feel though they are such as were sanctified never so early before actual sin had time to breed those evil habits which therefore certainly were born with us And if the Image of God consisting in true holiness be not natural or born in every Infant in the world then Original sin must needs be born with them for that sin is either only or chiefly the Privation of that Image or Holiness He that will say that this Image is not requisite to Infants and so that the absence of it is a meer negation doth make them bruits and not of the race of man whom God created after his Image and leaves them uncapable of Heaven or Hell or any other life then beasts have And he that thinks so of Infants to day may think so of himself to morrow And he that will affirm that this Image or Holiness is born with every Infant into the world so wilfully contradicteth common evidence which appeareth in the contrary effects that he is not worthy to be further talkt with One thing more I will propound yet to the contrary-minded Can they say that any Infants are saved or not If not either they perish as bruits which is a bruitish opinion or they live in misery and then they had sin that did deserve it yea if they think that any of them perish in the wrath to come it must be for sin If they think that any of them are saved it is either by covenant or without there is some promise for it or there is none If none then no man can say that any of them are saved For who hath known the mind of the Lord without his Revelation It is arrogancy to tell the world of the saving of any that God did no way reveal that he will save But if they plead a Revelation or promise it is either the Covenant of Nature or of Grace a promise contained in Nature Law or Gospel The former cannot be affirmed not only because the dissenters themselves deny any such Covenant to have been in nature or any way made to Adam but because there is no such Covenant or promise in Nature to be found for the Salvation of all Infants and if not for all then for none and because it is contrary to abundance of plain passages in the Scriptures that assure us there is but One Covenant of Salvation now in force and that all the world shall become guilty before God and every mouth be stopped Rom. 3. 19. and that by the deeds of the Law no flesh shall be justified in his sight v. 20. Gal. 2. 16. And if righteousness come by the Law then Christ is dead in vain Gal. 2. 21. For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the Curse Gal. 3. 10. And that no man is Justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith and the Law is not of faith but The man that doth them shall live in them And certainly the Law of nature requireth not less then Moses Law to a mans justification if not more And if there had been a Law given which could have given life verily Righteousness should have been by the Law But the Scripture hath concluded All under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that belive Gal. 3. 21 22. By the fulness of this evidence it is easie to see that Infants and all mankind are sinners and therefore have need of the Redeemer 2. To know God as our Redeemer containeth the knowledge of the great ends of our Redemption and of the manifestation of God to man thereby Having treated of these in the Book forecited I shall now say but this in brief It is beyond dispute that God could have made man capable of Glory and kept him from falling by confirming grace and without a Redeemer setled him in felicity as he did the Angels He that foresaw mans fall and necessity of a Saviour could easily have prevented that sin and necessity But he would not he did not but chose rather to permit it and save man by the way of a Redeemer In which his Infinite wisdom is exceedingly manifested And in Christ who is the Power and Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1. 24. among others these excellent effects are declared to us which the way of Redemption attaineth above what the saving us on the terms of Nature would have attained 1. God is now wonderfully admired and magnified in the person of the Redeemer Angels themselves desire to pry into this mysterie 1 Pet. 1. 12. As the frame of Nature is set us to see God in where we daily as in a glass behold him and admire him so the person of the Redeemer and work of Incarnation and Redemption is set the Angels for their contemplation and admiration as well as us Eph. 3. 10. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God And in the glorious perfection and dignity of the Redeemer will God be everlastingly glorified For his greatest works do greatliest honour him And as the sun doth now to us more honour him then a star so the glorified person of the Redeemer doth more honour God then man or Angels 1 Pet. 3. 23. He is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels and Authorities and Powers being made subject to him Eph. 1. 20 21 22. Being raised from the dead God hath set him at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his Body the fulness of him that filleth all in all Heb. 1. 3. Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high being made so much better then the Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they And here a very great truth appeareth which very many overlook that the exaltation of the person of the Redeemer and the glory that God will have in him is a higher and more principal part of Gods intent in the sending of him to be Incarnate and Redeem us then the glorifying of man and of God by us Christ will be more glorious then men or Angels and therefore will more glorifie God and God will eternally take more complacency in him then in men or Angels And therefore though in several respects He is for us and the means of our felicity and we are for him and the means of his glory as the Head is for the Body and the Body
the living And so it containeth all the former in their highest perfection that is both Natural Life and Moral-Spiritual Life and the holy exercise thereof together with the full attainment and fruition of God in Glory the End of all ETERNAL That is simply eternal objectively as to God the principal object and Eternal ex parte post subjectively that is Everlasting THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL Not Natural life in it self considered as the Devils and wicked men shall have it But 1. It is the same Moral-Spiritual Life which shall have no End but endure to Eternity It is a Living to God in Love But only initial and very imperfect here in comparison of what it will be in Heaven 2. It is the Eternal felicity 1. Seminally for Grace is as it were a seed of Glory 2. As it is the Necessary way or means of attaining it and that preparation which infallibly procureth it The Perfect Holiness of the Saints in Heaven will be one part of their perfect happiness And this Holiness imperfect they have here in this life It is the same God that we know and love here and there and with a Knowledge and Love that is of the same nature seminally As the egg is of the nature of the Bird Whether it may be properly said to be formally and specifically the same quoad actum as well as quoad objectum yea whether the Objectum clare visum and the objectum in speculo vel aenigmate visum make not the act specifically differ I shall not trouble you to dispute And this imperfect Holiness hath the promise of Perfect Holiness and Happiness in the full fruition of God hereafter So it is the Seed and Prognostick of Life Eternal TO KNOW Non semper ubique eodem modo vel gradu Not to know God here and hereafter in the same manner or degree But to know him here as in a glass and hereafter in his Glory as face to face To know him by an Affective Practical knowledge There is no Text of Scripture of which the rule is more clearly true and necessary than of this that Words of Knowledge do imply affection It is the closure of the whole soul with God which is here called the knowing of God And because it is not meet to name every particular act of the soul when ever this duty is mentioned it is all denominated from Knowledge as the first Act which inferreth all the rest 1. Knowledge of God in the Habit is Spiritual Life as a Principle 2. Knowledge of God in the exercise is Spiritaal Life as an employment 3. The Knowledge of God in perfection with its effects is Life Eternal as it signifieth full felicity What it containeth I shall further shew anon THEE That is The Father called by some Divines Fons vel fundamentum Trinitatis the fountain or foundation of the Trinity and oft used in the same sense as the word GOD to signifie the pure Deity THE ONLY He that believeth that there is more Gods than One believeth not in any For though he may give many the Name yet the description of the true God can agree to none of them He is not God indeed if he be not One only This doth not at all exclude Jesus Christ as the second person in Trinity but only distinguisheth the pure Deity or the Only true God as such from Jesus Christ as Mediator between God and man TRUE There are many that falsly and Metaphorically are called Gods If we think of God but as one of these it is not to know him but deny him GOD The word GOD doth not only signifie the Divine perfections in himself but also his Relation to the Creatures To be a God to us is to be one to whom we must ascribe all that we are or have and one whom we must Love and obey and honour with all the powers of soul and body and one on whom we totally depend and from whom we expect our judgement and reward in whom alone we can be perfectly blessed AND JESUS CHRIST That is As Mediator in his Natures God and man and in his Office and Grace WHOM THOU HAST SENT That is whom thy Love and Wisdom designed and commissioned to this undertaking and performance The Knowledge of the Holy Ghost seemeth here left out as if it were no part of life Eternal But 1. At that time the Holy Ghost in that Eminent sort as sent by the Father and Son on the Apostles after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was not yet so manifested as afterwards and therefore not so necessarily to be distinctly known and believed in as after The having of the Spirit being of more necessity than the distinct knowledge of him Certain it is that the Disciples were at first very dark in this article of faith And Scripture more fully revealeth the necessity to salvation of believing in the Father and Son than in the Holy Ghost distinctly yet telling us that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. 2. But presently after when the Spirit was to be sent the necessity of believing in him is expressed especially in the Apostles Commission to Baptize all Nations that were made Disciples in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Doct. THe Knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ the Mediator is the Life of Grace and the necessary way to the life of Glory As James distinguisheth between such a dead faith as Devils and wicked men had and such a living and working faith as was proper to the justified so must we here of the Knowledge of God Many profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. There is a form of knowledge which the unbelievers had Rom. 2. 22. and a knowledge which puffeth up and is void of Love which hypocrites have 1 Cor. 8. 1. 13. But no man spiritually knoweth the things of God but by the spirit And they that rightly know his name will put their trust in him Psal. 9 10. Thus he giveth the regenerate a heart to know him Jer. 24. 7. and the new creature is renewed in knowledge Col. 3. 10. And vengeance shall be poured out on them that know not God 2 Thes. 1. 8. This saving Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life containeth and implyeth in it all these acts 1. The understandings apprehesion of God according to the necessary articles of faith 2. A Belief of the truth of these articles that God is and is such as he is therein described 3. An high estimation of God accordingly 4. A Volition complacency or Love to him as God the chiefest Good 5. A Desiring after him 6. A Choosing him with the rejection of all competitors 7. A Consent that he be our God and a giving up our selves to him as his people 8. An intending him as our Ultimate End in
Praises of the Lord. The Goodness of God should be a daily feast to a gracious soul and should continually feed our cheerful Praises as the spring or cistern fills the Pipes I know no sweeter work on earth nay I am sure there is no sweeter then for faithful sanctified souls rejoicingly to magnifie the Goodness of the Lord and joyn together in his cheerful Praises O Christians if you would tast the Joys of Saints and live like the redeemed of the Lord indeed be much in the exercise of this Heavenly work and with holy David make it your employment and say O how great is thy Goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Psal. 31. 19. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal. 33. 5. What then are the Heavens Thy Congregation hath dwelt therein thou O Lord hast prepared thy Goodness for the poor O that men would praise the Lord for his Goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men For he satisfyeth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness Psal. 107. 8 9. The goodness of God endureth continually Psal. 52. 1. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart Psal. 73. 1. O taste and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him Psal. 34. 8. The Lord is good his mercy is Everlasting his truth endureth from generation to generation Psal. 100. 5 The Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his works Psal. 145. 9. O Praise the Lord for the Lord is good sing Praises to his name for it is pleasant Psal. 135. â— Call him as David My goodness and my fortress my high tower and my deliverer and my shield and he in whom I trust Psal. 144 2. Let men therefore speak of the glorious honour of his Majesty and of his wonderous works Let them abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness and sing of his Righteousness Psal. 145 5 7. If there be a thought that is truly sweet to the soul it is the Thought of the Infinite Goodness of the Lord. If there be a pleasant word for man to speak it is the mention of the Infinite goodness of the Lord And if there be a pleasant hour for man on earth to spend and a delightful work for man to do it is to meditate on and with the Saints to Praise the Infinite goodness of the Lord. What was the glory that God shewed unto Moses and the tast of Heaven that he gave him upon Earth but this I will make all my Goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and I will be gracious on whom I will be gracious and will shew Mercy on whom I will shew Mercy Exod. 33. 19. And his proclaimed Name was The Lord the Lord God Merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth Exod. 34. 6. These were the holy Praiâ—es that Solomon did consecrate the Temple with 2 Chron. 6. 41. Arise O Lord God into thy resting place thou and the Ark of thy strength let thy Priests O Lord God be cloathed with salvation and let thy Saints rejoyce in Goodness See Isai. 63. O Christians if you would have joy indeed let this be your employment Draw neer to God and have no low undervaluing thoughts of his Infinite Goodness For How great is his Goodness and how great is his Beauty Zach. 9 17. Why is it that Divine Consolations are so strange to us but because Dive Goodnesâ— is so lightly thought upon As those that think little of God at all have little of God upon their hearts so they that think but little of his Goodness in particular have little Love or Joy or Praise 6. Moreover the Goodness of God must possess us with desire to be conformed to his goodness in our measure The Holy perfection of his Will must make us desire to have our Wills conformed to the will of God We are not called to Imitate him in his works of Power nor so much in the paths of his Omniscience as we are in his goodness which as manifested in his work and word is the Pattern and standard of Moral Goodness in the sons of men The Impress of his goodness within us is the chief part of his Image on us and the fruits of it in our Lives is their Holiness and Vertue As he is Good and doth Good Psal. 119. 68. so must it be our greatest care to be as good and do as much good as possibly we can Any thing within us that is sinful and contrary to the Goodness of God should be to our souls as griping poyson to our bodies which nature is excited to strive against with all its strength and can have no safety or rest till it be cast out And for Doing Good it must be the very study and trade of our lives As worldlings study and labour for the world and the Pleasing of their flesh so must the Christian study and labour to improve his masters talents to his use and to do as much good as he is able and to please the Lord. Prov. 11. 23. The desire of the Righteous as such is only Good To depart from evil and do good is the care of the just Psal. 34. 14. We must please our neighbours for Good to their Edification Rom. 15. 2. While we have time we must do good to all men as we are able but especially to them of the houshold of faith Gal. 6. 10 Not only to them that do good to us but to our enemies Luk. 6. 32 33 34. Mat. 5. 44. This is it that we must not forget Heb. 13. 16. and which by Ministers we must be â—ut in mind of 1 Tim. 6. 18. which all that love life and would inherit the blessing must devote themselves to 1 Pet. 3. 10 11 12. In this we must be like our heavenly Father and approve our selves his Children Mat. 5. 45 46. 7. From the perfect Infinite goodness of God we must learn to judge of Good and Evil and in all the Creatures To this must all be reduced as the standard and by this must they be tryed It is a most wretched absurdity of sensual men to try the will or word or wayes of God by themselves and by their own interests or wills and to judge all to be Evil in God that is against them And yet alas how common is this case Every man is naturally â—oth to be miserable suffering he abhors and therefore that which causeth his suffering he calleth evil And so when he hath deserved it himself by his sin he thinks that the Law is Evil for threatning it and that God himself is Evil for inflicting it so that Infinite Goodness must be tryed and judged by the vicious creature and the Rule and standard must be reduced to the crooked line of humane actions or dispositions and if God will please
and therefore it is here that we have the loudest call and best assistance to make a large return of Love And where there is the most of this Love between God and man there is most Communion and most of Heaven that can be had on Earth But it much concerneth the members of Christ that they deprive not themselves of this Communion with God in this Holy Sacrament through their miscarriage which is too frequently done by one of these extreams Either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ and discerned not his body or else by an excess of fear drawing back and questioning the good will of God and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy By this means Satan depriveth many of the comfortable part of their communion with God both in this Sacrament and in other waies of grace and maketh them avoid him as an enemy and be loth to come into his special presence and even to be afraid to think of him to pray to him or to have any holy converse with him When the just belief and observation of his Love would stablish them and revive their souls with joy and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the Gospel and which believers finde in the Love of God and the foretast of the everlasting pleasures 4. In holy faithful servent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God For Prayer is our approach to God and calling to mind his presence and his attributes and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him attend him reverently to worship him It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world a beâ—ging of the greatest mercies and a deprecating his most grievous judgments and all this with the nearest familiarity that man in flesh can have with God In prayer the Spirit of God is working up our hearts unto him with desires exprest in sighs and groans It is a work of God as well as of man He bloweth the fire though it be our hearts that burn and boil In Prayer we lay hold on Jesus Christ and plead his merits and intercession with the Father He taketh us as it wereby the hand and leadeth us unto God and hideth our sins and procureth our acceptance and presenteth us amiable to his Father having justified and sanctified us and cleansed us from those pollutions which rendered us loathsome and abominable To speak to God in serious prayer is a work so high and of so great moment that it calleth off our minds from all things else and giveth no creature room or leave to look into the soul or once to be observed The mind is so taken up with God and employed with him that creatures are forgotten and we take no notice of them unless when through the diversions of the flesh our prayers are interrupted and corrupted and so far degenerate and are no prayer so far I say as we thus turn away from God So that the soul that is most and best at Prayer is most and best at walking with God and hath most communion with him in the Spirit And to withdraw from Prayer is to withdraw from God And to be unwilling to pray is to be unwilling to draw near to God Meditation or Contemplation is a duty in which God is much enjoyed But Prayer hath Meditation in it and much more All that is upon the mind in Meditation is upon the mind in Prayer and that with great advantage as being presented before God and pleaded with him and so animated by the apprehensions of his observing presence and actuated by the desires and pleadings of the soul. When we are commanded to Pray it includeth a command to Repent and Believe and Fear the Lord and Desire his Grace For Faith and Repentance and Fear and Desire are altogether in action in a serious prayer And as it were naturally each one takes his place and there is a holy order in the acting of these graces in a Christians prayers and a harmony which he doth seldome himself observe He that in Meditation knoweth not how to be regular and methodical when he is studiously contriving and endeavouring it yet in Prayer before he is aware hath Repentance and Faith and Fear and Desire and every grace fall in its proper place and order and contribute its part to the performance of the work The new nature of a Christian is more immediately and vigorously operative in Prayer than in many other duties And therefore every Infant in the family of God can pray with groaning desires and ordered graces if not with well-ordered words When Paul began to live to Christ he began aright to pray Behold he prayeth saith God to Ananias Act. 9. 11. And because they are Sons God sends the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his Elect even the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. as children naturally cry to their Parents for relief And Nature is more regular in its works than Art or humane contrivance is Necessity teacheth many a beggar to pray better for relief to men than many learned men that feel not their necessities can pray to God The Spirit of God is a better Methodist than we are And though I know that we are bound to use our utmost care and skill for the orderly actuating of each holy affection in our Prayers and not pretend the sufficiency of the Spirit for the patronage of our negligence or sloth for the Spirit makes use of our understandings for the actuating of our wills and affections yet withall it cannot be denied but that it was upon a special reason that the Spirit that is promised to Believers is called a Spirit of Grace and Supplication Zech. 12. 10. And that it is given us to help our infirmities even the infirmities of our understanding when we know not what to pray for as we ought Rom. 8. 26. And that the Spirit it self is said to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered It is not the Spirit without that is here meant such intercession is nowhere ascribed to that How then is the Prayer of the Spirit within us distinguished from our Prayer Not as different effects of different causes as different prayers by these different parties But as the same prayer proceeding from different causes having a special force for quality and degree as from one cause the Spirit which it hath not from the other cause from our selves except as received from the Spirit The Spirit is as a New Nature or fixed inclination in the Saints For their very self-love and will to good is sanctified in them which works so readily though voluntarily as that it is in a sort by the way of Nature though not excluding Reason and
God be Good because he will not save you when he can I shall leave you to him to receive satisfaction who will easily silence and consound your impudence and justifie his works and laws Prepare your accusations against him if you will needs insist upon them and try whether he or you shall prevail but remember that thou art a worm and he is God and that he will be the only judge when all is done and ignorance and impiety that prate against him to their own confusion in the day of his patience shall not then usurp the throne Object 2. But how can God be fit for mortals to converse with when they see him not and are infinitely below him Answ. I hope you will not say that you have nothing to do at home with your own souls and yet you never saw your souls And it is the souls the Reason and the will of men that you daily converse with here in the world more then their bodies and yet you never saw their souls their Reason or their wills If you have no higher light to discern by then your eyesight you are not men but beasts If you are men you have Reason and if you are Christians you have faith by which you know things that you never saw You have more dependance on the things that are unseen then on those which you see and have much more to do with them And though God be infinitely above us yet he condescendeth to communicate to us according to our capacities As the Sun is far from us and yet doth not disdain to enlighten and warm and quicken a worm or fly here below If any be yet so much an Atheist as to think that Religious converse with God is but a fancy let him well answer me these few questions Quest. 1. Doth not the continued being and well-being of the Creatures tell us that there is a God on whom for being and well-being they depend and from whom they are and have whatsoever they are and whatsoever they have And therefore that passively all the Creatures have more respect to him by far then to one another Quest. 2. Seeing God communicateth to every Creature according to their several capacities is it not meet then that he deal with man as man even as a Creature Rational capable to know and love and obey his Great Creator and to be happy in the knowledge love and fruition of him That man hath such natural faculties and capacities is not to be denyed by a man that knoweth what it is to be a man And that God hath not given him these in vain will be easily believed by any that indeed believe that he is God Quest. 3. Is there any thing else that is finally worthy of the highest actions of our souls or that is fully adequate to them and fit to be our happiness If not then we are left either to certain infelicity contrary to the tendency of our natures or else we must seek our felicity in God Quest. 4. Is there any thing more certain then that by the title of Creation our Maker hath a full and absolute right to all that he hath made and consequently to all our love and obedience our time and powers For whom should they all be used but for him from whom we have them Quest. 5. Can any thing be more sure then that God is the Righteous Governour of the world and that he Governeth man as a rational creature by Laws and Judgement And can we live under his absolute Soveraignty and under his many righteous Laws and under his Promises of salvation to the Justified and under his threatnings of damnation to the unjustified and yet not have more to do with God than with all the world If indeed you think that God doth not Love and reward the holy and obedient and punish the ungodly and disobedient then either you take him not to be the Governour of the world or which is worse you take him to be an unrighteous Governour And then you must by the same reason say that Magistrates and Parents should do so too and love and reward the obedient and disobedient alike But if any mans disobedience were exercised to your hurt by slandering or beating or robbing you I dare say you would not then commend so indifferent and unjust a Governour Quest. 6. If it be not needless for man to Labour for food and rayment and necessary provision for his body how can it be needless for him to labour for the happiness of his soul If God will not give us our daily bread while we never think of it or seek it why should we expect that he will give us Heaven though we never think on it value it or seek it Quest. 7. Is it not a contradiction to be happy in the fruition of God and yet not to mind him desire him or seek him How is it that the Soul can reach its Object but by estimation desire and seeking after it And how should it enjoy it but by Loving it and taking pleasure in it Quest. 8. While you seem but to wrangle against the Duty of believers do you not plead against the comfort and happiness of believers For surely the employment of the soul on God and for him is the health and pleasure of the soul And to call away the soul from such employment is to imprison it in the dungeon of this world and to forbid us to smell to the sweetest flowers and confine us to a sink or dunghill and to forbid us to tast of the food of Angels or of men and to offer us Vineger and Gall or turn us over to feed with Swine He that pleadeth that there is no such thing as real Holiness Communion with God doth plead in effect that there is no true felicity or delight for any of the Sons of men And how welcome should ungodly Atheists be unto mankind that would for ever exclude them all from happiuess and make them believe they are all made to be remedilesly miserable And here take notice of the madness of the unthankful world that hateth and persecuteth the Preachers of the Gospel that bring them the glad tidings of pardon and hope and life eternal of solid happiness and durable delight and yet they are not offended at these Atheists and ungodly Cavillers that would take them off from all that is truly good and pleasant and make them believe that nature hath made them capable of no higher things than beasts and hath enthralled them in remediless infelicity Quest. 9. Do you not see by experience that there are a people in the world whose hearts are upon God and the life to come and that make it their chiefest care and business to seek him and to serve him How then can you say that there is no such thing or that we are not capable of it when it is the case of so many before your eyes If you say that it is but their
juvenile delights and so live retiredly and seek no higher pleasure or felicity but only sit down with the weeping or the laughing Philosopher lamenting or deriding the Vanity of the world do yet live no other than a sensual life as an old Dog that hath no pleasure in hunting or playfulness as he had when he was a Whelp Only he is less deluded and less vain than other sensualists that find more pleasure in their course All the doubt is concerning those that place their felicity in Knowledge and those that delight in Moral Vertues or that delight in studying of God though they are no Christians Answ. The point is weighty and hath oft unhappily faln into injudicious hands I shall endeavour to resolve it as truly clearly and impartially as I can 1. It is a great errour against the Nature of man to say that Knowledge as such is fit to be any mans chief and ultimate End It may be that act which is next the Enjoying Act of the Will which is it that indeed is next the End objectively considered But it is not that Act which we call Ultimate Ultimus And this is plain 1. Because the Object of the Understanding which is Truth is not formally the nearest object or matter of full felicity or delight It is Goodness that is the nearest object 2. And therefore the office of the Intellect is but introductive and subservient to the office of the Will to apprehend the Verity of Good and present it to the will to be prosecuted or embraced or delighted in There are many Truths that are ungrateful and vexatious and which men would wish to be no truths And there is a knowledge which is troublesome useless undesirable and tormenting which even a wise man would fain avoid if he knew how Morality is but preparatively in the intellect and therefore intellectual acts as such are not morally Good or evil but only participatively as subject to the Will And therefore knowledge as such being not a Moral Good can be no other than such a Natural Good as is Bonum alicui only so far as it tendeth to some Welfare or Happiness or pleasure of the possessor or some other And this Welfare or Pleasure is either that which is suited to the Sensitive Powers or to the Rational which is to be found in the love of God alone 2. I add therefore that even those men that seem to take up their felicity in common Knowledge indeed do but make their Knowledge subservient to something else which they take for their felicity For Knowledge of Evil may Torment them It is only to know something which they take to be Good that is their Delight And it is the Complacency or Love of that Good at the Heart which sets them on work and causeth the delight of Knowing If you will say that common Knowledge as Knowledge doth immediately Delight yet will it be found but such a pleasing of the Phantasie as an Ape hath in spying marvels which if it have no end that 's higher is still but a sensitive Delight but if it be referred to a higher Delight in God doth participate of the nature of it Delight in general is the common end of Men and Brutes But in specie they are distinguished as Sensual or Rational 3. If you suppose a Philosopher to be Delighted in studying Mathematicks or any of the works of God either he hath herein an End or no End beyond the Knowledge of the Creature Either he terminateth his desires and delights in the Creature or else useth it as a means to raise him to the Creatour If he study and delight in the Creature ultimately this is indeed the Act of a rational Creature and an act of Reason as to the faculty it proceeds from and so is a Rational Contrivance for sensual ends and pleasures But it is but the errour of Reason and is no more agreeable to the Rational Nature than the deceit of the senses is to the sensitive Nor is it finally to be numbred with the operations felicitating humane nature any more than an erroneous dream of pleasure or than that man is to be numbred with the lovers of learning who taketh pleasure in the binding leaves or letters of the book while he understandeth nothing of the sense But if this Philosopher seek to know the Creatour in and by the Creatures and take delight in the Makers Power Wisdome and Goodness which appeareth in them then this is truly a Rational Delight in it self considered and beseeming a man And if he reach so far in it as to make God his Highest desire and delight overpowring the desires and delights of sensuality he shall be happy as being led by the Son unto the Father But if he make but some little approaches towards it and drown all such desires in the sensual desires and delights he is then but an unhappy sensualist and liveth brutishly in the tenor of his life though in some acts in part he operate rationally as a man The like I may say of them that are said to place their delight in Moral Vertues Indeed nothing is properly a Moral Good or vertue but that which is exercised upon God as our End or upon the Creature as a Means to this End To study and know meer notions of God or what is to be held and said of him in discourse is not to study or to know God no more than to love the language and phrase of holy writing is to Love God To study God as one that is less regardable and desirable than our sensual delights is but to blaspheme him To study seek and serve him as one that can promote or hinder our sensual felicity is but to abuse him as a means to your sensuality And for the vertues of Temperance Justice or Charity they are but Analogically and secundum quid to be found in any ungodly person Materially they may have them in an eminent degree but not as they are informed by the End which moralizeth them Jezabel's fast was not formally a vertue but an odious way of Hypocrisie to oppress the innocent He that doth works of Justice or Mercy to Evil ends only as for applause or to deceive c. and not from the true principles of Justice and Mercy doth not thereby exercise Moral Vertue but hypocrisie and other vice He that doth works of Justice and Mercy out of meer natural compassion to others and desire of their good without respect to God as obliging or rewarding or desiring it doth perform such a natural good work as a Lamb or a gentle Beast doth to his fellows which hath not the true form of Moral Vertue but the Matter only He that in such works hath some little by-respect to God but more to his carnal interest among men doth that which on the by participateth of Moral Good or is such secundum quid but not simpliciter being to be denominated from the part predominant He that doth works
of Justice or Charity principally to please God and in true obedience to his Will and a desire to be conformed thereto doth that which is formally a Moral Good and Holy though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects So that there are but two states of life here One of those that walk after the flesh and the other of those that walk after the spirit However the flesh hath several materials and waies of pleasure And even the Rational actings that have a carnal end are carnal finally and morally though they are acts of Reason For they are but the errours of Reason and defectiveness of true Rationality and being but the acts of erroneous Reason as captivated by the flesh and subservient to the carnal Interest they are themselves to be denominated carnal And so even the Reasonable soul as byassed by sensuality and captivated thereto is included in the name of Flesh in Scripture How much Moral Good is in that course of Piety or Obedience to God which proceedeth only from the Fear of Gods Judgements without any Love to him I shall not now discuss because I have too far digrest already All that I have last said is to shew you the Reasonableness of Living unto God as being indeed the proper and just employment of the superiour faculties of the soul and their Government of the lower faculties For if any other called Moralists do seem to subject the Sensual life to the Rational either they do but seem to do so the sensual interest being indeed predominant and their rational operations subjected thereto or at the best it is but some poor and erroneous employment of the Rational faculties which they exercise or some weak approaches towards that high and holy life which is indeed the life which the Rational nature was created for and which is the right improvement of it 4. Moreover nothing is more beseeming the nature of man than to aspire after the highest and noblest improvement of it self and to live the most excellent life that it is capable of For every nature tendeth to its own perfection But it is most evident that to Walk with God in Holiness is a thing that humane nature is capable of and that is the highest life that we are capable of on earth And therefore it is the life most suitable to our natures 5. And what can be more Rational and beseeming a Created Nature than to live to those ends which our Creatour intended in the fabrication of our Natures It is His Ends that are principally to be served But the very composure of our faculties plainly prove that His End was that we should be fitted for His Service He gave us no powers or capacity in vain And therefore to serve him and walk with him is most suitable to our natures Obj. That is Natural which is first and born with us But our enmity to Holiness is first and not our Holiness Answ. It may be called Natural indeed because it is first and born with us And in that respect we confess that sin and not Holiness is Natural to us But Holiness is called Natural to us in a higher respect because it was the Primitive Natural constitution of man and was before sin and is the perfection or health of nature and the right employment and improvement of it and tends to its happiness An hereditary leprosie may be called Natural as it is first and before health in that person But health and soundness is Natural as being the well-being of Nature when the Leprosie is unnatural as being but its desease and tending to its destruction Obj. But Nature in its first constitution was not Holy but Innocent only and it was by a superadded gift of Grace that it became Holy as some Schoolmen think and as others think Adam had no Holiness till his restoration Answ. These are Popish improved fancies and contrary to Nature and the Word of God 1. They are nowhere written nor have no evidence in Nature and therefore are the groundless dreams of men 2. The work of our recovery to God is called in Scripture a Redemption Renovation Restoration which imply that Nature was once in that Holy estate before the fall And it is expresly said that the New man which we put on is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Col. 3. 10. And after Gods Image Adam was created 3. If it belong to the soundness and integrity of Nature to be Holy that is disposed and addicted to live to God then it is an abusive temerity for men out of their own imagination to feign that God first made Nature defective and then mended it by superadded Grace But if it belong not to the soundness and integrity of humane Nature to be Holy then why did God give him Grace to make him so Nay then it would follow that when God sanctified Adam or any since he made him specifically another thing another creature of another nature and did not only cure the diseases of his nature 4. It is yet apparent in the very Nature of mans faculties that their very usefulness and tendency is to live to God and to enjoy him And that God should make a Nature apt for such a use and give it no disposedness to its proper use is an unnatural conceit We see to this day that it is but an unreasonable abuse of Reason when it is not used Holily for God and it is a very disease of nature to be otherwise disposed Therefore Primitive Nature had such a Holy inclination 5. The contrary opinion tendeth to Infidelity and to brutifie humane Nature For if no man can believe that he must be Holy and live to God and enjoy him hereafter in Heaven but he that also believeth that Primitive Nature was never disposed or qualified for such a life and that God must first make a man another creature in specie of another nature and consequently not a man this is not only so improbable but so contrary to Scripture and Reason that few considerate persons would believe it As if we must believe that God would turn brutes into men God healeth elevateth and perfecteth Nature but doth not specificially change it at least in this life Obj. But let it be granted that he giveth not man specifically another Nature yet he may give him such higher gifts as may be like another Nature to him so far Answ. No doubt he may and doth give him such gifts as actuate and perfect Nature but some Disposition to our ultimate end is essential to our Nature and therefore to assign man another ultimate end and to give a Disposition to it of which he had no seed or part or principle before is to make him another creature I confess that in lapsed man the Holy Disposition is so far dead as that the change maketh a man a New Creature in a Moral sense as be is a New Man that changeth his mind and manners But still