in God are much in holy resignation Of taking answers when they are given THese things being premised now I come to shew you how we may attain this blessed knowledg that God is ours and so quiet our hearts in this assurance that he is our Portion First Let it be the true desire of thy Soul to have this question determined and concluded that God is thy God Certainly many are careless concerning this business that never much debate the matter whether God be their God or no. Others there are that have care enough but it is a perplexed care a care sowred with unbelief there is a desire indeed raised but it 's mixed with perturbation the Soul is indeed in motion after it but it is a very disorderly motion working with fretting and such disturbing fears that they leave themselves without judgment Exod. 6.9 It is said concerning the Children of Israel that when Moses spake to them they would not hear him for their anguish of spirit and for their cruel bondage for the shortness and straitness of their spirits Fears do straiten Secondly A second Means is this Come with a spirit free to yield to the determination of truth one way or other take your answer from God as he shall give it Certainly there are a generation that know that they are very partial and foolish in this business that fly from the decision and determination of this question from a secret strong suspicion that all is not well with them and therefore they will rather flatter themselves with the uncertainty of their own estate then affright themselves with the clear knowledg of their unhappy condition As a guilty prisoner fears to think of the time of Judgment because he knows there is just cause of suspicion that it shall go ill with him Poor man what shall it profit thee to carry things thus If God be not thy God what hurt is it for thee to know it He that lives thus refuseth the judgment of God and as much as in him lies hates the judgment of God There can be no greater evidence of a right spirit then for a man to put the question home whether God be his for that man is not willing to be the Lords that is not willing to have it determined whether he be his or no. Some again are so possessed and overcome with fears so ready to self-condemnation to what ever may afflict and oppress them that they wrap themselves up in thick clouds lest any light should spring forth upon them These are like unjust Judges that are precipitant in their proceedings that hear only one party It is a dangerous thing for a man to mistake in Judgment as the Wise-man speaks concerning Civil Judgment Prov. 17.15 He that justifies the wicked and condemns the just even they both are an abomination unto God You displease God and sin against Truth and Righteousness when you bear down your selves and pronounce a sentence of death upon your own Souls when God hath passed the sentence of life and peace upon you You cross the design of Jesus Christ which is a design of love and peace You offer violence to that light reason and spirit which God hath set up in you You tempt God to say as you do and to make good your words Be therefore willing to hear what God shall say to you as they in Acts 10. said to Peter We are all here ready to hear the things that are commanded thee of God Thirdly A third Means is To proceed and argue by proper Mediums by such Arguments as are proper to the Question Some work themselves into a good opinion by false discourses concluding upon insufficient grounds that God is their God either from an empty appearance of good or else from a real presence of the life of such things as may flow from other principles then the spirit of Adoption as the fear of God mourning for sin subjection of spirit to the Commands of God which things indeed are good but may flow from another spring then the spirit of Adoption But if you would conclude in a right way of reasoning that God is your God argue then by such things as are proper to that state and relation wherein you suppose your selves to be toward God and that is in one word a spirit of true Love You shall find that working thus it will carry thy Soul in propensions towards God equal to thy consolations The Soul that loves is carried unto God with desires equal to its refreshings yea and more for when it cannot taste the comforts of the Almighty yet it is carried after him in desires and saith Lord I will love thee though thou wilt not love me This love
he lives in an holy contentment and a glorious rest in all things that are according to God and in a hatred of all things that are in opposition to God If any thing come into the ballance with God if it be like God he loves it but if it be contrary to God he hates it having once drunk of the new wine he desires not the old harsh spiritless wine You may remember the Catalogue of Saints in Hebr. 11. when you are come to their pitch then God will be dear to you and there will be a flatness upon all things else The life of every thing is according to its compass and the thing by which it is maintained Men have a better life then beasts for they have better things to live on Princes live better lives then beggers and Angels then men because they have better things to live on Now then if your life be in God you have the best and sweetest life We judg of lives in the world by the contentment they have that live in them now in this life you find innumerable Angels the spirits of just men made perfect Jesus Christ lives this life and thinks it enough he desires no better life God himself lives this life he lives in himself Thirdly A third thing is That if you do not maintain this life you offer unspeakable violence to that blessed station and happy relation wherein God hath set you One of these two things you must needs acknowledg 1. If you live not on God God is not your portion you have not taken him for your God you have not clos'd with him and then you are undone 2. Or this must be granted If you have closed with him you wrong God and your selves extreamly because you live not on him Hath God taken you and have you taken him Hath he said to thee My Spouse and hath thy Soul said to him My Lord and my Husband And shall we live upon other things and not upon our Husband Shall the child live on strangers bread and not upon his Father Shall the son of a Prince hang as a begger upon others doors and be a stranger to his Fathers love to his Fathers house and fulness This is certain that so far as you do this you are not children but Prodigals in Luke 15. last dead and lost While you are out of God and your hearts set on other things you are in a state of dead men in an absolute indisposedness and incapacity either to the fulfilling of that which lies upon you as the Law of your relation unto God or to the enjoyment of that which is the sweetness priviledg and comfort of your relation unto God Is she a wife think you or doth she not offer violence to the Law of her Relation that refuseth bed and board with her husband You should drink water out of your own Cistern from your own Head and Spring who is that but your Lord and Head whom you have chosen God will not endure that you should wander He will hedg up your way as he speaks in Hos 2. and those hedges will teer you He is pleased with you when you lean on him and take of his Love and then his joy is fulfilled in you you do what he loves he takes contentment in it Other comforts are stoln sweet they may be in the taste but they will be bitterness in your bowels it must be so for when you live any where but in God you cross his great design which is to make himself your Center wherein your Souls should rest He hath appointed no place for thy Soul to rest in but his own bosom You despise him when you suffer the joys of your Souls to be clouded If Elkanah could say to his wife Am not I better to thee then ten sons Surely God may say much more Am not I better to thee then ten such things as these that thou art troubled at So that if your hearts go out any other way it is against all reason Christ in John 4.10 made account that the Soul hath enough that tastes of this for he saith he shall never thirst more Go no more then to the hedges and high ways thou that hast such a God and such a Friend be quiet and rest in his Love He rests in his love to you Zech. 3.17 And will not you rest in it and lie down in his arms and embracements and say It is sweet it is enough Is not he always embracing you and cheering you and holding forth the brests of his consolation to you wooing and winning you and using all means to fill your Souls with himself and to make you blessed in the enjoyment of him If then you have any fear of his displeasure if you have any sweetness and comfort of the Love of God if you have tasted and known how good the Lord is then keep fast to him and maintain your Souls in a constant living communion with him If you keep near him you shall find that there is life in him Psal 69.32 They shall live that seek the Lord. CHAP. XVIII Heavenly life nearest at hand Christians are to live up to the height of it and to maintain it in every condition A Fourth Argument is That this life we speak of is most present it is nearest at hand most attainable being wholly mental and spiritual and those works are quickest done All other life comes in by parcels and pieces If a man would live in honor what a deal ado is there what a compass must he fetch to maintain good thoughts with this man and with that man and his honor riseth by degrees The like may be said concerning pleasures and riches Nay naturally what a course doth the Soul take to bring in that meat which supplies our life in eating concocting and digesting it and carrying it to every part The labour of Nature is great But this life is maintained by a sweet and silent working of Spirit it is a life that is got kept and cherished by the sweetest actings of the Soul In Psal 63.6 saith David I shall be fill'd as with marrow and fatness when I remember thee upon my bed And in Psal 20.7 you have this exprest by the like words Some trust in Charets and some in Horses Great preparations they make but what is his trust I will remember the Name of the Lord our God This is life to remember the Name of the Lord our God It is the best exercise of the most noble part of a man towards the most excellent Object And what should we love more to look upon and to remember then God Do not you find how a few affectionate thoughts of him come down in showres of spiritual blessing and consolation Both the Goodness of God and the Love of God makes this work sweet He that seeks to live this way hath not only sweetness in his end but in the way to it Remember how successful you have found this
Heb. 10. He saves those that come unto God through Him We are very apt rather to come to God as he is the great God our Creator then to come to him through a Mediator Therefore since there is no other way of life but this we had need be taught it Fourthly We are apt to think it almost impossible to live such a life as this Oh how do we greaten the matter of our duty We make mountains of mole-hills The fault is not in God but in us Certainly we might have more What saith the Gospel Doth it not call us to all joy all peace and to rejoyce always What 's the meaning of this Doth not God speak realities Shall we rather have hard thoughts of God then of our selves No no it is because we will not we thirst not It is not because water is not to be had but because we will not take the pains to draw it We say the Well is deep and the water will not come but he hath said he will meet those that rejoyce and work righteousness and that he will draw near to those that draw near to him and he will be as good as his word Certainly the fault lies either in our not seeking or not seeking as we should or in our not taking what is offered to us Do you not find that when you come to the door of grace it stands open and that God is ready to give the comfort and refreshings of a Father when you come overwhelmed with sorrows Is not he always the same Will he hear one prayer and not another If you did continue in prayer and seeking might you not have more It is very ill to fancy such impossibilities Why do you set bounds where God hath set none and make that so hard to get which God is so willing to give and so straiten your selves when you have license to ask Lastly We are apt to live much by patterns and examples We see how Christians live at the common rate it 's neither night nor day with them they have a trembling hope a mingled joy a mourning life sometimes bright sometimes clouded and this sight doth form other Christians to the same life and makes them say Seeing others live so I 'le live so too Examples are mighty Of what force was Peter's example of to the Galatians in another case Beggers form one anothers spirits to beggery and a poor kind of life Remember that counsel of the Apostle in Rom. 12. Be not conform'd unto this world Make no patterns to your selves further then they agree with the Rule that you are to go by How low did the Jews bring themselves by the traditions of their Fathers Their Fathers did so and so That 's a poor beggerly life Shall I say one thing more We are subject to slothfulness It 's strange that a Christian should be slothful of all men Should we not wonder if we saw a man slothful to gather up Pearls and Jewels of great worth Was ever any man so slothful that he would not take the pains to eat his meat when he was hungry Can a poor man be so slothful that he will not dig a Myne of Gold when he may have it What should make a Christian slothful What is it the difficulty of this Life Certainly if we say so we speak evil of God and his goodness as those Spies did of the good Land What is there difficulty in eating and drinking Our way all along is pleasure even the pleasure of living in God and enjoying of him Or is the work unsuccessful Dare you say you have let down your bucket and drew up nothing Dare you say that you went sincerely to God and could not procure him to hear you No you cannot for when his servants have come to him in their worst conditions he hath received and embraced them Could a man come to God in a worse condition then David did Psal 32. When he had run from God desperately and stayed out a great while you may well think how often he quenched the spirit in that time and contended with God and yet when he returned and came home God did not despise him God did not say to him Away wretch what hast thou to do to expect mercy but pardoned refreshed and cheered him and David tells it abroad For this saith he shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayst be found Say not then with thy self that thy coming shall be unsuccessful To that which hath been said we may add these pertinent Considerations 1. If we live in God and fetch all our peace strength and satisfaction from him we shall have the best enjoyment of all things else The taste of Gods love sweetens all enjoyments 2. This puts the Soul into a secure state against all dangers it cannot be ill with him that enjoys God It puts a man into a state of conquest and victory over all things When a man enjoys God and lies upon his Love he is above all things 3. This fulfils the end of our Creation For this was Gods appointment that we might be for the demonstration of his infinite Excellency and to the enhappying of our selves in the enjoyment of him 4. This keeps the Soul in a preparedness to all holy walkings and obedience When a man lives in God his heart is tuned to all duties CHAP. XXI Several Questions concerning the forementioned Doctrine answered Saints not always equally strong Some afflictions sweetened more then others Sometimes God will have his Rod smart I Proceed now to answer two or three Questions which concern this Doctrine and Truth 1 Quest Seeing the Saints have this way for Life and that their Interest in God doth so ballance their Souls whence is it that they are so frequently dejected so under hatches 2 Quest If Interest in God be so effectual to lift up Christians spirits whence is it that there are so many weaknesses deformities and contrarieties to God in their spirits 3 Quest Whence is it that they who have no Interest in God oftentimes seem to go through very great troubles with much strength 1 Quest If the Saints life springs from their Interest in God how is it then that they are so often broken in spirit that there dwells with them heaviness confusion and distraction oftentimes as with others Answer In the first place let us know that the Saints do not all live this life equally they have not all received such measures of grace that they can with equal magnanimity pass through their troubles in this world Some pass through trouble with a spirit of glory being highly lifted up above their sufferings So Paul in Rom. 5. We glory in tribulation In Heb. 10.34 They sâ—ffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods And Acts 5. when the Apostles were scourged they went away rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the Name of Jesus Others go not on triumphantly but stedfastly though
Thou hast made me glad with thy Countenance The sense of the good presence and favour and love of God doth fill the Soul with pleasure and when it can hold no more it hath enough Let the issue of all this Discourse be to set our hearts a longing and wishing O that I were blessed with a full enjoyment of God! O that I had as much of him as ever I shall or can have The Soul that is thus in travel travels without pain The Mind reaching after other things oftentimes out-stretcheth it self There are usually if not always pains with desires especially in desires after the Creature because that oftentimes there is a frustration of our desires or an elongation of the things the things are far off hard to come by our desires oftentimes are mute they speak not or the things that we desire know not our minds but our desires after God always speak they are open unto God he heareth their voyce All my desires are before Thee saith David Psal 38.8 and my groanings are not hid from Thee Therfore it must needs be sweet when the Soul lies thus open unto God Other desires do not assure and secure a man in the things he desires a man may wish this and wish that and go without both but the Soul that thus longs after God is instated in his wish hath a present enjoyment and certainly shall have a full enjoyment of him He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him God will hear them Psal 145.16 They that long most receive most it 's the hungry spirit that feeds best and fares best When the Church was sick of love being very much taken with what she had and much longing after what she wanted then she could say I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine his desire is towards me in Cant. 7.10 That refreshed her the Greek reads it his Conversion is towards me indeed God will turn to those that go out toward him In Isai 64.5 He meets those that work righteousness and seek him in his ways Again Consider this That longing after a full enjoyment is the natural effect of a known Interest in God Look through all the Orders of the Creation and you shall find that every thing seeks the enjoyment of its Interest Angels do Men do Beasts do they seek their own their own pastures their own young their own mates Can you imagine that we should be the Children of God and account him our Father and not long to enjoy him A child hears from his father and receives tokens from his father but he is not contented he would be with his father So it is truly with a Child of God so far as he hath received of that Spirit he longs to enjoy God Interest in God works by a power of its own and God works in it too God pursues his Interest in us to the utmost therefore he is working us to himself by all means all ways by good and evil by life by mortality and death by the senses by Ordinances by his Spirit He is always at work to bring us home that we may be in his possession and enjoy him And to make it the more full he hath appointed the breaking of these bodies that our spirits may come more full to him nay and he hath appointed a day of Resurrection that our bodies may come full to him and this is one great end of Christs coming again in Joh. 14. that we may be with him in his Fathers house If God so drives on his Interest to make us perfect with him let us drive on our Interest to make God fully ours in the enjoyment of him Lastly There is nothing to hinder in this Case that you should not drive on to a full and perfect enjoyment of him Are you full in this world should your full enjoyments of the world hinder your full enjoyments of God Is not God better then these things Are you scanted in this world The more need you have then of the fullest enjoyments of God Have you much of God You know the more what God is and can you chuse but desire him Have you little of God Then you need more and should drive on to get more Are you sure of your Interest Where Interest is most sure there is most love and where the Soul loves most thither it drives most Do you fear your Interest You have so much the more reason to seek after a full enjoyment of God to the satisfaction of your Souls What do you think should stand in the way You must part with the world What is this world to your Fathers house and to God himself You must dye What is death Cannot that everlasting life recompence you infinitely Therefore there is nothing to hinder you Then seeing God invites you and provokes you to seek more of him in this world though you cannot have all I conjure you by all the sweetness that is in God and that you have found in God that you obey his Word herein and drive on more diligently and strongly to a more full enjoyment of God FINIS PSAL. 119. vers 4. I am thine save me for I have sought thy Precepts CHAP. I. Gods Interest in man natural and acquired this latter twofold Of holy Resignation Of true and false Mourning I Have chosen this excellent Pattern to propose to you and to my self of an ingenuous spirit David a man after Gods own heart would be saved but not after the manner of the men of this world that would be saved to be their own and to enjoy themselves at their own wills but he in being saved would be Gods and at his disposing I am thine save me There are three things here that would be thought on 1. What David means when he saith I am thine 2. What the Reason should be that we should use such an acknowledgment of our selves to be Gods when we pray to him 3. What force there is in this argument to be pleaded with God I am thine save me Thine We are said to be Gods either by way of affection as the Church Cant. 2.16 I am my well-beloveds and my well-beloved is mine Or in respect of that Interest that God hath in us The Interest of God in man is upon a twofold Foundation and Account 1. Upon account of the Law of Nature the natural Law which doth set God as Lord over all and acknowledg him supreme Commander of every thing because he is the Original and glorious Fountain of all Being Upon that account it is that in Psal 89.11 it is said The Heavens are thine and the Earth also is thine as for the world and the fulness thereof thou hast founded them There is the ground of that Dominion which God hath over all things they are his off-spring things that himself hath made And in Psal 50.12 God owns himself in this Soveraignty The Heavens are mine and the Earth is mine and all that in them is
wretch that I am how have I lived thus and thus have I done He mingles the comforts of this world with these sorrows and will have place for this mourning in the midst of all things and cannot but oftentimes have his eye upon himself like Paul I was a Persecuter and a Blasphemer c. 5. Again There is a mourning that is afflicting but not changing Many trouble and vex themselves upon the remembrance of their ways a fire burns in their bowels that they cannot extinguish but it doth not purge them from their dross their tears be salt and brinish but not healing they hang down their heads and walk sadly but carry the same spirit still against God so Ahab so they in 1 Sam. 7.6 Upon Samuels counsel to them they gathered together at Mizpeh and drew water and poured out before the Lord and fasted and said We have sinned against the Lord. They drew water It 's conceived that this drawing of water is an expression of their mourning and their exceeding mourning and they fasted which is an addition and confessed saying We have sinned against the Lord But it came to little as you may see in the eighth Chapter Thou mournest aright when thine heart is changed and when thy mourning tends to the killing of thy sin A fourth thing concerning this Resignation is that it is but in part and yet is certainly in the whole It is in part for no man hath actually perfectly given himself to God in this very gift and holy act of Resignation there is imperfection and something wanting and much more in the execution of this engagement all along Yet notwithstanding this Resignation is whole and entire partly in Gods acceptance God is pleased to take it so to take a part for the whole as much as man can do as if all were done And it is whole and entire in mans intention and desire Though the desire be not perfect and the intent not perfect as to the degree yet both reach to the extent of of that which God calls for Less then this cannot be in a good man and a man beloved of God A man cannot say I am thine if he come not to this For consider God treating with man about this work when he comes to plead for a Resignation he treats not for part but for all Besides when man comes to plead with God he pleads not for part but for all he would be saved not in body alone but in Soul too he would be perfectly saved And take this also that God gives himself wholly unto man if he did not give him his Wisdom and Power and Love man could not love him for how could we love him if his Wisdom Power or any of his glorious Attributes were against us God gives himself to man wholly Again God cannot take less then all for to accept of a partial resignment and to indulge a man a right and power over himself to live according to his own will is to act against those very Laws of his which Nature cannot dispense with As to take that which is the first and fundamental Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy Soul and with all thy might If any now upon the apprehension of the truth of this should say This makes me fear and suspect my self because I do not find that this giving up of my self is so entire and compleat I would have such consider that Resignation lies not so much in doing and being all that God requires as in willingness to be and to do all It is necessary to be and to do all that God requires and we are obliged to this but this Resignation lies chiefly in this in being willing to be and to do so that is a speech methinks that falls pat with the condition of the people of God Neh. 1.11 O Lord let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy Name But let there be no mistake for when I say Resignation lies chiefly in a willingness to be and to do all that God requires mark what kind of willingness it is it must be such as is vigorous as puts on to endevors so that it sets the Soul down mourning when it finds shortness of power I add this lest any as the world oftentimes doth should hurt himself by such an excuse as this I confess I do not but I would do well my ways are not good but I like them not my heart is better The world will one day see how destructive and fallacious these pleas are Again There is a great difference between sin dwelling in us and sin entertained by us between sin remaining and sin reserved Reservation of sin is against the nature of this absolute Resignation but a man that truly resigns himself may and doth want power to cast forth of doors every sin and every degree of it No man that hath resigned himself to God doth entertain it he doth not like it nor comply with it he doth not plot conspire or devise how he may save and enjoy his sin he lives not in the purposes of it this is against the nature of resigning our selves to God 5. This work of Resignation is a work once done and yet always doing When God hath so wrought upon the heart by effectual perswasions and his mighty power God saith I am thy God and the Soul answers in truth And I am thine Now is the Resignation actually made But though this be done yet it is still always doing while we are in this world nay to Eternity for it 's a thing that consists of an iteration of multiplied acts As Wedlock is not one single act of giving of persons each to other but if they live like married persons as they should there is a dayly giving of themselves each to other their hearts go out every day with complaceney and delight rejoycing in renewing the bond and making the league yet firmer and firmer It 's so between God and us 6. This Resignation is such a thing as when 't is once done is never undone Herein this Contract of man with God differs from all others in the world for all other Contracts have a time to cease By Contract one becomes another mans servant for a time The most durable Contract is that of Marriage yet it admits of a double breach by death or by divorce But here neither of these take place there 's no divorce after marriage with God and no death comes unto that Soul which becomes his for these two things hold such a man 1. The infinite goodness of God with which the Soul is so satisfied and contented that it cannot in any constant course and stay continue and give up it self to any other thing no more then a man can be willing to leave the light of the Sun to go to live where there is no light but of a Candle or to forsake Paradise if he were
course What unspeakable effusions of inward refreshing have you found upon turning of your spirits unto God upon the very cast of your eye upon the Father of Mercies Alas for those poor Souls those wandering Beggers even all men that do not come in and that have not God for their God in Christ It is pity and grief to see what a poor life they live and they know it not How do they sweat and toyl for that which they never get They get but the image of what they aim at For what do they work For life they think but they work themselves out of life not into life they are knocking always at that door where nothing is where vanity and emptiness dwells they are digging pits that will hold no water they are seeking grapes on thorns and figs on thistles But this way is sure and sweet you are sure to find and your sweetness is as well in seeking as in finding Let Christians then endeavor to live this life How can we without shame complain that we are dead and broken in spirit that a weight lies upon our Souls that we are empty when life is so near us when the Well is not deep and we might take of the water of Life and drink freely Men will not improve the activity and nimbleness of their Souls to enrich themselves We oftentimes charge God with hiding his face from us but wrongfully he turns not away his face from us we turn from him we go out of the Sun-shine into the cold shade and then we shake by reason of cold But those looks of God which are easily had in Jesus Christ warm and chear the Soul Have not such a thought in your hearts that holy Consolations are hardly gotten You wrong the Fountain of Life if you think that you may draw and find nothing or that you may let down your bucket and bring it up empty these are blasphemies which our unbeleeving hearts form against God Certainly God is easie to be entreated and to be found of those that seek him David in Psal 32. had hard thoughts of him but when he once tryed him though he came in the blackness and dread of his Soul covered over with shame and confusion yet he found God to be to him according to all his Name and according to all his Word his tears were wiped away and his broken bones were set again and he was satisfied I would yet a little more clearly express this thing and winde up the Exhortation to its just height in two words 1. That we endevor to live this life in the highest degree that is to live very much in God not only to have a true life but a life proportionable to our relation unto him Princes should feed as Princes and their life should be like their place So should Christians have their life proportionable to what God is What God is in himself he is to us if we have accepted Salvation by Jesus Christ Meer peace is too low a temper for a Christian he is never like himself except he live in joy his principles reach to all joy and for that the Apostle Paul pray'd Col. 1.11 Saints might as well live like Princes in faith and joy as with feeble hopes some weak consolations they might as well drink a full draught as taste of the goodness and kindness of God Who straitens you What is your life but a continual espousing of your selves unto God and should not there be much joy on the Marriage day Therefore the Apostle prays in Rom. 15. The God of peace fill you with all peace and joy always All peace and always 2. A second word is That you maintain this life in every state No variation of our outward estate in this life should be any diminution of the glory of this life The rejoycing you have by Faith and spiritual enjoyments should not be dampt by any thing Is our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ Can we say so Then what should all the turnings of this world be to us How unsuitable to this Communion is it to have our spirits turned and our joys changed with outward things Suppose it be well with us in the world and we be pleased yet is it fit for the Expectants of eternal life who have also a sense of the sweetness of enjoying God to be much taken with these things Is there not a Crown prepared for us Is not God our God Can we be content to be so taken with the dishes at a feast as to forget our friend at the table and that our best friend Suppose it be ill with us as we commonly account ill though the truth is it is never ill with a good man it doth but appear ill it seems ill but it is all good and well for all is from goodness and love therefore though it be ill with us in this sence yet let us be in our own temper that is rejoyce in God Though nothing be the same yet if God be the same let us be the same Meditate upon that famous place Habak 3.17 Although the fig-tree shall not blossom neither shall fruit be in the vines the labour of the Olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat the flock shall be cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd in the stalls Yet I will rejoyce in the Lord I will joy in the God of my Salvation This is that which God calls for that you live in him always Whatsoever fails say as the Psalmist Psal 73.26 God is my portion for ever I have a Father in Heaven and so though I find things bad enough here yet it is well it is well well above and well within CHAP. XIX Further Considerations to promote the forementioned life of its incomparable worth Those that will not live the life of Faith shall not A firm belief of the Gospel the foundation of this Life LEt us now take a few things more into consideration to promote our living in God for we have need of all cords to draw us and bind us to this life 1. The first is the unutterable difference that is between this life and any other attainable or imaginable Harken to all that can judg every thing speaks in the Case especially take the testimony of God and of those whom he hath blessed with the best enjoyment of himself You know what God saith of himself and what glorious descriptions he hath made of that absoluteness and incomprehensible goodness which is in him You know what he hath said of all things else that they are broken Cisterns Ask the Saints also and the spirits of just men made perfect take the Angels too they live in God and are confined in that life they go no further yet their confinement is no imprisonment but it 's a confinement of love and liberty it 's from the satisfaction of their Souls You know that perfect rest is from a perfection of
but the perfecting of our freedom Take it in this Similitude A poor woman that lives in rags hath the honor and happiness of being wife to a great Prince offered her for her now to give up her self is no way to straiten her freedom or diminish her happiness for she will enjoy her self better as a Queen then as a Begger So by resigning our selves unto God we lose no liberty nor any thing that is good but enjoy our selves in greater amplitude and fulness of all happiness So that for a man to give himself to God is self-love in the height of it and there is no true self-love but this for a man to think to love himself in ways of separation from God or in opposition to God is to hate himself in the appearance of love but this is true self-love that makes me give my self to God and be subject to him 3. Resigning of our selves to God is an act of the greatest joy and the greatest grief Of the greatest joy and contentment for when once the Soul is blest with such a life from above as over-powers a man and makes him surrender himself to God now he is in his first and proper Center The whole state of men out of God is nothing but a constant course of confusion and restless motion who by reason of darkness and want of judgment by reason of hardness and want of sense may think they are well may think they are at home when they are not but are like men fallen asleep in a strange place so is every man that is out of God But when the heart is brought home to God it is in its place Do you think the Prodigal had not more rest in his Fathers house then among the Swine Now a man sees what a blessed change is wrought in his condition that he is come now into a state of Reconciliation with God and of unspeakable advancement of his nature that he is advanced to the greatest freedom to the greatest honor and riches to the best life every way and so this Resignation is an act of the greatest Joy It 's likewise such a work as is with the greatest grief These two will stand together neither can they be parted every mans grief is as his joy is Consider these two things 1. That when a man is brought to God he is put into a state of Judgment and Ingenuity so that now he sees things as they are and looks upon the wrongs he hath done against God with another eye an ingenuous spirit can no more forbear mourning then a stone can forbear falling to the Center 2. Think on this also that Gods end in bringing back the creature is such as cannot be accomplished without this mourning For his end is the Exaltation of his Grace Grace is no grace to an unbroken spirit Sermons of mercy are but empty sounds to a man that knows not what sorrow is God intends to make Christ precious but what is a salve a plaister though the best in the world to a man that is whole Christ came indeed to save the miserable but that man that is not brought to see his misery and mourn over it cares not for Christ Gods end is the engaging of the Creature to himself but that man will never think himself beholding to God that knows not what he hath done against God But when he sees what a wretch he hath been and his heart is stricken within him and he lies melting in sorrow and clothed with shame before God now he thinks body and Soul too little for God now if he had a thousand lives they should all go for God now he saith What can I render to the Lord c. Gods end is to bring his people in so that they may be fast when they are in that they may not go forth again But he that thinks himself off from sins that he never mourn'd for and thinks he hath escaped evil courses that he hath not been broken for will return again A mourning spirit makes a Christian stedfast in his course and this will be a bar between him and his lust He that knows not to mourn knows nor to stand fast Certainly where there is not a spirit of mourning that man hath not resign'd himself to God to this day For that which is the principle of such self-resignation doth by its vertue also work mourning abasement and brokenness of heart If the sight of God in all his goodness be that which moves and draws the Soul as with a cord unto God that very goodness of God which is so apprehended will also break and melt the Soul In Jer. 8.6 saith God I harkened and heard but they spake not aright no man repented of his wickedness saying What have I done Every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel This people made many promises that they would walk better with God but being not touch'd with an effectual sense of their injurious dealings with God they repented not Therefore they returned every man to his own ways c. If any one now should say I have little of this sorrow and therefore do suspect my self I answer 1. There is a passionate mourning which lies in weeping crying and howling and this every one hath not 2. There is a mental mourning where a man sees the things to be mourned for and where he hath such a spirit that carries him against his way and against himself and is full of wishes O that I had never been so against God and O that I might never do so again and makes the Soul walk humbly it cannot be proud now nor lift up it self because it remembers what it hath been and done against God Canst thou find these things in thy self 3. Again There is a mourning of pure necessity not willingly and contentfully but so as a man cannot avoyd it God presents himself angry and shews sin in its colour and then not an Ahab nor a Judas can forbear mourning but this mourning is bitterness But true mourning is sweet sweeter then all the comforts in the world A right spirit puts the sweetness of Heaven in mourning God cannot please him better with any thing then by touching his spirit and laying it low before him If then thine heart be touched of God and thou love him and feel some meltings thou rejoycest and purst not off this sorrow but bids it welcome and when God as a Father rebukes thee thou blessest him and lovest him 4. There is a mourning that is by fits not habitual The veriest hypocrite in the world you may find sometimes in his closet before God and he will be weeping and mourning and taking on heavily by fits but take him a while after and he is like the dry ground after a Land flood hard as a stone True mourning is another frame of spirit wherein the spirit in an usual course is carried with abasement and a secret lamenting within O