that is every where but by a peculiar operation and relation And so holy Souls being under a more felicitating operation of God may well be said to have a Nearer Union with him than now they have § 35. 〈◊〉 And I observe that as is aforesaid all things have naturally a strong inclination to Union and Communion with their like Every clod and stone inclineth to the Earth Water would go to Water Air to Air Fire to Fire Birds and Beasts associate with their like And the noblest natures are most strongly thus inclined And therefore I have natural reason to think that it will be so with holy Souls § 36. 3. And I find that the inordinate Contraction of Man to himself and to the interest of this Individual-Person with the defect of Love to all about us according to every creatures goodness and specially to God the Infinite good whom we should love above our selves is the very sum of all the pravity of man And all the injustice and injury to others and all the neglect of good works in the world and all our daily terrours and self-distracting self-tormenting cares and griefs and fears proceed from this inordinate Love and Adhesion to our selves Therefore I have reason to think that in our better state we shall perfectly Love others as our selves and the selfish Love will turn into a common and a Divine Love which must be by our preferring the common and the Divine Good and Interest § 37. And I am so sensible of the power and Plague of selfishness and how it now corrupteth tempteth and disquieteth me that when I feel any fears lest individuation cease and my Soul fall into one common Soul as the Stoicks thought all Souls did at death I find great cause to suspect that this ariseth from the power of this corrupting selfishness For Reason seeth no cause at all to fear it were it so § 38. 4. For I find also that the nature of Love is to desire as near a Union as is possible And the strongest Love doth strongliest desire it Fervent Lovers think they can scarce be too much One. And Love is our Perfection and therefore so is Union § 39. 5. And I find that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit they had the ferventest Love and the nearest Union and the least desire of propriety and distance § 40. 6. And I find that Christs prayer for the felicity of his disciples is a prayer for their Unity Joh. 17. 22 23. And in this he placeth much of their Persection § 41. 7. And I find also that man is a sociable nature and that all men find by experience that conjunction in societies is needful to their Safety strength and Pleasure § 42. 8. And I find that my Soul would fain be nearer God and that darkness and distance is my misery and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my Soul Why then should I fear too near a Union § 43. I think it utterly improbable that my Soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God though it be of the same kind with other Souls and infinitely below God For God is as near me as I am to my self I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause And that not as the fruit upon the Tree which borroweth all from the Earth Water Air and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit but as a creature on its Creator who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God by constant communication Hence Autonine Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter as Man of Soul and body Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World GOD and sometime calling the whole World God But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God or of the Body of God or Accidents at least § 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense such as Benedict Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis approved by many Doctors who placeth much of his Supereminent Life in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God and Living accordingly Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God but are to God as the Beams are to the Sun and as the Heat is to the Fire which really is it self And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good as being nothing but Gods essential will which is himself resolving even our sins and Imperfections accordingly into God so that they are Gods or None § 45. And all these men have as fair a pretence for their conceits of such a Union with God now as for such an Union after death For their Reason is 1. That God being Infinite there can be no more Beings than his own But God and the smallest Being distinct would be more Entity than God alone But Infinity can have no addition 2. Because Ens Bonum Convertuntur But God only is good And if we are notwithstanding all this distinct Beings from God now we shall be so then For we shall not be Annihilated and we shall not be so advanced as to be deified and of creatures or distinct Beings turned into a Being infinitely above us If we be not Parts of God now we shall not be so then But if they could prove that we are so now we should quickly prove to them 1. That then God hath material divisible parts as the Stoicks thought 2. And that we are no such parts as are not distinct from one another but some are tormented and some happy And 3. That as is said it will be no abatement of the misery of the tormented nor of the felicity of the blessed to tell them that they are all parts of God For though the manner of our Union with him and dependance on him be past our comprehension yet that we are distinct and distant from each other and have each one a joy or misery of his own is past all doubt Therefore there is no Union with God to be feared by holy Souls but the utmost possible to be highliest desired § 46. And if our Union with God shall not cease our Individuation or resolve us into a Principle to be feared we may say so also of our Union with any common Soul or many If we be Unible we are Partible and so have a distinct though not a divided substance which will have its proper Accidents All Plants are parts of the Earth really united to it and radicated in it and live and are nourished by it And yet a Vine is a Vine and an Apple is an Apple and a Rose is a Rose and a Nettle is a Nettle And few men would be toiled Horses or Toads if it were proved that they are animated by a common Soul § 47.
are so lamentably mutable that further than God promiseth to uphold us we know not one day what we shall think judge or Will the next But when Love is as a fixed Nature in us we shall be still the same adhering to amiable goodness without intermission or Cessation It will be as easy to us and more to love God and Holiness as it is to the Hungry and Thirsty to love meat and drink or to the proud to love praise or domination yea or to any Man to love his life And we shall be no more weary of Loving than the Sun is of shining or than the Hungry is of Feasting or a Friend of friendly love and converse Nay the Comparison is quite too low for all Creatures here have a fading vanity which wearieth the satiated or failing Appetite but there is no such thing in Heaven § 7. II. And as from the nature of that act so much more from the nature of the Object my love will appear to be my happiness The Objects which are as the Matter of the act will be these 1. GOD himself will be the full and everlasting Object of my Love And he that could but understand as well as those in Heaven do what this word signifieth to LOVE GOD and be BELOVED of him would say that there needs no other description of perfect happiness Perfect joyful Complacency in God is the Heaven which I desire and hope for This is my Felicity and much more As I am the Agent of Love to God and the Object of God's Love to me it is my Felicity As God is the ultimate Object of my Love and the Agent of his Love to me that is of the effects of it so it is unspeakably more high and excellent than to be my felicity Love is the closure of the Wills of God and Man And as it is God's part or interest efficiently or objectively it is infinitely more excellent than as it is my part and interest § 8. In GOD there is all that Love can desire for its full everlasting Feast 1. He is Infinitely good in himself that is most amiable And the nature of Man's will is to love Good as Good Could we love God with a Love that is adequate to the Object we should be God our selves which is impossible none but God can adequately know God or Love him In God's Love to Himself both the Act and Object are Infinite and indeed are both one there being not that formally which we know by the name of Act and Object but Act and Object are our analogical inadequate conceptions of that Act of God which is his Essence But in our Love to God the Act is finite and infinitely below the Object Yea the Object which in reality 〈◊〉 itself infinite yet proximately as the esse Cognitum is the Object of our Love is finite there It is the Conception or Idea of God in the Intellect which is the proper and nearest Object of the Will And this is as a Face in a Glass a shadow even the finite little shaddow of an infinite Being The same Infinite good is a felicity to diverâ— Persons in divers degrees according as they diversly love him and are receptive of his Love § 9. 2. God who is infinitely Good in himself will be that most suitable Good to me and meetest for the dearest embracements of my will For 1. He hath All in himself that I need or can desire There is no Room nothing above him or beyond him or without him for love to cleave to Though Below him the Creature though not being without him is loved without him by the deception of the mind § 10. 2. He is willing to be loved by me He disdaineth not my Love He might have refused to be embraced by such affections as have so oft and sinfully polluted themselves by embracing vanity and filth As Persons of state and stately cleanliness will not be touched by filthy hands much less let Dogs or dirty Swine leap on them which come from wallowing in the mire God might have driven me away from the happiness of loving him and have denyed me the leave for so high a work But he commandeth my Love and maketh it my greatest duty He inviteth and intreateth me as if he were a gainer by my happiness He seeketh to me to seek to him and as he is the first so is he the most earnest suiter He is far readier to receive my Love than I am to give it him All the compassionate invitations which I have had from him here by his Word and Mercies assure me that he will there receive me readily he that so valued my poor cold imperfect love to him on Earth will not reject my perfect love in Heaven He that made it the great work of his Spirit to Effect it will not refuse it when it is made perfect by himself § 11. 3. And he is near to me and not a distant God out of my reach and so unsuitable to my Love Blind Unbelievers may dream that he is far off but he is as near us even now as we are to our selves He is not far from any of us for in him we live and move and have our being The Light of the Sun is not so neaâ— my Eyes as God will be for ever to my Mind When he would sanctifie us to love him he bringeth us nigh to him in Christ. As we love our selves easily as being as they say the nearest to our selves So we shall as easily love God as our selves when we see â—â—at he is as near us as we are to our selves as well as that he is infinitely more Amiable in himself § 12. 4. And because of the imparity of the Creature and the Creator he hath provided such Means to demonstrate to us his nearness as are necessary to the exercise of our Love We shall see his Gâ—oâ—y and taste his Love in our glorified Mediator and in the Gâ—oâ—y of the Church and World God will condescend to shew himself to us according to our Capacities of beholding him Here we see him in his Works and Word and there we shall see him in the glory of all his perfect Works But this leadeth me to the second Object of my Love § 13. II. Under God as I shall see so I shall delightfully Love the glorious Perfection of the Universe even the Image of God in all the World as my Love will be my delight so I shall love best that which is best and most delight in it And the whole is better than any part And there is a peculiar Beauty and Excellency in the whole World as perfect compaginate harmonious which is not to be found in any part no not in Christ himself as Man nor in his Church The marvellous inclination that all things have to Union even the Inanimates might persuade me if I felt it not certainly in my self that it is most credible that Man also shall have the like
and to enter the Holy Celestial Society should be no more joyfully affected with these hopes And that I should make any great matter of the pain and langishing and perishing of the Flesh when it is the common way to such an end O hateful sin that hath so darkned and corrupted Souls as to estrange and undispose them to the only state of their hoped happiness Alas what did Man when he forsook the Love and Obedience of his God How just it is that this Flesh and World should become our Prison which we would make our home and would not use as our Lord appointed us as our Servant and way to our better state Though our way must not be our home our Father would not have been so strange to us in the way if we had not unthankfully turned away from his Grace and Love § 9. It is to us that know not the Mysteries of Infinite Wisdom the saddest thought that ever doth possess our Minds to consider that there is no more Grace and Holiness knowledge of God and communion with him in this World That so few are Saints and those few so lamentably defective and imperfect That when the Sun shineth on all the Earth the Sun of Righteousness shineth on so small a part of it and so few live in the Love of God and the joyful hopes of future Blessedness and those few have so low a measure of it and are corrupted and troubled with so many contrary affections Infinite goodness is not undisposed to do good He that made us capable of Holy and Heavenly affections gave us not that Capacity in vain And yet alas how little of God and Glory taketh up the Hearts of men But Man hath no cause to grudge at God! The Devils before their fall were not made indefectible Divine Wisdom is delighted in the diversity of his Works and maketh them not all of equal excellency Free will was to act its part Hell is not to be as good as Heaven And sin hath made Earth to be next to Hell So much Sin so much Hell What is sin but a willful forsaking of God And can we forsake him and yet love him and enjoy his love God's Kingdom is not to be judged of by his Jail or Gibbets We willfully forsook the Light and made the World a Dungeon to our selves And when recovering Light doth shine unto us how unthankfully do we usually entertain it We cannot have the conduct and comfort of it while we shut our Eyes and turn away And what though God give not to all men an overcoming measure nor to the best so much as they desire The Earth is but a spot or point of God's Creation not so much as an Ant hillock to a Kingdom or perhaps to all the Earth And who is scandalized because the World hath an heap of Ants in it yea or a Nest of Snakes that are not men The vast unmeasurable Worlds of Light which be above us are possessed by Inhabitants suitable to their Glory A Casement or Crevise of Light or a Candle in this darksom World is an unspeakable Mercy yea that we may but hear of a better World and may seek it in Hope we must not grudge that in our Prison we have not that presence of our King and pleasures of the Kingdom as innocent and free Subjects have hope of Pardon of a speedy deliverance are great Mercies to Malefactors § 10. And if my want of the Knowledge and Love of God and joyful communion with the heavenly Society by my Prison and as the Suburbs of Hell should it not make me long for the Day of my Redemption and the glorious liberty of the Sons of God My true desires of deliverance and of Holiness and Perfection are my Evidences that I shall obtain them As the Will is the Sinner so it is the obstinate continuance of a Will to sin which is the bondage and the cause of continued sin And a continued Hell is continued sin as to the first part at least Therefore they that continue in Hell do continue in a sinning Will and so continue in a Love and willingness of so much of Hell So far as God maketh us willing to be delivered from sin so far we are delivered And our initial imperfect deliverance is the way to more If pains then make me groan for ease and sickness make me wish for Health why should not my remnants of Ignorance Unbelief and Strangeness to God occasion me to long for the Day of my Salvation This is the greatest of all my troubles And should it not then be the greatest wearying burden from which I should earnestly desire to be eased As Grace never doth hurt efficiently and yet may be ill used and do hurt objectively as to them that are proud of it so sin never doth good efficiently and of itself and yet objectively may do good For sin may be the Object of Grace and so to use it is not sin My unbelief and darkness and disaffection and inordinate love of this life do of themselves most hinder my desires of deliverance and of a better life but objectively what more fit to make me a weary of such a grievous state Were my unbelief and earthly mind predominant they would chain my affections to this World or if I were constrainedly weary of a miserable life I should have no comfortable hopes of a better But as it is the Nature of my sin to draw down my Heart from God and Glory it is the nature of my Faith and Hope and Love to carry it upward and to desire the heavenly Perfection Not to love Death but to love that which is beyond it And have I been so many years in the School of Christ learning both how to live and die begging and studying for this Grace and exercising it against this sinful Flesh and shall I now after all find Flesh more powerful to draw me downward than Faith Hope and Love to carry my desires up to God! § 11. O God forbid O thou that freely gavest me thy Grace maintain it to the last against its Enemies and make it finally victorious It came from thee it hath been preserved by thee it is on thy side and wholly for thee O let it not now fail and be conquered by blind and base Carnality or by the temptations of a hellish conquered Enemy without it I had lived as a Beast and without it I should die more miserably than a Beast It is thine Image which thou lovest it is a Divine Nature and heavenly Beam what will a Soul be without it but a Dungeon of Darkness a Devil for malignity and dead to Holiness and Heaven without it who shall plead thy Cause against the Devil World and Flesh without thy Glory Earth is but Earth without thy Natural Efficacy it would be nothing without thy wise and potent Ordination it would be but a Chaos and without thy Grace it would be a Hell O rather deny
me the Light of the Sun than the Light of thy Countenance Less miserable had I been without Life or Being than without thy Grace Without thee and my Saviour's help I can do nothing I did not live without thee I could not pray or learn without thee I never could conquer a temptation without thee and can I die or be prepared to die without thee Alas I shall but say as Philip of Christ I know not whither my Soul is going and how then shall I know the way My Lord having loved his own in the World did love them to the end Thou lovest fidelity and perseverance in thy Servants even those that in his sufferings forsook him and fled yet are commended and rewarded by Christ for continuing with him in his temptations Luk. 22. 28. And wilt thou forsake a sinner in his extremity who consenteth to thy Covenant and would not forsake thee My God I have often sinned against thee but yet thou knowest I would fain be thine I have not served thee with the resolution fidelity and delight as such a Master should have been served but yet I would not forsake thy service nor change my Master or my Work I can say with thy Servant Paul Act. 27. 23. that thou art the GOD WHOSE I AM and WHOM I SERVE and O that I could serve thee better For to serve thee is but to Receive thy Grace and to use it for my own and others good and so to glorifie thee and please thy will which being LOVE it self is pleased best when we receive and do most good I have not loved thee as Infinite Goodness and Love it self and fatherly Bounty should have been loved but yet I would not forsake thy Family and nothing in this World is more my grief than that I love thee no more forsake not then a sinner that would not forsake thee that looketh every hour towards thee that feeleth it as a piece of Hell to be so dark and strange unto thee that gropeth and groaneth and gaspeth after thee feeling to his greatest sorrow though thou art every where that while he is present in the body he is absent from the Lord. My Lord I have nothing to do in this World but to seek and serve thee I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections but to breath after thee I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pe◠but to speak to thee and for thee and to publish thy Glory and thy Will What have I to do with all my Reputation and Interest in my Friends but to increase thy Church and propagate thy holy Truth and Service What have I to do with my remaining Time even these last and languishing hours but to look up unto thee and wait for thy Grace and thy Salvation O pardon all my carnal thoughts and all my unthankful neglects of thy precious Grace and Love and all my wilful sin against thy Truth and thee and let the fuller Communications of thy forfeited Grace now tell me by experience that thou dost forgive me Even under the terrible Law thou didst tell Man thy very Nature by proclaiming thy Name Exod. 34 6 7. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and is not the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the Gospel for our more abundant Faith and Consolation My God I know as I cannot Love thee according to thy Loveliness so I cannot Trust thee according to thy Faithfulness I can never be sufficiently confident of thy alsufficient Power thy Wisdom and thy Goodness When I have said as Psal 77. 7. Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his Promise fail to Generations hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies Conscience hath replied that This is my infirmity I never wanted comfort because thou wantedst mercy but because I wanted Faith and fitness to receive it and perceive it But hast thou not mercy also to give me even that Fitness and that Faith My God all is of thee and through thee and all is to thee and when I have the felicity the Glory of all for ever will be thine None that trusteth in thee according to thy Nature and Promise shall be ashamed If I can live and die in Trusting in thee surely I shall not be confounded § 12. Why then should it seem a difficult Question how I may willingly leave this World and my Soul depart to Christ in Peace The same Grace which regenerated me must bring me to my desired end as the same Principle of Vegetation which causeth the Bud must bring the Fruit to sweet maturity 1. BELIEVE and TRUST thy Father thy Saviour and thy Comforter II. And HOPE for the joyful entertainments of his Love and for the blessed state which he hath promised III. And long by LOVE for nearer Union and Communion with him and thus O my Soul thou mayest depart in Peace I. How sure is the Promise of God How suitable to his Love and to the Nature of our Souls and to the operations of every Grace It is initially performed here whilst our desires are turned towards him and the heavenly seed and spark is here ingenerated in a Soul that was dead and dark and disaffected Is it any strange thing for Fire to ascend yea or the fiery Principle of Vegetation in a Tree to carry up the earthy matter to a great procerity Is it strange that Rivers should hasten to the Sea Whither should Spirits go but to the Region or World of Spirits and whither should Christ's Members and holy Spirits go but to himself and the heavenly Society And is not that a more holy and glorious place and state than this below Earth is between Heaven and Hell a place of gross and passive matter where Spirits may indeed operate upon that which needeth them and where they may be detained a while in such operation or as incorporated Forms if not incarcerate Delinquents but it is not their center end or home Even sight and reason might persuade me that all the noble Invisible powers that operate on this lower World do principally belong unto a higher and what can Earth add to their Essence Dignity or Perfection § 13. But why O my Soul art thou so vainly solicitous to have formal clear distinct conceptions of the Celestial World and the individuation and operations of separated Souls any more than of the Angels While thou art the formal Principle of an animated Body thy conceptions must be but suitable to their present state and use When thou art possessed of a better state thou shalt know it as a possessor ought to do For such a knowledge as thou lookest after is part of the possession And to long to Know and Love in Clearness and Perfection is to
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
doubtingly whether thy heavenly Father and thy Lord doth love thee Canst thou forget the sealed Testimonies of it Did I not even now repeat so many as should shame thy doubts A multitude of thy Friends have loved thee so entirely that thou canst not doubt of it And did any of them signifie their love with the convincing evidence that God hath done Have they done for thee what he hath done Are they Love itself Is their love so full so firm and so unchangeable as his I think the sweetlier of Heaven because abundance of my ancient Lovely and Loving Holy Friends are there and am the willinger by Death to follow them And should I not think of it more pleasedly because my God and Father my Saviour and my Comforter is there And not alone but with all the Society of Love Was not Lazarus in the Bosom of God himself yet it is said that he was in Abraham's Bosom as the Promise runs that we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And what maketh the Society of Saints so sweet as holy Love It is comfortable to read that To love the Lord our God with all our Heart and Soul and might is the First and great Commandment and the Second is like to it To Love our Neighbours as our selves For God's Commands proceed from that Will which is his Nature or Essence and they tend to the same as their Objective end Therefore he that hath made Love the Great Command doth tell us that LOVE is the Great conception of his own Essence the spring of that Command and that this commanded imperfect Love doth tend to perfect heavenly Love even to our communion with Essential Infinite Love It were strange that the Love and Goodness which is equal to the Power that made the World and the Wisdom that ordereth it should be scant and backward to do good and to be suspected more than the Love of Friends The remembrance of the holiness humility love and faithfulness of my dearest Friends of every Rank with whom I have conversed on Earth in every place where I have lived is so sweet to me that I am oft ready to recreate my self with the naming of such as are now with Christ But in Heaven they will love me better than they did on Earth and my love to them will be more pleasant But all these Sparks are little to the Sun Every place that I have lived in was a place of Divine Love which there set up its obliging Monuments Every Year and Hour of my life hath been a time of Love Every Friend and every Neigbour yea every Enemy have been the Messengers and Instruments of Love Every state and change of my life notwithstanding my sin hath opened to me Treasures and Mysteries of Love And after such a life of Love shall I doubt whether the same God do love me Is he the God of the Mountains and not of the Valleys Did he love me in my youth and health And doth he not love me in my Age and Pain and Sickness Did he love all the Faithful better in their life than at their Death If our hope be not chiefly in this life neither is our state of Love which is principally the heavenly endless Grace My groans grieve my Friends but abate not their love Did he love me for my strength my weakness might be my fear as they that love for Beauty loath them that are deformed and they that love for Riches despise the Poor But God loved me when I was his Enemy to make me a Friend and when I was bad to make me better What ever he taketh pleasure in is his own gift Who made me to differ And what have I that I have not received And God will finish the Work the Building the Warfare that is his own O the multitude of Mercies to my Soul and Body in Peace and War in Youth and Age to my self and friends the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the Love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it and shall I die in the doubts of it Had it been Love only to my Body it would have died with me and not have accompanied my departing Soul I am not much in doubt of the truth of my Love to him Though I have not seen him save as in a Glass as in a Glass seen I love him I love my Brethren whom I have seen and those most that are most in Love with him I love his Word and Works and Ways and fain I would be nearer him and love him more and I loath my self for loving him no better And shall Peter say more confidently Thou knowest that I love thee than I know that thou lovest me Yes he may because though God's Love is greater and stedfaster than ours yet our knowledge of his great love is less than his knowledge of our little love and as we are defective in our own Love so are we in our certainty of its sincerity And without the knowledge of our Love to God we can never be sure of his special love to us But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World And who it is that I have desired to please The God whose I am and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth and he will love me in my aged weakness My Flesh and my Heart fail my pains seem grievous to the Flesh But it is LOVE that chooseth them that useth them for my good that moderateth them and will shortly end them Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love Shall pain or dying make me doubt Did God love none from the beginning of the World but Henoch and Elias And what am I better than my fore-Fathers What is in me that I should expect exemption from the common lot of all Mankind Is not a competent time of great Mercy on Earth in order to the unseen felicity all that the best of men can hope for O for a clearer stronger Faith to shew me the World that more excelleth this than this excelleth the Womb where I was conceived Then should I not fear my third Birth day what pangs soever go before it nor be unwilling of my change The Grave indeed is a Bed that Nature doth abhor Yet there the weary be at rest But Souls new born have a double Nature that is Immortal and go to the place that is agreeable to their Nature even to the Region of Spirits and the Region of Holy Love Even passive Matter that hath no other Natural motion hath a Natural Inclination to uniting aggregative motion And God maketh all Natures suitable to their proper ends and use How can it be that a Spirit should not incline to be with Spirits And Souls that have the Divine Nature in holy Love desire to be with the God of Love Arts and Sciences and Tongues become not
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
Polititical Government of the wicked Kingdoms of the World ruling them by men that are ruled by him And as Christ came to cast him out of mens Hearts by his sanctifying conquering Spirit so also to cast him out of the Political Government of the Kingdoms of the World and to bring them under the Laws and Officers and Spirit of Christ and rule them by heavenly Power and Love as his own Kingdoms that he may bring them to Perfection in one Celestial Kingdom at last And in this sense we pray Thy Kingdom come § 4. To make men believe that he is the heavenly King sent from God to cast down Satans Kingdom was the great business of the preaching of the Gospel This he would demonstrate as by all his Miracles which shewed him to have the Victory of Devils and to be the Lord of Life so also by visible Apparition in Glory And as it is said 1 Joh. 5. 7 8. that there are three Witnesses in Heaven and three on Earth so here Christ would have three heavenly and three earthly Witnesses of his Transfiguration From Heaven he had the Witness 1. Of a Voice proclaiming This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him 2. Of Moses the chief Lawgiver 3. And of Elias the chief Prophet to tell us that the Law and the Prophets are his prognosticating Witnesses But Hear him notifieth to us that Christ and his Gospel are to be heard above the Law and the Prophets and to teach us more than they could teach us The Law was given by Moses with its types and shadows but Grace and Truth the substance so typified are by Jesus Christ § 5. Light and Glory are often of the same signification Christ was transfigured into a lucid glorious appearance of Body He tells us by this that he would have us have some sort of Idea of his Kingdom fetcht from sense many Apparitions of Angels have been in lights Christ appeared to Saul in a visible light Act. 9. So did he to John Rev. 1 c. God and the Lamb are the Light of the New Jerusalem It is an inheritance of the Saints in Light Some seem to me to think too basely of Sense and too far to separate it from Intellectual Spirits both as to Power Act and Object And all because they find it in lower Creatures They might accordingly deny substantiality to Spirits because Bruits are substances The higher have all the Perfections of the lower either formally or eminently It is not a Spirits Perfection to be insensible or to have nothing to do with sensible things but to be eminently sensible and to be Superiour Agents on lower sensibles GOD IS LOVE And LOVE is Complacency And a high degree of Complacency is Delight or Joy So that God is Essential Infinite Joy But without that drossie quality which is proper to Souls in Flesh and all that Imperfection which belongs to Creatures Can we tell what it is to enter into our Masters Joy or Joyfully to love and praise him without any sense I rather think that as vigorous Youth maketh men capable of more delight than decrippt languid â—ainful Age and Sickness so Heaven shall by perfecting our Natures make them capable of unconceivably more joy than any on Earth is capable of And as we shall have Sense in Exaltation as to power and act so we shall have sensible Objects God himself delighteth in all his works and so shall we we must not on pretence of taking the heavenly Jerusalem to be meerly Spiritual deprive our selves of all the sensible Idea's of it which God's description offereth to uâ— Light is sensible Christ glorified there is sensible Moses and Elias were sensible to Peter James and John Lazarus and Abraham were sensible to the Man in Hell Luke 16. Stephen saw Heaven open and Christ sitting at the right Hand of God And all Eyes shall see him at his glorious return Heavenly Glory is not enjoyed only by meer THINKING and knowing nor as in a Dream but by the most eminent Intellectual sensation exalted and invigorated § 6. Say not then O my Soul that this Kingdom of Glory is so far above thee that thou canst have no Idea of it Think not that it is therefore unmeet for thy desiring and joyful hopes because thou canst not know what it is Hast thou no conception of the difference between Light and Darkness If thou hadst been but one Year kept in absolute darkness wouldst thou have no desiring thoughts of light The Blind think themselves half dead while they are alive Indeed the Faculty and Object must be suitable Light may be too great for our weak Eyes as heat may be torment in an unsuitable degree but when our Souls are perfected they will be suitable Recipients of a more glorious Light than we can here endure Moses is not there covered in a cleft of the Rock because he could see but as the back parts of God's Glory We must see here but as in a Glass but there as Face to Face Though these Organical Eyes as Spectacles shall be laid by we shall have Media more perfect suitable to our perfect state And as I can think of Heaven as a Region of glorious Light so can I think of it as a place and state of Life and Love I know somwhat of the difference of Life and Death and that a living Dog is better than a dead Lyon And I have felt what it is to love my Friends and thence to desire their near communion as my delight And can I then have no Idea of that World where Life Light and Joyful Love are the very Element of Souls as Water is to the Fishes And as I can have some Idea of that state in general so may I of the state of the perfected Spirits of the Just which are there They are con-natural to their proper Element They are Essential created Life Light and Love And they want not substance to be the Basis of those formal Powers nor Objects on which to exercise them Think not then that Heaven is so far unconceivable as not by any Idea to be thought of If we have no Conception of it we can have no desires of it and no delightful hope What can we conceive of more certainly than of Life and Light and Love of a Region and of Persons essentiated of these Do we not know what Knowledge is and see what Light is and feel what Life and Love are But it 's true that our Conceptions hereof are lamenmentably imperfect and so they must be till Possession Fruition and Exercise perfect them Who knoweth what Light or Sight is but by Seeing or what Knowledge is but by knowing Or what Love and Joy are but by loving and rejoicing And who knows what Perfect Sight Knowledg Love and Joy are but by perfect Seeing Knowing Loving and Rejoicing No Man by an intuitive or immediate perception But some abstractive Conceptions of it we may have by
art begging more VII Hearken not too much to pained Flesh and look not too much into the Grave but look out at thy Prison Windows to the Jerusalem above and the heavenly Society that triumph in Glory VIII Let all thy sure notices of a future life and of the communion we have here with those above draw thee to think that the great number of Holy Souls that are gone before thee must needs be better than they were here and that they had the same Mind and Heart and Way the same Saviour Sanctifyer and Promise that thou hast and therefore they are as Pledges of Felicity to thee Thou hast joyfully lived with many of them here and is it not better be with them there It is only the state of Glory foreseen by Faith which most fully sheweth us the greatness of God's Love IX Exercise thy self in Psalms of Praise and daily magnifying the Love of God that the due mention of it may warm and raise thy love to him X. Receive all temptations against Divine Love with hatred and repulse Especially temptations to unbelief And as thou wouldst abhor a temptation to murder or perjury or any other heinous sin as much abhor all temptations which would hide God's Goodness or represent him to thee as an enemy or unlovely Thus God hath set the Glass before us in which we may see his amiable Face But alas Souls in flesh are in great obscurity and conscious of their own weakness are still distrustful of themselves and doubt of all their apprehensions till over-powering Objects and Influences satisfie and fix them For this my Soul with daily longings doth seek to thee my God and Father O pardon the sin that forseits Grace I am ready to say Draw nearer to me but its meeter to say Open thou my Eyes and Heart and remove all impediments and undisposedness that I may believe and feel how near thou art and hast been to me while I perceived it not XIII It is God's Love shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost which must make us Rejoice in hope of the Glory of God This will do it and without this it will not be done This would turn the fears of Death into joyful hopes of future life If my God will thus warm my Heart with his Love it will have these following effects in this matter I. Love longeth for union or nearness and fruition And it would make my Soul long after God in glorious presence II. This would make it much easier to me to believe that there is certainly a future blessed life for Souls while I even tasted how God loveth them It 's no hard thing to believe that the Sun will give light and heat and revive the frozen Earth Nor that a Father will shew kindness to his Son or give him an inheritance Why should it be hard to believe that God will glorifie the Souls whom he loveth And that he will take them near himself And that thus it shall be done to those whom he delights to honour III. This effusion of Divine Love would answer my doubts of the pardon of sin I should not find it hard to believe that love itself which hath given us a Saviour will forgive a Soul that truly repenteth and hates his sin and giveth up himself to Christ for Justification It 's hard to believe that a Tyrant will forgive but not that a Father will pardon a returning prodigal Son IV. This effusion of Divine Love will answer my fears which arise from meer weakness of Grace and Duty Indeed it will give no other comfort to an unconverted Soul but that he may be accepted if he come to God by Christ with true Faith and Repentance and that this is possible But it should be easie to believe that a tender Father will not kill or cast out a Child for weakness crying or uncleanness Divine Love will accept and cherish even weak Faith weak Prayer and weak obedience and patience which are sincere V. This effused Love would confute temptations that are drawn from thy afflictions and make thee believe that they are not so bad as flesh repesenteth them It would understand that every Son that God loveth he chasteneth that he may not be condemned with the World and that he may be partaker of his Holiness and the end may be the quiet fruit of Righteousness it would teach us to believe that God in very faithfulness doth afflict us and that it is a good sign that the God of Love intendeth a better life for his beloved when he trieth them with so many tribulations here And though Lazarus be not saved for his suffering it signified that God who loved him had a life of comfort for him when he had his evil things on Earth When pangs are greatest the Birth is nearest VI. Were Love thus shed on the Heart by the Holy Ghost it would give me a livelier apprehension of the state of Blessedness which all the faithful now enjoy I should delightfully think of them as living in the joyful Love of God and ever fully replenished therewith It pleaseth us to see the Earth flourish in the Spring and to see how pleasantly the Lambs and other young things will skip and play Much more to see Societies of Holy Christians loving each other and provoking one another to delight in God O then what a pleasant thought should it be to think how all our deceased godly Friends and all that have so died since the Creation are now together in a World of Divine perfect Love How they are all continually wrap't up in the Love of God and live in the delight of perfect Love to one another O my Soul when thou art with them thou wilt dwell in Love and feast on Love and rest in Love for thou wilt more fully dwell in God and God in thee And thou wilt dwell with none but perfect Lovers They would not silence thee from praising God in their Assembly Tyrants Malignants and Persecutors are more strange there or far from thence than Toads and Snakes and Crocodiles are from the Bed or Bed-chamber of the King Love is the Air the Region the World they live in Love is their Nature their Pulse their Breath their Constitution their Complexion and their work It is their life and even themselves and all Full loth would one of those Spirits be to dwell again among blind Sodomites and mad self-damning Malignants upon Earth VII Yea this effused Love will teach us to gather the Glory of the Blessed from the common Mercies of this life Doth God give his distracted malignant Enemies Health Wealth Plenty Pleasure yea Lordships Dominions Crowns and Kingdoms and hath he not much better for beloved holy Souls Yea doth he give the Bruits Life Sense Delight and Beauty and hath he not better things for men for Saints There are some so blind as to think that Man shall have no better hereafter because Bruits have not but perish But they know
blessed to be under the Love of Christ p. 881. Excitations Desires p. 182. 3. Communion with Angels and Saints by reception p. 188 More of the good of Vnion and Communion as distinct from singular Propriety p. 190. 5. The constitutive Reasons from our heavenly Practice p. 195. Better works for us there than here proved What they are in general What particularly I. Concordant praising God Excitations and Petitions p. 169. II. The blessed probably used for the good of men and things below p. 198. Their Opinion rejected that assert the cessation of sense proof Objection from Bruits answered The concluding Application p. 202. A Breviate of the helps of Faith Hope and Love for a dying Man I. The Gospel Evidence on 1 Tim. 3. 16. p. 260. II. A Breviate of the proof of supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity p. 262. III. The difference between the World which I am leaving and the World which I am going to With Reasons of my comfortable hope p. 283. IV. More Reasons and Helps of my Faith and Hope p. 289. V. A discourse of the sensible manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ at his Transfiguration which is expounded and applied for the help of Faith and Patience p. 300. VI. Short Meditations on Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad of God's Love on the Heart that we may rejoice in hope of the Glory of God p. 360. THe exercise of Three sorts of LOVE to God to Others and to my Self afford me a Threefold satisfaction conjunct to be vvilling to depart I. I am sure my departure vvill be the fulfilling of that Will vvhich is Love it self vvhich I am bouâ—d above all things to Love and Please and vvhâ—â—â— is the beginning rule Antonineâ—ould â—ould hence fetch good Thoughts of Death II. The World dieth not vvith me vvhen I die nor the Church nor the Praise and Glory of God vvhich he vvill have in and from this World unto the end And if I love others as my self their Lives and Comforts vvill novv be to my Thoughts as if I vvere to live my self in them God vvill be praised and honoured by Posterity vvhen I am dead and gone Were I to be annihilated this vvould comfort me novv if I lived and died in perfect Love III. But a better and glorious World is before me into vvhich I hope by Death to be translated vvhither all these Three sorts of Love should rap up the desires of my ascending Soul even the Love of my self that I may be fully happy the Love of the triumphant Church Christ Angels and glorified Man and the Glory of all the Universe vvhich I shall see and above all the Love of the most Glorious God Infinite Life and Light and Love the ultimate Amiable Object of Man's Love in vvhom to beperfectly pleased and delighted and to vvhom to be perfectly pleasing for ever is the chief and ultimate end of me and of the highest vvisest and best of Creatures Amen THE INTRODUCTION PHIL. 1. 23. For I am in a streight between two c. I Write for my self and therefore supposing the sense of the Text shall only observe what is useful to my Heart and Practice It was a happy state into which Grace had brought this Apostle who saw so much not only tolerable but greatly desirable both in living and dying To live to him was Christ that is Christ's interest or work To die would be gain that is His own interest and reward His streight was not whether it would be good to live or good to depart Both were good But which was more desirable was the doubt I. Quest But was there any doubt to be made between Christ's interest and his own Ans No if it had been a full and fixed competition But by Christ or Christ's interest he meaneth his work for his Churches interest in this World But he knew that Christ also had an interest in his Saints above and that he could raise up more to serve him here Yet because he was to judge by what appeared and he saw a defect of such on Earth this did turn the Scales in his Choice and for the work of of Christ and his Churches good he more inclined to the delay of his reward by self-denial Yet knowing that the delay would tend to its increase It 's useful to me here to note That even in this World short of Death there is some good so much to be regarded as may justly prevail with Believers to prefer it before the present hastning of their reward I the rather note this that no temptation carry me into that extream of taking nothing but Heaven to be worthy of our minding or regard and so to cast off the World in a sinful sort on pretence of mortification and a heavenly mind and life I. As to the sense the meaning is not that any thing on Earth is better than Heaven or simply and in itself to be preferred before it The end is better than the means as such And perfection better than imperfection But the present use of the means may be preferred somtimes before the present possession of the end And the use of means for a higher end may be preferred before the present possession of a lower end And every thing hath its season Planting and Sowing and Building are not so good as Reaping and Fruit gathering and Dwelling But in their season they must be first done II. Quest But what is there so desirable in this Life Ans 1. While it continueth it is the fulfilling of the will of God who will have us here And that 's best which God willeth II. The life to come dependeth upon this As the life of Man in the World upon his Generation in the Womb Or as the reward upon the work or the Runners or Souldiers Prize upon his Race or Fighting Or as the Merchants gain upon his Voyage Heaven is won or lost on Earth The possession is there but the preparation is here Christ will judge all men according to their works on Earth Well done good and faithful Servant must go before Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I have fought a good Fight I have finished my Course goeth before the Crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give All that ever must be done for Salvation by us must here be donc It waron Earth that Christ himself wrought the work of 〈◊〉 Redemption fulfilled all Righteousness became our Ransom And paid the Price of our Salvation And it 's here that our part is to be done And the bestowing of the reward of God's work who we are sure will never fail There is no place for the least suspicion or fear of his misdoing or failing in any of his undertaken work But the danger and fear is of our own miscarrying lest we be not found capable of receiving what God will certainly give to all that are disposed Receivers To distrust God is heinous sin and
them that have been piously inclined from their Childhood it is harder to discern the difference unless they mark the Case of others If Man be worth any thing it is for the use that his Faculties were made And if he be not good for the Knowledg Love and Service of his Creator what is he good for And certainly the generality of ungodly Worldlings are undisposed to all such works as this till the Spirit of Christ effectually change them Men are Slaves to sin till Christ thus make them free Joh. 8. 32 33 36. Rom. 6. 18. Act. 26. 18. Rom. 8. 2. But where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. If the Divine Nature and Image and the Love of God shed abroad on the Heart be not our Excellency Health and Beauty what is And that which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Joh. 3. 6. Without Christ and his Spirit we can do nothing Our dead Notions and Reason when we see the Truth have not power to overcome Temptations nor to raise up Man's Soul to its Original and End nor to possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future Blessedness It were better for us to have no Souls than that those Souls should be void of the Spirit of God § 4. 2. And that HEAVEN is the Sum and End of all the Spirits Operations appeareth in all that â—â—e truly Conscious of them in themselves and to them and others by all God's Precepts which the Spirit causeth us to obey and the Doctrine which it causeth us to believe and by the description of all God's graces which he worketh in us What is our Knowledge and Faith but our knowledge and belief of Heaven as consisting in the Glory and Love of God there manifested and as purchased by Christ and given by his Covenant What is our Hope but the Hope of Glory See Heb. 11. 1. and throughout 1 Pet. 1. 3. 21. Heb. 6 11 18 19. 3. 6 Tit. 2 13. 3. 7. Col. 1. 5 23 27. And through the Spirit we wait for all this Hope Gal. 5. 5. What is our Love but a desire of Communion with the blessed God initially here and perfectly hereafter As the Sum of Christ's Gospel was Take up the Cross forsake all here and follow me and thou shalt have a Reward in Heaven Luke 14. 26 33. 18. 22 23. and the Consolation of his Gospel is Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Matt. 5. 11 12. So the same is the Sum of his Spirits Operations For what he teacheth and commandeth that he worketh For he worketh by that Word and the impress must be like the Signet what arm soever set it on He sendeth not his Spirit to make men craftier than others for this World but to make them wiser for Salvation and to make them more Heavenly and Holy For the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light Heavenliness is the Spirits special work § 5. 3. And in working this it conquereth the inward undisposedness and aversness of a fleshly worldly mind and will and the customs of a Carnal life and the outward Temptations of Satan and all the allurements of the World Christ first overcame the World and teacheth and causeth us to overcome it even its flatteries and its frowns Our Faith is our Vâ—ctory Whether this Victory be easie and any honour to the Spirit of Christ let our experience of the wickedness of the ungodly World and of our own weakness and of our falls when the Spirit of God forsaketh us be our informer § 6. 4. And that None but God can do this work on the Soul of Man both the knowledge of Causes and Experience prove The most learned wise and holy Teachers cannot as they confess and shew The wisest and most loving Parents cannot and therefore must pray to him that can The greatest Princes cannot Evil Angels neither can nor will What Good Angels can do on the Heart we know not but we know that they do nothing but as the obedient Ministers of God And though we have some power on our selves yet that we our selves cannot do it that we cannot Quicken Illuminate or Sanctifie our selves and that we have nothing but what we have received Conscience and Experience fully tell us § 7. 5. And that Christ promised this Spirit in a special measure to all true Believers that it should be in them his Advocate Agent Seal and Mark is yet visible in the Gospel yea and in the former Prophets Isa 44. 34. Ezek. 36. 26. 37. 14. Joel 2. 28 29. Ezek. 11. 19. 18. 31. Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 3. 5. 4. 23 24. 6. 63. 7. 39. Joh. 1. 33. 14. 16 26. Act. 1. 5 8. Joh. 15. 26. 16. 7 8 9 c. Indeed the Spirit here and Heaven hereafter are the chief of all the Promises of Christ § 8. 6. And that this Spirit is given not to Hypocrites that abuse Christ and do not seriously believe him nor to meer pretending nominal Christians but to all that sincerely believe the Gospel is evident not only to themselves in certainty if they are in a condition to know themselves but to others in part by the effects They have other Ends other affections other lives than the rest of Mankind have Though their heavenly Nature and Design be the less discerned and honoured in the World because their chiefest difference is out of the sight of Man in the Heart and in their secret actions and because their imperfections blemish them and because the Malignant World is by Strangeness and Enmity an incompetent judge yet it is discernable to others that they live upon the hopes of a better life and their heavenly Interest is it that over-ruleth all the adverse Interests of this World and that in order thereunto they live under the conduct of Divine Authority and that God's will is highest and most prevalent with them and that to obey and please him so far as they know it is the greatest business of their lives though ignorance and adverse Flesh do make their Holiness and Obedience imperfect The universal noise and opposition of the World against them doth shew that men discern a very great difference which Error and cross Interests and Carnal inclinations render displeasing to those who find themselves condemned by their heavenly Designs and Conversations § 9. But whether others discern it or deny it or detest it the true Believer is conscious of it in himself Even when he groaneth to be better to believe and trust and love God more and to have more of the heavenly life and comforts those very desires signifie another Appetite and Mind than Worldlings have and even when his frailties and weaknesses make him doubt of his own sincerity he would not change his Governour Rule or Hopes for all that the World can
part not Rem sed aliquid Rei in which sense Sanchez truly saith Nihil scitur But then shall I know even as I am known Not a God knoweth us for our knowledge and his must not be so comparatively likened but as Holy Spirits know us both now and for ever we shall both know and be known by immediate intuition If a Physician be to describe the parts of Man and the latent Diseases of his Patient he is fain to search hard and bestow many Thoughts of it besides his long reading and converse to make him capable of knowing and when all is done he goeth much upon Conjectures and his knowledge is mixt with many uncertainties yea and mistakes but when he openeth the Corps he seeth all and his knowledg is more full more true and more certain besides that it is easily and quickly attained even by a present look A Countrey Man knoweth the Town the Fields and Rivers where he dwelleth yea and the Plants and Animals with ease and certain clearness when he that must know the same things by the study of Geographical Writings and Tables must know them but with a General an unsatisfactory and oft a much mistaking kind of knowledge Alas when our present knowledge hath cost a Man the study of Forty or Fifty or Sixty Years how lean and poor how doubtful and unsatisfactory is it after all But when God will shew us himself and all things and when Heaven is known as the Sun by its own Light this will be the clear suâ—â— and satisfactory knowledge Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they shall see God Mat. 5. And without Holiness none can see him Heb. 12. 14. This sight will be worthy the Name of Wisdom when our present glympse is but Philosophy a love and desire of Wisdom So far should we be from fearing Death through the fear of losing our knowledge or any of the means of knowledge that it should make us rather long for the World of Glorious Light that we might get out of this darkness and know all that with an easie look to our joy and satisfaction which here we know with troublesome doubtings or not at all Shall we be afraid of darkness in the Heavenly Light or of Ignorance when we see the Lord of Glory § 6. And as for the loss of Sermons Books and other means surely it is no loss to cease the means when we have attained the end Cannot we spare our Winter Clothes as troublesom in the heat of Summer and sit by the hot Fire without our Glores Cannot we sit at home without a Horse or Coach Or set them by at our Journeys end Cannot we lie in Bed without Boots and Spurs Is it grievous to us to cease our Physick when we are well Even here he is happier that hath least of the Creature and needeth least than he that hath much and needeth much Because all Creature commodities and helps have also their discommodities and troublesomness And the very applying and using so many remedies of our want is tedious of itself And as God only needeth nothing but is self-sufficient and therefore only perfectly and essentially happy so those are likest God that need least from without and have the greatest plenitude of internal goodness What need we to preach hear read pray to bring us to Heaven when we are there § 7. And as for our Friends and our converse with them as Relations or as wise religious and faithful to us he that believeth not that there are far More and far Better in Heaven than are on Earth doth not believe as he ought that there is a Heaven Our Friends here are wise but they are unwise also They are Faithful but partly unfaithful they are holy but also alas too sinful They have the Image of God but blotted and dishonoured by their faults They do God and his Church much service but they also do too much against him and too much for Satan even when they intend the Honour of God They promote the the Gospel but they also hinder it Their weakness ignorance errour selfishness pride passion division contention scandals and remisness do oft so much hurt that it is hard to discern whether it be not greater than their good to the Church or to their Neigbours Our Friends are our helpers and comforters but how oft also are they our hinderers troubles and grief But in Heaven they are altogether wise and holy and faithful and concordant and have nothing in them nor there done by them but what is amiable to God and Man And with our faithful Friends we have here a mixture partly of useless and burdensom Persons and partly of unfaithful Hypocrites and partly of self-conceited factious Wranglers and partly of malicious envious underminers and partly of implacable Enemies And how many of all these set together is there for one worthy faithful Friend And how great a number iâ— there to trouble you For one that will indeed comfort you But in Heaven there are none but the Wise and Holy No Hypocrites no burdensom Neighbours no treacherous or oppressing or persecuting Enemies are there And is not all good and amiable better than a little good with so troublesome a mixture of noisome Evils Christ loved his Disciples his Kindred yea and all Mankind and took pleasure in doing good to all and so did his Apostles But how poor a requital had he or they from any but from God Christ's own Brethren believed not in him but wrangled with him almost like those that said to him on the Cross If thou be the Son of God come down and we will believe Peter himself was once a Satan to him Matth. 16. and after with Cursing and Swearing denied him And all his Disciples forsook him and fled And what then from others could be expected No Friends have a perfect suitableness to each other and roughness and inequalities that are nearest us are most troublesom The wonderful variety and contrariety of apprehensions interest educations temperaments and occasions and temptations c. are such that whilest we are scandalized at the discord confusions of the World we must recal our selves and admire that all ruling Providence which keepeth up so much order and concord as there is We are indeed like People in crowded Streets who going several ways molest each other with their jostling oppositions Or like Boys at Foot-ball striving to overthrow each other for the Ball But it is a wonder of Divine Power and Wisdom that all the World is not continually in mortal War If I do men no harm yet if I do but cross their Wills it goeth for a provoking injury And when there are as many Wills as Persons who is it that can please them all Who hath Money enough to please all the Poor that need it or the Covetous that desire it Or who can live with displeased men and not feel some of the fruits of their displeasure What day goeth over
that a great Book is a great Evil while it containeth so great a number of uncertain words which become the matter of great contentions 2. And when the Mind of the Speaker or Writer is no better informed by such Notions but his conceptions of Things are some false some confused and undigested what wonder if his words do no otherwise express his mind to others When even men of clearest understanding find it difficult to have words still ready to communicate their conceptions with truth and clearness To form true sentiments of Things into apt significant words is a matter of meer Art and requireth an apt Teacher a serious Learner and long use And too many take their Art of Speaking in Prayer Conference or Preaching to have more in it of Wisdom and Piety than it hath and some too much Condemn the unaccustomed that want it 3. And if we could fit our words well to the Matter and to our Minds with that double verity yet still it is hard to fit them to the Reader or Hearer For want of which they are lost as to him And his information being our End they are therefore so far lost to us And that which is spoken most congruously to the Matter is seldom fitted to the capacity of the receiver And recipitur ad modum recipient is pro captu Lectoris c. Some Readers or Hearers yea almost all are so used to unapt Words and Notions obtruded on Mankind by the Masters of Words that they cannot understand us if we change their terms and offer them fitter and yet least understand those which they think that they best understand And all men must have long time to learn the Art of Words before they can understand them as well as before they can readily use them And the duller any Man is and of less understanding the more Words are necessary to make him understand And yet his Memory is the less capable of retaining many This is our difficulty not only in Catechizing but in all our Writings and Teaching a short Catechism or a short Style the ignorant understand not and a long one they remember not And he that will accommodate one judicious Reader or Hearer with profound matter or an accurate Style must incommodate Multitudes that are uncapable of it And therefore such must be content with few approvers and leave the Applause of the Multitude to the more popular unless he be one that can seasonably suit himself to both A Man that resolveth not to be deceived by ambiguous words and maketh it his first work in all his Reading and disputings to difference between Words and Sense and Things and strictly to examine each disputed term till the Speakers meaning be distinctly known will see the lamentable case of the Church and all Mankind and what shaddows of knowledg deceive the World and in what useless dreams the greatest part of men yea of Learned men do spend their days Much of that which some men unweariedly study and take to be the honour of their understandings and their lives and much of that which Multitudes place their Piety and Hopes of Salvation in being a meer game at words and useless Notions and as truly to be called Vanity and Vexation as is the rest of the Vain shew that most men walk in My sad and bitter Thoughts of the Heathen Infidel Mahomet World and of the common corruptions of Rulers and Teachers Cities and Countries Senates and Councils I will not here open to others lest they offend nor cry out as Seneca Omnes mali sumus or stultorum plena sunt omnia nor describe the furious Spirits of the Clergy and their ignorance and unrighteous Calumnies and Schisms as Gregory Nazianzene and others do nor voluminously lament the seeming hopeless case of Earth by the boldness blindness and fury of men that make use of such sad considerations to loosen my love from such a World and make me willing to be with Christ 9. And if other mens Words and Writings are ble mished with so much imperfection why should think that my own are blameless I must for ever be thankful for the holy Instructions and Writings of others notwithstanding humane frailty and contentious mens abuse of words And so I must be thankful that God hath made any use of my own for the good of Souls and his Churches Edification But with how many allays are such comforts here mixed We are not the Teachers of a well ruled School where Learners are ranked into several Forms that every one may have the teaching which is agreeable to his capacity But we must set open the Door to all that will crowd in and publish our Writings to all sorts of Readers And there being as various degrees of Capacity as there are Men and Women and consequently great variety and contrariety of apprehensions it 's easie ab antecedente to know what various reception we must expect We cast out our Doctrine almost as a Foot-ball is turned out among Boys in the Street in some Congregations Few understand it but every one censureth it Few come as Learners or teachable Disciples but most come to sit as Judges on their Teachers words and yet have neither the Skill or the Patience or the diligence which is necessary in a just Tryal to a righteous judgment But as our words agree or disagree with the former conceptions of every Hearer so are they judged to be wise or foolish sound or unsound true or false fit or unfit Few Sermons that I preach but one extolleth them and wisheth they were printed and another accuseth them of some hainous fault Some men are pleased with clearness and accuratness of Doctrine and others account it too high and say we shoot over the hearers Heads and like nothing but the fervent Application of what they knew before most Hearers are displeased with that which they most need If they err they reproach that Doctrin as erroneous that would cure them If they are guilty of any prevailing Distemper and sin they take that Application to be injurious to them which would convince them and save them from that guilt Most are much pleased with plain and zealous reproof of sin but it must be other mens sins and not their own The poor love to hear of the evil of oppression and unmercifulness of Pride Fulness and Idleness and all the sins of the Rich Subjects love to hear of their Rulers faults and say O this Man is no flatterer he dares tell the greatest of their sins But if they hear of their own they take for it an injury Rulers like a Sermon for submission and obedience but how few love to hear of the evil of injustice and oppression or pride and sensuality or to read Luke 16. or 12. or James 5. or to hear of the necessity of Holiness Justice and temperance and of Death and Judgment and the Life to come Every Sectary and Dogmatist delighteth to have his own Opinion
the Love of ancient Friends and Hearers I must say What mean you to weep and break my Heart I am ready to leave the dearest Friends on Earth and life and all the pleasures of life for the presence of far better Friends with Christ and the sweeter pleasures of a better life That little amiableness which is in things below is in godly men as life in the Heart which dieth last When that 's all gone when we are dead to the Love of the godly themselves and to Learning Books and mediate Ordinances so far as they serve a selfish interest and tempt down our Hearts from heavenly aspirings the World then is Crucified to us indeed and we to it I rejoice to tread in the Footsteps of my Lord who had some indeed weeping about his cross but was forsaken by all his Disciples while in the Hour of Temptation they all fled But my desertion is far less for it is less that I am fit to bear If God will justifie who shall condemn If he be for me who shall be against me O may I not be put to that dreadfull case to cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And may nothing separate me from his Love And then were I forsaken of the sober and peaceable as I am in part of some quarrelsom Dividers how tolerable a tryal would it be Man is as dust in the Ballance that addeth little to it and signifieth nothing when God is in the other end But I suspect still that I make too much account of Man when this case hath taken up too much of my observation 1. And of all things surely a departing Soul hath least cause to fear the losing of its notice of the Affairs of the World Of Peace or Wars or Church or Kingdoms For 1. If the Sun can send forth its material Beams and operate by motion light and heat at such a distance as this Earth why should I think that blessed Spirits are such local confined and impotent substances as not to have notice of the things of Earth Had I but bodily Eyes I could see more from the top of a Tower or Hill than any one that is below can do And shall I know less of Earth from Heaven than I do now It 's unlike that my Capacity will be so little And if it were it is unlike that Christs and all the Angels will be so strange to me as to give me no notice of things that so much concern my God and my Redeemer to whom I am united and the Holy Society of which I am a part and my self as a Member of Christ and that Society I do not think that the Communion of the Celestial Inhabitants is so narrow and slow as it is of walking Clods of Earth and of Souls that are confined to such dark Lanthorns as this Body is Stars can shine one to another And we on Earth can see them so far off in their Heaven And sure then if they have a seeing faculty each of them can see many of us even the Kingdoms of the World Spirits are most active and of powerful and quick communication They need not send Letters or write Books to one another nor lift up a voice to make each other hear Nor is there any unkindness division or unsociable selfishness among them which may cause them to conceal their notices or their joys But as Activity so Unity is Greatest where there is most Perfection They will so be Many as yet to be One and their Knowledge will be One Knowledge and their Love One Love and their Joy One Joy Not by so perfect a Unity as in God himself who is One and but One but such as is suitable to created imperfection which participate of the Perfection of the Creator as the Effect doth of the virtue of the Cause and therefore hath some participation of his Unity O foolish Soul if I shall fear this Unity with God Christ and all the Holy Spirits lest I should lose my present separate Individuation when Perfection and Union are so near akin In a word I have no cause to think that my Celestial advancement will be a diminution of any desirable Knowledge even of things on Earth but contrarily that it will be unconceivably increased 2. But if indeed I shall know less of things below it will be because that the knowledge of them is a part of Vanity and Vexation which hath no place in Heaven So much knowledge of good and evil in lower matters as came to us by sin is unworthy of our fond tenaciousness and fear of losing it Surely the sad tidings which we have Weekly in our News Books our lamentable notices of Heathen and Infidel Kingdoms of the overspreading prevalency of Barbarousness Idolatry Ignorance and Infidelity of the rage and success of cruel Tyrants of the bloody Wars of proud unquiet worldly men of the misery of the oppressed desolate Countreys the dissipated Churches the persecuted innocent Christians are no such pleasing things as that we should be afraid to hear of such no more To know or hear of the poor in Famine the rich in Folly the Church distracted the Kingdom discontented the godly scandalous by the effects of their Errours imperfections and divisions the wicked outrageous and waxing worse the falseness or miscarriages or sufferings of Friends the fury or success of Enemies is this an intelligence which I cannot spare What is the daily tidings that I hear but of bloody Wars the undone Countreys the persecuted Churches the silenced banished or imprisoned Preachers of the best removed in judgment from an unworthy World by Death and worse succeeding in their rooms of the renewed designs and endeavours of the Churches Enemies the implacable rage of the worldly and unquiet Clergy and the new divisions of self-conceited Sectaries and the obloquy and backbitings of each Party against the other How oft hear I the sad tidings of this Friends sickness or Death and that Friends discontent and of anothers fall and of many very many's Sufferings My Ears are daily filled with the cryes of the poor whom I cannot relieve with the endless complaints of fearful Melancholy despairing Persons with the wranglings of the ignorant and proud Professors and contentious Divines who censure most boldly where they are most Erroneous or dark Or with the troublesom discontents of those that I converse with And should I be afraid of the ending of so sad a Tragedy or of awaking out of such an unpleasant dream Have I not many times thought of the Priviledge of the deaf that hear not these troublesom and provoking things and of the Blind that see not the Vanities and Temptations of this World It is one part of the benefit of solitude or a private life and habitation to free me from many of these unpleasing Objects and a great part of the benefit of sleep that with my Cloaths I may lay by these troubleous Thoughts § 11. But other men
tell me The Church cannot yet spare you There is yet this and that necessary work to be done There is this and that need c. But 1. Is it we or God that must choose his Servants and cut out their work Whose work am I doing Is it my own or his If his is it not he that must tell me what and when and how long And will not his will and choice be best If I beâ—â—eve not this how do I take him for my God Doth God or I know better what he hath yet to do And who is fittest to do it The Churches Service and benefits must be measured out by our Master and Benefactor and not by our selves 2. What am I to those more excellent Persons whom in all Ages he hath taken out of the World And would mens Thoughts of the Churches needs detain them The poor Heathen Infidel Mahometane Nations have no Preachers of the Gospel And if their need prove not that God will send them such no Countreys need will prove that God will continue them such Many more useful Servants of Christ have died in their youth John Janeway preached but one Sermon Joseph Allen and many another excellent Men died young in the midst of his vigorous successful labours Both of them far more fit for God's work and likely to win Souls and glorifie God than I am or ever was However their greater Light was partly kindled from my lesser Yet did both these under painful consuming languishings of the Flesh die as they had long lived in the lively triumphant Praises of their Redeemer and joyful desires and hopes of Glory And shall I at Sixty seven Years of Age after such a life of unspeakable Mercies and after almost Forty four Years of comfortable help in the Service of my Lord be now afraid of my reward and shrink at the Sentence of Death and still be desiring to stay here upon pretence of further service We know not what is best for the Church as God doth The Church and the World are not Ours but his not our desires but his will must measure out its Mercies We are not so Merciful as he is It is not unmeet for us to desire many things which God will not give nor seeth it meet to grant the particulars of such desires Nothing ever lay so heavy on my Heart as the sin and misery of Mankind and to think how much of the World lyeth in folly and wickedness And for what can I pray so heartily as for the Worlds recovery And it is his will that I should shew a Holy and Universal Love by praying Let thy Name be hallowed Thy Kingdom come and Thy will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven And yet alas how unlike is Earth to Heaven and what Ignorance Sin Confusions and Cruelties here reign and prosper And unless there be a wonderful change to be expected even as by a general Miracle how little hope appeareth that ever these Prayers should be granted in the things It maketh us better to desire that others may be better But God is the free disposer of his own gifts And it seemeth to be his will that the permitted Ignorance and Confusions of this World should help us the more to value and desire that World of Light Love and Order which he calleth us to prefer and hope for And if I am any way useful to the World it is undeserved Mercy that hath made me so for which I must be thankful But How long I shall be so is not my business to determine but my Lords My many sweet and beautiful Flowers arise and appear in their beauty and sweetness but for one Summers time and they murmur not that they flourish for so short a space The Beasts and Birds and Fishes which I feed on do live till I will have them die And as God will be served and pleased by wonderful variety at once of Animals and Vegetables c. So will he by many successive Generations If one Flower fall or die it sufficeth that others shall Summer after Summer arise from the same root And if my Pears Apples Plums c. fall or serve me when they are ripe it sufficeth that not they but others the next Year shall do the same God will have other Generations to succeed us Let us think him that we have had our time And could we overcome the Grand too little observed Crime of SELFISHNESS and could Love others as our selves and God as God above all the World it would comfort us at Death that others shall survive us and the World shall continue and God will be still God and be glorified in his works And Love will say I shall live in my successors and I shall more than Live in the Life of the World and yet most of all in the eternal Life and Glory of God And God who made us not gods but poor Creatures as it pleased him doth know best our measures And he will not try us with too long a Life of Temptations lest we should grow too familiar where we should be Strangers and utterly Strangers to our home No wonder if that World was ready for a deluge by a deluge of sin in which men lived to Six Seven Eight and Nine hundred Years of Age Had our Great Sensualists any hope of so long a life they were like to be like incarnate Devils and there would be no dwelling near them for the Holy Seed If Angels were among them they would like the Sodâ—mites seek furiously to abuse them Nor will God tire us out with too long a life of earthly sufferings We think short cares and fears and sorrows persecutions sickness and crosses to be long And shall we grudge at the Wisdom and Love which shortneth them Yea though holy duty it self be excellent and sweet yet the weakness of the Flesh maketh us liable to weariness and abateth the willingness of the Spirit And our wise and merciful God will not make our warfare or our race too long lest we be wearied and faint and fall short of the prize By our weariness and complaints and fears and groans one would think that we thought this life too long and yet when we should yield to the call of God we draw back as if we would have it everlasting § 12. Willingly submit then O my Soul It is not thou but this Flesh that must be dissolved this troublesom vile and corruptible Flesh It is but the other half thy meat and drink which thy presence kept longer uncorrupted going after the excremental part Thou diest not when Man the compositum dieth by thy departure And as thou livest not to thy self I die not to my self whether I live or die I am the Lords He that set up the Candle knoweth how long he hath use for the light of it Study thy duty and work while it is Day and let God choose thy time and willingly stand to his disposal The Gospel dieth
not when I die The Church dieth not The Praises of God die not the World dieth not And perhaps it shall grow better and those Prayers shall be answered which seemed lost Yea it may be some of the Seed that I have sowen shall spring up to some benefit of the dark unpeaceable World when I am dead And is not this much of the end of life is not that Life good which attaineth its End If my End was to do Good and Glorifie God if Good be done and God be Glorified when I am dead yea though I were annihilated is not my End attained Feign not thy self to be God whose Interest that is the pleasing of his Will is the End of all things And whose will is the measure of all Created good Feign not thy self to be All the World God hath not lost his work the World is not dissolved when I am dissolved O how strong and unreasonable a Disease is this inordinate SELFISHNESS Is not God's Will Infinitely better than mine And fitter to be fulfilled Choose the fulfilling of his Will and thou shalt always have thy choice If a Man be well that can always have his will let this always be thy Will that God's Will may be done and thou shalt always have it Lord let thy Servant Depart in Peace even in Thy Peace which passeth understanding and which Christ the Prince of Peace doth give and nothing in the World can take away O give me that Peace which beseemeth a Soul which is so near the Harbour even the World of endless PEACE and LOVE where perfect UNION such as I am capable of will free me from all the sins and troubles which are caused by the convulsions divulsions and confusions of this divided SELFISH World Call home this Soul by the encouraging Voice of Love that it may joyfully hear and say It is my Fathers Voice Invite it to thee by the heavenly Messenger Attract it by the tokens and the foretasts of Love The Messengers that invited me to the Feast of Grace compelled me to come in without constraint Thy effectual call did make me willing And is not Glory better than preparing Grace Shall I not come more willingly to the Celestial Feast What was thy Grace for but to make me willing of Glory and the way to it Why didst thou dart down thy Beams of Love but to make me Love thee and to call me up to the everlasting Center Was not the Feast of of Grace as a Sacrament of the Feast of Glory Did I not take it in remembrance of my Lord until he come Did not he that told me All things are ready tell me also that He is gone to prepare a place for us and it is his will that we shall be with him and see his Glory They that are Given him and Drawn to him by the Father on Earth do come to Christ Give now and Draw my Departing Soul to my Glorified Head And as I have Glorified thee on Earth in the measure that thy Grace hath prevailed in me pardon the sins by which I have offended thee and Glorifie me in the beholding and participation of the Glory of my Redeemer come Lord Jesus come quickly with fuller Life and Light and Love into this too Dead and Dark and Disaffected Soul that it may come with joyful willingness unto thee § 13. Willingly Depart O lingring Soul It is from a Sodom though in it there be righteous Lots who yet are not without their woful blemishes Hast thou so oft groaned for the general blindness and wickedness of the World and art thou loth to leave it for a better How oft wouldst thou have rejoyced to have seen but the dawning of a Day of Universal Peace and Reformation And wouldst thou not see it where it shineth forth in fullest Glory Would a light at Midnight have pleased thee so well Hast thou prayed and laboured for it so hard And would thou not see the Sun Will the things of Heaven please thee no where but on Earth where they come in the least and weakest influences and are terminated in gross terrene obscure and unkind recipients Away away the vindictive Flames are ready to consume this sinful World Sinners that blindly rage in sin must quickly rage in the effects of sin and of God's Justice The pangs of Lust prepared for these pangs They are treasuring up wrath against this Day Look not then behind thee Away from this unhappy World Press on unto the Mark Phil. 3. Looking towards and hastning to the coming of the Day of God 2 Pet. 3. 10 11 12. As this World hath used thee it would use thee still and it will use others If thou hast sped well in it no thanks to it but unto God! If thou hast had manifold deliverances and marvellous preservations and hast been sed with Angels food love not this Wilderness for it but God and his Angel which was thy Guide Protector and Deliverer And hath this troublesome Flesh been so comfortable a companion to thee that thou shouldst be so loth to leave it Have thy pains thy weariness thy languishings thy labours thy cares and fears about this Body been pleasing to thee And art thou loth that they should have an end Didst thou not find a need of patience to undergo them And of greater Patience than mâ—â—r Nature gave thee And canst thou hope now for better when Nature faileth and that an aged consumed more diseased Body should be a pleasanter habitation to thee than it was heretofore If from thy youth up it hath been both a tempting and a troubling thing to thee surely though it be less tempting it will not be less troubling when it is falling to the Dust and above ground savoureth of the Grave Had things sensible been never so pleasant in thy youth and hadst thou glutted thy self in health with that sort of delight in Age thou art to say by Nature I have no pleasure in them Doth God in great Mercy make pain and feebleness the Harbingers of Death and wilt thou not understand their business Doth he mercifully before hand take away the pleasure of all fleshly things and worldly vanities that there may be nothing to relieve a departing Soul as the shell breaketh when the Bird is hatched and the Womb relaxed when the Infant must be Born and yet shall we stay when nothing holdeth us and still be loth to come away Wouldst thou dwell with thy beloved Body in the Grave where it will rot and stink in loathsome darkness If not why should it now in its painful languor seem to thee a more pleasant habitation than the glorious presence of thy Lord In the Grave it will be at rest and not tormented as now it is nor wish at Night O that it were Morning nor say at Morning when will it be Night And is this a dwelling fit for thy delight Patience in it while God will so try thee is thy duty But is such
Patience a better and sweeter life than rest and joy § 14. But alas how deaf is Flesh to Reason Faith hath the Reason which easily may shame all contrary Reasoning but sense is unreasonable and especially this inordinate tenacious Love of present Life I have Reason enough to be willing to depart even much more willing than I am O that I could be as willing as I am convinced that I have Reason to be Could I Love God as much as I know that I should Love him then I should desire to depart and to be with Christ as much as I know that I should desire it But God in Nature hath here laid upon me some necessity of aversation though the inordinateness came from sin Else Christ had not so feared and deprecated the Cup Death must be a penalty even where it is a gain and therefore it must meet with some unwillingness Because we willingly sinned we must unwillingly suffer The Gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself but the happy consequents of it All the Faith and Reason in the World will not make Death to be no penalty and therefore will not take away all unwillingness No Man ever yet Reasoned or Believed himself into a Love of Pain and Death as such But seeing that the gain is unspeakably Greater than the Pain and Loss Faith and Holy Reason may make our willingness to be Greater than our unwillingness and our Hope and Joy than our Fear and Sorrow And it is the deep and effectual notice of Goodness which is God's way in Nature and Grace to change and draw the Will of Man Come then my Soul and Think believingly what is BEST for thee And wilt thou not Love and Desire most that which is certainly the BEST To Depart and to be with Christ is far better or rather to be chosen § 1. TO say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ is not enough to make us willing Words and Notions are such instruments as God useth to work on Souls but the convincing satisfying powerful Light and the inclining Love are other things The Soul now operateth ut forma hominis on and with the Corporeal Spirit and Organs and it perceiveth now its own perceptions but it is a stranger to the Mode of its future Action when it is separated from the Body and can have no formal conception of such conceptions as yet it never had And therefore its Thoughts of its future â—â—ate must be Analogical and General and partly â—range But General notices when certain may be very powerful and satisfie us in so much as is needful to our â—onsent and to such a measure of Joy as is suitable to this earthly state And such notices we have from the Nature of the Soul with the Nature of God the course of Providence and Government of Mankind the internal and external conflicts which we perceive about Mens Souls the Testimony and Promises of the Word of God the Testimony of Conscience with the Witness of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ and in it the Earnest and the foretast of Glory and the beginnings of Life eternal here of all which I have before considered § 2. The Socinians who would interpret this of the state of Resurrection only against plain evidence violate the Text Seeing Paul expresly speaketh of his Gain by Death which will be his abode with Christ and this upon his departure hence which in 2 Cor. 5. 7 8. he calleth his being absent from the Body and present with Lord And Christ to the penitent Thief calleth his being with him in Paradise And Luke 16. in the Parable of the Steward Christ intimateth to us that wise preparers when they go hence are received into the Everlasting habitations as he there further tells us Lazarus was in Abrahams bosom § 3. Goodness is primaria mensurans vel secundaria mensurata The first is God's perfect Essence and Will The second is either properly and simply Good or Analogical The former is the Creatures conformity to the Will of God or its Pleasingness to his will The later is 1. The Greater which is the wellfare or perfection of the Universe 2. The Lesser which is the Perfection of the several parts of the Universe either 1. In the nobler respect as they are Parts contributing to the Perfection of the whole or 2. In the lower respect as they are Perfect or Happy in themselves or 3. In the lowest respect of all as they are good to their fellow Creatures which are below themselves § 4. Accordingly It is far better to be with Christ I. Properly and simply as it is the fulfilling of God's will II. Analogically as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Universe and the Church III. And as it will be our own good or felicity IV. And as it will be Good to our inferiour fellow Creatures though this last be most questionable and seemeth not included in the meaning of this Text Somewhat of these in order § 5. I. It is an odious effect of Idolatrous SELFISHNESS to acknowledge no Goodness above our own FELICITY and accordingly to make the Goodness of God to be but formally his Usefulness Benovolence and Beneficence to his Creatures which is by making the Creature the ultimate End and God but the Means to make the Creature to be God and deny God indeed while we honour his Name As also it is to acknowledge no higher goodness formally in the Creature than its own felicity as such As if neither the pleasing of God's will nor the Perfection of the Church and World were better than we are We are not of our selves and therefore we are not chiefly for our selves and therefore we have a higher Good to Love That is simply Best which God willeth Therefore to Live here is Best whilest I do live here and to depart is best when the time of my departure cometh That is Best which is which is the work of God The World cannot be Better at this Instant than it is nor any thing Better which is of God because it is as he willeth it to be But when God hath changed them it will then be Best that they are changed Were there no other Good in my departure hence but this simple Good the fulfilling of God's will my Reason telleth me that I should be fully satisfied in it But there is also a subordinate sort of Good § 6. II. For my change will tend to the perfection of the Universe even that Material Good or Perfection which is its Aptitude for the use to which God hath created and doth preserve it As all the parts the modes the situation the motions of a Clock a Watch or other such Engine do to the ends of the Artificer Though God hath not told me particularly Why every Thing and Mode and Motion is as it is I know it is all done in perfect Wisdom and suited to its proper use and end If the Hen or Bird knoweth
Doctrines and Examples and for which I have been called to hear and read and meditate and pray and Watch so long Was it the interest of the Flesh on Earth or a longer life of worldly Prosperity which the Gospel Covenant secured to me which the Sacraments and Spirit Sealed to me Which the Bible was written to direct me to which Ministers preached to me Which my Books were written for Which I prayed for and for which I served God Or was it not for his Grace on Earth and Glory in Heaven And is it not better for me to have the End of all these means than lose them all and lose my hopes Why have I used them if I would not attain their End § 13. 5. That is my Best state which all the Course of God's Fatherly Providences tend to All his sweeter Mercies and all his sharper corrections are to make me partaker of his Holiness and to Lead me to glory in the way that my Saviour and all his Saints have gone before me All things work together for the best to me by preparing me for that which is best indeed Both calms and storms are to bring me to this Harbour If I take them but for themselves and this present life I mistake them and understand them not but unthankfully vilifie them and lose their End and life and sweetness Every word and work of God every Days mercies and changes and Usages do look at Heaven and intend Eternity God leadeth me no other way If I follow him not I forsake my hope in forsaking him If I follow him shall I be unwilling to be at home and come to the End of all this way § 14. 6. Surely that is Best for me which God hath required me principally to value love and seek and that as the business of all my life referring all things else thereto That this is my Duty I am fully certain as is proved elsewhere and before Is my business in the World only for the things of this World How vain a Creature then were Man and how little were the difference between waking and sleeping Life and Death No wonder if he that believeth that there is no Life but this to seek or hope for do live in uncomfortable despair and only seek to palliate his misery with the brutish pleasures of a wicked life and if he stick at no villany which hisfleshly Lusts incline him to Especially Tyrants and Multitudes who have none but God to fear And it is my certain duty to seek Heaven with all the fervour of my Soul and diligence of my life And is it not Best to find it § 15. 7. That must needs be Best for me which all other things must be forsaken for It is folly to forsake the Better for the worse But Scripture Reason and Conscience tell me that all this World when it stands in competition or opposition should be forsaken for Heaven yea for the least hopes of it A possible everlasting Glory should be preferred before a certainly perishing Vanity I am sure this life will shortly be nothing to me and therefore it is next to nothing now And must I forsake all for my everlasting Hopes and yet be unwilling to pass unto the possession of them § 16. 8. That is like to be our Best which is our Maturest state Nature carrieth all things towards their perfection Our Apples Pears Grapes and every Fruit is best when it is ripe And though they then hasten to corruption that is through the incapacity of the corporeal materials any longer to retain the Vegetative Spirit which is not annihilated at its separation and being not made for its own felicity but for Mans its ripeness is the state in which Man useth it before it doth corrupt of itself that its corruption may be for his nutriment and the Spirits and best matter of his said food doth become his very substance And doth God cause Saints to grow up unto ripeness only to perish and drop down unto useless rottenness It is not credible Though our Bodies become but like our filthiest excrements our Souls return to God that gave them And though he need them not he useth them in their separated state and that to such heavenly uses as their heavenly Maturity and Mellowness hath disposed them to Seeing then Love hath ripened me for itself shall I not willingly drop into its hand § 17. 9. That is like to be the Best which the Wisest and Holiest in all Ages of the World have preferred before all and have most desired And which also almost all Mankind do acknowledge to be best at last It is not like that all the Best men in the World should be most deceived and be put upon fruitless labour and sufferings by this deceit and be undone by their duty and that God should by such deceits rule all or almost all Mankin And also that the common notices of humane Nature and Consciences last and closest documents should be all in vain But it is past all doubt that no men usually are worse than those that have no Belief or Hopes of any Life but this And that none are so Holy Just and Sober so charitable to others and so useful to Mankind as those that firmliest believe and hope for the state of immortality And shall I fear that state which all that were wise and holy in All Ages have preferred and desired § 18. 10. And it is not unlike that my Best state is that which my greatest Enemies are mâ—st against And how much Satan doth to keep me and other men from Heaven and how much worldly Honour and Pleasure and Wealth he could afford us to accomplish it I need not here again be copious in reciting having said so much of it elsewhere And shall I be towards my self so much of Satans mind He would not have me come to Heaven And shall I also be unwilling All these things tell me that It is Best to be with Christ II. The Final Reasons § 1. II 1. Is it not far better to dwell with GOD in Glory than with sinful men in such a World as this Though he be every where his Glory which we must behold to our Felicity and the perfecting Operations and Communications of his Love are in the glorious World and not on Earth As the Eye is made to see the Light and then to see other things by the Light so is mans mind made to see God and to Love him and other things as in by and for him He that is our beginning is our end And our End is the first Motive of all Moralaction and for It it is that all means are used And the End attained is the Rest of Souls How oft hath my Soul groaned under the sense of Distance and Darkness and Estrangeness from God! How oft hath it looked up and gasped after him and said O when shall I be nearer and better acquianted with my God As the Heart panteth after the
intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
secrets of the Almighty nor to pretend to know more of God than indeed I know but O that I might know more of his glorious Perfections of his Will and Love and Ways with that knowledge which is Eternal Life Blessed be that Love that sent the Son of God from Heaven to reveal him to us in the Gospel as he hath done But all that hear the same Words and Believe them have not the same degree of Light or Faith If an Angel from Heaven came down on Earth to tell us all of God that we would know and might lawfully desire and ask him who would not turn his Back on Libraries and Universities and the Learned men to go and discourse with such a Messenger What travel should I think too far What cost too great for one Hours talk with such a Messenger But we must have here but such intimations as will exercise Faith and excite desire and try us under the Temptations of the World and Flesh The glorious Light is the reward of the Victory obtained by the conduct of the Light of Grace God in great Mercy even here beginneth the reward They that are true to the initial Light and faithfully follow on to know the Lord do find usually such increase of Light not of vain Notions but of quickning and comforting knowledge of God as greatly encourageth them and draweth them still on to seek for more It is very pleasant here to increase in holy Knowledge though it usually bring an increase of malignant opposition and so of sorrows to the Flesh The pleasure that the mind hath in common knowledge brings men through a great deal of labour to attain it How many Years travel over Land and Sea do some men take to see and know more of this lower World Though it 's little that they bring home but more acquaintance with Sin and Vanity and Vexation How many more Years do Thousands spend in the reading of multitudes of tedious Volumes that they may know what others knew before them Printers and Booksellors live by our desire of Knowledge What Soul then on Earth can possibly conceive how great a pleasure it will be for a glorified Soul to see the Lord Though I cannot now conceive what that intuition of God himself will be and whether it will not be a glorious kind of concluding or abstractive knolwedge whether the Glory which we shall see be only a created appearance of God or be his very Essence it satisfieth me that it will be as perfect a knowledge as is fit for me to desire and I shall then desire no more than is fit And what it is I shall then know by itself for it is not otherwise to be clearly known And all the pleasure that I shall have in Heaven in knowing any of the works of God will be in my beholding God himself his Being his Vital power and action his Wisdom and his Love and Goodness in those works For he is the Life and Glory of them all Blessed are the pure in Heart for they shall see God II. And doubtless it will be no small part of my delight to see and know God's perfect works I mean the Universe itself I cannot say that I shall have so large a Capacity as to comprehend all the World or know it perfectly and with an adequate knowledge But I shall know it in such Perfection as is suitable to my capacity It is exceeding pleasant to know the least Particles of the works of God With what diligence and delight have men endeavoured to Anatomize a Body yea a small part of a Carkass and to know and describe poor Worms and Insects Plants and Minerals And no Man ever yet perfectly knew the least of them all no Herbalist or Physician ever yet knew the Nature and uses of any one Herb with an adequate knowledge With what delight and diligence are Physical searches carryed on in the World though still we are all but groaping in the dark and ignorant of many things for one that we know and therefore know no one perfectly because we are ignorant of rest But if indeed we were above our dreaming erroneous Hypotheses and saw the Nature of every Creature even in Sea and Land this little Spot of God's Creation and the compages of all Oh what a delightful Spectacle would it be How much more to see the whole Creation yea or one Vortex or Systeme of the Globes and to know their union and communion and to behold their beauteous Symmetry and hear them in concord and melodious Harmony praising the the Glory of their Great Wise Amiable Creator this were a delectable sight indeed I shall have as much of this as I shall be capable of And the wonders and glory of the Works of God shall wrap up my Soul in admiring joyful praise for ever And though here it be but little of God's Works that we know I have great reason to think that it will be far otherwise there 1. Because the state of Perfection must far excel our dark and infant state of imperfection We have now desires after such a knowledge His Works are great sought out of them that have pleasure therein And these desires being of God shall not be frustrate 2. Because there will be a proportionableness of the parts of our Perfection and therefore as our Love to God and his works will be there perfected so will be our knowledge 3. Because we shall know God himself as much as we are capable and therefore we shall know his works in him or by a subordinate knowledge the less being in the greater 4. Because God hath made his works to be known to his glory But it is little that is here known of them by Mortals therefore they are known by them in Heaven who are fitted to improve that knowledge to his praise If Christ who is the wisdom of God will teach me the true Philosophy how to love God and live here in all well pleasing unto him I shall quickly in Heaven be a perfect Philosopher and experience will tell me that the surest way to be truly Learned and know the wonderful works of God was to know love and serve the Great Creator and in Him we shall have all and without him we know nothing and have nothing at all Satan tempted Christ by shewing him the Kingdoms and glory of the World and promising them all to him if he would have worshipped him But God will shew me more than Satan could shew and give me more of that which is best than Satan could give III. And that in Heaven I shall better know Jesus Christ and all the Mystery of our Redemption by him will not be the least of my felicity For in him are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom And to know the Mystery of his Eternal Godhead in the second Person and his created Nature and the Union of these and to see God's wonderful design and work of grace in him laid open
to our clearest view O what beatifying knowledge will this be All dark Texts concerning his Person his Office and his Works will be then expounded and fully understood All those strange and difficult things which were the great exercise and honour of Faith will then be plain Difficulties will no more be Satans advantage to tempt us to unbelief or doubting The sight of the Glory of my Lord will be my Glory Joh. 17. 24. If Paul had not then attained to Perfection in the knowledge of Christ and the power of his Resurrection but was pressing forward to reach that Crown in the life to come which he calleth The Resurrection of the dead Phil. 3. 9 10 11 12. Such as I must not expect here to attain it but when that which is Perfect is come this imperfect knowledge of Faith will be done away as childish knowledge is in manly And the Glass and Riddle shall be laid aside when we shall see Face to Face and shall know as we are known 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. as to our sight and knowledge of Christ and his Triumphant Body For I dare not apply that Phrase to the sight and knowledg of the Divine essence nor yet deny it If now though we see not Christ yet believing we love him and rejoice in him with unspeakable glorying joy What love and joy will the Everlasting sight of our blessed head excite there in the Souls of all the glorified IV. I shall better O much better know the heavenly Jerusalem the Triumphant Church the Blessed Angels and glorified Saints And as my love to them so my knowledge of them will not be the least part of my heavenly delight As strangely as I now look upward to that World because I cannot see it with these Eyes it shall be my well known Everlasting habitation O what a sight what a joyful sight will Death shew me by drawing aside the vail Or rather the Lord of Life by turning Death to my advantage When I am there at home I shall no more think with confusion fear or doubting of that blessed place or state My fears which now come from the smalness of my Faith will end when Faith is turned into Vision As I now know the several Rooms in my House and Houses in the Street and Streets in the City so shall I then know the many Mansions which Christ hath said are in his Fathers House Words now give me so poor imperfect a conception of the World and things which I never saw as that somtimes I can scarcely tell whether the Joy of my Faith or the trouble of my dark apprehensions be the greater But when I shall see the Place the Persons the Glory which I heard of that will be the delightful satisfying and possessing kind of knowledge If Nehemiah and the godly Jews made so great a matter of seeing the Walls of Jerusalem repaired and others of the imperfect reedifying of the Temple O what a joyful sight to me will the heavenly Jerusalem then be The most glorious sight will be at the great Marriage day of the Lamb when Christ shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that now believe But the next to that will be the Day of my particular deliverance when I shall come to Christ and see the Saints admiring him in Glory If I were of the Opinion of those Greek Fathers who thought that Stars were Angels or had intellectual Souls matters unknown to us I should love them as my Guardians and take it to be yet more of my concernment to be advanced to the fuller knowledge of them But seeing I know that Angels love us and by Office do attend and keep us and rejoice at our good and at our repentance and which is far more are more holy and excellent Creatures than we are it is therefore my comfort to think that I shall better know them and live in near and perpetual acquaintance and communion with them a more sensible and sweet communion than we can have with them here Devils are aereal and near to this dark and sinful World and ofter appear to men than Angels But the Angels affect not such descending appearances till Love and Obedience to their Lord make it pleasing to them And therefore we have but little knowledge even of those that know and love and keep us But when we come home to their nearest society and converse to know them will be sweet and joyful knowledge For they are more excellent Creatures than the most glorious that are below the Intellective Nature They are full of Light and full of Love to God and Man Had God bid me pray to them I would not have refused it but taken it for my honour But seeing he hath not I will do that which he hath bid me even Love them and rejoice in my relation to the innumerable Company of them in the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem Heb. 12. 22. and long to know and love them more expecting long to bear my part in the Praises of God and of the Lamb in the same Chore where they are the Precentors And that I shall know the Spirits of the perfected Just and be of their communion will be no small addition to my joy How sweet hath one wise and holy though weak and blemished companion been to me here on Earth And how lovely have God's Graces in such though smutted appeared to me O then what a sight will it be when we shall see the Millions of Souls that shine in perfect Wisdom and Holiness with Christ To see a Garden that hath some beautiful Flowers in it is somthing But if you saw whole Fields and Countries shining with them it would be a glory though fading to the Earth A well built City is a pleasanter sight than a single House and a Navy than a Ship and an Army than one Man And if this poor low World did all consist of Wise and Just and Holy Persons O what an orderly lovely World would it be If one Kingdom consisted Prince Magistrates Pastors and People all of such what a blessed Kingdom would that be The plague of wicked mens deceits and falshoods oppressions and iniquities may help to make us sensible of this It would be a great temptation to us to be loth to die and leave such a Countrey were it not that the more the beauty of goodness appeareth the more the state of Perfection is desired It is pleasant to me to pray in hope as Christ hath commanded me that Earth may be made liker unto Heaven which now is become so like to Hell But when I shall see the Society perfected in Number in Holiness in Glory in heavenly Employment the joyful Praises of Jehovah the Glory of God and the Lamb shining on them and God rejoicing over them as his delight and my self partaking of the same that will be the truly blessed day And why doth my Soul imprisoned in Flesh no
his production by Emanation or Creation doth consist with Generation And how forms are multiplied And what Causality the Parents Soul hath to the production of the Childs Whether by communication of substance or only by disposing the recipient matter I shall know whether all Souls came from Adam's one substantiality and whether there be more substance in the All than in that One and whether one substance cause more by generation Or whether it be so as to the Souls of Bruits or whether any Anima communis inform many Organical Bodies of the Bruits as the Sun lighteth many Candles which are individuate by matter to which as parts of one they variously are contracted and on which they operate and whether they were individuate in pre-existence or shall be individuate after separation I shall know how far the semen in generation is animated And how the animated semina of two make one And if animated what becomes of the anima seminis perditi and of an Abortive And whether the Body be animated as Vegetative or Sensitive before the entrance of the rational Soul Or rather the same Soul which in its Faculty is Rational being one with the Sensitive and Vegetative be the constitutive form of the first animated Body and the Fabricator of its own domicilium I shall know how far the Soul is receptive And what the Causa finalis doth to it And what each Object is to the Constitution or production of the act Yea and what an Act is and what a Habit And how a Soul acting or habited differeth from itself not acting or habited And how its acts are many and yet but One Or its Faculties at least Many other such difficulties will all be solved which now Philosophers contend about in the dark and pass but under doubtful conjectures Or at least are known to very few And I shall know how God's Spirit operateth on Souls And how it is sent from Christ's humane Nature to work on Man And whether Grace be properly or only Metaphorically called a Nature a New Nature a Divine Nature in us I shall know what Free-will is and how Man's will can be the first determiner of any act of its own in specie morali good or evil without being such a Causa prima as none but God can be And so how far free acts are necessitated or not I shall know what power the Intellect hath on the will and the will on the Intellect and what power the Sense and Phantasie hath on either And what any Intellectus agens doth Whether it be to our Intellection as the Sun is to our sight I shall know what is meant by the Degrees of Acts and Habits in the Soul And whether there be divers Degrees of Substantiality or of the virtus vel facultas formalis of several Souls I shall know better the difference of the Habits called Acquired and Infused And what common Grace is and what it doth And what Nature can do of itself or by common Grace without that which is proper to the justified And how far any Degrees of Grace are lost I shall know what measure of Grace I had my self and how far I was mistaken in my self And what acts were sincere and how much that was not sound was mixt and what was of my self and sin I shall know much more of my sin than here I ever knew the number and the greatness of them That so I may know with greatest thankfulness and love how much I am beholden to pardoning and healing Grace Yea I shall know more of my Body as it was the Habitation of my Soul or the organical matter on which unitedly it workt I shall know how far it helpt or hindred me And what were all thâ— obscure Diseases that puzzled all the Physicians and my self And how marvellously God sustained preserved and oft delivered me And what of my actions was to be imputed to the Body and what of them to the Soul IX And every fellow Creature which I am concerned to know I shall know far better than now I do both Things and Persons The Good and Bad the Sincere and the Hypocrites will be there discerned And many an action that here 〈◊〉 for honourable covered or coloured with wit or worldly advantages or false pretences will then be found to be odious and unjust and wickedness will be flattered or extenuated no more And many a good and holy Work which false men through wickedness and worldly Interest reproached as some odious Crime will there be justified honoured and rewarded All Sciences are there perfect without our ambiguous Terms or imperfect Axioms and Rules of Art X. And lastly I shall better know from what Enemies what Sins what Dangers I was here delivered What contrivances and malicious endeavours of Satan and his Instruments God defeated How many Snares I escaped And I shall better know how great my deliverance is by Christ from the Wrath to come Though we shall not know Hell by painful Sense we shall know it so far as is necessary to fill us with gratitude to our Redeemer Yea we shall know much of it far better than the damned Spirits that feel it For we shall know by sweet and full fruition what the Joy and Blessedness is which they have lost when they have no such kind of knowledge of it All this knowledge will be thus advanced to my glorified Soul beyond what I can here conceive in Flesh And is it not then far better to be with Christ IV. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will § 1. But it is the WILL that is to the Soul what the Heart is to the Body As it is the prime â—eat of Morality so is it the chief seat of Felicity My greatest Evil 〈◊〉 there and my greatest subjective Good will be there Satan did most against it and God will do most for it And will it not be better with Christ than here 1. It will not there by tyed to a body of cross interests and inclinations which is now the greatest snare and enemy to my Soul Which is still drawing my love and care and fears and sorrows to and for it self and turning them from my highest interest How great a deliverance will it be to be freed from the temptations and the inordinate love and cares and fears for this corruptible Flesh 2. My will shall not there be tempted by a world of inferiour good which is the bait and provision for the Flesh where Meat and Sleep and Possessions House Lands and Friends are all become my snares and danger Gods mercies will not be made there the Tempters instruments I shall not there have the Flatteries or frowns promises or threatnings of the Tyrants of the World to tempt me Bad company will not infect me nor divert me The errours of good men wiâ—l not seduce me nor reputation or reverence of the Wise Learned or Religious draw me to imitate them in any sin 3. I shall there have
inclination and such as is agreeable to the nature of his Faculties And therefore our love and delight in all things is that uniting inclination in Man § 14. III. And I shall have a special Love to the Holy Society the triumphant Universal Church consisting of Christ Angels and Saints as they are specially amiable in the Image and Glory of God God himself loveth them more than his inferiour works that is his Essence which is Love and hath no degrees or change doth send forth fuller streams of good upon them or maketh them better and happier than the rest And my love will imitate the love of God in my Capacity And if Societies on Earth more holy and wise than others though imperfectly are very amiable what then will the heavenly Society be Of this I spake before of knowing them § 15. 1. Think here O my Soul how sweet a state unto thee it will be to Love the Lord Jesus thy glorâ—fied Head with perfect love When the glory of God which shineth in him will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure The highest created Perfection of Power Wisdom and Goodness refulgent in him will not give leave to thy Love to cease or intermit or abate its fervour When thou shalt see in the glorified Church the precious fruits of Christ's Redemption Grace and Love this also will feed thy love to him from whom this heavenly Glory cometh And when thou shalt feel thy self possest of perfect happiness by his Love to thee will not this also do its part Yea the remembrance of all his former Love what he did for thee and what he did in thee here on Earth how he called thee with a Holy calling how he washed thee in his Blood from all thy sins how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect Glory how he renewed thy Nature how he instructed and guided and preserved thee from thy Childhood and how many and how great sins enemies dangers and sufferings he saved thee from all this will constrain thee Everlastingly to love him Thus though he give the Kingdom to the Father as ceasing his Mediatory healing saving work of acquisition he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition God in him will be accessible and condescend to a suitable communion with us Joh. 17. 24. And as Christ is thy Life radically and efficiently as he is the giver of Grace and the Spirit of Love so he will be Objectively thy Life as he is Lovely and it will be formally thy Life to Love him and God in him for ever § 16. 2. Think also O my Soul how delectable it will be to Love as well as to know those Angels that most servently love the Lord They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee and more as they have been Lovers and Benefactors to the Church and to Mankind but far more as they are so many refulgent Stars which continually move and shine and burn in purest love to their Creator O blessed difference between that amiable Society of holy Spirits and this dark mad distracted wicked World Here Devils tempt me within and Devils incarnate persecute me without Blaspheming of God reviling godliness deriding the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred exercises malignant slandering of the Servants of God hating persecuting silencing and saying all manner of evil falsly of them for their Righteousness sake while such Crimes are pretended as they once falsly charged on Christ himself this is the Conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this World Atheism Infidelity Papal Church tyranny bloody Wars destroying the Righteous oppressing the Poor Adultery and Fornication Stigmatizing-Perjury Ambition Violence Covetousness deceit sottish Ignorance wilfulness in Sin hatred of Reproof revengeful Malice these and such like are the fruits of the Soil where I have long sojourned Though through the Grace of Christ among the faithful there have been better fruits And is not the Company of Holy Angels better than this With whom God is all who are even made up of shining Wisdom and holy Lovâ— and beneficent activity who are the blessed Choâ—e that melodiously sing forth the high Praises of their Maker Among whom God dwelleth as in his presence Chamber or his Temple and in whom he taketh his great delight With these I shall see or hear no evil No mixture of fools or wicked Ones do pollute or trouble their Society There will be no false Doctrine no evil Example no favouring Wickedness no accusing Goodness no hurtful Violence but holy powerful operative Love will be all and do all as their very Nature Life and Work And is it not better be a Door-keeper there than to dwell in the Pallaces of Wickedness And is not a Day with them better than a Thousand here § 17. 3. And with the holy Angels I shall love holy Souls that are made like unto them and joined with them in the same Society and it is likely with them Judge that is Rule the World All their infirmities are there put off with the Flesh they also are Spirits made up of holy Life and Light and Love There is none of their former ignorance errour imprudence selfishness contentiousness impatience or any other troubling hurtful thing When I think with what fervent love to God to Jesus Christ and to one another they will be perfectly united there alas how sad and how shameful is it that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions and hardly agree to call each other the Servants of God or to worship God in the same Assembliâ—â— But the remnants of dividing Principles viz. Pride Errour and Uncharitableness will be all left behind Society with imperfect Saints is sweet The imperfect Image of God upon them is amiable But their frailties here are so vexatious that it is hard to live with some of them in Peace But perfect Love will make them one and O how delightful will that communion of Saints be I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my Pilgrimage by the fragrancy and usefulness of his Servants graces How sweet have my bosom Friends been though mutable How sweet hath the Neighbourhood of the godly been How sweet have the holy Assemblies And how many hours of comfort have I there had How profitable have their Writings their Conference and their Prayers been What then will it be to live in the union of perfect Love with perfect Saints in Heaven for ever and with them concordantly to love the God of Love § 18. III. And as the Act and the Object of LOVE will constitute my felicity so will my Reception from the Love of God and his Creatures be sweeter to me than my own activity can be For it is Mutual Love that makes it up I shall not be the Fountain of my own delights nor can I act till I am acted nor offer any thing to God but what I have first received from him And Receive I shall abundantly
and continually and from thence shall overflow to God and Receiving and Returning are now and will be the circular endless motion and our true perpetual Life and Happiness § 19. I. All my Receivings shall be from God His LOVE is not a meer Immanent Will nor a Wish which toucheth not the Object But it is what Heat is in or from the Sun or Fire It is an efflux of Goodness It is the most powerful sweet communicating Principle or Work All Love is communicative but none in comparison of Gods As there is none primitive and simply good but God How much doth Love in the affairs of men All that is pleasant in the World is it or its effects Were it not for sensual Love there would be no Generation of Man or Bruits God hath made it a generating Principle Hatred causeth not congress but fighting with or flying from one another Were it not for Natural Love Mothers would never endure the pain and trouble and care which is necessary to humane Birth and Education Were it not for Love Parents would never labour all their lives to leave their Children well instructed and well provided for when they are gone My Food would not please me did I not love it and I should neglect it to the neglect of my life Did I not love my Books and Learning itself I should never have bestowed so much of Threescore Years in poring on them and searching for Knowledge as I have done Did I not love my House my Conveniences and necessaries I should neglect them and they would be to me of small use Did I not love my Friends I should be less profitable to them and they to me Did not I love my Life I should neglect it and never have endured the labour and cost about it as I have done If a Man love not his Courtrey Posterity and the common good he will be as a burdensom Drone in the Hive or as pernicious Vermine What is done in the World that is good but by LOVE And if created Love be so necessary so active so communicative how much more will the infinite Love of the Creator be His Love is now the Life of the World His Love is the Life of Nature in the Living the life of Holiness in Saints and the life of glory in the Blessed In this infinite Love it is that I and all the Saints shall dwell for ever more And if I dwell in LOVE and LOVE in me surely I shall have its sweet and plenteous communication and shall ever drink of the Rivers of Pleasure It is pleasant to Nature to be Beloved of others Especially of the great and wise and good much more to have all the communications of Love in converse and gifts in plenty and continuance which may be still expressing it to our greatest benefit Had I a Friend now that did for me but the hundredth part of what God doth how dearly should I love him Think then think believingly seriously constantly O my Soul what a life thou shalt live for ever in the Presence the Face the Bosom of infinite Eternal Love He now shineth on me by the Sun and on my Soul by the Sun of Righteousness but it is as through a Lanthorn or the crevises of my darksom Habitation But then he will shine on me and in me openly and with the fullest streams and beams of Love § 20. God is the same God in Heaven and Earth but I shall not be the same Man Here I receive comparatively little but live in darkness doubtful and frequent sorrows because my Receptivity is less The windows of my Soul are not open to his light Sin hath raised clouds and consequently storms against my comforts The enterances to my Soul by the streights of Flesh and Sense are narrow and they are made narrower by sin than they were by Nature Alas how oft would Love have spoken comfortably to me and I was not at home to be spoken with but was abroad among a world of Vanities or was not at leisure or was asleep and not willing to be awaked How oft would LOVE have come in and dwelt with me and I have unkindly shut my doors against him How oft would he have been with me in secret where he freely would embrace me but I had some pleasing company or business which I was loth to leave How oft would he have feasted me and had made all ready but I was taken up and could not come â—ay when his Table hath been spred before me Christ Grace and Glory have been offered to me my Appetite hath been gone or dull and all hath been almost neglected by me and hath scarce seemed pleasant enough to be accepted or to call off my mind from luscious Poyson How oft would he have shined upon me and I have shut my windows or mine eyes He was jealous indeed and liked not a Partner He would have been All to me if I would have been All for him But I divided my Heart my Thoughts my Love my Desires and my Kindnesses and alas how much did go besides him yea against him to his Enemies even when I knew that all was lost and worse than lost which was not his What wonder then if so foolish and unkind a sinner had little pleasure in his Love and if so great ingratitude and neglect of Soveraign goodness were punished with such strangeness and fears and faintings as I have long with groans lamented Recipitur ad modum recipientis But in Heaven I shall have none of these obstructions All old unkindness and ingratitude will be forgiven The great reconciler in whom I am beloved will then have perfected his work I shall then be wholly separated from the vanity which here deceived me My open Soul will be prepared to receive the heavenly influx With open Face I shall behold the open Face of glorifying Love I shall joyfully attend his Voice and delightfully relish the Celestial Provisions No disease will corrupt my Appetite No sluggishness will make me guilty again of my old neglects The Love of the Father by the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit will have got the victory over all my deadness folly and disaffection and my God-displeasing and self-undoâ—ng averseness and enmity will be gone for ever The perfect LOVE which God doâ—h first effect in me will be my everlasting Receptivity of the fullest Love of God Benevolent love will make me good that is a Holy lover of God and then pleased love will make me his delight and benevolence will still maintain me in my capacity Study this heavenly work of Love O my Soul these are not dead or barren studies These are not sad unpleasant studies It is only love that can relish love and understand it The will here hath its gust so like to an understanding as maketh some Philosophers say that voluntas percipit is a proper Phrase What can poor carnal Worldlings know of glorious Love who
study it without Love What sounding Brass and tinkling Cymbals a lifeless Voice are they that preach of God and Christ and heavenly Glory without Love But gazing upon the face of Love in Christ and tasting of its gifts and looking up to its glorious reign is the way to kindle the Sacred Fire in thee Look upwards if thou wouldst see the Light that must lead thee upwards It is not for nothing that Christ hath taught us to begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven It is Fatherly Love that must win our Hearts and that must comfort them And it is in Heaven where this is gloriously manifested As I said before as the Soul is in all the Body but yet understandeth not in the Hand as it doth in the Head nor rejoiceth not in the Foot as it doth in the Heart so God that is every where doth not every where glorifie his Love as he doth it in Heaven Thither therefore the Mind and Eye are even by Nature taught to look up as to God as we look a Man in the Face when we speak to him rather than to his Feet though his Soul be also there My sinful Heart hath needed sorrow My careless rash presumptuous Soul hath needed fears and I have had some part of these Mercy saw it good for me as necessary to prevent my more dangerous deceits and lapses And O that in the hour of sensual temptations I had feared more and departed from evil But it is HOLY LOVE that must be my life Or else I am dead notwithstanding fear O come then and study the life of Love It is more of a Holy Nature than of Art but yet study must do much to prepare thee to receive it This is the great use of a heavenly Conversation It is the contemplation belief and hope of the glorious state of Love hereafter that must make us like it and kindle it in us here The burning Glass must be turned directly to the Sun if you will have it set any thing on fire There is a carnal or common love to God which is kindled in men by carnal pleasures But a Holy love like that in Heaven must be studiously fetcht from Heaven and kindled by the fore sight of what is there what we shall be there for ever Faith must ascend and look within the vail thou must not live as a stranger to thy home to thy God and Saviour and thy hopes The fire that must warm thee is in Heaven and thou must come near it or open thy self to its influence if thou wilt feel its powerful efficacy It is night and winter with carnal minds when it is day and summer with those that set their Faces Heavenward § 21. II. But though all my Receivings will be from God they will not be from him alone We must live in perfect Union also with one another and with all the heavenly Society and therefore as we must love them all so shall we be beloved by them all And this will be a subordinate part of our blessedness God there will make use of second causes even in communicating his Love and Glory § 22. 1. The Lord Jesus Christ will not only be the Object of our delightful love but will also love us with an effectual operative love for ever His love will be as the Vital Heat and Motion of the Heart to all the Members the Root of our Life and Joy The Love of our Redeemer will flow out into us all as the Vital Spirits and his Face of Glory will be the Sun of the heavenly Jerusalem and will shine upon us and shew us God And in his light we shall have light Did his tears for a dead Lazarus make men say Behold how he loved him O then what will the reviving Beams of heavenly life make us say of that love which filleth us with the pleasures of his presence and turneth our Souls into JOY it self He comforteth us now by the teaching of his Word but surely the fruition of Salvation will be more gladding then the tidings of it When he that told us of Glory in his Gospel shall give it us we shall not only believe but feel that he loveth us § 23. Believe O my Soul thy Saviours Love that thou maist foretast it and be fit to feel it We were uncapable in sinful Flesh of seeing him otherwise than as cloathed with Flesh and his consolations were administred by a word of Promise suitable to his appearance But when he withdrew his bodily presence the Comforter was sent with a fuller Consolation But all that was but the earnest and the first fruits of what he will be to us for ever Be not seldom not unbelieving nor slight in the thoughts of thy Saviours love for it is he that is the way to the Infinite love Let thy believing be so much of thy daily work that thou maist say that he dwelleth in thy Heart by Faith Eph. 3. 17. and that while thou livest here it is Christ that liveth in thee and that thy life in the Flesh is not a fleshly life but by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved thee and given himself for thee Gal. 2. 20. And that though thou see him not yet believing thou lovest him also with unspeakable Joy as believing the unspeakable perfect Joy which his Love-will communicate to thee for ever Look upon the Sun and think thus with thy self How wonderful is the Emanation of this Sun Its motion light and heat communicated to so many Millions of Câ—eatures all over the Earth and in the Seas What if all these beams of light and heat were proportionable beams of perfect Knowledge Love and Joy and that all Creatures that are under the Sun had from its influx as much Wisdom Love and Joy as they have Light Heat and Motion Would not then this Earth be as a World of Angels and a Heaven O what a blessed World would it be And what a benefactor would the Sun be to the World Why even such will Jesus Christ be to the Celestial World He is the Sun of Glory His Influence will send forth LIFE and LIGHT and JOYFUL LOVE upon all the blessed from the Face of the God as the Sun sends forth from God its Motion Light and Heat upon this World Now therefore begin and live upon him live upon the influence of his Grace his Teaching Love-kindling and Quickning Grace that thou maist have his Name and Mark and he may find in thee something of himself or of his own when thou comest to his Righteous ryal His Grace is not in my power not at my command It is not meet it should be so But he hath not bid me seek and beg in vain If he had never told me that he will give it me it is equal to a promise if he do but bid me seek and ask But I have more He teacheth me to pray He maketh my Prayers He writeth me
sin and discord But there a whole Heaven fulâ— of blessed Spirits will flame for ever in perfect Love to God to Christ and one another Go then go willingly O my Soul Love joineth with LIGHT to draw up thy desires Nature inclineth all things unto Union Even the lifeless Elements have an Aggregative motion by which the parts when violently separated do hastily return to their Natural adhesion Art thou a Lover of Wisdom and wouldst thou not be united to the Wise Art thou a Lover of Holiness and of Love itself and wouldst thou not be united to the Holy who are made of Love Art thou a hater of enmity discord and divisions and a Lover of Unity here on Earth and wouldst thou not be where all the just are One It is not an unnatural Union to thy loss Nothing shall be taken from thee by it Thou shalt receive by it more than thou canst contribute It shall not be forced against thy will It is but a Union of Minds and Wills a perfect Union of Loves Let not natural or sinful selfishness cause thee to think suspiciously or hardly of it For it is thy happiness and end What got the Angels that fell to selfishness from Unity And what got Adam that followed them herein The further any man goeth from UNITY by SELFISHNESS the deeper he falleth into sin and misery from God! And what doth Grace but call us back from sin and selfishness to Gods Unity again Doâ—e not then on this dark divided World Is not thy Body while the parts by a uniting Soul are kept together and make One in a better state than when it is crumbled into lifeless dust And doth not death creep on thee by a gradual dissolution Away then from this sandy incoherent state The further from the Center the further from Unity A Unity indeed there is of all things but it is One heavenly LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE which is the true felicitating Union We dispute here whether the Aggregative Motion of separated parts as in descensu gravium be from a Motive Principle in the part or by the Attraction of the whole or by any external impulse It is like that there is somewhat of all these But sure the greatest cause is like to do most to the effect The body of the Earth hath more power to attract a Cload or Stone than the intrinsick Principle to move it downwards But intrinsick Gravity is also necessary The superior attractive Love and Loveliness must do more to draw up this mind to God than my intrinsick Holiness to move it upward But without this Holiness the Soul would not be capable of feeling that attractive influx Every Grace cometh from God to fit and lead up my Soul to God Faith therefore believeth the heavenly state and Love doth with some Delight desire it and Hope gapeth after it that I may at last attain it They that have pleaâ—ed against Propriety and would have all things common in this World have forgotten that there is a Propriety in our present Egoity and Natural Constitution which rendereth some accidental Propriety necessary to us Every Man hath his own bodily parts and inherent accidents and every Man must have his own Food his own Place Cloathing and Acquisitions his own Children and therefore his own Wife c. But that the greatest Perfection is most for Community as far as Nature is capable of it God would shew us in making the first Receivers of the extraordinary pourings out of his Spirit to sell all and voluntarily make all common none saying This or that is my own which was not done by any constraining Law but by the Law or Power of uniting Love They were first all as of one Heart and Soul Act. 4. 32. Take not then thy inordinate desire of Propriety for thy Health but for thy Sickness Cherish it not and be not afraid to lose it and measure not the heavenly felicity by it Spirits are penetrable They claim not so much as a Propriety of place as Bodies do It is thy weakness and state of Imperfection now which maketh it so desirable to thee that thy House should be Thine and nones but thine thy Land be Thine and nones but Thine thy Cloaths thy Books yea thy knowledge and grace be Thine and Nones but Thine How much more excellent a state were it if we were here capable of it if we could say that all these are as the common Light of the Sun which is mine and every ones as well as mine Why are we so desirous to speak all Languages but that we might understand all men and 〈◊〉 understood of all and so might make our sentiments as common as is possible Whence is it that men are so addicted to talkativeness but that Nature would make all our Thoughts and passions as common aâ— it can And why else are Learned men so desirous to propagate their Learning and Godly men so desirous to make all others wise and godly It seemeth one of the greatest calamities of this life that when a Man hath with the longest and hardest study attained to much knowledge he cannot bequeath it or any part of it to his Heir or any Person when he dieth but every Man must acquire it for himself And when God hath sanctified the Parents they cannot communicate their Holiness to their Children though God promise to bless them on their account Much less can any Man make his Grace or Knowledge common Nature and Grace incline us to desire it but we cannot do it For this end we Talk and Preach and Write for this end we study to be as plain and convincing and moving as we can that we may make our Knowledge and Affections as common to our Hearers and Readers as we can And O what a blessed work should we take Preaching and Writing for if we could make them all know but what we know and love what we are persuading them to love There would then be no need of Schools and Universities A few Hours would do more than they do in an Age. But alas how rare is it for a Father of excellent Learning and Piety to have one Son like himself after all his industry Is not the heavenly communion then desirable where every Man shall have his Own and yet his Own be common to all others My knowledge shall be mine own and other mens as well as mine My goodness shall be my own and theirs My glory and felicity shall be mine and theirs And theirs also shall be mine as well as theirs The Knowledge the Goodness the Glory of all the heavenly Society shall be Mine according to my Capacity Grace is the Seed of such a state which maketh us all one in Christ neither Barbarian nor Scythian Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Bond nor Free by giving us to love our Neighbours as our selves and to love both our Neighbours and our selves for Christ and Christ in all Well might Paul say All things yours But it
yet Man's internal Sense is far more excellent than the Bruits and thereby is an advantage to our Intellection Volition and Joy here in the Flesh And that in Heaven we shall have not less but more even more excellent Sense and Affections of Love and Joy as well as more excellent Intellection and Volition but such as we cannot now clearly conceive of § 13. Therefore there is great reason for all those Analogical collections which I have mentioned in my Book called The Saints Rest from the present operarations and pleasures of the Soul in Flesh to help our Conceptions of its future pleasures And though we cannot conclude that they will not unconceivably differ in their manner from what we now feel I doubt not but feel and rejoice we shall as certainly as Live and the Soul is Essential Life and that our Life and Feeling and Joy will be unconceivably better The Concluding Application § 1. I am convinced that it is far better to depart and be with Christ than to be here But there is much more than such conviction necessary to bring up my Soul to such desires Still there resisteth 1. The natutural averseness to Death which God hath put into every Animal and which is become inordinate and too strong by sin II. The remnants of Unbelief taking advantage of our darkness here in the Flesh and our too much familiarity with this visible World III. The want of more lively fortasts in a heavenly mind and love through weakness of Grace and the fear of Guilt These stand up against all that is said and words will not overcome them what then must be done Is there no remedy § 2. There is a Special sort of the Teaching of God by which we must learn so to number our Days as to apply our Hearts to Wisdom Without which we shall never effectually practically and savingly learn either this or any the most common and obvious easie Lesson When we have read and heard and spoken and written the soundest Truth and certainest Arguments we know yet as if we knew not and believe as if we believed not with a slight and dreaming kind of apprehension till God by a special Illumination bring the same things clearly to our Minds and awaken the Soul by a special suscitation to feel what we know and suit the Soul to the Truth revealed by an influx of his Love which giveth us a pleasing sense of the Amiableness and Congruity of the things proposed Since we separated our selves from God there is a hedge of separation between our Senses and our Understandings and between our Understandings and our Wills and Affections so that the communion between them is violated and we are divided in our selves by this Schism in our Faculties All men still see the demonstrations of Divine Perfections in the World and every part thereof and yet how little is God known All men may easily know that there is a God who is Almighty Omniscient Goodness itself Eternal Omnipresent the Maker Preserver and Governour of all who should have our whole Trust and Love and Obedience and yet how little of this knowledge is to be perceived in mens Hearts to themselves or in their Lives to others All men know that the World is Vanity that Man must die that Riches then profit not that time is precious and that we have only this little time to prepare for that which we must receive hereafter And yet how little do men seem to know indeed of all such things as no Man doubts of And when God doth come in with his powerful awakening Light and Love then all these things have another appearance of affecting reality than they had before as if but now we began to know them Words Doctrines Persons Things do seem as newly known to us All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life are but as the New-formed Body of Adam before God breathed into him the Breath of Life It is he that must make them Living Reasons To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up and for his Light and Love I must still wait as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten which must concoct it into my living substance Arguments will be but undigested Food till God's effectual influx do digest them I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar when I have thought and thought a Thousand times I must beg thy Blessing Lord upon my Thoughts or they will all be but dulness or self-distraction If there be no Motion Light and Life here without the Influx of the Sun what can Souls do or receive or feel without thy influx This World will be to us without thy Grace as a Grave or Dungeon where we shall lie in Death and Darkness The eye of my Understanding and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me without thine illuminating Beams O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love and then he will willingly come to thee § 3. 1. And why should I strive by the fears of Death against the common course of Nature and against my only hopes of Happiness Is it not appointed for all men once to die Would I have God to alter this determinate Course and make sinful Man immortal upon Earth When we are sinless we shall be immortal The love of life was given to teach me to preserve it carefully and use it well and not to torment me with the continual troubling foresight of Death Shall I make my self more miserable than the Vegetatives and Bruits Neither they nor I do grieve that my Flowers must fade and die and that my sweet and pleasant Fruits must fall and the Trees be uncloathed of their beauteous leaves until the Spring Birds and Beasts and Fishes and Worms have all a self-preserving fear of Death which urgeth them to fly from danger But few if any of them have a tormenting fear arising from the fore-thoughts that they must die To the Body death is less troublesom than sleep For in sleep I may have disquieting pains or dreams And yet I fear not going to my bed But of this before If it be the misery after Death that 's feared O what have I now to do but to receive the free reconciling Grace which is offered me from Heaven to save me from such misery and to devote my self totally to him who hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise cast out § 4 But this cometh by my selfishness Had I studied my duty and then remembred that I am not mine own and that it is God's part and not mine to determine of the duration of my life I had been quiet from these fruitless fears But when I fell to my self from God I am faln to care for my self as if it were my work to measure out my Days and now I trust not God as I should do
shew us whither we must ascend and that after these comfortable words SAY TO MY BRETHREN I ASCEND TO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER TO MY GOD AND YOUR GOD Joh. 20. 17. And shall I not follow him through Death and trust such a Guide and Captain of my Salvation 14. He is there to prepare a place for me and will take me to himself And may I not confidently expect it 15. He told a Malefactor on the Cross that he should that day be with him in Paradise to tell believing Sinners what they may expect 16. The Church by the Article of his Descent into Hell hath signified their common belief that his separated Soul had its subsistence and operation and did not sleep or perish to tell us the Immortality of separated Souls 17. His Apostles and other Servants have on earth served him all with these expectations 18. The Spirits of the perfected Just are now in possession of what I hope for And I am a follower of them who by Faith and Patience have attained the promised Felicity And may I not trust him to save me who hath already saved Millions in this way When I could trust a Ferriman to pass me over a River that had safely passed over Thousands before me Or I could trust a Physician who cureth all that he undertaketh of the same Disease 19. I must be at his disposal whether I will or not I shall live while he will and die when he will and go whither he will I may sin and vex my Soul with fears and cares and sorrows but I shall never prevail against his will 20. Therefore there is no Rest for Souls but in the Will of God That will created us and that will did govern us and that will shall be fulfilled on us It was our Efficient and our Regent Cause and it shall be our End Where else is it that we should rest In the will of men or Angels or in our own wills All Creatures are but Creatures And our own Wills have undone us They have misgoverned us and they are our greatest Enemies our Disease our Prison and our Death till they are brought over to the will of God Till then they are like a Foot out of joint like a Child or Subject in Rebellion There is no rectitude or health no order no peace or true felicity but in the Conformity of our wills to the will of God And shall I die in distrustful striving against his will and desiring to keep up my own before it 21. What abundant experience have I had of God's fidelity and love and after all this shall I not trust him His undeserved Mercy gave me being it chose my Parents it gave them a tender love to me and desire of my good it taught them to instruct me early in his Word and to Educate me in his fear It chose me suitable Company and Habitation It gave me betimes a teachable ingeny It chose my School-masters It brought to my Hands many excellent and suitable Books It gave me some profitable publick Teachers It placed me in the best of Lands on Earth and I think in the best of Ages which that Land had seen It did early destroy all great expectations and desires of the World teaching me to bear the Yoak from my youth and causing me rather to groan under my infirmities than to fight with strong and potent Lusts It chastened me betimes but did not destroy me Great Mercy hath trained me up all my daies since I was Nineteen years of Age in the School of Affliction to keep my sluggish Soul awake in the constant expectations of my change and to kill my Pride and overvaluing of this World and to lead all my studies to the most necessary things and as a Spur to excite my Soul to seriousness and especially to save me from the supine neglect and loss of time O what unspeakable Mercy hath a life of constant but gentle Chastisement proved to me It urged me against all dull delays to make my Calling and Election sure and to make ready my accounts as one that must quickly give them up to God The Face of Death and nearness of Eternity did much convince me what Books to read what studies to perfer and prosecute what Company and Conversation to choose It drove me early into the Vineyard of the Lord and taught me to preach as a dying Man to dying men It was Divine Love and Mercy which made Sacred Truth so pleasant to me that my life hath been under all my infirmities almost a constant recreation and delight in its discoveries contemplation and practical use How happy a Teacher have I had What excellent help and sweet illumination How far beyond my expectation hath Divine Mercy encouraged me in his Sacred work How congruously did he choose every place of my Ministration and Habitation to this day without my own forecast or seeking When and where since he first sent me forth did I labour in vain How many are gone to Heaven and how many are in the way to whom he hath blessed the Word which in weakness I did by his Grace and Providence deliver Many good Christians are glad of now and then an Hours time to meditate on God's Word and recreate themselves in his holy worship but God hath allowed and called me to make it the constant business of my life My Library hath afforded me both profitable and pleasant company and help at all times when ever I would use them I have dwelt among the shining Lights which the Learned Wise and Holy men of all Ages have set up and left to illuminate the World How many comfortable Hours have I had in the Society of living Saints and in the love of faithful Friends How many joyful Daies have I had in the solemn Assemblies where God hath been worshipped with seriousness and alacrity by concordant though imperfect Saints Where the Spirit of Christ hath manifested his presence by helping my self and my Brethren in speaking and the People in ready delightful hearing and all of us in loving and gladly receiving his Doctrine Covenant and Laws How unworthy was such a sinful Worm as I who never had any Academical helps nor much from the Mouth of any Teacher that Books should become so great a Blessing to me and that quite beyond my own intentions God should induce or constrain me to provide any such like helps for others How unworthy was I to be kept from the multiplied snares of Sects and Errours which reigned in this Age and to be used as a means for other mens preservation and reduction And to be kept in a love of Unity and Peace How unworthy was I that God should make known to me so much of his reconciling truth while extreams did round about prevail and were commended to the Churches by the advantages of Piety on one side and of worldly Prosperity and Power on the other And the God should use me above thirty Years
Will And wilt thou cast away a Soul that hopeth in thee by thine own Command and Operation Had Wealth and Honour or continuance on Earth or the favour of Man been my reward hope my hope I had died together Were this our best how vain were Man But the Lord liveth and my Redeemer is glorified and interceedeth for me And the same Spirit is in Heaven who is in my Heart As the same Sun is in the Firmament which is in my House And the Promise is sure to all Christ's Seed And Millions are now in Heaven that once did live and die in hope they were Sinners once as now I am They had no other Saviour no other Sanctifier no other Promise than I now have confessing that they were Strangers here they looked for a better Countrey and for a City that had Foundations even a heavenly where now they are And shall I not follow them in hope that have sped so well Hope then O my Soul unto the end 1 Pet. 1. 13. From henceforth and for ever hope in the Lord Psal 131. 13. I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more my Mouth shall shew forth thy Righteousness and Salvation Psal 71. 14 15. The Lord is at my right Hand I shall not be moved My Heart therefore is glad and my glory rejoiceth my Flesh also shall dwell confidently and rest in hope for God hath shewed me the path of Life in his presence is fulness of joy and at his right Hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. 8 9 10 11. III. What then remaineth O my Soul but that in TRUST and HOPE thou LOVE thy God thy Saviour thy Comforter the Glorious Society thy own Perfection in Glorious Endless Heavenly Life and Light and Love and the Joyful Praises of Jehovah better then this burden of painful and corruptible Flesh and this howling Wilderness the Habitation of Serpents and untamed Bruits where unbelief and murmuring Lust and Folly Injustice and Uncharitableness Tyranny and Divisions Pride and Contention have long provoked God and wearied thee Where the Vintage and Harvest is Thorns and Thistles Sin and Sorrows Cares and Crosses manured by manifold Temptations How odious is that darkness and unbelief that unholiness and disaffection that deadness and stupidity which maketh such a work as this so reasonable necessary and pleasant a work to seem unsuitable or hard Is it unsuitable or hard to the Eye to see the Sun and Light Or by it to see the beautified World Or for a Man to love his Life or Health his Father or his Friend What should be easier to a Nature that hath rational LOVE than to Love him that is Essential LOVE itself He that loveth all and giveth to all the Loving faculty should be loved by all And he that hath specially loved me should be specially loved by me Love is the Perfection of all thy Preparations It desireth to Please God and therefore to be in the most pleasing state and freed from all that is displeasing to him which is not to be hoped for on Earth It desireth all suitable nearness acquaintance union and communion It is weary of distance estrangedness and alien society and affairs It taketh advantage of every notice intimation or mention of God to renew and exercise these desires Every Message and Mercy from him is fewel for Love and while we are short of Perfection stir up our desires after more When Love tasteth of the Grapes it would have the Vine When it tasteth of the Fruits it would dwell where they grow and possess the Land Its thoughts of Proximity and fruition are sweet No other Person or Thing can satisfie it The Soul is where it loveth If our Friend dwell in our Hearts by Love and if fleshly Pleasure Riches and Honour do dwell in the Heart of the Voluptuous the Covetous and the Proud surely God and our Redeemer the heavenly Society Holiness and Glory do dwell in the Heart which loveth them with a fervent Love And if Heaven dwell in my Heart shall I not desire to dwell in Heaven Light and Light Fire and Fire are not more inclined to union then Love and Love Gracious Love and Glorious Love Would Divine Original Universal LOVE communicate and pour out itself more plentifully upon my Heart how easy would it be to leave this Flesh and World And to hear the Sentence of my departure to my God Death and the Grave would be but a Triumph for victorious Love It would be easier to die in Peace and Joy than to rest at Night or to come home from my Travel to my beloved Friends or to go when I am hungry to a Feast A Little Love hath made me study willingly and preach willingly and write willingly yea and suffer somwhat willingly and would not more make me go more willingly to God Shall the imagination of House Gardens Walks Libraries Prospects Meadows Orchards Hills and Rivers allure the desires of deceived Minds And shall not the Thoughts of the heavenly Mansions Society and Delights much more allure and draw up my desires The reading of a known Fiction of a Civitas Solis an Utopia an Atlantis c. hath pleased many But if I did believingly hear of such a Countrey in the World where men did never die nor were sick or weak or sad where the Prince were perfectly just and pious wise and peaceable devoted to God and the publick good and the Teachers were all wise judicious men of Universal certain knowledge perfectly acquainted with the Matter and Method of Natural and Theological Truths and all their duty and all of one Mind and of one Heart and Tongue and Practice loving each other and the People as themselves and leading the Flocks heavenward through all temptations with triumphant hopes and joy where all the People perfectly obeyed God their Commanders and their Teachers and lived in perfect Love Unity and Peace and were daily employed in the joyful praises of God and hopes of Glory and in doing all possible good to one another contending with none through ignorance uncharitableness or pride nor ever reproaching injuring or hurting one another c. I say if I knew or heard of such a Countrey should I not love it before I ever see it and earnestly desire to be there Nay do I not over-love this distracted World where Tyranny sheddeth streams of Blood and layeth desolate Cities and Countries and exposeth the miserable Inhabitants to lamentable Distress and Famine where the same Tyranny sets up the Wicked reproacheth and oppresseth the Just and Innocent keepeth out the Gospel and keepeth up Idolatry Infidelity and Wickedness in the far greatest part of all the Earth where Satan chooseth Pastors too often for the Churches of Christ even such as by Ignorance Pride Sensuality Worldliness and Malignity become Thorns and Thistles yea devouring Wolves to those whom they should feed and comfort where no two Persons are in all things of a Mind where Evil
they pretend to and profess are the ordinary case and course of the most of men And when we would plead them out of their deceit and misery it 's well if we are not tempted to imitate them or be not partly infected with their Disease or at least reproached and oppressed as their Enemies Such a Bedlam is most of the World become where madness goeth for the only Wisdom and he is the bravest Man that can sin and be damned with reputation and renown and successfully drive or draw the greatest number with him unto Hell To which the World hath no small likeness forsaking God and being very much forsaken by him This is the World which standeth in competition for my Love with the Spiritual blessed World Much of God's Mercies and Comforts I have here had But their sweetness was their taste of Divine Love and their tendency to heavenly Perfection What was the end and use of all the Good that ever I saw or that ever God did for my Soul or Body but to teach me to Love him and to long for more How many weaning experiences How many Thousand bitter or contemning Thoughts have I had of all the glory and pleasures of this World How many Thousand love tokens from God have called me to believe and taste his Goodness Where ever I go and which way soever I look I see VANITY and VEXATION written upon all things in this World so far as they stand in competition with God and would be the end and portion of a fleshly Mind And I see HOLINESS TO THE LORD written upon every thing so far as it declareth God and leadeth me to him as my ultimate end God hath not for nothing engaged me in a War against this World and commanded me to take and use it as mine Enemy The emptiness dangerousness and bitterness of the World and the All-sufficiency Trustiness and Goodness of God have been the Summ of all the experiences of my life And shall a worldly backward Heart overcome the teachings of Nature Scripture the Spirit of Grace and all Experience Far be it from me But O my God LOVE is thy great and special gift All Good is from thee But LOVE is the God-like Nature Life and Image It is given us from the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the quickning illuminating and sanctifying Operation of the Holy Spirit What can the Earth return unto the Sun but its own reflected Beams If those As how far soever Man is a Medium in Generation Nature and that Appetite which is the moving pondus in the Child is thy work so whatever is Man's part in the Mediate work of Believing and Repenting which yet is not done without thy Spirit and grace certainly it is the blessed Regenerator which must make us New Creatures by giving us this Divine Nature holy LOVE which is the holy Appetite and Pondus of the Soul Come down Lord into this Heart for it cannot come up to thee Can the Plants for Life or the Eye for Light go up unto the Sun Dwell in me by the Spirit of Love and I shall dwell by Love in Thee Reason is weak and Thoughts are various and Man will be a slippery uncertain Wight if LOVE be not his fixing Principle and do not incline his Soul to Thee Surely through thy Grace I easily feel that I love thy Word I love thy Image I love thy Work and O how heartily do I Love to Love thee And long to Know and Love thee more And if all things be of Thee and through Thee and to Thee surely this Love to the Beams of thy Glory here on Earth is eminently so It 's Thee Lord that it meaneth To Thee it looketh It 's Thee it serveth For Thee it mourns and seeks and groans In Thee it Trusteth And the Hope and Peace and Comfort which support me are in Thee When I was a returning Prodigal in rags thou sawest me afar off and mettest me with thy embracing feasting Love And shall I doubt whether he that hath better cloathed me and dwelt within me will entertain me with a Feast of greater love in the heavenly Mansions the World of Love The suitableness of things below to my fleshly Nature hath detained my affections too much on Earth And shall not the suitableness of things above to my Spiritual Nature much more draw up my Love to Heaven There is the GOD whom I have sought and served He is also here but vailed and but litâ—le known But there he shineth to heavenly Spirits in heavenly Glory There is the Saviour in whom I have believed He hath also dwelt in Flesh on Earth Bâ—t cloathed in such meanness and humbled to such a Life and Death as was to the Jews a stumbling Block and to the Gentiles matter of reproach But he Shineth and Reigneth now in Glory above the malice and contempt of Sinners And I shall there Live because he liveth and in his Light I shall have Light He loved me here with a Redeeming Regenerating and preserving Love But there he will love me with a perfecting glorifying joyful Love I had here some Raies of heavenly Light But interpositions caused Eclipses and Nights yea some long and winter Nights But there I shall dwell in the City of the Sun the City of God the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no Night Eclipse or Darkness There are the heavenly Hosts whose holy Love and Joyful Praises I would fain be a partaker of I have here had some of their Loving assistance but to me unseen being above our fleshly way of Converse But there I shall be with them of the like Nature in the same Orb and of the same Triumphant Church and Chore There are perfected Souls gathered home to Christ Not as here striving like Esau and Jacob in the Womb not yet as John when he leaped in the Womb because of his Mothers joy nor as wrangling Children that are hardly kept in the same House in Peace Not like the Servants of Abraham and Lot like Paul and Barnabas like Epiphanius and Chrysostom like Luther and Carolostadius like Ridley and Hooper or the many striving Parties now among us nor like the Disciples striving who should be the greatest Not like Noah's Family in a wicked World or Lot in a wicked City or Abraham in an Idolatrous Land nor like Elijah left alone nor like those that wandred in Sheep Skins and Goat Skins destitute afflicted and tormented hid in Dens and Caves of the Earth not like Job on the Dunghil or like Lazarus at the rich Man's Doors Not like the African Bishops whose Tongues were cut out nor like the Preachers silenced by Papist imposers in German by the Intâ—rim or elsewhere Nor like such as Tzegedine Peucer and many other worthy men whose maturest Age was spent in Prisons Not as we poor bewildred Sinners feeling evil and fearing more confounded in folly and mad contention some hating the only way of Peace and
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential self-SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
a Nature to us Else they would not cease at Death But holy LOVE is our New Nature and therefore ceaseth not with this bodily life And shall accidental love make me desire the company of a frail and mutable Friend And shall not this ingrafted inseparable love make me long to be with Christ Though the love of God to all his Creatures will not prove that they are all Immortal nor oblige them to expect another life that never had Capacity or Faculties to expect it yet his love to such as in Nature and Grace are made capable of it doth warrant and oblige them to believe and hope for the full Perfection of the work of love Some comfort themselves in the love of St. Peter as having the Keys of Heaven And how many could I name that are now with Christ who loved me so faithfully on Earth that were I sure they had the Keys and Power of Heaven and were not changed in their Love I could put my departing Soul into their Hands and die with joy And is it not better in the Hand of my Redeemer and of the God of Love and Father of Spirits Is any love comparable to his Or any Friend so boldly to be trusted I should take it for ungrateful unkindness in my Friend to doubt of my love and trustiness if I had given him all that he hath and maintained him constantly by my kindness But O how odious a thing is sin Which by destroying our love to God doth make us unmeer to believe and sweetly perceive his Love And by making us doubt of the Love of God and lose the pleasant relish of it doth more increase our difficulty of loving him The Title that the Angel gave to Daniel A Man greatly beloved of God methinks should be enough to make one joyfully love and trust God both in life and death Will Almighty LOVE ever hurt me or forsake me And have not all Saints that Title in their degrees What else signifieth their Mark and Name HOLINESS TO THE LORD What is it but our separation to God as his peculiar beloved People And how are they separated but by mutual love and our forsaking all that alienateth or is contrary Let Scorners deride us as self flatterers that believe they are God's Darlings and wo to the Hypocrites that believe it on their false Presumption without such belief or grounded hopes I see not how any Man can die in true Peace He that is no otherwise beloved than Hypocrites and Unbelievers must have his portion with them And he that is no otherwise beloved than as the ungodly unholy and unregenerate shall not stand in judgment nor see God nor enter into his Kingdom Most upright Souls are to blame for groundless doubting of God's Love but not for acknowledging it rejoicing in it and in their doubts being most solicitous to make it sure Love brought me into the World and furnished me with a Thousand Mercies Love hath provided for me delivered me and preserved me till now And will it not entertain my separated Soul Is God like false or insufficient Friends that forsake us in adversity I confess that I have wronged LOVE by sin by many and great unexcusable sins But all save Christ himself were sinners which love did purifie and receive to Glory God who is rich in Mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace we are saved and hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. 4 5 6. O that I could love much that have so much forgiven The glorified praised him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own Blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. Our Father that hath loved us giveth us consolation and good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2. 16. I know no sin which I repent not of with self-loathing And I earnestly beg and labour that none of my sins may be to me unknown I dare not justifie even what is any way uncertain though I dare not call all that my sin which siding men of differing judgments on each side passionately call so While both sides do it on contrary accounts and not to go contrary ways is a Crime O that God would bless my accusations to my illumination that I may not be unknown to my self Though some think me much better than I am and others much worse it most concerneth me to know the Truth my self flattery would be more dangerous to me than false accusations I may safelier be ignorant of other mens sins than of my own Who can understand his errours Cleanse me Lord from secret sins and let not ignorance or errour keep me in impenitence and keep thou me back from presumptuous sins Psal 19. 12 13. I have an Advocate with the Father and thy Promise that he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have Mercy Those are by some men taken for my greatest sins which my most serious Thoughts did judge to be the greatest of my outward duties and which I performed through the greatest difficulties and which cost me dearest to the Flesh and the greatest self-denial and patience in my reluctant Mind Where-ever I have erred Lord make it known to me that my confession may prevent the sin of others and where I have not erred confirm and accept me in the right And seeing an unworthy Worm hath had so many Testimonies of thy tender love let me not be like them Mal. 1. 1 2. that when thou saidst I have loved you unthankfully asked Wherein hast thou loved us Heaven is not more spangled with Stars than thy Word and Works with the refulgent Signatures of Love Thy well beloved Son the Son of thy Love undertaking the Office Message and Work of the greatest Love was full of that Spirit which is Love which he sheds abroad in the Hearts of thine Elect that the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit may be their hope and life His Works his Sufferings his Gifts as well as his comfortable Word did say to his Disciples Joh. 15. 9. As the Father loved me so have I loved you continue ye in my love And how Lord shall we continue in it but by the thankful belief of thy love and loveliness desiring still to love thee more and in all things to know and please thy Will Which thou knowest is my Souls desire Behold then O my Soul with what Love the Father Son and Holy Spirit have loved thee that thou should be made and called a Son of God redeemed regenerate adopted into that Covenant-state of Grace in which thou standest Rejoice therefore in hope of the Gâ—ory of God Rom. 5. 1 2. being justified by Faith having Peace with God and access by Faith and Hope that maketh not ashamed that being reconciled when an Enemy by the Death of Christ I shall be saved
constantly used this same Scripture publickly and privately as the Word of God so that it could not be easily altered 2. They all knew that a Curse is pronounced against every one that addeth or diminisheth Which must needs possess them with fear of corrupting it 3. They took it to be the Charter of their own Salvation 4. The work of the Ministers was to expound it and preserve it against Corrupters 5. These Ministers and Churches were over much of the World and could not agree together to corrupt it And if some did it all the rest would soon detect it 6. Heresies and Quarrels were quickly too rife among them So that cross Interests and Animosities would soon have fallen upon the Corrupters 7. Some Hereticks made some adding and corrupting attempts which the Church presently condemned and turned it to their shame 8. In all the Disputations then managed the same Scriptures were appealed to 9. The Translations into various Languages shew that the Books were the same without any Momentous difference 10. To this Day when Sin and Tyranny have torn the Church into many Factions they all receive the same Canonical Scriptures except that some receive more Apocryphal Writings which yet make no alteration at all of our Gospel Faith Quest But doth not this laying so much on Tradition favour Popery Answ No The difference is here 1. Papists are for Tradition as a supplement to the Scripture as if this were but part of the VVord of God and 2. They plead for a peculiar power of being the Keepers and Judges of that supplemental Tradition which other Churches know nothing of But we 1. Plead for the Infallible Practical Tradition of the Essentials of Christianity by itself and in the Creed c. which is less than the Scripture 2. And next for the certain Tradition of the Scripture itself uncorrupted in all that Faith depends on which Scripture is the compleat Record of God's VVill and Law containing more than Essentials and Integrals So much of God 1. Manifested in the Flesh 2. Justified in the Spirit III. He was seen of Angels that is Angels were the Beholding Witnessing and admiring Servants of this great Mystery God manifested in the Flesh 1. Angels preached Christ at his Incarnation 2. Angels ministred to Christ in his Temptations Agonies c. 3. Angels were Preachers and VVitnesses of his Resurrection 4. Angels rowled away the Stone and terrified the Souldiers 5. Angels preached his return to them that gazed up at his Ascension 6. Angels opened the Prison Doors and set the imprisoned Apostles free once and Peter alone afterwards 7. Angels rejoice in Heaven at the Conversion of all that Christ brings home 8. Angels disdain not to be the Guardians of the least of Christs Disciples 9. Angels are protecting Officers over Churches and Kingdoms 10. Angels have preached to Apostles and been the Messengers of their Revelations 11. Angels have been the Instruments of Miracles and of destroying the Churches Enemies 12. Angels will ministerially convoy departed Souls to Christ 13. Angels will gloriously attend Christ at his return and sever the Wicked from the Just 14. Angels will be our Companions in the heavenly Chore for ever Therefore 1. We should love Angels 2. And be thankful to God for them 3. And think the more comfortably of Heaven for their Society 4. And Pray for the benefit of their Ministry on Earth especially in all our dangers IV. The Fourth Article is Preached to the Gentiles The Jews having the Covenant of Peculiarity were proud of their Priviledge even while they unworthily abused it And despised the rest of the World and would not so much as eat with them as if they had been God's only People And indeed the rest of the World was so corrupted that we find no one Nation that as such renounced Idolatry and was devoted in Covenant to the true God alone as the Jews were Now that God should be manifested in Flesh to reconcile the Heathen World to himself and extend greater Priviledges indefinitely to all Nations than ever the Jews had in their state of Peculiarity this was a Mystery of Godliness which the Jews did hardly yield belief to And that which aggravateth this wonder is 1. That the Gentile World was drowned in all Idolatry and Unnatural Wickedness such as Paul describeth Rom. 1. 2. Eph. 2. 3. 18 c. 2. And that God should suddenly and freely send them the Message of reconciliation and be found of them that sought him not is that wonder which obligeth us Gentiles who once lived as without God in the World to be thankful to him V. The Fifth Article is Believed on in the World The effect of the Gospel on the Souls of men in their Effectual Faith is one of the Evidences of the Christian Truth I told you before that the Fifth Witness of the Spirit on the Souls of all Believers I reserved to be here mentioned Here 1. It is a part of the wonder that Christ should be believed on in the World even with a common Faith For 1. To believe a mean Man to be the Mediator between God and Man and the Saviour of the World yea one that was Crucified as a Malefactor this must needs be a difficult thing 2. The very Jewish Nation was as contemptible to the Romans being one of their poorest subdued Provinces as the Gentiles were to the Jews And Christ was by Birth a Jew 3. The Greatness of the Roman Empire then ruling over much of the World was such that by Preaching and not by VVar to bring them to be Subjects to a Crucified Jew was a marvellous work and so to bring the Conquered Nations to become Christ's Voluntary Subjects 4. The Roman and Greek Learning was then at the height of its Perfection And the Christians were despised by them as unlearned Barbarians And that Learning Arts and Empire should all submit to such a King and Saviour was certainly a work of Supernatural Power Christ did not levy Armies to overcome the Nations nor did Victory move them but the Victors and Lords of the VVorld and these no Fools but the Masters of the greatest humane VVisdom were Conquered by the Gospel preached by a sort of inferior men 5. And this Gospel which Conquered them was still opposed by them and the Christians persecuted as a sort of hated men till it overcame the Persecutors It 's true that Heathenism hath the greatest part of the VVorld and Mahometans have as much as Christians But one sort got it by the Sword and the other by the Doctrine and Holy lives of a few unarmed inferiour men II. But I use this of the Extent of Faith but as a probable and not a cogent Argument But the main Argument is from the Sanctifying effect of Faith I know it will be said that many or most Christians are as bad as other men But it 's one thing to be of a profest Religion because it is the Religion of the
King and Countrey and therefore maketh for men's worldly advantage and they hear little said againft it This is the case of most in the World Christians Mahometans and Heathens And it 's another to be a serious Believer who upon trial and consideration chooseth Christianity And it is notorious that such serious Christians are all Holy Sober and Just and so greatly differing from the corrupted World as fully proveth that God owneth that Gospel which he maketh so effectual to so great a change Here consider 1. What that change is 2. How hard and great a work it is 3. That it is certainly a work of God 4. That the Gospel is the means by which God doth it 1. The nature of this Holy work on all serious sincere Christians is It sets all their Hopes and Hearts on the promised Glory of the Life to come and turns the very nature of their Wills into the predominant Love of God and Man and of Heaven and Holiness It mortifieth all fleshly Lusts and Subjects Sense to Reason and Faith the Body to the Soul and all to God It sets a Mans Heart on the sincere study of doing all the good he can in the World to Friends Neighbours and Enemies especially and most publick good to live soberly righteously and godly is his delight Sin is his chief hatred and nothing more grievous to him than that he cannot reach to greater Perfection in Faith Hope Obedience Patience and in heavenly Love and Joy It causeth a Man to contemn Wealth Honour and fleshly Pleasure and Life in comparison of God's Love and Life everlasting this change God's Spirit worketh on all true Believers Those that are ungodly have but the Name of Christians they never well understood what Christianity is nor ever received it by a true belief But all that understandingly and seriously believe in Jesus Christ are sanctified by his Spirit II. And this is a greater work than Miracles in excellency and difficulty 1. It is the very Health of the Souls It is Salvation itself it maketh Man in his measure like to God and is his Image It is a heavenly nature and is the earnest and preparation for Heaven It delivereth Man from the greatest evil on Earth and giveth him the firmest peace and joy in his peace with God the pardon of his Sins and the hope of everlasting Glory 2. It 's easy to discern how great a work this is by the deep roots of all the contrary Vices in the corrupted Nature of Man Experience assureth us that Man by vitiated Nature is proud and ignorant and savoureth little but the things of the Flesh and worldly Interest and is a Slave to his Appetite and Lust His bodily Prosperity is all that really hath his Heart Yea if God restrain them not all wicked men are bitter Enemies to all that are truly wise and holy even among Heathens and Insidels if any be but better than the rest the wicked are their deadly Enemies There is so visible an Enmity between Godliness and Wickedness the Seed of Christ and of the Serpent in the World as is a great confirmation of the Scripture which describeth it And it is not the Name of Christians that altereth mens Nature We here that have Peace from all the World are under such implacable hatred of wicked men that call themselves Christians that so many Bears or Wolves would be less hurtful to us 3. And the universal spreading of this wickedness over all the Earth in all Ages and Nations doth tell us how great a work it is to cure it 4. And so doth the frustration of all other means till the Spirit of God do it by setting home the Gospel upon the Heart Children will grow up in VVickedness against all the Counsel Love Correction of their Parents no VVords no Reason will prevail with them more than with drunken men or beasts 5. VVe find it a very hard thing to cure a Man of some one rooted sin much more of all 6. The common misery of the VVorld proclaimeth Man's Vice and the difficulty of the cure How else comes the VVorld to live in self-seeking falshood fraud malice and in bloody VVars worsâ— than VVolves and Serpents against each other 7. Lastly VVhere God cureth this by true believing it 's done with the pangs of sharp repentance and a great conflict before God's Spirit overcometh III. It is evident then that this Sanctification of Souls is an eminent work of God himself 1. In that it is yet done on so many of his chosen ones in all Ages and Places 2. In that as hard as it is he usually turneth the Hearts of Sinners to himself in a very little time Somtimes by one Sermon 3. It is a work that none can do but God who hath the power of Souls 4. It is a work so good that it beareth God's own Image It is but the writing of his Law and Gospel on mens Hearts None is so much for it as God Satan apparently fighteth against it with all the power he can raise in the VVorld Mark it and you will find that most of the stir that there is in the VVorld by false Teachers and Tyrants and private Malice is but Satans VVars against Faith and Holiness and Love Certainly it is not he that promoteth them IV. And it is evident in Experience that it is the Gospel of Christ which God useth and blesseth to do this great sanctifying work on Souls Among Christians none are converted by any other means And God would not bless a word of falshood and deceit to such great and excellent effects All that are made holy and heavenly and truly conscionable among us are made so by Christ's Gospel And all the wicked are Enemies to the serious practice of it or Rebels that despise it The effects daily prove that God himself owneth it as his Word If you say There are as good men among the Heathens and Mahometans as holy heavenly and just I answer It is none of my business to depretiate other men But I can say 1. That I have lived above Sixty seven years and I never knew one serious holy Person in England that was made such by the Writings of Heathens or Mahometans 2. Many excellent things are in the Writings of some Heathens Plato Cicero Hierocles Plutarch Antonine Epictetus and many others But I miss in them the expressions of that holy and heavenly frame of mind and life and that Victory over the Flesh and World which Christianity containeth 3. Christ is like the Sun whose Beams give some light before it is seen its self at its rising and after it is set The Light of Jews and Heathens was as the dawning of the Day before Sun rising And the light among the Mahometans is like the Light of the Sun which it leaveth when it is set Doubtless the same God who hath used Mahometans to be his dreadful Scourge to wicked Christians who abused the Gospel by a false Profession
hath also used them to do abundance of good against Idolatry in the Heathen World Where-ever they come Idolatry is destroyed Yea the corrupt Christians Greeks and specially Papists that worship Images Angels and Bread are rebuked and condemned justly by Mahometans But O that they who have Conquered so far by the Sword were Conquered by the Sacred Word of Truth and truly understood the Mystery of Redemption and the Doctrin of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Obj. But they think us Idolaters for saying that Christ is God and believing the Trinity I. As to the Trinity it is no contradiction that one Fire or Sun should have Essentially a Virtue or Power to Move Light and Heat Nor that one Soul should have a power of Vegetation Sense and Reason Nor as Rational to have a peculiar power of Vitality Intellection and Free-will Why then should the Trinity seem incredidible II. We do not believe that the Godhead hath any change or is made Flesh or the Manhood made God but that the Godhead is incomprehensibly united to the humane Nature by assumption so as he is united to no other Creature by and for those peculiar Operations on the humanity of Christ which make him our Redeemer They that well think that God is All in All things more than a Soul to all the World and as near to us as our Souls to our Bodies in whom we live and move and have our being will find that it is more difficult to apprehend how God is further from any Soul than that he is so much One with Christ Save that different Operations of God on his Creatures are apparent to us By all this we see that every sanctified Christian hath the certain Witness in himself that Christ is true He is truly a Physician that healeth and a Saviour that saveth all that seriously believe and obey him The Spirit of God in a New and Holy and Heavenly Nature of Spiritual Life and Light and Love is the Witness VI. The Sixth Article in my Text is Received up into Glory That Christ after Forty Days continuance on Earth was taken up into Heaven in the sight of his Disciples is a Matter of Fact of which we have all the forementioned infallible proof which I must not here again repeat And 1. If Christ were not glorified now in Heaven he could not send down his Spirit with his Word on Earth nor have enabled the first Witnesses to speak with all Tongues and heal the Sick and raise the Dead and do all the Miracles which they did A dead Man cannot send down the Holy Spirit in likeness of Firy cloven Tongues nor enable Thousands to do such VVorks nor could he do what is done on the Souls of serious Believers in all Ages and Nations to this Day He is sure alive that makes men live and in Heaven that draws up Hearts to Heaven 2. And this is our Hope and Joy Heaven and Earth are in his Power The Suffering and VVork which he performed for us on Earth was short but his heavenly Intercession and Reign is Everlasting Guilty Souls can have no immediate access to God All is by a Mediator All our receivings from God are by him And all our services are returned by him and accepted for his sake And as he is the Mediator between his Father and us his Spirit interceedeth between him and us By his Spirit he giveth us Holy desires and every Grace and by his Spirit we exercise them in returns to him And our glorified Saviour hath Satan and all our Enemies in his Power Life and Death are at his command All Judgment is committed to him He that hath redeemed us is preparing us for Heaven and it for us and receiveth our departing Souls to his own Joy and Glory He hath promised us that we shall be with him where he is and shall see his Glory He that is our Saviour will be our Judge He will come with Thousands of his Angels to the confusion of wicked Unbelievers and to be glorified in his Saints He will make a New Heaven and a New Earth in which Righteousness shall dwell Angels and Glorified Saints shall with Christ our Head make one City of God or holy Society and Chore in perfect Love and Joy to praise the blessed God for ever I. The differences between this World and that which I am going to I. THis World is God's Footstool That is his Throne II. Here are his Works of Inferiour Nature and of Grace There he shineth forth in Perfect Glory III. Here is gross Receptive Matter moved by Invisible Powers There are the noblest efficient communicative Powers moving all IV. This is the Inferiour subject Governed World That is the Superiour Regent World V. This is a World of Trial where the Soul is his that can win its consent That is a World where the Will is perfectly determined and fixed VI. Satan winning mens Consent hath here a large Dominion of Fools There he is cast out and hath no Possession VII Here he is a 〈◊〉 and Troubler of the Best There he hath neither Power to Tempt or Trouble VIII This World is as the dark Womb where we are regenerated That is the World of Glorious Light into which we are born IX Here we dwell on a World of sordid Earth There we shall dwell in a World of Celestial Light and Glory X. Here we dwell in a troublesom tempting perishing Body There we are delivered from this burden and prison into glorious liberty XI Here we are under a troublesom Cure of our Maladies There we are perfectly healed rejoicing in our Physicians praise XII Here we are using the Means in weariness and hope There we obtain the end in full fruition XIII Here sin maketh us loathsom to our selves and our own annoiance There we shall love God in our selves and our Perfected selves in God XIV Here all our Duties are defiled with sinful imperfection There perfect Souls will perfectly love and praise their God XV. Here Satans temptations are a continual danger and molestation There perfect Victory hath ended our temptations XVI Here still there is a remnant of the Curse and Punishment of sin Pardon and Deliverance are perfected there XVII Repenting Shame Sorrow and Fear are here part of my necessary work There all the troublesom part is past and utterly excluded XVIII Here we see darkly as in a Glass the Invisible World of Spirits There we shall see them as Face to Face XIX Here Faith alas too weak must serve instead of sight There presence and sight suspend the use of such believing XX. Desire and Hope are here our very Life VVork But there it will be full felicity in fruition XXI Our Hopes are here oft mixt with grievous doubts and fears But there full possession ends them all XXII Our holy Affections are here corrupted with Carnal mixtures But there all are purely Holy and Divine XXIII The coldness of our Divine Love is here our sin and
misery The Perfection of it will be there our perfect Holiness and Joy XXIV Here though the VVill itself be imperfect we cannot be and do what we would There VVill and Deed and Attainment will all be fully perfect XXV Here by Ignorance and Self-Love I have Desires which God denieth There perfect Desires shall be perfectly fulfilled XXVI Here pinching VVants of somthing or other and troublesom Cares are daily burdens Nothing is there wanting and God hath ended all their Cares XXVII Sense here rebelleth against Faith and Reason and oft overcometh Sense there shall be only Holy and no Discord be in our Faculties or acts XXVIII Pleasures and Contents here are short narrow and twisted with their contraries There they are objectively pure and boundless and subjectively total and absolute XXIX Vanity and Vexation are here the Titles of transitory things Reality Perfection and Glory are the Title of the things above XXX This VVorld is a point of God's Creation a narrow place for a few Passengers Above are the vast capacious Regions sufficient for all Saints and Angels XXXI This VVorld is as Newgate and Hell as Tyburn some are hence saved and some condemned The other VVorld is the Glorious Kingdom of Jehovah with the Blessed XXXII It was here that Christ was tempted scorned and crucified It is there where he Reigneth in Glory over all XXXIII The Spiritual life is here as a Spark or Seed It is there a glorious flame of Love and Joy and the perfect Fruit and Flower XXXIV VVe have here but the first Fruits Earnest and Pledge There is the full and glorious Harvest and Perfection XXXV VVe are here Children in Minority little differing from Servants There we shall have full possession of the Inheritance XXXVI The prospect of Pain Death Grave and Rottenness blasteth all the Pleasures here There is no Death nor any fear of the ending of felicity XXXVII Here even God's VVord is imperfectly understood and Errours swarm even in the Best All Mysteries of Nature and Grace are there unveiled in the World of Light XXXVIII Many of God's Promises are here unfulfilled and our Prayers unanswered There Truth shineth in the full performance of them all XXXIX Our Grace is here so weak and Hearts so dark that our sincerity is oft doubted of There the flames of Love and Joy leave no place for such a doubt XL. By our unconstancy here one Day is joyful and another sad But there our Joys have no interruption XLI We dwell here with sinful Companions like our selves in Flesh There holy Angels and Souls with Christ are all our Company XLII Our best friends and helpers are here in parst our hinderers by sin There all concur in the harmony of active Love XLIII Our Errours and Corruptions make us also hurtful and troublesome to our Friends But there both Christ and they forgive us and we shall trouble them no more XLIV Selfishness and cross interests here jar and mar our conversation There perfect Love will make the Joy of every Saint and Angel mine XLV A militant Church imperfectly sanctified here liveth in scandal and sad divisions The glorious Church united in God in perfect Love hath no contention XLVI Sin and Errour here turn our very publick Worship into jars The Celestial harmony of joyful Love and Praise is to Mortals unconceivable XLVII VVeak blind and wicked Teachers here keep most in delusion and division There glorious Light hath banished all Lies deceit and darkness XLVIII The wills of blind Tyrants is the Law of most on Earth The Wisdom and Will of the most holy God is the Law of the heavenly Society XLIX Lies here cloud the Innocency of the Just and render Truth and Goodness odious All false Judgments are there reversed and Slander is silenced and the Righteous justified L. Government is here exercised by terrour and violence But there God ruleth by Light Love and absolute Delight LI. Enemies Reproach and Persecution here annoy and tempt us All storms are there past and the Conquerors crowned in joyful Rest LII The Glory of Divine Love and Holiness is clouded here by the abounding of Sin and the greatness of Satan's Kingdom upon Earth But the vast glorious heavenly Kingdom to which this Earth is but a Point and Prison will banish all such erring Thoughts and Glorifie God's Love and Goodness for ever LIII This is the World which as corrupted is called an Enemy to God and us and which as such we renounced in Baptism and must be saved from That is the World which we seek pray and wait for all our lives and for which all the tempting Vanities of this must be forsaken LIV. This Body an World is like our riding Clothes our Horse our Way and Inn and travelling Company All but for our Journey homeward The other is our City of Blessedness and Everlasting Rest to which all Grace inclineth Souls and all preserâ— Means and Mercies tend LV. The very ignorance of Nature and Sensible things makes this life a very Labyrinth and our Studies Sciences and Learned Conversation to be much like a Dream or Popet Play and a Childish stir about meer Words But in Heaven an Universal knowledge of God's wonderful Works will not be the least of the Glory in which he will shine to Saints LVI Distance and Darkness of Souls here in Flesh who would Fain know more of God and the heavenly World and cannot doth make our lives a burden by these unsatisfied desires There Glorious Presence and Intuition giveth full satisfaction LVII Our sin and imperfection here render us uncapable of being the Objects of God's full complacential Love though we have his benevolence which will bring us to it But there we shall in our several measures perfectly please God and be perfectly pleased in God for ever LVIII All things here are short and transitory from their beginning posting towards their end which is near and sure and still in our Eye so short is time that Beings here are next to nothing the Bubble of worldly Prosperity Pomp and fleshly Pleasure doth swell up and break in so short a Moment as that it Is and and Is not almost at once But the heavenly substances and their work and Joys are crowned by Duration being assuredly EVERLASTING Such O my Soul is the blessed Change which God will make The Reasons and Helps of my Belief and Hope of this Perfection 1. NAtural Reason assureth me that God made all Creatures fitted to their intended use Even Bruits are more fit for their several Offices than Man is He giveth no Creature its faculties in vain Whatever a wise Man maketh he fits it to the use which he made it for But Man's Faculties are Enabled to think of a God of our relation and our duty to him of our hopes from him and our fears of him Of the state of our Souls related to his judgment of what will befall us after Death reward or punishment and how to prepare for it
Essential transcendent Love is ready to receive thee The Spirit of Love hath sealed thee to that blessed state Christ will present thee justified and accepted Most of my old holy familiar Friends are gone before me and all the rest that died since the World began And the few imperfect ones left behind are hasting after them apace and if I go before will quickly overtake me Though they weep as if it were for a long separation it is their great mistake The gate of Death stands all Day open and my sorrowful Friends are quickly following me as I am now following those for whom I sorrowed O pitty them who are left a while under the temptations dangers and fears which have so long been thy own affliction But be not afraid of the Day of thy deliverance and the bosom of everlasting Love and the Society of the wise and just and holy and of the end of all thy troubles and the entrance into the Joy of thy Lord and the place and state of all thy hope O say not notionally only as from argumentative conviction but confidently and with glad desire and hope TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER than to be here But O my God I have much more hope in speaking to thee than to my self Long may I plead with this dark and dull yet fearful Soul before I can plead it into joyful hope and heavenly desires unless thou shine on it with the light of thy Countenance and Thou whom my Soul must Trust and Love wilt give me Faith and Love themselves I thank Thee for convincing Arguments But had this been all the strength of my Faith and Hope the tempter might have proved too subtile for me in dispute I thank thee that some experience tells me that a holy Appetite to heavenly Work and a love to the heavenly Company and State doth more to make me willing to die and think with Pleasure of my change than ever bare Arguments would have done O send down the streams of thy love into my Soul and that will powerfully draw it up by longings for the near and full fruition O give me more of the divine and heavenly Nature and it will be natural and easie to me to desire to be with Thee Send more of the heavenly Joys into this Soul and it will long for Heaven the place of Joy I must not hope on Earth for any such acquaintance with the World above as is proper to the enjoying state But if the Sun can send its illuminating warming Rays to such a World as this according to the various disposition of Recipients doubtless Thou hast thy effectual though unsearchable waies of illuminating sanctifying and attractive influence on Souls And one such Beam of thy pleased Face one Taste of thy complacencial Love will kindle my love and draw up my desires and make my pains and sickness tolerable I shall then put off this cloathing with the less reluctancy and willingly leave my Flesh to the Dust and sing my Nunc dimittis when I have thus seen and tasted thy Salvation O my God Let not thy strengthning comforting grace now forsake me lest it should overwhelm me with the fears of being finally forsaken Dwell in me as the God of Love and Joy that I may long to dwell in Love and Joy with Thee for ever As Grace abounded where sin abounded let thy strengthning and comforting Mercy abound when weakness increaseth and my necessities abound My Flesh and my Heart◠faileth but Thou art the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever This short life is almost at an end But thy loving kindness is better than life I know not with what pains thou wilt further trie me But if I love Thee thou hast promised that all things shall work together for my good The World that I am going to by Death is not apparent to my sight But my life is hid with Christ in God and because he liveth we shall live and we shall be with him where he is and when he appeareth we shall appear with him in Glory and shall enter into our Masters joy and be for ever with the Lord Amen What sensible manifestation of his Kingdom Christ gave in his Transfiguration § 1. Our Lord who brought Life and Immortalility to Light well knew the difficulty of believing so great things unseen And therefore it pleased him to give men some sensible helps by demonstration In Mat. 16. 17. 1 2. c. Mark 9. 1. Luk. 9. 28. he promised some of his Disciples a sight of his Kingdom as coming in power or such a glimpse as Moses had of the Backparts of God's Glory This he performed first in his Transfiguration as afterward in his Resurrection Ascension and sending the holy Ghost to enable them with power to preach and work Miracles and convert the Nations § 2. By the Kingdom of God is meant God's Government of his Holy ones by a heavenly communication of Life Light and Love initially on Earth by Grace and perfectly in Heaven by Glory A special Theocracy § 3. For the understanding of this we must know that when God had made Man good in his Image he conversed with him in a heavenly manner either immediately or by an Angel speaking to him and telling him his will But Man being made a free self-determining Agent he was left to choose whom he would follow And hearkening unto Satan and turning from God he became a Slave of Satan and gave him advantage to be his deceiving Ruler Not that Man's rebellion nullified God's Power or disposing Government or took Man from under Obligation to Obedience but that forsaking God he was much though not wholly forsaken by his special fatherly approving Government and left to Satan and his own will But the eternal Word interposing for Man's Reprival and Redemption undertook to break the Serpents Head and to conquer and cast out him that had deceived and captivated Man And choosing out a special Seed he made them a peculiar People and set up a heavenly Prophetical Government over them himself by heavenly Revelation making their Laws and choosing their chief Governours under him from time to time and would not leave it to blind and sinful Man to make Laws or choose Princes for themselves but would keep them in a special dependance upon Heaven But the carnal Israelites having provoked God by odious Idolatry to deny them much of the benefit of Government save when they repented and cryed to him for help they thought to amend this by choosing a King like other Nations and ending their dependance on heavenly Revelation and choice for Government And so Theocracy was turned into a more humane Regiment and God more cast off Though yet he would not quite forsake them And the rest of the World was yet more left under the power of Satan and their own corrupted mind and will So that Satan hath both an Internal Kingdom in wicked Souls and a visible
his Children In all our afflictions he is said to be afflicted to signifie that he afflicts not willingingly or without our provocation Justice is good and holiness is good and it 's good for us to repent and be weaned from the Flesh and World And all good must be loved and the means as such Sharp Heart-breaking Sermons are unpleasing to Nature and yet to be loved for their use And afflictions are God's powerful Sermons The proud and hardened are forced to hear them who scorn and prosecute Preachers for speaking the same things And shall Believers under sufferings be untaught Words are but Words but stripes go by forcible sense unto the Heart Obedient submission to the greatest pains is a serious acknowledgement of God's Dominion and of his Wisdom and Love and the certain hopes of a better life Impatience hath in it somwhat of Atheism or Blasphemy God is not duely acknowledged and honoured Job's Wife would have had him thus purposly provoke God to end his misery by Death As if she had said Speak no more well of him by whom thou sufferest so much nor honour a God that will not help thee But Patience saith Mic. 7. 7. I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my Salvation my God will hear me Impatience sheweth a misunderstanding of God's dealing with the afflicted but patience yieldeth because it understandeth whence all comes and what will be the fruit and end A Man that is let Blood for his life is not impatient with the Chyrurgion but a Beast will strive and a Swine or Child will cry Our burdens are heavy enough of themselves Impatience maketh them heavier and is more painful than the thing which we suffer Some have gone mad with crosses which oft to another would have been light Patience is our cordial and nepenthes yea the Health of the Soul by which it is able to bear its infirmities In our patience we possess our Souls Luk. 21. 19. whatever else we lose we lose not our selves He that keepeth his Faith and Hope and Love by patience keepeth his Soul But the impatient lose themselves as if their other losses were not enough A poor Man singeth that gets his living only by his Day-labour When a Lord or Knight would be tormented with sorrow if he were reduced to his degree Striving under our yoak and burden maketh it Gall the more And we cannot so hopefully or comfortably pray for deliverance from the pain which we make our selves as from that which God layeth on us Though also there we must pray for the Grace that must save us from our own impatience Patience preventeth many sins which impatience causeth Hard thoughts of God if not hard and unseemly Words Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly Impatience tempteth men to think that Piety and Prayer are in vain and to condemn the Generatition of the Just and to leave off Duty and say Why should I wait on God any longer yea and to venture on false and sinful means in hopes of deliverance and ease Were it to men we have much to allay our impatience But against God impatience hath no just excuse Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness can do nothing that deserveth blame We have God's Promise that All things shall work together for our good And is he not to be trusted Or is the means of our good to be accused Impatience is unseemly for them that believe that heavenly Rest and Glory are at hand where all their pains and sorrows will end Were a Man on the Rack and were sure to have all that he desired after it he would the more easily endure it Why else did the Martyrs so patiently suffer It 's incongruous to complain of any thing that brings a Man to Heaven Christ was himself Innocent and yet accused not God for his sufferings But we suffer justly for our faults and it 's so much less than they deserve that the sins which we suffer most for are said to be forgiven us in that the everlasting punishment is forgiven Should we so often sinfully please the Flesh and yet must it not smart Shall we so often grieve the Spirit of God and not be grieved Shall we lose our time neglect our duty forget our home fall in love with the World and yield to temptations and defile our Souls with filth and vanity and must not correction tell us of our sinful folly If we suffer for our faults and bear it patiently it is not thanks worthy 1 Pet. 2. 20. Our merciful Father doth use to shame us for our impatience by the blessed end of our Afflictions The End that God made with Job shewed the reasonableness of his Patience When our afflictions are over do not all Believers see cause of thankfulness for them and say It is good for me that I was afflicted The pain is past and the benefit remaineth And if all that 's past was Mercy to us why should we much fear that which is to come Heaven will end all and shame impatience for ever Our patience is much of our perseverance What a deal of labour do those impatient men lose that learn and pray and are somwhat Religious and have not patience at the last assault to bear the trial but fail when they seemed to be near the Crown Hold out then poor desponding Soul Lift up the Hands which hang down and the feeble Knees and run with patience the Race which is set before thee looking to Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross God will not deceive thy hopes Sin hath brought pain and death on Man but Christ hath sanctified it and is the Lord of Life Yet a little while and the heavenly Possession shall turn thy sorrows into everlasting Joy and thy moans and groans into thanks and praise and there shall be no more sickness pains or death O foolish unbelieving Hearts that cry out of suffering and fear deliverance that would fain be free from all affliction and yet fly from the only state of freedom That are impatient under their calamity and yet afraid of passing to the only rest § 12. But it is neither Pain alone nor Death alone that will sufficiently try our strength and exercise our Faith and Patience It must be Great Pain and often Long in order to a certain or expected Death These two conjunct were the Case of Christ The torment of his Agony Scourging Crucifying Piercing and Desertion and the certainty of Death that followed Great pain with hopes of recovery and ease may be born even by a worldly Man Because there is still the worldly hope of better and so there is no denial of All while Life it self is not denied We must receive the Sentence of Death in our selves if we will find that we trust in God alone and trust him as one that raiseth the Dead that is for another and better life As long as a Man hath any hope of life
fettereth an active Spirit and we sleep or turn away in wandering Thoughts when we should seriously converse with Christ and Heaven Alas what unworthy Servants hath our Lord Are such as these meet for his work his Love his Acceptance or his Kingdom But O how merciful a Saviour have we who taketh not his poor Servants at the worst but when they after served him thus in his Agony he gently rebuketh them Could you not watch with me one Hour and that with an excuse The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak § 18. It is a matter of great Moment to understand in what cases this excuse will hold and our weakness will not make the willingness of the Spirit unacceptable to God If a Drunkard Fornicator or other Sensualist should say My Spirit is willing to leave my sin but my Flesh is weak and in temptation doth prevail Video meliora proboque c. This excuse would not prove God's forgiveness If a Man live in known sin which he could forbear were he truly willing and say To will is present with me but to do I am unable it is not I but sin that dwelleth in me this would be but a frivolous excuse And yet to the sleepy Disciples it was a good excuse and I think to Paul Rom 7. where then is the dâ—fference There are some acts of Man which the will hath not power to rule and some that it can rule The will hath not power always to keep a sleepy Man awake This sleep might be of the Flesh without any will at all And this excuseth from all guilt There are some acts of Man which the will cannot rule but by a great degree of power and endeavour As perhaps with much ado by preventing and resisting diligence the Disciples might have kept awake In this case their sleep is a fault but a pardoned fault of weakness Some Persons are liable to inordinate Fear and Grief which so surprizeth them by the Constitution of their Bodies that the greatest unwillingness would not hinder them And some could do more to resist these passions than they do but very hardly with the greatest diligence These are accordingly excusable in degree Paul would have perfectly obeyed God's Law and never have sinned But there is no Perfection in this Life Meer Imperfection of true Grace which is predominant in the will doth not damn men But there are acts which are so subject to the will that a sincere will though imperfect can command them He that doth these or doth the contrary it is not because he sincerely would and cannot but because he hath but uneffectual wishes and is not sincerely willing if he know them to be what they are Especially if they be materially great sins which he yieldeth to which true Grace more strongly resisteth than it doth an idle word or thought or action In short all omissions or commissions in which the will is positively or privatively guilty are sinful in some degree but only these do damn the Sinner which are inconsistent with the predominant Love of God and Heaven and Holiness in the Soul § 19. When the Disciples awaked they saw these glorious ones in converse Did they hear what they said or did Christ after tell them The later is most probable Doubtless as Moses tells us how God made the World which none could tell him but by God's telling them first so the Apostles have written many things of Christ which they neither saw nor heard but from Christ that told it them by Word or Inspiration How else knew they what Satan said and did to him in his Temptations in the Wilderness and on the Pinacle of the Temple How knew they what his Prayer was in his Agony And so in this instance also But Christ's own testimony was enough to put them out of Doubt to them that daily saw his confirming Miracles § 20. How great a difference was there between Mount Sinai and this Mount When God delivered the Law to Moses that Mount was terrible in Flame and Smoak and Thunder so that the People trembled and fled But now here is nothing but Life and Light and Love from Heaven A merciful Redeemer whose Face shined as the Sun with heavenly Company appearing nearly to the Disciples pittying and bearing with their heaviness and infirmity strengthning their Faith and Hope and proving to them a Resurrection and a heavenly Kingdom by a visible Apparition of some of its Possessors This was not a frightful but a confirming delectable sight The Law in terrour was by Moses but Grace and Truth Peace and Pleasure are by Christ This was an inviting and delighting and not an affrighting Apparition Was it not a shameful infirmity and a sin that Peter should deny Christ after such a sight as this and the rest of the Disciples forsake him and fly What! after they had seen the Kingdom of God come in Power and Christ's Face shine as the Sun in its brightness Could they forget all this Or could they doubt whether he or his Persecutors were the stronger and liker to prevail at last O how frail how uncertain how bad a thing is depraved Man But though Christ found them asleep and though he foreknew that they would forsake him he forsook not them nor used them as they deserved but comforted them with a glimpse of Heaven For he died for his Enemies § 21. But this was but once in all the time of his abode among them It was an extraordinary Feast and not their daily Bread They had Christ still with them but not transfigured in Glory nor Moses and Elias in their sight We are too apt to think that if God give us a joyful extraordinary glimpse of Heaven we must have it always or that he forsaketh us and castus off when he denieth it us O that we were as desirous of Holiness and Duty as we are of the Joy which is the reward But our Father and not we must be the chooser both of our Food and Feast Moses did not dwell on Mount Nebo that he might still see the Land of Promise It was enough to have one sight of it before his death As Flesh and Blood cannot enter into Heaven so it 's little of Heaven that entereth into it § 22. When the Disciples awake they see his Glory and the two men that stood with him It must not be a sleeeping but an awakened Christian that will have a sight of heavenly Glory As we must love God with all the Heart and Soul and Might all must be awakened in seeking him and in attending him before we can have a joyful foretast of his Love Carnal security supine neglect and dull contempt are dispositions which render us uncapable of such delights Heavenly joys suppose a heavenly disposition and desires Angels sleep not nor are clogged with Bodies of Clay Earth hath no Wings It must be holy vivacity that must carry up a Soul to God notwithstanding the fetters of Flesh
taste little more than a Beast may taste Poor Food and Rayment is sweet with the sense of the Love of God Had I more of this I should lie down and rise and walk in Pleasure and content I could bear the loss of other things And though Nature will feel pains I should have Pleasure and Peace in the midst of all my pains and groans This is the white Stone the New Name No Man well knoweth it who never felt it in himself 1. There is no dying comfortably without this experienced taste of the Love of God This will draw up the desires of the Soul Love tasted casteth out fear though God be Holy and Just and Judgment terrible and Hell intollerable and the Soul hath no distinct Idea of its future state out of the Body and though we see not whither it is that we must go the taste of God's love will make it go joyfully as trusting him as a Child will go any whither in his Father's power and hand But all the knowledge in the World without this quiets not a departing Soul A Man may write as many Books and Preach as many Sermons of Heaven as I have done and speak of it and think of almost nothing else and yet till the Soul be sweetned and comforted with the Love of God shed abroad on it by the Holy Ghost death and the next life will be rather a Man's fear than his desire And the common fear of death which we see in the far greatest part even of godly Persons doth tell us that though they may have saving desires and hopes yet this sense of God's love on the Heart is rare What wonder then if our Language our Converse our Prayers have too little savour of it and in comparison of joyful Believers duties be but like green Apples to the mellow ones My God I feel what it is that I want and I perceive what it is that is most desirable O let not guilt be so far unpardoned as to deprive my Soul of this greatest good which thou hast commended to me and commanded and which in my languishing and pains I so much need Did I beg for Wealth or Honour I might have it to the loss of others But thy Love will make me more useful to all and none will have the less for my enjoyment For thou Lord art enough for all Even as none hath the less of the Sun-light for my enjoying it The least well grounded hope of thy Love is better than all the pleasures of the Flesh But without some pleasant sense of it alas what a withered languishing thing is a Soul thy loving kindness is better than life but if I taste it not how shall I here rejoice in God or bear my heavy burdens O let me not be a dishonour to thy Family where all have so great cause to honour thy bounty by their joy and hopes Nor by a sad and fearful Heart tempt men to think that thy love is not real and satisfactory I can easily believe and admire thy Greatness and thy Knowledge Let it not be so hard to me to believe and taste thy Goodness and thy Love Which is as necessary to me If there be any thing as surely there is in which the Divine Nature and Spirit of Adoption consisteth as above all the Art and Notions of Religion which are but like to other acquired Knowledge sure it must be this holy Appetite and Habitual Inclination of the Soul to God by way of Love which is bred by an internal sense of his Loveliness and Loving inclination to Man which differenceth a Christian from other men as a Child differs towards his Father from Strangers or from common Neigbours Till the love of God be the very state or nature of the Soul working here towards his Honour Interests Word and Servants no Man can say that he is God's habitation by the Spirit And how the Heart will ever be thus habited without believing God's Love to us it 's hard to conceive Experience tells the World how strongly it constraineth Persons to love one another if they do but think that they are strongly beloved by one another In the love that tends to marriage if one that is inferior do but know that a Person of far greater worth doth fervently love them it almost puts a necessity and constraint on them for returns of Love Nature can scarce choose but love in such a case Love is the Loadstone of Love A real taste of the Love of God in saving Souls by Christ and grace is it that constraineth them to be holy that is to be devoted to that God in Love III. But this must as necessarily be the work of the Holy Ghost and can be no more done without him than the Earth can be illuminated and the Vegetables live without the Sun But all the approaches of the Holy Spirit suffice not to produce this great effect and give us the Divine holy Nature The same Sun shine hath three different effects on its Objects 1. On most things as Houses Stones Earth it causeth nothing but the Accidents of Heat Colour and Motion 2. On some things it causeth a seminal Disposition to Vegetable life but not Life itself 3. In this disposed matter it causeth Vegetable life itself So doth the Spirit of God 1. Operate on Millions but lifeless Accidents as the Sun on a stone Wall 2. On others Dispose and prepare them to Divine Life 3. On others so disposed it effecteth the Divine life itself When holy Love is turned into a habit like to Nature That none but the Holy Ghost doth make this holy change is evident For the effect cannot transcend the causes 1. Nature alone is dark and knoweth not the attractive amiableness of God till illuminated nor can give us a satisfactory notice of God's special Love to us 2. Nature is Guilty and Guilt breedeth fears of Justice and fear makes us wild and fly from God lest he will hurt us 3. Nature is under penal sufferings already and feeleth pain fear and many hurts and foreseeth Death And under this is undisposed of itself to feel the pleasure of God's Love 4. Nature is corrupted and diverted to Creature vanity and its Appetite goeth another way and cannot cure itself and make itself suitable to the amiableness of God 5. God hateth wickedness and wicked men and meer Nature cannot secure us that we are saved from that enmity Diligence may do much to get religious Knowledge and Words and all that which I call the Art of Religion And God may bless this as a preparation to holy Life and Love But till the Souls Appetite incline with desire to God and Holiness Divine things will not sweetly relish And this is a great comfort to the Thoughts of the Sanctified that certainly their holy Appetite Desire and Complacency is the work of the Holy Ghost For 1. This secureth them of the Love of God of which it is the proper token 2. And
it assureth them of their Union with Christ when they live because he liveth even by the Spirit which is his Seal and Pledge 3. And it proveth both a future life and their title to it For God maketh not all this preparation for it by his Spirit in vain But alas if it were not a work that hath great impediment it would not be so rare in the World What is it in us that keepeth the Sun of Love from so shining on us as to revive our Souls into Holy contentments and delight It must be supposed 1. That all God's gifts are free and that he giveth not to all alike The wonderful variety of Creatures proveth this 2. The reasons of his differencing works are his own will and inferiour reasons are mostly unknown to us of which he is not bound to give us an account 3. But yet we see that God doth his works in a causal order and one work prepareth for another and he maketh variety of capacities which occasion variety of receptions and of gifts and he useth to give every thing that to which he hath brought it into the next capacity and disposition And therefore in general we may conclude that we feel not God's Love shed abroad upon the Heart because the Heart is undisposed and is not in the next disposition thereto And abused free will hath been the cause of that That we have Grace is to be ascribed to God That we are without it is to be ascribed to our selves 1. Heinous guilt of former sin may keep a Soul much without the delights of Divine love And the heinousness is not only in the greatness of the evil done materially but oft in our long and willful committing of smaller sins against Knowledge and Conscience and consideration The Spirit thus grieved by hardened Hearts and willful repulses is not quickly and easily a comforter to such a Soul and when the sinner doth repent it leaveth him more in uncertainty of his sincerity when he thinks I do but repent purpose and promise now and so I oft did and yet returned the next temptation to my sin And how can I tell that my Heart is not the fame and I should sin again if I had the same temptations O what doubts and perplexities doth oft willful sinning prepare for 2. And sins of omission have here a great part The sweetness of God's Love is a reward which sloathful Servants are unmeet for It follows a Well done good and faithful Servant There is needful a close attendance upon God and devotedness to him and improvement of Gospel Grace and Revelation to make a Soul fit for amicable sweet communion with God All that will save a Soul from Hell will not do this He that will taste these Divine Love-tokens must 1. Be no stranger to holy Meditation and Prayer nor unconstant cold and cursory in them but must dwell and walk above with God 2. And he must be wholly addicted to improve his Masters Talents in the World and make it his design and trade on Earth to do all the good in the World he can And to keep his Soul clean from the flesh and worldly vanity And to such a Soul God will make known his Love 3. And alas how ordinarily doth some carnal aâ—fection corrupt the appetite of the Soul When we grow too much in love with mens esteem or with earthly Riches or when our Throats or Phantasies can master us into obedience or vain desires of Meat Drink Recreation Dwelling c. the Soul loseth its Appetite to things Divine and nothing relisheth where Appetite is gone or sick We cannot serve God and Mammon and we cannot at once taste much pleasure both in God and Mammon The old austere Christians found the mortification of the fleshly Lusts a great advantage to the Souls delight in God 4. And many errours about God's nature and works much hinder us from feasting on his Love 5. And especially the slight and ignorant thoughts of Christ and the wondrous workings of God's Love in him 6. And specially if our belief itself once shake or be not well and firmly founded 7. And our slight thoughts of the Office and Work of the Holy Ghost on Souls and our necessity of it and our not begging and waiting for the Spirits special help 8. And lastly our unfaithful forgetfulness of manifold experiences and testimonies of his Love which should still be as fresh before us Alas my Soul thou feelest thy defect and knowest the hinderance but what hope is there of remedy Will God ever raise so low so dull so guilty a Heart to such a foretast of Glory as is this effusion of his Love by the Holy Ghost The lightsom Daies in Spring and Summer when the Sun reviveth the late naked Earth and clothes it with delectable beauties differs not more from Night and Winter than a Soul thus revived with the Love of God doth differ from an unbelieving formal Soul Though this great change be above my power the Spirit of God is not impotent backward barren or inexâ—â—able He hath appointed us means for so high a state and he appointeth no means in vain Were my own Heart obedient to my commands all these following I would lay upon it Yea I 'll do it and beg the help of God I. I charge thee think not of God's Goodness and Love as unproportionable to his Greatness and his Knowledge Nor overlook in the whole frame of Heaven and Earth the manifestation of one any more than of the other II. Therefore let not the the wickedness and misery of the World tempt thee to think basely of all God's Mercies to the World nor the peculiar priviledges of the Churches draw thee to deny or contemn God's common Mercies unto all III. I charge thee to make the study of Christ and the great work of Man's Redemption by him thy chiefest Learning and most serious and constant work and in that wonderful Glass to see the Face of Divine Love and to hear what is said of it by the Son from Heaven and to come boldly as reconciled to God by him IV. O see that thy repentance for former sins against knowledge and Conscience and the Motions of God's Spirit be sound and throughly lamented and abhorred how small soever the matter was in itself That so the doubt of thy sincerity keep not up doubts of God's acceptance V. Let thy dependance on the Holy Ghost as given from Christ be henceforth as serious and constant to thee as is the dependance of the Eye on the light of the Sun and of natural Life upon its heat and motion Beg hard for the Holy Spirit and gladly entertain it VI. O never forget the many and great experiences thou hast had these almost Sixty years observed of marvellous favour and providence of God for Soul and Body in every time place condition relation company or change thou hast been in Lose not all these Love-tokens of thy Father while thou