though I still love and honour the fullest Knowledge and am not of Dr. Collets mind who as Erasmus saith most slighted Augustine yet I less censure even that Carthage Council which forbad the reading of the Heathens Books of Learning and Arts than formerly I have done And I would have men savour most that Learning in their Health which they will or should savour most in Sickness and near to Death 3. And alas how dear a Vanity is this Knowledge That which is but Theorical and Notional is but a tickling delectation of the Phantasie or Mind little differing from a pleasant dream But how many Hours what gazing of the wearied Eye what stretching Thoughts of the impatient Brain must it cost us if we will attain to any Excellency Well saith Solomon Much reading is a weariness to the Flesh and He that increaseth Knowledge increaseth sorrow How many hundred studious Days and Weeks and how many hard and tearing Thoughts hath my little very little knowledg cost me And how much infirmity and painfulness to my Flesh increase of painful Diseases and loss of Bodily ease and health How much pleasure to my self of other kinds and how much acceptance with men have I lost by it which I might easily have had in a more Conversant and plausible way of life And when all is done if I reach to know any more than others of my place and order I must differ so much usually from them And if I manifest not that difference but keep all that knowledge to my self I sin against Conscience and Nature it self The Love of Man and the Love of Truth oblige me to be soberly Communicative Were I so indifferent to Truth and Knowledg as easily to forbear their propagation I must also be so indifferent to them as not to think them worth so dear a Price as they have cost me Though they are the free Gifts of God As Nature is universally inclined to the propagation of the kind by Generation so is the Intellectual Nature to the Communication of Knowledge which yet hath its Lust and inordinacy in proud ignorant hasty Teachers and Disputers as the Generating faculty hath in Fornicators and Adulterers But if I obey Nature and Conscience in Communicating that Knowledge which containeth my difference aforesaid the Dissenters too often take themselves disparaged by it how peaceably soever I manage it And as bad men take the Piety of the godly to be an accusation of their impiety so many Teachers take themselves to be accused of Ignorance by such as condemn their Errours by the light of Truth And if you meddle not with any Person yet take they their Opinions to be so much their Interest as that all that is said against them they take as said against themselves And then alas what envyings what whispering disparagements and what backbitings if not malicious slanders and underminings do we meet with from the Carnal Clergy And O that it were all from them alone and that among the Zealous and Suffering Party of faithful Preachers there were not much of such iniquity and that none of them preached Christ in strife and envy It is sad that Errour should find so much shelter under the selfishness and pride of pious men and that the Friends of Truth should be tempted to reject and abuse so much of it in their ignorance as they do But the matter of fact is too evident to be hid But especially if we meet with a Clergy that are high and have a great deal of Worldly interest at the stake Or if they be in Councils and Synods and have got the Major Vote they too easily believe that either their Grandure Reverence Names or Numbers must give them the reputation of being Orthodox and in the right and will Warrant them to account and defame him as Erroneous Heretical Schismatical Singular Factious or Proud that presumeth to contradict them and to know more than they Of which not onely the case of Nazianzene Martin Chrysostome are sad proofs but also the proceedings of too many General and Provincial Councils And so our hard studies and darling Truth must make us as Owls or reproached Persons among those Reverend Brethren who are ignorant at easier rates and who find it a far softer kind of life to think and say as the most or best esteemed do than to purchase reproach and obloquy so dearly And the religious People of the several parts will say as they hear their Teachers do and be the Militant followers of their too Militant Leaders And it will be their House talk their Shop talk their Street talk if not their Church talk that such a one is an Erroneous dangerous Man because he is not as Ignorant and Erroneous as they especially if they be the followers of a Teacher much exasperated by confutation and engaged in the Controversie and also if it should be suffering Confessors that are contradicted or men most highly esteemed for extraordinary degrees of Piety Then what cruel censures must he expect who never so tenderly would suppress their Errours O what sad Instances of this are 1. The Case of the Confessors in Cyprians Days who as many of his Epistles shew became the great disturbers of that Church 2. And the Egyptian Monks at Alexandria in the Days of Theophilus who turned Anthropomorphites and raised abominable Tumults with woful scandal and odious bloodshed 3. And O that this Age had not yet greater Instances to prove the matter than any of these And now should a Man be loth to die for fears of leaving such troublesome costly Learning and Knowledge as the wisest men can here attain 4. But the chief Answer is yet behind No Knowledge is lost but perfected and changed for much nobler sweeter greater Knowledg Let men be never so uncertain in particular de modo Whether acquired Habits of Intellect and Memory die with us as being dependant on the Body Yet by what Manner soever that a far clearer Knowledge we shall have than is here attainable is not to be doubted of And the cessation of our present Mode of knowing is but the cessation of our ignorance and imperfection As our wakening endeth a dreaming Knowledge and our Maturity endeth the trifling Knowledge of a Child For so saith the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 13. 8 9 10 11 12. Love never faileth and we can Love no more than we know But whether there be Prophesies they shall fail that is Cease Whether there be Tongues they shall cease Whether there be Knowledge Notional and Abstractive such as we have now it shall vanish away When I was a Child I spake as a Child understood as a Child I thought as a Child but when I became a Man I put away childish things For now we see through a Glass per species darkly as men understand a thing by a Metaphor Parable or Riddle but then Face to Face even Creatures intuitively as in themselves naked and open to our sight Now I know in
But God letteth us see that though the World be One yet he delighteth in a wonderful diversity and multiplicity of Individuals How various and numerous are they in the Sea and on the Land and in the Air And are there none in the other World How come the Stars therein to be so numerous which are of the same Element And though perhaps Saturn or some other Planets or many Stars may send forth their radiant Effluvia or parts into the same Air which the Sun Beams seem totally to fill and illuminate yet the Rays of the Sun and of other Stars are not the same how near soever in the same Air. § 48. Were there now no more Contraction by Egoity or Propriety among men nor Mine and Thine did signify no more nor the distance were greater than that of the several drops of Water in the Sea or particles of of Light in the illuminated Air but I had all my part in such a perfect unity and Communion with all others and knew that all were as happy as I so that there were no divisions by cross interests or minds but all were One certainly it would make my own comforts greater by far than they are now Are not an hundred Candles set together and united as splendid a flame as if they wâ—re all set asunder To one Soul one Love one Joy would be § 49. Object But it is only the fomes that individuateth Lights As when the same Sun by a burning Glass lighteth a thousand Candles they are individuate only by the matter contracting being still all united parts of the same Sun Beams And when they are extinct they are nothing or all one again Ans They were before they were extinct both One and many none but fools think that extinction annihilateth them or any part of them They are after as much Substance and as much solar Fire though diffused and as much and no more one than before but not indeed Many as before but Parts of one Nature hath made the equal diffused Sun Beams to be to the Air and surface of the Earth as the blood equally moving in the Body And our Candles and Fires seem to be like the same blood contracted in a bile or Inflammation which indeed is more felt than the equally diffused blood but it is as the pain of a disease And so when our Fires go out they are but like a healed Scattered Inflammation the same substance is more naturally and equally diffused And if the Individuation of Souls were only by Corporeal matter and the Union thus as great at their departure it would not diminish if it did not too much increase their perfection and felicity For there would be no diminution of any Substance or Power or Activity or Perfection whatsoever § 50. And this would confute their fond Opinion who think that separated Souls sleep in nudâ potentiâ for want of an organized body to operate in For no doubt but if all holy Souls were One this World either in Heaven or Earth hath a common Body enough for such a Soul to operate in Even those Stoicks that think departed Souls are One do think that that One Soul hath a nobler operation than ours in our narrow Bodies and that when our Souls cease animating this Body they have the nobler and sweeter work in part of animating the whole World And those that thought several Orbs had their several Souls of which the particular wights participated said the like of separated Souls as animating the bodies of their Globes or Orbs. And though all these men trouble their heads with their own vain imaginations yet this much the Nature of the Matter tells us which is considerable that whereas the utmost fear of the Infidel is that Souls departed lose their Individuation or Activity and are resolved into one common Soul or continue in a sleepy Potentiality for want of a Body to operate in they do but contradict themselves seeing it is a notorious Truth 1. That if all holy Souls were One no one would be a Loser by the Union but it would be a greater Gain than we must hope for For a part of One is as much and as noble and as active a Substance as if it were a separated Person And Annihilation or loss of specifique Powers is not to be rationally feared 2. And that one Soul is now either self-subsisting without a Body or animateth a suitable Body as some Ancients thought the Angels Stars If that One Soul can act without a Body so may Ours whether as parts of it or not If that One Soul animate a suitable Body ours were they united parts of it would have part of that Employment so that hereby they confute themselves § 51. Obj. But this would equalize the Good and Bad or at least those that were good in several degrees And where then were the Reward and Punishment Ans It would not equal them at all any more than distinct Personality would do For 1. The Souls of all holy Persons may be so united as that the Souls of the wicked shall have no part in that Union Whether the Souls of the wicked shall be united in one sinful miserable Soul or rather but in one sinful Society or be greatlier separate disunited contrary to each other and militant as part of their sin and misery is nothing to this case 2. Yet Natural and Moral Union must be differenced God is the Root of Nature to the worst and however in one sense it is said that There is nothing in God but God yet it is true that In Him all Live and Move and have their Being But yet the wickeds Inbeing in God doth afford them no Sanctifying and Beatifying communion with him as experience sheweth us in this life which yet holy Souls have as being made capable Recipients of it As I said different Plants Bryars and Cedars the stinking and the sweet are implanted parts or Accidents of the same World or Earth 3. And the godly themselves may have as different a share of happiness in one common Soul as they have now of Holiness and so as different Rewards even as Roses and Rosemary and other Herbs differ in the same Garden and several Fruits in the same Orchard or on the same Tree For if Souls are Unible and so Partible Substances they have neither more nor less of Substance or Holiness for their Union and so will each have his proper measure As a Tun of Water cast into the Sea will there still be the same and more than a spoonful cast into it § 52. Obj. But Spirits are not as Bodies extensive and quantitative and so not partible or divisible and therefore your supposition is vain Ans 1. My supposition is but the objectors For if they confess that Spirits are Substances as cannot with reason be denyed For they that Specify their operations by Motion only yet suppose a pure proper substance to be the subject or thing Moved then when they
that the Word of God is not a humane Dream or lifeless thing that by Regeneration hath been here preparing thee for the Light of Glory as by Generation he prepared thee to see this Light and converse with men And wilt thou yet doubt and fear against all this Evidence Experience and Foretast § 13. I think it not needless labour to confirm my Soul in the full persuasion of the truth of its own Immortal Nature and of a future Life of Joy or Misery to Mankind and of the certain Truth of the Christian Faith The Being of God and his Perfection hath so great Evidence that I find no great Temptation to doubt of it any more than whether there be an Earth or a Sun and the Atheist seemeth to me to be in that no better than Mad the Christian Verity is known only by Supernatural Revelation but by such Revelation it is so attested externally to the World and internally to Holy Souls as maketh Faith the Ruling victorious consolatory Principle by which we must live and not by sight But the Souls Immortality and Reward hereafter is of a middle Nature viz. Of Natural Revelation but incomparably less clear than the Being of a God and therefore by the addition of Evangelical Supernatural Revelation is made to us much more clear and sure And I find among the Infidels of this Age that most who deny the Christian Verity do almost as much deny or question the Retribution of a future Life And they that are fully satisfied of this do find Christianity so excellently Congruous to it as greatly facilitateth the work of Faith Therefore I think that there is scarce any verity more needful to be throughly digested into a full assurance than this of the Souls Immortality and hope of future happiness § 14. And when I consider the great unlikeness of mens Hearts and Lives to such a Belief as we all profess I cannot but fear that not only the ungodly but most that truly hope for Glory have a far weaker belief in habit and act of the Souls Immortality and the Truth of the Gospel than they seem to take notice of in themselves Can I be certain or fully persuaded in habit and act of the future Rewards and Punishments of Souls and that we shall be all shortly judged as we have lived here and yet not despise all the Vanities of this World and set my heart with resolution and diligence to the preparation which must be made by a holy heavenly fruitful Life as one whose Soul is taken up with the hopes and fears of things of such unspeakable importance Who could stand dallying as most men do at the Door of Eternity that did verily believe his Immortal Soul must be shortly there Though such a one had no certainty of his own particular Title to Salvation the certainty of such a grand concernment that Joy or misery is at hand would surely awaken him to try to cry to search to beg to strive to watch to spare no care or cost or labour to make all sure in a matter of such weight It could not be but he would do it with speed and do it with a full resolved Soul and do it with earnest zeal and diligence What Man that once saw the things which we hear of even Heaven and Hell would not afterwards at least in deep regard and seriousness exceed the most resolved Believer that you know One would think in Reason it should be so thought I confess a wicked Heart is very sensless § 15. I do confess that there is much weakness of the Belief of things unseen where yet there is sincerity But surely there will be some proportion between our Belief and its Effects And where there is little Regard or Fear or Hopes or Sorrow or Joy or resolved Diligence for the World to come I must think that there is in act at least but little belief of it and that such Persons little know themselves how much they secretly doubt whether it be true I know that most complain almost altogether of the uncertainty of their Title to Salvation and little of their uncertainty of a Heaven and Hell But were they more certain of this and truly persuaded of it at the Heart it would do more to bring them to that serious resolved faithfulness in Religion which would help them more easily to be sure of their Sincerity than long examinations many marks talked of without this will do § 16. And I confess that the great Wisdom of God hath not thought meet that in the Body we should have as clear and sensible and lively apprehensions of Heaven and Hell as sight would cause For that would be to have too much of Heaven or Hell on Earth for the gust would follow the perception and so full a sense would be some sort of a possession which we are not fit for in this World And therefore it must be a darker Revelation than sight would be that it may be a lower Perception lest this World and the next should be confounded and Faith and Reason should be put out of Office and not duly tryed exercised and fitted for reward But yet Faith is Faith and Knowledg is Knowledg and he that verily believeth such great transcendent things though he see them not will have some proportionable affections and endeavours § 17. I confess also that Man's Soul in Flesh is not fit to bear so deep a sense of Heaven and Hell as sight would cause because it here operateth on and with the Body and according to its capacity which cannot bear so deep a sense without distraction by screwing up the Organs too high till they break and so over doing would undo all But yet there is an over-ruling Seriousness which a certain belief of future things must needs bring the Soul to that truly hath it And he that is careful and serious for this World and looketh after a better but with a slight unwilling half-regard and in the second place must give me leave to think that he believeth but as he liveth and that his doubting or unbelief of the reality of a Heaven Hell is greater than his Belief § 18. O then for what should my Soul more pray than for a clearer and a stronger Faith I believe Lord help my unbelief I have many a Thousand times groaned to thee under the burden of this remnant of darkness and unbelief I have many Thousand times thought of the Evidences of the Christian verity and of the great necessity of a lively powerful active Faith I have begged it I have cryed to thee Night and Day Lord increase my Faith I have written and spoken that to others which might be most useful to my self to raise the apprehensions of Faith yet higher and make them liker those of sense But yet yet Lord how dark is this World What a Dungeon is this Flesh How little clearer is my sight and little quicker are my perceptions of unseen things
my Head in which abundance desire not or expect not impossibilities from me And how great is the number of them that expect unrighteous things By nothing do I displease so many as by not displeasing God and my Conscience And for nothing am so deeply accused of sin as for not sinning And the World will not think well of any thing that crosseth their Opinion and Carnal interest be it never so conform to God's Commands I must confess that while I suffer from all sides few men have more common and open Praises from their Persecutors than I But while they praise me in the general and for other particulars they aggravate my Non-conformity to their Opinions and Wills and take me to be so much the more hurtful to them The greatest Crimes that have been charged on me have been for the things which I thought to be my greatest duties and for those parts of my obedience to my Conscience and God which cost me dearest And where I pleased my Flesh least I pleased the World least At how cheap a rate to my Flesh could I have got the Applause of factious men if that had been my end and business Would I have conformed to their Wills and taken a Bishoprick and the Honour and Riches of the World how good a Man had I been called by the Diocesan party And O what praise I should have with the Papists could I turn Papist And all the backbitings and bitter Censures of the Antinomians Anabaptists and Separatists had been turned into praise could I have said as they or not contradicted them But otherwise there is no escaping their accusations And is this tumultuous militant yea malignant World a place that I should be loth to leave Alas our darkness and weakness and passions are such that it 's hard for a Family or a few faithful Friends to live so evenly in the exercise of Love as not to have oft unpleasant Jars What then is to be expected from Strangers and from Enemies Ten thousand Persons will judge of abundance of my Words and Actions who never knew the Reasons of them Every ones conceptions are as the report and conveyance of the matter to them is And while they have a various Light and false Reports and defectiveness will make them false what can be expected but false injurious Censures § 8. And though no outward thing on Earth is more precious than the Holy Word and Worship and Ordinances of God yet even here I see that which pointeth me up higher and telleth me it is much better to be with Christ 1. Shall I love the Name of Heaven better than Heaven itself The Holy Scriptures are precious because I have there the Promise of Glory but is not the Possession better than the Promise If a Light and Guide thither through this Wilderness be good surely the End must needs be better And it hath pleased God that all things on Earth and therefore even the Sacred Scriptures should bear the Marks of our state of imperfection Imperfect Persons were the Pen-men and imperfect humane Language is the conveying signal organical part of the matter And the Method and Phrase though true and blameless are far short of the heavenly Perfection Else so many Commentators had not found so hard a task of it to expound innumerable difficulties and reconcile so many seeming contradictions nor would Infidels find matter of so strong temptation and so much cavil as they do nor would Peter have told us of the difficulties of Pauls Epistles and such occasions of mens wresting them to their own destruction Heaven will not be made to perfect Spirits the occasion of so many Errors and Controversies and quarrels as the Scriptures are to us imperfect men on Earth Yea Heaven is the more desirable because there I shall better understand the Scriptures than here I can ever hope to do All the hard passages now misunderstood will there be made plain and all the seeming contradictions reconciled and which is much more that God that Christ that New Jerusalem that Glory and that Felicity of Souls which are now known but darkly and enigmatically in the Glass will then be known intuitively as we see the Face itself whose Image only the Glass first shewed us To leave my Bible and go to the God and the Heaven that is revealed will be no otherwise a loss to me than to lay by my Crutches or Spectacles when I need them not or to leave his Image for the presence of my Friend 2. Much less do I need to fear the loss of all other Books or Sermons or other Verbal informations Much reading hath oft been a weariness to my Flesh and the pleasure of my Mind is much abated by the great imperfection of the means Many Books must be partly read that I may know that they are scarce worth the reading And many must be read to enable us to satisfie other mens expectations and to confute those who abuse the authority of the Authors against the Truth And many good Books must be read that have little to add to what we have read in many others before and many that are blotted with ensnaring Errours Which if we detect not we leave snares for such as see them not And if we detect them never so tenderly if truly we are taken to be injurious to the Honour of the Learned godly Authors and proudly to overvalue our own conceipts And so lamentable is the Case of all Mankind by the imperfections of humane Language that those Words which are invented for communication of conceptions are so little fitted to their use as rather to occasion misunderstandings and contentions There being scarce a Word that hath not many significations and that needeth not many more words to bring us to the true notice of the speakers Mind And when every word is a Signum that hath three relations 1. To the Matter spoken of 2. To the Mind of the Speaker as signifying his conceptions of that matter 3. And to the Mind of the Hearer or Reader which is to be informed by it it is so hard to find and use words that are fitted indeed to all these uses and to have store of such and mix no other that few if any in the World were ever so happy as to attain it 1. And if words be not fitted to the Matter or Things they are false as to their first and proper use And yet the penury of apt words and the redundancy of others and the Authority of the Masters of Sciences imposing Arbitrary Terms and Notions on their Disciples and the Custom of the Vulgar who have the Empire as to the fense of Words have all conspired to make words inept and of very uncertain signification So that when Students have learnt words by long and hard Studies they are oft little the nearer the true knowledg of the Things and too oft by their ineptitude misled to false conceptions And so their saying is too often true
in so comfortable a work as to plead and write for Love Peace and Concord and to vouchsafe me so much success therein as he hath done notwithstanding the general prevalency of the contentious military Tribe Mercy I have had in Peace and Liberty in times of Violence And Mercy I have had in Wars living two years in safety in a City of defence in the very midst of the Land Coventry and seeing no enemy while the Kingdom was in Wars and Flames and only hearing of the common Calamities round about And when I went abroad and saw the effects of humane folly and fury and of God's displeasure he mercifully kept me from hurting any one and being hurt by any How many a time hath he preserved me by Day and Night in difficulties and dangers from the Malice of Satan and from the Wrath of Man and from accidents which threatned sudden Death While I beheld the ruines of Towns and Countreys and the Fields covered with the Carkasses of the slain I was preserved and returned home in Peace And O how great was the mercy which he shewed me in a teachable tractable peaceable humble unanimous People So many in number and so exemplary in quality who to this Day keep their Integrity and Concord when violence hath separated me from them Twenty two years Yea the like Mercy of acceptance and success beyond my expectation he hath shewed me every where I have had opportunity of free ministration even where there were many Adversaries I have had an open Door in the midst of humane Wrath and Rage he hath preserved my Liberty beyond expectation and continued my acceptance and success When I might not speak by Voice to any single Congregation he enabled me to speak by Writings to many and for the success of my plainest popular writings which cost me least I can never be sufficiently thankful Some of which he sent to preach abroad in other Languages in forreign Lands When my Mouth with Eighteen hundred or Two thousands more had been many years stopped he hath since opened them in some degree and the sufferings intended us by men have been partly put by and partly much alleviated by his Providence and the hardness of our Terms hath not so much hindâ—ed the success of faithful Labours as we feared and as others hoped it would have done I have had the comfort of seeing some Peace and Concord and Prosperity of Truth and Piety kept up under the utmost opposition of diabolical and humane Power Policy and Wrath When I have been sent to the common Jail for my service and obedience to him he hath there kept me in peace and soon delivered me He hath made the Mouths of my greatest Enemies who have studied my defamation and my ruine to become my Witnesses and Compurgators and to cross their own designs How wonderful is it that I should so long dwell in so much peace in the midst of those that seemed to want neither Power nor Skill and much less Will to tread me down into contempt and misery And O how many a danger fear and pain hath he delivered this frail and languishing Body from How oft hath he succoured me when Flesh and Heart and Art have failed He hath cured my consuming Coughs and many a time stayed my flowing Blood he hath eased my pained Limbs and support'd a weary macerat'd Skeleton He hath fetcht me up from the Jaws of Death and reversed the Sentence which men have passed on me How many Thousand weary days have been sweetned with his pleasant work And how many Thousand painful weary Nights have had a comfortable Morning How many Thousand strong and healthful Persons have been taken away by Death whilst I have been upheld under all this weakness Many a time have I cryed to the Lord in my trouble and he hath delivered me out of my distress I have had Forty years added to my Daies since I would have been full glad of Hezekiah's promise of Fifteen Since the day that I first preached his Gospel I expected not of long time to live above a Year and I have lived since then Forty years when my own Prayers were cold and unbelieving how many Hundreds have prayed for me And what strange deliverances encouraging Fasting and Prayer have I oft had upon their importunate requests My Friends have been faithful and the few that proved unfaithful have profitably taught me to place no confidence in Man and and not to be inordinately affected to any thing on Earth for I was forsaken by none of them but those few that I excessively valued and overloved My Relations have been comfortable to me contrary to my deserts and much beyond my expectations My Servants have been faithful My Neighbours have been kind My Enemies have been impotent harmless or profitable My Superiours have honoured me by their respectful words and while they have afflicted me as supposing me a remora to their designs they have not destroyed but protected me To my inferiours God hath made me in my low capacity somwhat helpful I have been protected in ordinary health and safety when the raging Pestilence came near my Habitation and consumed an Hundred thousand Citizens My dwelling hath been safe when I have seen the glory of the Land in flames and after beheld the dismal ruines When violence separated me from my too much beloved Library and drove me into a poor and smoaky House I never had more help of God nor did more difficult work than there What pleasant retirements and quietness in the Countrey have been the fruits of persecuting Wrath And I must not forget when I had more publick liberty how he saved me and all my Hearers even by a wonder from being buried in the ruines of the Fabrick where we were and others from the Calamitous Scandal and Lamentations which would else have followed And it is not a Mercy to be extenuated that when the Tongues and Pens of all Sects among us and of proâ—d self-exalters and of some worthy Pious differing Brethren have been long and vehemently bent against me when my infamy hath been endeavoured by abundance of Volumes by the backbiting of angry dividers of all sorts and by the calumniating accusations of some that were too high to be gain-said and would not endure me to answer them and vindicate my innocency yet all these together were never able to fasten their accusations and procure any common belief nor to bring me under the designed contempt much less to break my comforts encouragements or labours These all these and very many more than these are my Experiences of that wondrous MERCY which hath measured my Pilgrimage and filled up my daies Never did God break his Promise with me Never did he fail me nor forsake me Had I not provoked him by rash and wilful sinning how little Interruption of my peace and comforts had I ever been likely to have had And shall I now distrust him at the last Shall I not
is commended and Truth and Goodness accused and oppressed because mens Minds are unacquainted with them or unsuitable to them And those that are the greatest pretenders to Truth do most eagerly contend against it and oppose it and almost all the World are scolding or scuffling in the Dark And where there appeareth but little hopes of a remedy I say can I love such a World as this And shall I not think more delightfully of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light and the uniting Love and joyful praises of the Church triumphant and the heavenly Chore Should I not love a Lovely and a Loving World much better than a World where there is comparatively 〈◊〉 little Loveliness or Love All that is of God is Good and Lovely But it is not here that his Glory shineth in felicitating Splendor I am taught to look upward when I pray and to say Our Father which art in Heaven God's works are amiable even in Hell and yet though I would know them I would not be there And alas how much of the works of Man are mixed here with the works of God Here is God's Wisdom manifest but here is Man's obstinate folly Here is God's Government but here is Mans Tyranny and Unruliness Here is God's Love and Mercies but here are mâ—ns Malice Wrath and Cruelty by which they are worse to one another than Wolves or Tigers depopulating Countries and filling the World with Bloodshed Famine Misery and Lamentations proud Tyrants being worse than raging Plagues which made David choose the Pestilence before his Enemies pursuit Here is much of God's beauteous order and harmony But here is also much of Man's madness deformity and confusion Here is much historical Truth and some Civil and Ecclesiastick Justice but alas with how much odious falsehood and injustice is it mixed Here is much precious Theological Verity But how dark is much of it to such blind and negligent and corrupted minds as every where abound Here are wise judicious Teachers and Companions to be found but alas how few in comparison of the most And how hardly known by those that need them Here are Sound and Orthodox Ministers of Christ But how few that most need them know which are they and how to value them or use them And how many Thousands of seduced or sensual Sinners are made believe that they are but Deceivers or as they called Paul pestilent fellows and movers of Sedition among the People And in how many parts of the World are they as the Prophets that Obadiah hid in Caves or as Micatah or Elias among the Lying Prophets or the Baalites Though such as of whom the World is not worthy And is that World then more worthy of any love than Heaven There are Worthy and Religious Families which honour God and are honoured by him But alas how few And usually by the temptations of Wealth and Worldly Interest how full even of the sins of Sodom Pride Fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness if not also Unmercifulness to the Poor And how are they tempted to plead for their sins and snares and account it rustick Ignorance which contradicteth them And how few Pious Families are there of the greater sort that do not quickly degenerate and Posterity by false Religion Errour or Sensuality grow most contrary to the minds of their Pious Progenitors There are many that educate their Children wisely in the fear of God and have accordingly comfort in them But how many are there that having devoted them in Baptism to God do train them up in the service of the Flesh the World and the Devil which they renounced and never understood or at least intended for themselves or Children what they did profess How many Parents think that when they offer their Children to God in Baptism without a sober and due consideration of the nature and meaning of that great Covenant with God that God must accept and certainly regenerate and save them Yea too many Religious Parents forget that they themselves are Sponsors in that Covenant and undertake to use the means on their part to make their Children sit for the Grace of the son and the Communion of the Spirit as they grow up and think God should absolutely sanctifie keep and save them at Age because they are theirs and were Baptized though they keep them not from great and unnecessary temptations nor teach them plainly and seriously the meaning of the Covenant which was made for them with God as to the nature benefits or conditions of it How many send them to others to be taught in Grammar Logick Philosophy or Arts yea and Divinity before their own Parents ever taught them what they did with God in Baptism what they received And what they promised and vowed to do They send them to Trades or secular Callings or to travel in forreign Lands among a Multitude of Snares among tempting Company and tempting Baits before ever at home they were instructed armed and settled against those Temptations which they must needs encounter and which if they overcome them they are undone How ordinarily when they have first neglected this great duty of their own for their fortification do they plead a necessity of thrusting them out on these temptations though utterly unarmed from some Punctilio of Honour or Conformity to the World to avoid the Contempt of worldly men or to adorn their yet naked Souls with some of the Plumes or painted Trifles Ceremonies or Complements which will never serve instead of heavenly Wisdom Mortification and the Love of God and Man As if they were like to learn that fear of God in a croud of diverting and tempting Company Baits and Business which they never learnt under the teaching nurture and daily oversight of their religious Parents in a safer station Or as if for some little reason they might send them as to Sea without Pilot or Anchor and think that God must save them from the Waves Or as if it were better to enter them into Satans School or Army and venture them upon the notorious danger of Damnation than miss of Preferment and Wealth or of the Fashions and Favour of the Times And then when they hear that they have forsaken God and true Religion and given up themselves to Lust and Sensuality and perhaps as Enemies to God and good men destroy what their Parents laboured to build up these Parents wonder at God's Judgments and with broken Hearts lament their infelicity when it were better to lament their own misdoing and it had been best of all to have prevented it Thus Families Churches and Kingdoms run on to blindness ungodliness and confusion Self-undoing and serving the malice of Satan for fleshly Lust is the too common employment of Mankind All is wise and good and sweet which is prescribed us by God in true Nature or Supernatural revelation But folly sin and misery mistaking themselves to be Wit and Honesty and Prosperity and raging against that which nominally
by his life Having loved his own to the end he loveth them and without end His Gifts and Calling are without Repentance When Satan and thy Flesh would hide God's love look to Christ and read the golden words of Love in the Sacred Gospel and peruse thy many recorded experiences and remember the convictions which secret and open Mercies have many a time afforded thee But especially draw nearer to the Lord of Love and be not seldom and slight in thy contemplations of his Love and Loveliness Dwell in the Sun-shine and thou wâ—lt know that it is light and warm and comfortable Distance and strangeness cherish thy doubts Acquaint thy self with him and be at peace Yet look up and oft and earnestly look up after thy ascended glorified Head who said Tell my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God! Think where and what he is and what he is now doing for all his own and how humbled abased suffering Love is now Triumphant regnant glorified Love and therefore no less than in all its tender expressions upon Earth As Love is no where perfectly revealed but in Heaven so I can no where so fully discern it as by looking up by Faith to my Father and Saviour which is in Heaven and conversing more believingly with the heavenly Society Had I done this more and better and as I have persuaded others to do it I had lived in more convincing delights of God's Love which would have turned the fears of Death into joyfuller hopes and more earnest desires to be with Christ in the Arms in the World in the life of Love as far better than to be here in a dark a doubting fearing World But O my Father Infinite LOVE though my Arguments be many and strong my Heart is bad and my strength is weakness and I am insufficient to plead the cause of thy Love and Loveliness to my self or others O plead thy own cause and what Heart can resist Let it not be my word only but Thine that thou lovest me even me a Sinner speak it as Christ said to Lazarus Arise If not as thou tellest me that the Sun is warm yet as thou hast told me that my Parents and my dearest Friends did love me and much more powerfully than so Tell it me as thou tellest me that thou hast given me life by the consciousness and works of life That while I can say Thou that knowest all things Knowest that I love Thee it may include therefore I know that I am beloved of thee and therefore come to thee in the confidence of thy Love and long to be nearer in the clearer sight the fuller sense and joyfuller exercise of Love for ever Father into thy Hand I commend my Spirit Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Amen AN APPENDIX A Breviate of the Helps of Faith Hope and Love A Breviate of the proof of Supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity 1 TIM 3. 16. Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory THese are the Creed or Six Articles of the Gospel which the Apostles preached § 1. I. God manifested in the Flesh of Jesus is the first and great Article Believe this and believe all No wonder that believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is so often made in Scripture the description of saving Faith the Title to Baptism and Pardon and Salvation the Evidence of the Spirit c. He that truly and practically believeth that God came in Flesh to Man and that Christ is the Fathers Messenger from Heaven must needs believe that God hath a great value for the Souls of men and for his Church that he despiseth not even our Flesh that his Word is true and fully to be trusted that he who so wonderfully came to Man will certainly take up Man to him Who can doubt of the Immortality of Souls or that Christ will receive the departing Souls of the Faithful to himself who believeth that he took Man's Nature and hath glorified it now in Heaven in union with the Divine Who can ever have low Thoughts of God's love and Mercy who believeth this And who can prostitute his Soul and Flesh to wickedness who firmly believeth that he took the Soul and Flesh of Man to sanctifie and glorifie it § 2. II. The holy Spirit is the Justification of the Truth of Jesus Christ He is Christ's Advocate and Witness to the World He proveth the Gospel by these five ways of Evidence I. By all the Prophesies Types and Promises of Christ in the Old Testament before Christs coming II. By the Inherent impress of God's Image on the Person and Doctrine of Christ VVhich Propria luce sheweth itself to be Divine III. By the concomitant Miracles of Christ Read the History of the Gospel for this use and observe each History IV. By the subsequent gift of the Spirit to the Apostles and other Christians by Languages wonders and multitudes of Miracles to convince the VVorld V. By the undeniable and excellent work of Sanctification on all true Believers through all the VVorld in all generations to this day These five are the Spirits VVitness which fully justifieth the certain Truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God § 3. Quest But how are we sure who our selves never saw the Person Miracles Resurrection Ascension of Christ that the History of them is true Answ 1. We may be sure that the Spectators were not deceived II. And that they did not deceive them to whom they reported it III. And that we are not deceived by any miscarriage in the historical Tradition to us § 4. I. It was not possible that men that were not mad that had Eyes and Ears could for three Years and a half believe that they saw the Lame the Blind the Deaf and all Diseases healed the Dead raised Thousands miraculously fed c. and this among crouds of People that still followed Christ if the things had not been true One Man's Senses may be deceived at some one instance by some deceitful accident But that the Eyes and Ears of Multitudes should be so oft deceived many years in the open Light is as much as to say No Man knoweth any thing that he seeth and heareth § 5. II. That the Disciples who received the Apostles and Evangelists report of Christ were not deceived by the Reporters is most evident For 1. They received it not by hearsay at the second hand but from the Eye and Ear Witnesses themselves who must needs know what they said 2. They heard this report from Men of the same Time and Age and Countrey where it was easy to examine the case and confute it had it been false 3. The Apostles appealed to crouds and Thousands of Witnesses as to many of Christ's Miracles who would have made it odious had it not been
not how erroneously they think The sensible souls of Bruits are substance And therefore are not annihilated at death But God put them under us and made them for us and us more nearly for himself Bruits have not Faculties to know and love God to meditate on him or praise him or by moral agency to obey his Precepts They desire not any higher felicity than they have God will have us use their service yea their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us He tells us not what he doth with them after death But whatever it is it is not annihilation and it 's like they are in a state still of service unto Man Whether united or how individuate we know not Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superiour Regions where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here where the Spirits of Bruits are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies to those low rational Spirits that inhabite the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh But it 's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know love praise and obey him and trust him for Glory which he never gave to them because they were not made for things so high Every Creatures Faculties are suited to their use and ends And Love tells me that the blessed God who giveth to Bruits that life health and pleasure which they are made and fitted for will give his Servants that heavenly delight in the fulness of his Love and Praise and and mutual joyful Love to one another which Nature fundamentally and Grace more immediately hath made them fit for Blessed Jehovah for what tasts of this effused Love thou hast given me my Soul doth bless thee with some degree of gratitude and joy And for those further measures which I want and long for and which my pained languid state much needs and would raise my joyful hopes of Glory I wait I beg from day to day O give me now at the Door of Heaven some fuller taste of the heavenly Felicity Shed more abroad upon my Heart by the Holy Ghost that Love of thine which will draw up my longing Soul to thee rejoicing in hope of the Glory of God FINIS This is the true mean between George Keith the Quakers Doctrine of Continued Inspiration Intuition and that on the other extream Matth. 28. 18. Joh. 5. 22. Joh. 17. 2. Joh. 12. 26. Joh. 3. 16. Rom. 8. 35 36 37 30. * 1 Pet. 4. 6. They that died to or in the Flesh according to Men do live in the Spirit according to God * Indeed if the Soul were not Immortal the Resurrection were impossible It might be a new Creation of another Soul but not a Resurrection of the same if the same be annihilated It 's certain that the Jews believed the Immortality of the Soul in that they believed the Resurrection and future life of the same Man * Psal 34. 7. 91. 11 12. Luk. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 11. 10. Heb. 1. 14. 12. 22. 13. 2. Mat. 18. 10. 25. 31. 13. 39 49. Act. 5. 19. 8. 26. 12. 7. 23. * Of this see the Second Edition by Dr. More of Mr. Glanvile's Book of Apparitions called Atheismus Triumphatus †For the truth of this read Mr. Fairclough's Life * See what I have said of particular Testimonies in my Saints Rest and unreasonableness of Infidelity * 1 Joh. 5. 9 10 11. Gal. 5. 17. Rom. 7. Phil. 3. 7. to the 15. * Eph. 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 23. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Eph. 1. 13. 4. 30. 1 Joh. 5. 9 10. Heb. 10. 15. * This one Truth will give great Light into the Controversies about God's gracious Operations on the Soul For when he useth second Causes we see he Operateth according to their limited aptitude And Christ's humane Nature and all other second Causes are limited and operate variously and resistibly according to the Recipients capacity * Treat of Infidelity Luke 15. 10. And Mr. Beverly in his Great Soul of Man ☞