Christian Observations and Resolutions

1. The Christian Furniture.

T HREE things are necessar for our Christian walking, the right end, the straight way; and a good Guide: And all these are to be found in God alone; his glory is the right end, and the high way to this ende, is his Word; and himself the only Guide; yea, he himself is all these three: He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; for we are led by his Spirit in his will to himself. His presence in mercy giveth us all this furniture, and without it every man goeth astray; some seek the right end, but choose not the straight way: some find the straight way, but seek not the right end: in place of God they seek and follow themselves; in all their business, they advance not one foot from their first and natural condition, but are more drowned in misery, than at their birth.

The truly godly come to this threefold blessing: The more sincerely they intend his glory, the more sure are they of his direction and guiding: This is Abraham's walking before God, and Enochs walking with him, and Paul his walking in him. The present fruit is answerable to such grounds, a certainty to obtain such an end, because of the way and Guide, a security in that way, and a joy in the conscience of rhem all. The conscience of the sincerity of our intention, of our endeavoring to find and walk in the way is a great degree of his presence in grace, & a presage of his presence in glory: The Soul that laboreth for this sort of walking in this life, shall be with him forever after this life.

The most part of men proclaim to the world, that they have never thought earnestly of this Journey: Their furniture is rather for Hell (if such a Journey needed furniture) then for Heaven: They take this world for their home, themselves for their end, their Guide, and Guarde, loosing their hearts to all ungodliness and unrighteousness: But the godly know they have no byding city here: therefore, they seek for one to come, and deal with God for this provision in so dangerous a way. He may be sure of that end, who is guided and guarded by God in the way to it: He who is now always in God, must be with God forever. So he guideth his own with his Counsel, and afterward bringeth them to his glory.

2. Operations of God's Spirit are powerful.

THe working of God's Spirit is neither at our desire, nor our direction: He bloweth where he listeth, and GOD'S Kingdom cometh not by observation: Our evil deserving hath more power to stay him, than our desires to set him on work; omissions grieve him greatly, but commission of gross sins grieve him more, they can procure both the intermission of his work, & a temporal desertion, though he never depart simply from the Elect. We cannot fore-see his coming, but we may feel his working. The work it self telleth us that he is in the work: When he lurketh, what confusions in the mind, and disorder in the heart? In great business we make but slow speed, all is in a manner forced, and nothing doeth promise the desired success.

But when he showeth himself, O what a change in the Soul! Illumination is great in the variety, and the clearness of light, and every power hath the own seal stamping the heart, all goeth then so easily, as the Soul sufficeth not to take up particularly his working. In that divine work, it findeth the power of a divine Nature; no creature can either work so mightily in us, or affect us in that kind or degree. It hath more increase of light, affection, sense, and sweetness in one hour, than in some other months. As the Soul moveth the body, so he moveth his gifts and graces in us, which are as a carcase without him: He is both the worker & teacher of his own operations; & moveth us to mak due use of them, his desertions are grievous, but his felt operations do largely recompense that grief.

It is good both to fear & eschew his desertiō, but when we find it to comfort our self in the remembrance of his bygone, and assurance of his future working to our former joys. His work is ever powerful, but not ever sēsible. We know that the hand of the Horolodge hath moved, when it cometh to the hour, but our sight discerneth not the moving of it: His work is oft-ten secret to us, and yet forcible; Thereby our condition is changed to the better, though we observe not aye the progress of that bettering: When he both worketh in us saving Graces and a feeling of his work, so that his work, and our sense of it do meet together, that is our unspeakable Ioye.

3. The fruitful work of our thoughts.

AS our thoughts are called light, so is our accompt of their work: They are restless, and we are careless what and how they work▪ no man can hold them within: both outward things draw them out, and themselves are given to wandering, even while we are musing to hold them in order, as water they slide away: In their going out they carry the soul with them, and at their return, report some fruit of the matter which they considered. But many do neither observe their going out, nor their return, they let them out on every thing, & mak use of nothing, & some are worse in a profaine liberty, they send them out on impious and naughty matters, and take them home fraughted with pernicious and sinful reports.

God hath given us our Soul for a better use, as he hath set it in the body to quicken and move it, so also to keep a fruitful intercourse with outward things: If it went simply out of the body, death would follow: If it remained enclosed in it, there could be no intercourse with outward things: God hath appointed a midde way, that the substance of it shall abide in the body, but it sendeth out the thoughts as fearchers and intercommers.

Our best in this kind, is to follow God's appointment, not to let our thoughts wander rackelessie, but to send them in order, not on every trifle, but on good things, and at their return, to receive their work in order. A wise Soul in this Thought-work, is as a Beehyue, all the powers are in labor, a continual going out, and returning: no power idle, and none return empty, and all their observations as Honie laid up for use: It gathereth and disgesteth in it self a substance, & mass of purified knowledge, and that for affection and action, and all of them for the obedience of God and union with him.

Fixed ends make an well ordered and fruitful course: It is good to intend the good of our callings, and then to set our Thoughts to work about the way: Painters draw first the lines, & thē fill up the spaces, & complete the portrate: And Frost turneth first the face of water in hard lines, and then equalleth all with ice: And the body of a child in the womb, hath first the noble partes framed, then all is filled up to the comely proportion of a body: So the body of profitable knowledge hath first the noble partes framed in our fixed designs, then the enterjected spaces are filled up by the Minds daily labor. A ball stricken in the open field goeth straight out from us, but in a Tinnice the wall maketh it return to our hand: So if our thoughts go out rackleslie, they • uanish: But if we hem them within the compass of fixed intentions of our calling and particular task therein, they come home with pertinent observations: In the first case they are as the Raven fleeing about the Ark of Noah, but not entering in it: In the next they are as the Dove, returning weary at Euening with the fatness and peaceablnesse of the Olive.

4. God's peace a sweet Vade-mecum.

HEalth of Body, and peace of Conscience, are two substantial blessings: Without them other blessings are not pleasant to us; and this Peace is better than Health, as the Soul is better than the body. The ground of it is God's free love; the price of it, Christ's satisfaction; the worker of it, God's own Spirit, the mettell upon which he stampeth it, is a good Conscience; the fruit of it, the joy of the holy Ghost. It cannot be keeped, but by great circumspectnesse: Satan cannot endure such a Jewel in the midst of his kingdom. It is vinegar to his teeth, and smoke to his eyes, to see God's children full of this peace in the midst of all his snares, we have it in the world, but not of it, neither can the world know it, nor give it, nor take it from us. It sweeteneth the bitterness of our afflictions, and doubleth the sweetness of prosperity: Go with it whither we will, we have a better jewel in our heatrs, than all the treasures on earth.

O what comfort is it! when we lift up our hearts to GOD, and he meeteth us with softness of heart, and joy in Spirit, when he maketh the beams of his face in Christ to strike on our Soul, to warm and quicken them, and doubleth his grace in us, in the conscience of these things. It is God's seal in the godly, but the wicked neither have it, nor care for it.

A wonder it is, howe men can live in the world without this Peace: Non can well live in a Kings Court or Country, without his Peace. And how shall they live in the world his great family, and not care for his favor? And yet men under their Kings wrath may lurk in their Dominions, but no place can hide them from God: There is small appearance, that they who care not for this Peace, do know God; strangers taste not of this Ioye, but God's children, who know the worth of it, will not value it with all the world: For worth, it passeth all understanding, and for use, it guardeth the heart and mind, in the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is sweet in our life, but shall be more sweet at our death, then we shall see his face not frowning, but smiling on us; we shall not be amazed, but rejoice when he cometh with his messenger death, to loose our bands: Who can conceive Simeon's joy, when he song, Now letteth thou thy servant depart in peace? He could never have so spoken of death, without this Peace, and a sure ground had he, for his eyes did see, his arms did carry, and his heart was full of the Salvation of God, the Prince and price of this Peace. It is a guard in our life, and a bridge at Death, to set us safe over the gulf of misery, and enter us in Heaven.

5. We are fools about Happiness.

OUr greatest folie is where wisdom should be greatest, even in the choose and pursuit of true Happiness: We cannot here possess all things, and yet confusedlie we covet them, & when we choose one of them, it is not the best, but the worst of all, in so far as we make it our best. God is to be sought above all, he may be seen and found of all, yet the most part knoweth him not, and seeketh him not. They profess wisdom, but they practice folie herein, they are not spiritually dainty either in choose or their affection, anything contenteth them: The base lump of the earth and vanities of it, are felicity to them: And though there be some choice blessings in the world, they light rather on the trash, than on the good substance: As they pass by God himself to his gifts, so among his gifts, they miss the corn, and choose the chaff: Neither doeth their folie stand here, it can imagine to it self an happiness in this miserable miscarrying.

This is indeed a fools Paradise, a conceate plat-formed by our selves: we are delighted with these vanities, and captived by them, which proveth our naughtiness. Raw and racklesse choosing, maketh faint pursuing. True Happiness, as all true good, hath an alluring and drawing virtue, and the godly by their inclining & yielding dispositiō to it, are made partakers of it to their happiness: Their care about it, is as far above other cares, as it self excelleth other things.

If this rule be applied to mankind, how few shall be found in the way of true Happiness: Professe with men, and imagine with themselves as they will, there is none appearance, that either they have found the alluring power of it, or rendered themselves in their greatest desire and care, for the obtaining of it. It deserveth the flower and prime of all our labors, and their smallest remains may serve other trifles: But when this order is inverted, such men lie as fast in misery, as they are blind and lazy in the pursuit of true Happiness.

If true good have drawn us forceblie to it self then we cannot but seek it earnestly. This is true Wisdom, to pass by all things, that we may find God: To count these deceiving imaginations about Happiness, to be tyrranous foolries, in the midst of so many evils in the world to find out the good, and among so many goods, to find out the true and best good, even our good God, and rest on him.

6. Death surpriseth the most part of mankind.

MAnie are on their death-bed before they think rightly of life: They are going out of the world, while they begin to know wherefore they came in it: We come in it for this great business, to save our Souls, in the Faith and obedience of God, but when we have time to do it, we forget that business, and then begin to think of it when the time appointed is gone: We spend much time in doing nothing, and more in doing evil; but little or none in that great matter wherefore we were borne.

The life of sin is in us before the life of God, and fearing the own ejection, preoccupyeth the other, and taketh all time to it self. And mortality seasing on us in our conception, before our perfect life, subjecteth us to inevitable death before we live the life of God.

The Soul must be in perplexity at the hour of death, that seeth the day spent, and that assigned business not begun: A Traveler that seeth the Sun setting when he is entering on the journey; must be agast, the Euening of the day, and morning of the task do not well agree together. All the time that remaineth is too short for lamenting the loss of bygone time, and if God's mercy did not infinitely exceed our evil, none could be saved after such a neglect. Time bygone cannot return, but may be redeemed, and this redemption is not in the extent of the work, but in the equiualence of it; God worketh not by such lent proceeding as he doth in them that spend their time well, but at-once he perfecteth them: as he pardoneth their sin, so he perfecteth their sanctification. Though God do this in some, yet he biddeth all use their time well, while it goeth. The fruitful use of it may cost us the loss of many trifling joys, but that shall be recompensed with solid fruit.

Fearfull will that encounter be, when grim Death findeth a man in sin & carelessness, he must cry in the bitterness of his heart, Hast thou found me mine enemy: But when it findeth us in our work, and at peace with God, pleasant will be that meeting: It is God's messenger to loose us out of the yoke, and bring us to our promised and expected reward. How joyfullie shall that Soul go to God, that hath so lived, as ever in the work wherefore it came in the world: When the Conscien • e at death saith to God, Lord, I bear this man record, that he hath worn himself, and spent his time in serving and obeying thee. This testimony is sweet • in our life, when we lie down at night weary of our labor, rise early to it again, and are crossed for our fidelity in it, but more sweet in our death.

That man is blessed, whose way, and journey, time, business, & breath go altogether. The Apostle closeth all sweetlie, I have run my race, I have keeped the faith, henceforth is laid for me the Crown of Glory: He who liveth the life of the righteous, shall die the death of the righteous, and shall not be surprysed of Death.

7 The great profit of prayer

SOme spiritual exercises augment light, as Reading, Hearing, conference: other augment life and affection, as Meditation, and Praise: but Prayer is for both: It openeth the mind to see more clearly, and softeneth the heart to be more sensible, the light of God shineth then most fully, when we see our God and our selves in his light, and the fixing of our mind on him, cannot but draw our heart to him, the more clearly we see him, the more we love his goodness, flee his offense, and burn in greatest desire of his union in Christ: It setteth all the powers of the Soul on all the revealed properties of GOD, and pouring out it self on him, by all these receiveth the influence of his goodness most fully and sensibly: Faith, Hope, Love, Delight, and all other Graces are herein busied on their sweetest work, and God in Christ, coming down to our weakness, draweth us so near to him, that we may taste how good and gracious he is.

It is the most immediate worship of God, wherein we draw near to the Throne of Grace, and adore an incomprehensible God-head in Christ; we are thereby not only for the present filled with Love, Reverence, and fear of a divine Majesty, but at other times holden under that same disposition: We know we are ever in his sight, and remain in some measure affected to him, as we are in the time of prayer. Beside the great blessings that we obtain in it, this is a great one, that by daily standing before God, we know him more and more to our union with him: No Soul can seek his face, and see him daily, but must affect him, and render it self absolutely to him. The disposition to it, the work of it, and the fruit of it, are three great blessings.

Popery is mercenary, and doeth no service to God, but under name of hire: So is it in prayer; they have proclaimed to the world, that they know neither the delight nor fruit of it, while they call it a laborious work, & put it among penal satisfactions. If they had the Spirit of adoption, crying, Abba Father, they could not have such pleasure as in that exercise: no; there is no greater torture to a devout Soul, than to be stayed from it. The heart-scald doeth not so vex the stomach, as these impediments do the Soul.

The impressions of God are so strong in that heavenly conference, that nothing can counterfit them, and our contentment so sweet by that sense of his love, that no human delight can equal it. When our heart is taken with a delight to pray, we have found a compendeous way to know God sauinglie, and to be taught of him: Next to his holy word, the impressions and affe •• ions obtained in Prayer, are two clear Commentaries of his divine properties.

8. Fruitful labors in our callings.

OUr Soul hath the own measure, which it cannot well exceed; within that compass it worketh easily & profitably: Without it, and above, there is great toil, but no fruit. In our calling and gift we may do something, because of God's ordinance & promise: But without them we are out of our theets, and have neither a promise of his presence or blessing: Yet in our calling and gift, we may exceed, if we reach us further than the measure of our gift promiseth: As God hath distinguished men by callings, so by gifts in a calling, and men of that same gift by sindrie degrees of the gift.

The lack of this consideration, maketh so many cross themselves, and others, and forceth God to mis-know his own ordinance, while they walk not as he appointeth. While every man will do everything, no man almost doeth anything as he should. Our gift and measure of it, is our Talent: and the labor of our calling, is ou • exchange: According thereto, our place is reckoned, both in mankind, and the Church, & so our reckoning will be at the last day.

It is wisdom to consider our Calling, Gift, and measure of the Gift: The Calling giveth authority and power: The Gift, sufficiency: The measure of the Gift, dexterity: And all of them in this harmony promise a blessing. The Calling presenteth the task to us: The Gift, the parte of it: And the Measure, the degree of the task: To labor without a Calling, is curiosity: Without a Gift, is presumption, And without a Measure, is a foolish overweening and over-reaching, it is an abusing of the work, our Gift and our self.

He shall not be ashamed of his reckoning, whose labors have been all within the bounds of his Calling▪ and their Measure within his Gift & degree. As God hath first blessed him with the honorable employment of a Calling, and next, with some sufficiency for to do it: And thirdlie, with some answerable success: So in end, he shall crown all these Blessings with acception, both of himself, and his labors: Well done faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in little, I will make thee Ruler over much, enter into thy Masters Joy.

9 The world is worse and worse.

MAnie do wonder wherefore the world is worse and worse, and that justly how so bad a thing can grow in evil: It lieth all in evil, even in Satan's arms, and that is evil enough. It would appear that long instructions, Letters, Divine and human Laws, and Discipline, exercise of Religion, examples of God's judgments for sin might have some force to mend it. These would indeed prove forcible to a curable nature, but the world is incurable.

The heart of man which is the heart of the world, is desparatelie and incurablie wicked. Though some men be renewed, yet they beget not renewed men, but natural: Every Age cometh in with the own guise to add evil to the former: Their corruption letteth them not see the good of former or present times, they take hold of evil, and think it a proof of their succession both to follow that, and augment it. As a kind Burgess in a City loveth the increase of common good, so every man the increase of the common evil of the world; how can it be good, since it hath no good of it self, but resisteth the goodness that God offereth to it? all the sins of former Ages remain in it, & by reason of man's great corruption, and God's just desertion increaseth wonderfullie: And the Prince of it watchful at all occasions multiplieth wickedness, that God may multiply wrath. It is kindlie to everything to grow in its own gift, good things by reason claimeth that groweth, but evil, by violence obtain it.

We must seek a new world in this old one, for this will never amend: He shall find his life for a prey, who keepeth himself from the contagion of his time. Though we be some part of it, yet let us not be like to it: The new man with new grace, shall mak good plenishing for a new Heaven: when like draweth to like in the justice of God, we shall be gathered to Heaven, while the incurable world goeth to their own place. He must be secured by saving Grace, who would not be lossed in the worlds wickedness. This preservative cometh only of God, who hath chosen us out of the world, as he can provide us peace in the midst of it, so can he preserve us in despyte of it: he is overtaken in the worlds sin, and shall be involued in their damnation, who seeth not this common evil, and keepeth not himself from it.

We are foretold that the world will grow worse, and are commanded to forsake it: But the latter Ages love it more than the former did: Doubtless this is because man in his time groweth worse than the world: It was never good to love it, no, not at the best; but now in the end of it, when it is worse than ever it was, to dote upon it, is extreme madness: Such a dotage may end in a perpetual union with it, or rather in destructiō. If we be the excellent ones of God, and Saints on Earth, we are better than the world, because we are hi • choice out of it, and it is certain that he chooseth the best; what ever we be by nature, we are unspeakably bettered by his electiō, which maketh us that which he choyseth, and calleth us to. It is therefore a frenzy to prostitute the excellency of God's Image in us unto so base an idol as the world.

10 Discouerie of man's closed heart.

O What a discovery would it be, if men's hearts were as well seen as their body: Small moats go not thicker in the Sun beams, than man's intentions and ends: And the thread of Spiders in a wood, do no more cross and woft through other, than men's ways to their ends. It is a wonder how man, one in kind, can be so contrary in their ends and ways: And it is a strong argument, that the most part miss the right end, and run the wrong way. The chief good is one, and the right way to it, is only one, but man missing the right, falleth in innumerable errors: And it is yet more wonderful, that every man resteth on a double persuasion, both that his end is good, and that his ways will bring him to it. Neither is this all, but every man setteth himself as a petty god, both for worth to obtain, and for wisdom to compass them.

As it is God's privilege to know the heart immediately, so is it his wisdom to hide it from men: If all the thoughts of it were seen of other, there could be nothing, but a perpetual striving in mankynd, and everyone abhorred of other for their monstrous thoughts, neither the Seas, nor Afric can bring forth such monsters as man's heart in one hour. It is best to cast off all wrong ends, and eschew all by-ways, to set true Happiness before us as our end, and walk toward it in Faith and Obedience: Other ends will prove no more fixed, than fleeing motes in the air: And other ways, have no more force to fitch these ends, thā Speeders threads have to draw a great weight.

Our heart is ever opē to God, let us opē it to mā also, the words & deeds of a single heart, make it visible to man: Except they be possessed of Satan, they cannot but love that heart, that is full of the love of God: The wicked labor to hyde his thoughts, but the godly affect to have them known: He is as the man, who craved not his house to be so built, that he might see all mē, & none see him: But rather that all men might see him in the most retired corners of his house: He assureth himself to be acceptable to man, if the honesty of his heart were seen.

Why may he not bide the trial of man, who hath already sustained the sight, & findeth the approbation of God, to the honesty of his heart? Both the uprightness of the heart, & testimony of that uprightness are known of God alone, and the upright heart that hath them. The world will not see that uprightness, and they cannot hear the testimony of it, but God approveth that uprightness, and confirmeth that testimony, and the Soul that is sensible of all these, resteth in security.

11. Youth and old Age.

YOuth in many may be called a foolish seed time to a mourning Age, and old Age, a bitter haruist to a foolish Youth: Though in Youth we escape grievous and slandrous sins, yet none lacketh his slips and infirmities, though special providence keep us from gross Commissions, yet none is free of sinful Omissions: None seemeth to be more free of the folies of Youth, thā they who are soon called effectually to Grace, yet have they their own neglects: While they are keeped by GOD'S Spirit from fleshly pollutions, they are carried often by fleshly presumption. Satan is so crafty, that when he cannot set our corruption to work on the own task of sin, he can abuse the beginnings of Grace: And so many upon the conscience of Grace, soon received, fall either to neglect of their particular Calling, or conceating of a perfection, are careless of Grace it self; their strong and short beginnings, are followed with slow and weak proceedings.

These are indeed two Blessings in themselves, to be soon called to Grace, and before our calling, to be free of gross sins. Again, these are contrary evils, to be long of calling, and monstrous in sin before our calling: but Satan abuseth the first two Blessings in making us careless after our calling, as though we needed not to be zealous, because our former life was not slandrous. And God turneth the other two to good, in making them more zealous, who were long of calling, and grievous sinners before it. S. Paul did more evil before his conversion, than all the Apostles, and answerablie more good after it. In everyone there is matter eneugh for mourning to old age.

It is great cruelty in Youth, to make • o noisome provision for Age: That the time wherein we look for joy and rest, should be turned in sorrow. Age at the best hath sufficient griefs: It is of it self a sickness, and a neighbor to Death and needeth not so bad provision of Youthlie folies. But since the first cannot be avoided, it is better to mourn in old Age, than in Hell fire forever. If the Experience of Age cannot be found in Youth, let not the rashness of Youth rule in old Age also.

It is better so to divide our life, that there be some mourning for evil, than to turn it all both Youth and Age in a seed time to Hell: But it is best of all to have a seed time of Grace in our Youth for a joyful old Age, and to turn both Youth and Age in a seed time for Glory in Heaven. The godly in the midst of their corruptions sow this seed, a care to please God in a faithful discharge of their Calling, is a matter of joy for their old Age. Foolish Youth shareth unequally with old Age: It taketh liberty to it self, and reserveth nothing but bitter penance to the other: If they fell not both in one person, it were hard that Age should smart for Youths follies. It is lamentable that our first and strongest time hath least wit, & our wisest age hath least strength: We have wounded our selves deadly before we know our estate, and all our after-time is to cure these wounds.

O how happy is he, whom God's effectual Grace saluteth at the Cradle! And with his first discerning, indueth him with the love of God, his word and worship, and by the exercise of his mind, soweth such a seed of Grace, that old Age hath not a beedrole of folies to repent. If we learn the ways of God in our Youth, when we are old, we will not depart from them. If he fill us with mercy in the morning of our time, we shall be glad, and rejoice all our days. That is a commendable Youth, which is old in Grace, and savoreth of the wisdom and holiness of the Antient of days: And that is a glorious old Age, which waxeth new in Grace, and in the newness of a glorious eternity: As that gracious Youth endeth in a more gracious old Age, so that old Age shall end into, and be succeeded with an endless Glory.

12. Devotion & Obedience are pleasant twins.

DEuotion and Obedience are pleasant twins: Devotion begetteth Obedience, and is increased by it; when the Spirit is bent on God, all the Graces in it are at their highest extent: It cannot contain it self, but in affecting him, and delighteth it self most sweetly, both in pouring out it self tenderly on him, & in a large receiving his influences: At that time, all impediments of Obedience, are removed, and the greatest spurs added to set us fordward: Then we answer him with a ready heart, Speak Lord, for thy Servant heareth: Soft wax is easily stamped, and hot iron easily forged, so the softness of a deuotious heart, is pliable able to God: As it droppeth out tender affections, so it will yield obsequious actions to him: Disobedience cometh of hardness, but the heavenly warming of GOD'S love turneth that hardness in a willingness and affectuous • nesse to him: As he poureth in it the sen • e of his love, so it poureth out it self in all powers on him again.

So long as it is in this temper, God can command no unpleasant thing to us▪ though otherwise it were impossible, yet it is welcome, because of his will: This disposition in it self is a great degree of inward Obedience, in so great a forsaking and going out of our self to be one with him: What a gladness is it, to have the occasion to testify our love to God by Obedience? And this daughter of Deuotiō doth nourish her mother. The conscience of Obedience doubleth Devotion: We cannot satisfy our self in wondering at God's goodness, who hath blessed us with the grace of sincere Obedience; that his Grace is not common in commanding only, but a special and returning Grace, turning us home to him, in doing that which his commanding goodness exacted.

Devotion tieth us to God, and that for his infinite goodness in himself, & his saving goodness communicate to us: And being in so sweet bands, how can we better discharge our self of them, than by honoring him in holy Obedience? And the more we discharge our selves, the more are we bound. Every degree of sufficiency to obey, and every act of Obedience increaseth Devotion: The more Grace that God give us for Obedience, the more we love him, & cleave to him, as the fountain from whom all good floweth, and the end to which it returneth.

These twins both live and die together: A dry and a withered heart void of Devotion, is also barren of Obedience, and lack of Obedience, lacketh the testimony of strong obeying Grace, and the matter of new and greater Devotion. He that would have them both, let him begin at Devotion, and the other will follow. A constant and tender Affection to God, meeteth not his commands with disobedience. These twins are feet to go to God, & wings to flee to Perfection. The first is a bond of our union, and the second, a proof that we stand firm in that union with him.

13. Holy necessities are no distractions.

ALl distractions are not of alike nature▪ some directly mar our proceeding, as business without our Calling▪ other are seeming distractions, a •••• nesse in some other part of our Cal •••• g then we have presently in hand: These last are not properly distractions, but rather preparations. When a Pastor is going to the Pulpit, it is not distraction to visit a sick person, but rather a sanctification for the public work: Our task is to bring souls to God, and sickness is a convenient time for it: Reaping in the harvest, is as pleasant to the laborer, as his sowing, and to deliver people in the hand of God, on their death-bed, is a closing of our labors about them: We sow the seed of the Word out of the Pulpit, and find the fruit of it in their affliction.

I have often found in conference with the afflicted, and in the way going and coming from them, moe points of Meditation, than possibly in moe hours of reteerdnesse. God's ordinances do further one another, and Obedience to them, hath ever a blessing following it: It is no distraction that separateth us not from the end, nor turneth us out of the way. Grosse distractions are more dangerous, yet if true Grace be 〈◊〉 , we shall advance our selves more 〈◊〉 after them, and rouse up our strength and double our care for redeming our losses.

A well set Soul is sharpened by distractions, & turneth that impediment in a spurr: Some steppes backward, make us advance further in our leaping: The Soul that toucheth good but occasionally, is soon loosed from it, but being tied to it, then incident distractions, cannot separate, but augment our earnestness of that union: If we wedde our self to good, for eternal enjoying, no temporal distraction can divorce us from it. He who is always about his Fathers business, shall never be distracted.

14. Fruitful Experience.

EXperience findeth us fools, and maketh us wise, if our folie be curable, we can neither think evil, to be so evil, as it is, neither good so good, till Ex ••• ience teach us: The craft of Sathā, the evil of sin, the strength of our own corruption are best known by proof, to assay them, is to eat the forbidden fruit, and a new degree of knowledge of good and evil. The sweetness of God's Grace, the saving power of the Gospel, the tenderness of God's mercy, and the work of his holy Spirit, are best known by Experience: This is a sort of eating of the Tree of Life.

Our best is to eschew Experience of evil: I care not how oft I have proof of good, but it is madness to cast us in the Experimenting of evil; but if our foolishness bring us on new assays, the next is to take in a new affectiō to that evil, & new care to eschew it. In what measure we flee the proof of evil, let us seek the Experience of good, though every hour give us a new taste of Grace, we shall ever find a new sweetness in it; and when perfection cometh, it shall exceed all our bygone knowledge and proof: Every Experience with a new degree of light, bringeth a new affection, and stampeth the heart with a new hatred of evil, and desire of good.

Experience is an ordinar remeede of folie, but if we amend not thereby, there is none other, than a cutting off from that experienced (but forsaken) good, and to be compassed by that prouen (but not forsaken) evil. Experience is an oft repeating of sense, and every such repetition reneweth and augmenteth the affections: Not to be moved by Experience, is either to prove we are senseless, that feel not, or wi •• less, that make not use of our feeling.

15. Company is usuallie hurtful.

SCarcelie can we enter in a society, and come off it, without offense: Our humors do either break out to offend other, or taketh offense of them: many affect a quickness of wit in breaking jests on their neighbor, but are thin skinned when they are touched themselves: They take not the law of friendly comporting, which they give to others.

It is Satan's policy to turn Companies (the mean of concord) in an occasion of discord: He bloweth at the coal of every man's corruption a part, and finding them in a society, preaseth to kindle them altogether, and turn our Tables into snares: Men on the other part, turn their Christian liberty in a fleshly license, not sparing to refresh their own minds with the grief of others: The usual matter of speech in such meeting is detracting of the absents and scoffing at the faults of these who are present: Or if Grace & Wisdom make them bear off these seen blemishes, their speech runs upon some indirect taxing.

Societies are God's blessing to mankind to sweeten the griefs of this life, and mutually to sharpen our wits for our Callings, but that means of mutual good is turned in mutual hurt, and the common benefit of all, is overthrown by the passions and indiscretion of some particular ones in a company. We can • ot eschew all societies, but we should make wise choice of thē with whom we converse: Some are so dangerous, that they cannot be haunted without certain inconvenient. It is a just thing with God, to make men offend other, who make it their merriment to offend him: When we are going or byding even in the best societies, secret ejaculations to God, for an holy disposition is a good means to eschew that evil.

Happy is he, who cometh better from them, than when he went to them: Who keepeth him from the offense of God and his neighbor: And if their corruption doeth injure him, giveth them not a fleshly meeting: If we grieve not the holy Spirit by loosing our minds and tongues to the abuse of our Christiā liberty, he will secure us from these mutual offenses: They are not as the strife betwixt flesh and Spirit, but betwixt flesh & flesh: If the holy Spirit did overrule all in these companies, they would not either contest idlie, or offend in contesting: The domage of societies made some to turn Eremites: It were good to have the Heremites reteerdnes in the noise of societies.

16. The godly Traveler is ever at home.

EVery one seeketh some delight in travel, & that according to their disposition: The curious man seeketh rare conceats: The proud man respects of honor: The belly-god for odd meats, and their following pleasures: The Politician for intelligence, as the matter of his plotting and negotiating: The Tippler and complementer for purposes of discourse. But the good Christian seeketh for heavenly delights: His choice cometh neither through the hands of Cooks nor Venteners, nor Merchants, nor from the mouths of Stats-men; he can take all these things as he findeth them, and use them by the way: But his main care is for God, and all his Observation run upon God's favorable presence with him.

What a pleasure is it to find all the places of our Travel and Rest, marked with the tokens of his love? our bed with his secret instructions; and in the day, when we with-draw our selves from our Company, and poureth out our heart to him, he answereth us to our heart, that his presence in an uncouth land, is as near and sweet to us, as at home: To find him everywhere, marking the places of our abode, as Bethel the house of God, and Peniel the face of God.

This is GOD'S calling of us to the wilderness, to speak to our hearts: He will tell us, that neither he nor his working is tied to one place at home: But that all places are for the presence of God, to them who are at peace with him: The Altar is soon erected, and the sacrifice offered on it in the heart that hath a constant Devotion: The Cou • taines of our Tabernacle are no less, thā the veil of heaven: No man yet sought God truly, but he knoweth that God is more easy to hec found, than his own heart: If we find it in an holy disposition, then both he and the furniture for his worship are at hand in every place.

Surelie that man may be from his house, but he is not from God; he carrieth his home abroad with him, and God, whom he serveth in his house, trysteth him in the fields. This Soul is ordained for heaven, that at home and abroad, is ever with God: Heaven attendeth him on earth, and while he is abroad on earth, he is at home in heaven, by that heavenly disposition. Other men provide bodily necessars for their journey, and the godly above that, provide for the favor of God: This sacred provision goeth with us, it carrieth us, it keepeteh us, and bringeth us back lodened with fruits of itself: Heereby in a short journey, we make more true gain, than Solomon's Navy did from Ophir.

17. The combat betwixt the Earth & the Wretch.

THe Earth groaneth under all gross sinners, but hath a particular combat with the Wretch: Other sinners burden it with their vanity, but he would swallow it up: he wearieth it in furnishing his desires, and hopes: And yet is not content: His desires augment his hopes, and his equalled hopes increase his desires; they are the two daughters of the Horse leach, which cry, Give, give, and mis-contentment coming after, saith never, It is enough. To rise up from a good Table as hungry as one sitteth down, is of a doggish appetite, so is the Wretch in all his riches.

Sufficiencie and abundance do but inflame, and not quench his desire. He gapeth on the Earth, to take it all in his possession; though he join Land to Land, and house to house, yet he is poor, in his own accompt, so long as he lacketh his neighbors lotte. He entereth in strife with the earth, an unnatural Son with his Mother, and it is hard to know which of them is more earthly: He desie • th all, and disgesteth nothing, no, not the crudities of his own desire: but in end is digested of his own adversary.

With what triumph doeth the Earth embrace the dust of her foolish competiture? All her superfice and fruits, and treasures of her bowels, could not satisfy him being alive, but seven foot length of her bosom closeth in his carcase: While he breathed, he would take Jordan in his mouth, but being dead, a small box holdeth his worthless ashes.

O what odds betwixt the desires of a breathing, and the dimensions of a breathless Wretch! So small an hole will hold his corps, whose hopes devoured all the Earth: It is good for them in their life, to take the just measure of their body. Little will contain it, why should they trouble the world with their idle and endless desires? What although he could accomplish his hopes, and possess all the Earth, yet were he but earth on earth, and being loden with that thick clay, when he goeth to dust, shall make as small addition to the Earth in quantity, as the possession of it addeth to his worth.

Surely their spirit in this case is more lifeless, than their carcase; & it is a just punishment for their wormish heart, to be cast back in the dust, which they so much affected: Let them desire as they will, in the end Death will devour them. Mankynde is as glad to want him, as the Earth is to have him. As a pest he troubled men continually, and labored to turn their lots in his bosom, but now, both rejoice in his death: While his friends lament him, both mankind and Earth rejoice that their trouble is cast out.

18. Wise expounding of God's ways.

• Ee have no greater griefs, than these of our own procurement, and the foolish expounding of God's ways is a great one: We look to some particular of his proceeding, and stick on it, and rather upon a cross, than upon a blessing: And if we go further, we judge thereby both his purpose and end: The work in our judgment imports both simple anger present, and destruction to follow: This is a great error, and is shortly avenged on us: It maketh us doubt of his good purpose, and almost dispa • e of the good end. But God chooseth for the best end the hardest way, both to prove his own power, and to try our faith.

It is better to expound his ways by his purpose and end, than these by his ways: Though he should draw us through Hell, yet let us still be assured of Heaven: His decree is sure, as his end certain, they are in him fixed, and the way betwixt them lying through many occasions and actions, have difficulties and bad appearance, but alongst all these thorters, his good-will slideth soft and sure. And if our heart be settled, anent his purpose of our election, and have pledges of his end of our glorification, we shall both over come the difficulties of the way, and resting on the decree, shall obtain the end.

What albeit the middle links of this chain of our Salvation do shake on the Earth? Since both the ends of it are in God's hand, yea, fastened in his heart? And he hath so joined the links of it among themselves, that they can neither slip nor break, and it self as fast, as he is unchangeable: His heart must be pulled out of him, before he change his purpose, he will deny himself, ere he delate his enacted decree: All our considerations of our present & eternal state, are but loose and slippery, till our heart be fixed in the heart of God.

19. The trial of our time.

A Wise Traveler considereth in what part of his journey he is, and a wise disposer of his diet, noteth his age, & temper of his body; so a good Christian marketh the time of the world, and in what periode of the time he liveth.

All times turn in the Circle, 1. of Prosperity, in abundance of God's blessing, 2. Profanesse in the abuse of these blessings. 3. Punishment for that abuse. 4. Repentance under punishment, that we may enter again in prosperity as the beginning of that Circle. It availeth greatly to know in which of these four we are; if we be in the time of Peace and Prosperity, to know the time of our visitation, and to use aright the things that concern our peace. If in the time of profannesse, to eschew sin, and keep us from the wickedness of our time; If under punishment, that we repent tymouslie.

Doubtless this time of the reformed Churches, is the time of punishment, we have had long Prosperity, the clear light of the Gospel, and offer of Salvation, but have abused it, and now God is revenging on us the quarrel of his Covenant. Levite. 26. 25. Let every one mourn for his own sins, and the sins of his time, that he may have his Soul for a prey.

He is void both of the fear of God, and the care of his own Salvation, who now turneth not to God: when his Word and Works of justice about us, and our own conscience within us call us to tears, it is time to afflict our Souls for our sins. If we cannot deprecate common calamities, yet we shall receive the Murners mark on our forehead. Ezech. 9. for our own safety: And God, who had the Ark for Noah, and Zoar for Lot, shall bind up our Soul in the bundell of life. 1. Sam. 25. 26.

Since we have not used our former times well, it is not good to lose the time of Repentance also. If we do, there will be no more regress to peace but utter exterminion. But if we return to God with all our heart, when he hath purged his Church by his fiery trial, he will cast the rod of his anger in the fire, and turn our mourning in a pleasant peace, O Lord, we wait for thy Saluatio • . Gen. 49.

20. Short care for a short life.

THe works of the most part of men, tell that they think not of Heaven, or that such a heaven as they mind, is on earth: They seek earthly things, and compt their happiness by their obtaining, and their misery by their want. Riches, Honor, Fame, Pleasure, &c. are the hight of their reach, and that not in a small measure as passengers for the way, but excessiuelie as possessors, of their end: No care of another life, because no mind of it: Or if the thought of Heaven be forced upon them, it is soon banished by the strength of earth-delights.

Their desires are as base as the beasts, & worse, for the beast can do no more, and ought no more: But men are reasonable, and called to Heaven: They may reckon on many branches with worms, they come of the earth, live on it, creep on it, and in end creep in it, and more wormish than they, being more affected with the dungue of the Earth, digged out of the bowels of it, than with the Heaven. What privilege their body hath in being living earth, they loose it in seeking lifeless earth for their happiness.

Both do here agree, an earthly life, and an earthly spirit, spent in the cares of the Earth: But a friend of the life of God lifteth up the renewed Spirit to heavenly things: It cannot be so basely abject, as to mind and glutte the baggage of the Earth: But as it is from above, so it is all set on things above, and turneth even the necessar and moderate cares of this life to an heavenly temper, by that reference, that it hath in their use to life eternal.

Occasionall errors come in at a side, and wrest some part of our course, and being discovered, are easily remeeded. But this is a fundamental error, to place our happiness in the Earth, and to seek it therein: It perverteth all the course of their ways, and the greatest conviction of it, is when time of amendment is past: whē that consuming fire at the last day, destroyed all which they have scraped together, they will then see their error.

I think it great wisdom to car • e our cares, according to the things themselves. If Eternity were here, men's scraping and raking of the earth might seem reasonable, but since our time in this life is but short at the longest, and shorter possibly than I know: I will set all mine heart for heaven, and a short life shall have as short a care.

21. Perplexities, disease, and remeede.

PErplexities in our adoes are a torture to our Soul: With great difficulty we resolve on the end. And when that is fixed, what tossing have we to choose the means that are most expedient for it? And scarcelie are our Spirits delivered of these two burdens of purposing the good end, and choosing the best means, when the fear of the event tormenteth us worse.

It seemeth here to be better to the rash and senseless man, than to the wise. The wise man multiplieth his griefs, and by foresight maketh his way more perplexed to him, whereas the rash man and senseless, bringeth out some birth without conception and travel.

The stupide man is meerelie passive, and letteth all things come as they will: his senselessness disposeth him for any thing, not because of resolution, but for lack of it: He hath no more of matters, but their fruit and event. He is a witness to the Child, but neither father nor mother to it.

The hasty man is so in his actions, and every part of them at once, that he is in none of them, his doing is as swift as his thought, and ofttimes anterior to to his thinking, as his tongue, so his hand and foot out-run his mind: He is out of them by temerity before he be in them.

But true wisdom saveth us from all these errors: It looketh to God, in whom are the ends of all things, and adviseth with his word about the means to bring us to the end, and resteth on providence about the event. Thereby we are more in God, than in our business, and committee them to him, that he may do them: Full dependence on him, cutteth the throat of all these perplexities.

22. Passions, Tyrannie, and Remeede.

PAssions, are justly so named, though they breed in us, yet we suffer of them, and that in such violence, as scarcelie either allurement of sin, or provocation of injury can work: It were nothing to see us by outward folie, drawn out of our self, but to suffer that of any inward power, is more strange; and that not so much a power, as an impotency: It is not strength, but weakness in us that breedeth Passions, and yieldeth to them: a weak defender, maketh a feeble assaulter prove strong: And there is yet worse in it, we know not either how to punish or to remeed it. Both parties are in our self, the doing and suffering of Passion, is both of us, and in us, and when we press to mend it, new Passions arise in us, both of grief that such Passions should be in us, and of fear of wrath for them.

I will not excuse myself, because of Passions, but rather accuse me: Excuses of that kind, are as they who excuse their fault by drunkenness, the purgation is fouler than the sin purged: Passion in it self is punishment eneugh, if it lacketh guiltiness: It so disturbeth man and transporteth him, that the violence of it, is a sufficient chastisement for it.

It is a natural impotency, and must be cured by a supernatural Grace: When God, in whom is no Passion, reneweth us to his Image, and we in all our actions, set him as a Paterne before us, we shall find a restraint of them. I doubt, if any Passion can arise in that Soul, so long as it seeth an vnpassionate God in the face of his meek Son, Jesus Christ: We are as far separated from the meekness of Christ, as we are transported by Passion.

23. Three faults with the world, but not with God.

THese three things are counted faults in the world, & yet no man needeth to repent him of them: The modest Shifting of occasioned honor and riches, the patient Disgesting of great wrongs; And the not following of the fashions of the world: Who so art disposed, are counted Dolts, but that sentence falleth on the Judge. The first is counted Basnesse of Spirit: The second, an evil Conscience: He swalloweth Injuries so patiently, that he incurreth the suspicion of senselessness and stupour: And the third, a saucy singularity.

But such a Spirit beareth out that censure upon better grounds: The first cometh of true Contentment in God: The second, of a care to keep himself in peace with God: And the third, of a just contemning of the world. True Honor followeth the modest Shifter of it, and the riches of true Contentment, are treasured in the heart that hungereth for no more. He is truly content, who hath fixed a period to his desires, and doeth not so much as loose them to a racklesse wishing of further: And the best way to keep peace in our Soul is not to frette at injuries: & it is a token that he who dwelleth in us, is greater than the world, when we count the worlds fashions a witless folie.

He who is so possessed in his choice, securelie endureth that ignorant censure, and hath indeed attained the truth of that which they are seeking imaginarlie: He seeth that by Time, they will either applaud him in his course, or else fall short by the way to their greater loss.

If the world can show me where I shall find it, or what fixed Paterne and exampler of good, it followeth, with some reason it might exact of me an imitation: But since it can neither tell, where to find it self, neither hath any Paterne, but its own new fangle vanity, it is shamelesnesse for it to suit, and madness in me to give it obedience. It must be a bad stuff that keepeth not the color: And a bad color that changeth every day: Stuffe and color of so changeable a stamp agree well together: But the renewed man died with the unchangeable color of Grace, contemneth them both.

I will not render myself to that School, where posed sodilitie is counted a vice, and new fangled folies are counted perfection.

24. Salvation is of Grace alone.

THe Grace of God in man, hath no greater enemy, than man himself: Satan hath his name from Inimitie to God and good, and the world cometh in under his Standard in that war: But they cannot all hurt us so, as we our self. Their business is without, and cannot prevail, except our corruption bring it within, and party it against us. All these enemies may will our hurt, but cannot work it: Our yielding to them, giveth both life and way to their evil will. Of our selves we mere Grace offered with neglect, contempt and opposition, and when we have received it with abuse and unthankfulness.

Grace justly beareth the name, for it is a free gift, God is good to us, for no foreseen good in us, but of his free favor: He findeth us evil, and maketh us good: The beginning, growth and and perfection of Salvation, is all of Grace: It is good to find this our native graceless disposition: When we find nothing but evil in us, and all good to come freely of God, then we know the praise of the glory of his Grace.

Who so seeketh any ground of his Salvation, or Election in his foreseen faith, or Works, or Humility, is not humble, but proud against God: he maketh himself a step-bairne, and not a native Son of God: He is not begotten of a special love, but respected with a posteriot and following favor, which dependeth on some worthiness foreseen in himself, and the work of it upon the willingness of his own will.

He who buildeth upon his own will, and not on the good will of God, can neither have stability nor peace on so tottering a foūdatiō: As foolish babes presuming of there own strength, will not receive the prepared meat by the hand of their mother, but with their own hand, they loss that food, defile their garments, and starve in the mean time. So proud, self-sufficient men will not receive Salvation by God's powerful application.

They must be partial workers themselves, and God's work must depend on their will, and so they loose the offered Salvation: They who with a childish pride will not be freely saved, most justly are not saved at all: God wrought the work in it self without us; and in the application he sweetelie and powerfullie bows our will to receive it. This giveth glory to him, and peace to us. The Angel ranked these things aright. Glory to God in heaven, Peace on earth, and towards men good will. Luke 2. God's good will giveth peace to men, and the glory of all is due to God alone.

25. Proud sinners to Hell.

PRoude Sinners have strongest conceat, that they go right, at lease in the way of their choice: Satan blindeth them so, that they mistake both the end and the way. In their compt they are running to heaven, whē they are posting to hell: He serveth them kyndlie with fresh Post-horses: Sometimes he mounteth them on drunkenness; and when they have run a stage on that beastliness, he can mount them on Lecherie: Again, he can refresh them with Avarice; and if they weary of that slow jadde, he setteth them on lofty Ambition, and to make them more spritie, he can horse them on restless Contention.

Every on seeth not Satan's Equirie: There is no complexion or disposition, but he hath a fit horse for it, and that of it self: Every man's predominant, is a beast of Satan's sadling, and prouyding to carry men to Hell. The way is one, the Post-master is one, he is to be found at every stage, mounting his Gallants, their horses are all of one kind though not one spece.

Happy is the man, whom God dismounteth in that evil way, & more happy is he, who taketh with that stay, and turneth his course to heaven: Many are stayed who turn not: God checketh them by his word, by their own conscience, by crosses, by censure of Church and Policy, by admonition of friends and Pastors: but they go on, and compt the helpers of their sin their only friends, and their admonishers to be their enemies: But the godly take with reproofs, as God's own dismounting them off their beastly passions: And with David, bless God, who sent Abigail in their way to stay them from evil: When hard hearted sinners sold to sin, post on to destruction, the godly that take admonition, shall be saved. God's saving Grace is powerful in that Soul, in whom wholesome admonitions without, and yielding to them within, do meet together.

26. God's calling is a sufficient warrand.

IT is some token of the life of God, to stir at a weighty calling: A blind horse is in the mire before he see it, but the seeing horse goeth about: They are ever most ambitious who have least worth, and most deserted of God, when they come to their desire: God's calling is both the only right to enter in a charge, and a surtie of sufficiency for it: He suffereth no man to serve him on his own expenses, but what ever he send us to do, he furnisheth us for it: and it importeth as much the glory of his mercy, truth and wisdom to furnish, strength, as it is needful for us to have it. When he calleth, he obligeth himself to be with us: As it is a laying of a burden on us, so it is a surtie of his assistance: As the task is imposed, so is his presence promised.

If men call themselves they run away from God, who justly deserteth them in that aspyring course, and will more forsake them in their fruitless labor: But when his calling is waited on, and undertaken, not for any conceate of strength, but for conscience of his outthrusting providence, & confidence, of his assistance, there is a sweet concourse: The patient on-waiting and modest shifting, till conscience observing his will, command us to yield, is a special sort of God's directing Grace, and will be followed with as comfortable a virtue in the discharge of our duty.

This maketh men called of God, bold as Lions: their faithful service to him, breedeth them indeed bitter opposition: But their conscience showeth them their warrand, and their Master who will not desert them. Be not affrayed Paul, for I am with thee, and no man shall hurt thee. Acts 18. 9. And as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee Joshua, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, be strong, and of a good courage. Joshua 1. 6. 7. and 9. But they who call themselves, dare not be faithful: They see man and not God, and so dare not offend man: They find not opposition of him, or if they find any, they have no further warrand, than their own aspyring humor, and none other assistance, than their own conceated strength, which is weakness indeed.

He who is conscious of an holy Calling, is guarded from all difficulties that may occure: He knoweth of a sure retreat, when he is troubled for his honest labor: Though he be weak in the sight of man, he is sufficient to bear out his Masters quarrel against all the world. Yet none who knoweth God, dare gloss with him in this business, he is a fool who lieth in his own purse. The conscience of our sincerity in all this work, is a seal of God's continual and comforting presence. The world loseth their labor and endangereth themselves in damnation, who oppose them who are called of God.

27. Atheism poison.

ATheisme is both the most universal & most vncureable disease of the world: It is a coūtersconce erected by Satā against the Gospel, to elude the force of it, and to hold men still in the bands of sin: It goeth under one name, but hath many branches, some more open, and some more secrete, and in their work some more dangerous than other: A dissolute man is not so powerful to persuade his opinions, as he who colloureth his profannesse: Open Atheism almost refuteth it self, but covert Atheism may deceive the wise. There is neither such a ground nor couerture for Atheism, as to maintain that men of all Religions may be safe: To make so many doors to Heaven, is to cast wyde open the gates of Hell; Christ hath told us, that the way to heaven is narrow, and few find it, and he calleth himself the Way, but not the ways: As there is but one God, so there is but one way to him by Faith and Obedience in Christ.

The signs of it, are an human & officious carriage to man, but licentious and irreligious, before God: a praise of all other religious, and a carping of the Religion professed in the place of their dwelling: And if necessity draw them to the public worship, their behavior bewrayeth an absence of their soul from that exercise: They jest at Sermons, and make none other use of holy Scripture, than profanlie to apply it to every profane purpose & trifling occasion: & at their meals, their vnhalowed morsels must be set over with the sauce of some abused sentence of Scripture: they care not to offend God, for pleasing their company, who partak of their profannes, if they be not offended at y ^• offense of God.

As metals are known by their sound, so their gross Atheism is discovered by their profane noise. They who fear God, dare not carry themselves so before him: And they who have found sacred Scripture the seed of their regeneration, the food of their soul, and their comfort in trouble, will never turn so heavenly Oracles to the matter of their sporting. But they are not long unpunished, and their damnation sleepeth not.

Nature in Atheists findeth it self vexed with the dumb choppe of conscience crying unto them, that there is a God, But this surmyse is out-cried, and Conscience out-faced, by this, when they think any course is a way to heaven. Such men are not so much justifying their course before men, as prouyding liberty of sinning against the cheek of their own conscience: There is no such compendious way to liberty, as the lack of God's fear: And that heart is void of his fear, who saith, That there is no God: Though he be most glorious in himself, and gracious to them that know him, yet he is nothing to the heart that denieth him.

But Atheists will find a fearful wakning: God whom they deny, hath his witness in them, and in ende will testify his truth to their destruction, except they amend: It turneth men in beasts, yea, in Devils: While their heart is saying, There is not a God, their Conscience giveth them the lie, and by secrete checks, both arreasteth them before, and tormenteth them in the Name of that God, whom they deny. They can neither destroy GOD in himself, though they desire it, neither in the hearts of the godly. All the fruits of their godless spurring, is to move him to destroy themselfe: It is good to soften our hearts in the fear of God, and to seek out and follow that strait way of life: Blessed is he, who feareth always, but he that hardeneth his heart, shall fall in mischief. Prov. 28. 14.

28. Sin is an evil guest.

SInne is the worst Guest that cometh in any place: It bringeth double destruction: One in the being of it, the other in the fruit: It is plain that the wages of it is death, but even the being of it (such as it hath) is destruction of the thing wherein it is: Men, Angels, Thoughts, Words and deeds, are good in themselves, but sin in them, maketh them evil: It hath no being of it self, and is nothing, but the break of God's Law, a discord and deformity, a privation of good, & depravation of its own dwelling, the being it hath, is in these things, and so soon as it cometh in them, it spoileth them, they become evil Men, Angels, Thoughts, Words and deeds by it: He is an evil Guest, who for his reckoning putteth the Pest, or a fire in his lodging.

I wonder not so much at the evil recompense, it giveth as at our selves who welcome it again: No receiver will welcome him, who put his house on fire: Yet we receive sin, and welcome it, though we were even now smerting for the work of it: Some do mark the second work of sin, the punishment of it, but few mark the first destruction by the being of it, so as to abhor it, be like, it so destroyeth us, that we have not a sound mind to make its destroying Nature.

O! what ods in Grace? It both changeth us by renovation, and bringeth us to glory, the very being of it, is the health of Soul and body: next to God himself, there came never a better Guest in man, than saving Grace: Of Adams Sons, it maketh us the Sons of God: Of Natural men, spiritual: And of vile Sinners, it turneth us in Saints.

It is extreme misery to be desirous and patient of sin: But a token of a renewed Nature, to abhor sin, and thirst for Grace.

29. Fittes of Insolencie.

THeir is no Spirit so modest, which hath not some fits of Insolencie: If any odd thing appear in them, they are puffed up in a conceat of wrath, and as far transported from their wonted modesty, as they conceate of that supposed worthiness: These fits are more marked of other than themselves: their humor blindeth them, so that they cannot observe that change, others remembereth their former dejection, and foresee it to come again, & so marketh that startling as insolent indeed.

An Equable carriage proveth an well fraughted Soul: Our true worthiness is in God's favor; our dignity is his dignation, and the exalting or downecast of our heart, is from the sense of his favor, or lack of it: If we be sure of his favor, we shall then alike euenlie carry our selves in all other things.

But fits of insolency bewray a double weakness, one, of little true worth, that seemeth so great to us: another, of a racked judgment, making us to pass bounds upon so small occasion: The wise man is ever like himself: And at any odky thing, he is rather dejected, thā puffed up. If the speeches of other make him ouerweene himself, he chasteneth himself in secrete for it seuerly: When he returneth to his wonted thoughts, he abhorreth that insolency, and guardeth himself, that they surprysse him not thereafter.

30. Constant Inconstancy.

THe upright heart must encounter with many thorters: When it meeteth with uprightness, there is no difficulty, but such are as rare, as a white Raven in the world: When it meeteth with crookedness, there is the strife, yet this is not the greatest: Doublenesse is worse for conversing, than open and constant perverseness, he cannot rectify the other, and they cannot pervert him, and while all of them keep their stand, there is neither application to other, nor peace among them: Yet it is easier to escape the evil of the brush, & rudelie backward, than of the fickle Chameleon.

Flat oppositiō is less dangerous, than covered agreement: A wind blowing constantly from one point, doth not so endanger a ship, as when in an instant it turneth to a contrary point: To say and gain-say in two moments of time, and to blow both from the East and West, is a greater cross to them, who deal with such men, than to themselfe.

A man who is always the same in good, is both easy courted and keeped but none can either know or keep the double hearted▪ He changeth thoughts, resolution, and practice as oft as breathing: When we grip him in one, he breaketh out in another, and his turninges are oftener in contraritie than diversity; to deal with him craveth a necessity of turning with him,, or else of discord: but a free Spirit can neither be active in such turnings, neither so basely passive as to endure them: The best dealing with such, is no dealing at all.

31. Wrong Iudging.

OUr estimation of things, is a valuing of our self, and a balance is tried by trying of weightes: Many count highly of base things, and basely of great things: Heauēlie things are naught to them, but they admire earthly trifles: This error of their compt proveth weakness in their judgment, little is much to little, and few shillings are great riches to a beggar, and course food is delicate to the hungry.

It were tolerable if they keeped their error within them, but they obtrude it upon the things themselves, they must be so named, as they misconceiue them. The nature of these must be changed, because (for sooth) such Dictators have so spoken of them: Common gifts must be excellent, and most excellent Graces must be but common gifts; because it pleaseth them so to think of them. It is a violent forcing of things, to rank them so as we conceate, and a tyranny over the minds of others, to obtrude our error on them as truth: It is too much that our own affections and carriage to things, flow from that false ground.

The gift of true judging is as rare, as true good it self: He who hath it, ought to thank God for his gift, in securing him from the whirling giddiness of the world: But withal let him resolve that he and his gift will fall under the same erroneous censuring of other: But he hath enough, who hath God approving his judgment, and courses that flow from it.

32. Injuries inflame Corruption.

GReat corruption lurketh in the best, and is as secret to them as to others: But Injuries are Satan's bellows to blow it up: He is somewhat more than ordinary sanctified, who at great wrongs uttereth not more corruption, than either himself or others could think were in him: But Satan stirreth not for the injury alone; he intendeth thereby to draw more sin out of us, by loosing our corruption: He knoweth that if all our thoughts be set on our injurer, Grace will be disbanded, and Corruption break out in grievous sins.

We have more to do, than to busy our selves with our injurer: Satan's ambush in our own heart, is more dangerous, thā all our outward injuriers. Many have keeped their strong hold, so long as they abode in it, but being wyled out of it by the crafty enemy, they have both lost it and themselfe. So soon as we are injured, it is good to turn from our injurer, to our own heart, except our corruption be ordered, it will break loose, and harm us worse than our enemy; if our passions can be curbed, the injury is soon digested.

33. How to please God. and man.

WE ought a duty both to God & man, but man's importunity and our weakness, maketh difficulty in caruing their duties: we know by his word, how to please him, Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart. Matt. 22. But how to please man, is as hard to know, as to do it: If reason can content him, it may be known, but the rule of humor and opinion is uncertain. How shall I know man's rule, since he knoweth it not himself? Neither are all mē of one mind, neither is one man for few hours in that same mind: God in a sort craveth less, than we owe him, but man is mislearned, and craveth more than his due; God is most high, and higher than the highest. Ecclesi. 5. 7. But man's due is as far inferior to God's due, as man himself, is under him.

It may serve man then to be respected, when God is first pleased: If he be not content with this place, he maketh himself a competitour with God, and from that may be a corrival, and bring judgment on himself, and his obsequious obeyers. He is worthy of none other regard, than misregard: And declareth himself an enemy to God and his honor, who is not pleased with this just caruing of duties.

The difficulty is in this, that we stand betwixt two parties, God and man: There is no question in the matter it self: For God's will is just, and man's foolish: And if either man were conform to God, or if we were only flesh, or only Spirit, there would be as little question: But man is contrary to God in many things, and flesh in us inclineth most to man's will, as more greeable with our own corruption.

He must be more Spirit, than flesh, who can both expede himself of these difficulties, obeying GOD, and patiently endure trouble for his obedience.

To over • come this difficulty, three blessings are necessar: Wisdom to direct us in the right: Love in doing the right: And Peace, that though we find wrongs for our right, and hatred for our love, yet so far as we may to keep peace with them: Wisdom craveth the duty, Love seasoneth it to them; and Peace burieth their injuries, and will neither revenge them, nor be at discord from them: God shall be his portion forever, who thus preferreth God to man.

34. Resolutions performed.

REsolution is a good Precedent to our actions, but is not the actions themselves: If we dwell on it, we shall do nothing commendable: That Resolution is as a false conception, that is buried in the birth, and cometh not to execution: If the husbandman shall be ever preparing his plough, and never teill, he can neither sow nor reap: A weak and staggering Resolution, is broodie of scruples, and findeth matter of stay in it self, but so soon as the work is well begun, then Resolution endeth.

There is ofttimes more difficulty in Resolution, than in doing: For in Resolution, the mind is on many things atonce, but in the Action, it is upon the work alone. It is rent in diversities, and contrarieties in resolving, but trussed up in doing: Many times we are in torture resolving, but in the Action we find peace. A solid and masculus Resolution giveth us no rest, till it put us over in the hand of Practice, yea, it resolveth for doing, and turneth all the resolving powers to execution.

These are twins of a rype Spirit: both to resolve and do; to do without Resolutiō, is rashness, & to resolve without doing, is faintness: He who doeth without Resolution, dreameth of none impediment; but he who resolveth and delayeth execution, waiteth upon impediments, and rather than he lack them, he will fain a thousand in his own fancy. Even fancied difficulties do terrify the lazy, as much as real difficulties do the wise and diligent. The Sluggard saith, There is a Lyon in the way, I dare not go forth, least I be killed. Prov. 26. 13.

35. Callings are our trials.

AS Callings are God's task appointed for us, so are they his Trials to prove what is in us: He hath ordained many callings for man's good, but many turn these means of good in a snare: There is no lawful Calling without the own good end, and right way to come by that end. But the most part passeth that good, and chooseth the wrong. Equity, Honesty, Humanity, Vprightnes, are God's ordinance for Callinges: Deceat, Circumvention, Doublenesse, and such like, are Satan's invention, and yet many shift the first as a vice, and follow the second as the virtue of their Calling: God setteth before them the good of mankind, but they set nothing, but their own private good, and care not for obtaining of it, to hurt their neighbor.

How can God bless the breach of his own ordinance? They may scrap together a state to themselves, but God will blow upon it: They think that Callings are not God's ordinance, nor themselves liable to reckoning. And exerce them, as though they were of their own vptaking, and had none other end, than to make them great in the Earth. But O miserable greatness, that diminisheth Grace, and destroyeth them that have it! The loss is here incomparablie greater, than the conceated gain. What profit is it, to gain the world, and loose their soul? To conquesh Hell to themselves, for enriching their posterity.

It is a pity to see men forsake honey, and suck Venome greedily, but greater pity to see men of an evil carriage in their Calling counted the only men, and these who are conscientious to be counted no men: I wonder not to see that same error, which misleadeth men, to approve them in their wrong, but I wonder that mankynd injured by them, doeth honor them for their evil: It is a just thing with God, to make them hurt man more, who so foolishly alloweth them, whom he disdaineth: They cannot complain to him of their wrong, since they approve it.

This is a saifer course to honor God by following his will in an honest and faithful discharge of our Calling: It is good for mankind, and for our self, and acceptable to GOD. Heereby he proveth to other, and sealeth it in our own conscience, that he hath placed us in our Calling in me • cie, both to mankind and to our self.

36. Food of our Soul.

OUr care for the body condemneth our brutishness about our Soul: both are substances, and have need of entertainment, but we are more sensible of the bodies necessities, and careful to supply them: The Souls necessities, are both greater and more urging, than the bodies: Our bodies lie under cold and heat, and the decay of our natural moystnesse, which must be duelie supplied by nourishment: But the necessity of entertaining the life of God, and the spark of Grace in the midst of our corruption, is daily and hourly: It is senselessness, and death when these greater necessities are not felt and supplied.

No man is so foolish as to feed his body with imaginations, or if he would do so, it will not be so deceived, it is a substance, and must have substance to maintain it.

How many know not what their soul is, and what necessity it hath, and how to supply it? And other who think they know all those, do content themselves with imaginations: They do worse to their soul, than to their body, and their Soul is more blokish, than their body, in standing content with these conceats: Ask them what certainty they have of happiness, and security from misery, they have no more reason of both, than their apprehension, and yet that supposed absent evil, is as near to them, as that conceated good is far from them.

What man can be ceased in a wordly inheritance by imagination? and yet the most part have no more warrand for their Salvation. The estate of our Soul here, and eternal Salvation hereafter, is too great a pointe to hazard upon a fancy: It is a wholesome body that findeth the own necessity, craveth good food, and turneth it in it own substance: It is a wholesome Soul, that always desireth God, findeth sensibly his union, and by a continual communion pa • taketh of the divine Nature.

When I find my Soul burnt up with the desire of him, paunting like the Hart for water, and gaping like the thirsty ground for rain. I am sure that is of the life of God: It is not fed with fancies, that is filled with God himself, it is filled with him, that cannot rest on anything beside him, and finding him in it self, doth sweetelie rest on him who only filleth it, and resteth in it. Nothing can fill the Soul, but that which is greater than it: Though in substance it be finite, yet it is infinite in the desires.

And God alone doth infinitely exceed it, both in substance & desires: It would be counted frenesie in a man, who would press to drive himself in a Nut shell: So is he, who seeketh contentment in the world alone.

37. A constant diet of God's Worshippe.

APpetite is a good preparation for meat, so is a zealous affection for the worship of God: It is good to have our appointed times for Spiritual exercises, and to keep them: But withal, to strive for the spiritual Appetite.

How sweet is that Exercise to the Soul? wherein our necessity wakeneth our desire: Our desire sharpeneth our Appetite: and our Appetite thrusteth our heart to God, and GOD pulleth both our heart and our self to him: In one instant, it is both pressed with sense of misery, and burnt with a desire of God: And sweetly allured and drawn by him to himself: These are wonderful actions between God and us, and all wrought in us by his Spirit, to carry us up to him.

Though I tie me not superstitioussie to hours of holy Exercise, yet religiouslie I will keep them: These hours are sweet to me, when God draweth my Soul by strong desires and faith to him: It is pleasant, when either these Exercises do tryst with our desires, or God in them, bringeth us to an holy disposition; and great is the fruit of these Exercises: Thereby our Souls even at other times are keeped, if not under the sense, yet under the Conscience, or at least under a fresh remembrance of God.

Such a disposition is both a virtual supply of feeling bygone, and a seal of our eternal fruition of him to come: GOD hath promised a blessing to his worship, & the neglect of it is punished with profannesse and hardness of heart.

It is good to keep acquaintance with God: And there is none hour wherein we have not an business to him, and he never sent away an holy heart from him without some comfort, he needeth none exhortation to the woe • ke, who findeth the daily fruit of it. Seven times a day do I praise thee Lord, because of thy righteous judgments. Psal. 119. 164.

38. Mans security in GOD.

TWo things greatly trouble us in this life, sudden Accidents, and uncertain Events: The first shaketh us, because they are uncertain: When we look to the present dint of trouble, we cannot gather our Spirites, and when we wander, or stick on second causes, we cannot light upon the certain end.

There is but one remeed for both, to make the Lord our Habitation, Ps. 91. 1. So long as our Souls remain beneath among the creatures, we are tossed with every thing; but when we rest on God, we find Peace. The conscience of his Working, the assurance of his Wisdom, and sense of his Love, lifteth us above these troubles, and maketh us partake that rest which is in him, and is himself: Though he move all, yet he is not moved, and impartes this rest in some measure to them who rest in him.

What wonder is it, that his providence shake us, finding us down among the creatures, but if we abide in him, we shall be free of storms: He shall give us rest, while these calamities pass over: Psal. 57. 1. Who so dwelleth in his secret, looketh down securelie on all the toils of the world. The Dove abiding in the cliftes of the Rock: Cant. 2. 14. And the Chicken under the wings of the Hen that hatcheth it, do neither fear the storms nor the Eagle. So the Soul that by the wounds of Christ creepeth to his bowels, and is warmed with God's electing love, is sure of his protecting power.

His absolute power is able to do more, than he will: And his limited power is set to work to do his will: And that both in producing of things and sustaineing them. This is a main decreete of his will, committed to the executing of his power, to bring his Elect through all difficulties, to their appointed happiness.

39. Holy Meditations, Difficultie and Profite.

HOlie Meditation, is pleasant to God, and profitable to us, and that Satan knoweth, and preasseth to stay: we may close our self in secret from men, but no door nor lock can hold him out: We can shift our dearest Friends, but not him; and the more we thrust him out, the more he throngeth in: It is a well fenced mind wherein he will not break by fancies and suggestions, and while we are thinking of his debarring, by that same thought he either enters in (turning our bar in his key) or maketh us to evan • sh: and what difference is there between his inbreaking, or our evanishing, and outrunning? None can for a few moments urge a deep and a sensible Meditation of God; but either the mind is to call home, or the heart to seek.

It is good when we go to Meditation, to pull in all our Spirites to God, and thrust out all distractions, to fixe our mind on him, and hold it at that stay without diuerting, to set our conscience on work, to check that watch, and advertise us both of Satan's suggestions, & the wandering of our mind: And most of all, to pray in the entry, for such a divine virtue, as may draw our mind to God, and unite it to him, till he communicate himself to us, in that measure he thinketh meet for the time.

It is a fruitful Meditation, when the heart receiveth such stamp of God, as maketh it to taste how good he is, and so thirst for more Grace, that we earnestly seek up these sweet streams to the fountain, even God himself, where that perfection dwelleth. Such Meditation bringeth out some point of lively and affectuous knowledge, and with these holy conceptions worketh a greater purity and holiness of the mind that conceiveth it: The soul in that case it is not simple active, but passive also: and is changed to the nature of these heavenly things that it conceiveth.

40. Spiritualitie of the body.

OUr bodies are earthly, and yet have a promise of Spiritualitie: It is as easy to God, to make them so, as is to cleanse them from sin: this is already practiced in our kind, in Christ Jesus: Our nature in his Body, is spiritualized, to tell us, that for possibility, it may be, and for certainty it shall be so in us: He is our Brother, therefore we may be like him, & he is our Head, therefore we must be like him in a conformity with his glorious Body. Philip. 3.

So soon as the Soul liveth by the faith of these promises, it beginneth to feel this spritualitie: We love our body by Nature, and oft-ten idol it: But Grace maketh us love it less, as it is natural, and more as it shall be fully spiritual in Heaven. This is a seal and token of that spiritualitie, that the body is disabled for sinful actions: The work of the Soul, and the satiety of spiritual influence, bringeth for the time a deadness to sin on it, Scarcelie can the mind strengthen it self in any spiritual delight, but the body is thereby weakened: The Soul marking that disposition, is confirmed by it, and the body it self, though the first and only loser, is content of that weakening, because it is assured of the own spiritualitie: When our Soul shall be full of glory in Heaven, it shall turn the body to the like estate.

I care not how weak my body be for the works of sin: I have then most delight in it, when it is beaten down and brought in subjection, 1. Cor. 9. 27. not to hinder, but to help the works of the Spirit.

41. Credulitie and Confidence, are weak attendants of a weak Spirit.

CRedulitie, and Confidence are usuallie found together, the one for taking in of reports is an evil porter, the other, a lavish out-giver: The first admitteth both others reports and the own imbrede suspicions: The second giveth them out boldly as undoubted truths: In one instant, their heart is both at the root of the ear, hearing greedilie, and in the top of the tongue, talking looslie: the one trieth nothing, and the other spareth nothing.

Credulitie putteth no difference between man's report & God's word, their own apprehension and divine revelation: Confidence resteth on them all alike, and venteth all with the like assurance: It knoweth no degrees of persuasion, but layeth the same degree of trust upon human rumors, as upon the Articles of the Creed.

They are the two wings of Calumnie, without which it cannot flee abroad: When Satan hath laid in the uncharitable heart, the eggs or seeds of Ignorance, Malice, Prejudice, Suspition, preposterous Zeal, and such like, Then he worketh mightily on them, and hatcheth the monstrous bird of Calumnie: But it is winglesse, till it be vented: For this end, he putteth Confidence and Credulitie to it, that it may flee abroad, which was brought forth in secret. This is a match of Satan's joining: A babbling tongue to speak, and a bibulous ear to drink in greedilie bad reports.

It is a weak Soul, that hath two such assistants, who so would persuade them of anything, have less to do, than he who must hear their raw and vnconsiderate reports. He needeth no more, but vent his tales, he is trusted at once by them, but their hearers must either believe them, & that in their own degree of persuasion, or else suffer for it: It is easier to be their informers, than their hearers or reformers, and that rather in lies and trifles, than in truth. They are as hard to take contrary information to their former errors, as they were ready at the first to drink them in.

It is our best, to try reports, and then give everything its own due of trust, and every trust the own degree of asseveration. It is folie to embrace human reports with that same degree of persuasion, as we do divine truth, or to speak them with the same confidence.

A special work of God's Spirit, is to direct us in the truth, and that not only in the matters of Salvation, but also in our common conversation, where he reigneth, he placeth holy Discretion at the root of our ears, to keep us from racklesse Credulitie: And he guydeth the heart with wise Charity, to stay indiscreet Confidence, inventing of our own apprehension, or other men's reports. The foolish man will believe everything: but the prudent will consider his steppes. Prov. 14. 15.

42. The sight of a present God-head.

IT is a great work to direct our life a • ight, and many have given good precepts for it, but the Scripture is a most full and pertinent rule. And God who knoweth best our duty, hath summed all up in one word, Walk before me, and be thou upright. Gen • s. 17. 1. The sight and sense of a revealed, reconcealed, and present God-head, is the marrow and substance of all wholesome directions.

Who can see him, but he must love and seek an union with him? and keep that union by a constant walking with him: He cannot be seen but by his own light, nor felt, but by his own life, and the rarity of these blessings make the Christian conversation so rare.

This is a complete Furniture for our duty, first, to know it, next to will it, and thirdlie, to have a power to do it: All these are obtained by setting God before us.

Neither is he a beholder of his gifts, but an effectual mover of them, setting us and his Grace in us to work, by a powerful working. If his pure light fill the mind, his effectual power will fill the heart, and that light and power can lead us no where-else, but to himself: They put us to a restlessness, but when we are pleasing him, and that restlesnes is a most sweet rest. The goodness of promised blessings, the weight of threatened curses, and the equity of duties commanded, are all in their vigor when we see God, so that faith and obedience do follow: Other considerations have their own force, but this is so immediate and strong, that there is neither place for delay, nor hypocrisy. He who seeth God always, dare neither neglect his duty, nor do it deceitfully.

Where this care is, Sin findeth a bridle, and Grace a spurr. There can no temptation overcome us, so long as we see God clearly before us: Satan's suggestions evanish as mist before that face: And our corruption dare not show it self before the clearenes of that light.

Our walking in Christianity, is but a roving,, till we come to this sight of God in some measure. This maintaineth light in the mind, sensibleness in the heart, and setteth to work our Conscience, to direct and hold us in a conversation worthy of him, whom we see always looking on us. Men are diversely affected with this sight: Some know not the nature of it; other condemn it as a phanaticke imagination, because they comprise all the work of Grace within their own personal experience: But Wisdom is justified of her children.

They who are conscious and sensible, of it, enjoye the unspeakable fruits thereof: While other are as void of them, as they are void of the sight it self.

43. Patrons of Grace and Nature, are condignelie paid for their pleading.

OPinions in Religion, are discoueries of our condition; he who counteth highly of the Grace of God, hath his part thereof: It cometh freely of God: and leadeth to him in thankfulness: It is his gift, and the proper work of it, is to bring us to him again: It is his stryne in us, and pulleth our Souls to him. The holy Spirit is not, as a reporting mess̄ger, but one inbiding seal; he worketh at once, both the sense of God's love in our heart, and the meeting we give to it: No child of Grace can satisfy himself in magnifying of Grace, the work of it, is to pour out it self on God, the Fountain, as it filleth the heart with joy, so doth it the mouth with: What shall I render to the Lord? Ps. 116. 12.

The Patrons of Nature seem yet to abide in Nature, at the least that patrocinie is a work of Nature, and flesh in them: If a Captiue commend his Prison, is a token he is not weary of it, and (which is worse) desireth not to be delivered of it: Sauing Grace in Christ is the Ark of God's building, to save those that go in it: But Pelagius brittle, and rent shalloppe of natural power, and self-sufficiency, drowneth men in damnation. In things natural, and for this life, Nature can do something; but in matters supernatural, and for Salvation, it is blind as the mould-warp, dead as a carcase, and vyld as a carrion. If we ascryue to it, either deserving or disposition for Grace, we deny both the Nature and necessity of Grace.

Errors in other pointes of Religion, discover indeed weakness in the mind, but in these practic points, concerning God's work in our Calling and conversation, they discover the state of our persons: They who are translated from Nature to Grace, cannot but abhor Nature, and praise Grace.

O! how dangerous a thing is it, to count Nature Grace, or to magnify it against Grace?

If their opinion be well examined, they will be found to lay two strange grounds to themselves: One, that they are sprung of another beginning, than fallen Adam: The other, that they court another God, than the Redeemer of mankind: As for us, who are come of lost Adam, and depend on Christ our Redeemer, we dare neither speak so proudly of Nature, nor so basely of Grace. The poor speaketh with prayers, but the rich answereth roughlie. Prov. 18 23. We count it our happiness, that our dead and graceless Nature, is quickened and renewed, by the free and powerful Grace of Christ.

All their pleading is for a privilege to Nature, and when all is deeply pressed, that privilege is nothing, but hardness of heart, than which, there is no greater plague in man, a liberty to fall frō Grace, and to resist it. They shall never crave blessings to me, who take that for a privilege, and blessing to man, which is the heaviest (but the just) plague of God on man.

But both these pleaders are condignelie rewarded by their Clients: Defenders of Grace have not their gages to to seek, and Natures proctors have such gain, as she can give. The mater abideth not in questioning, the persons, are discerned before the question be debated. Magnifiers of Grace prove children o • Grace: and praisers of Nature stick still in Nature.

It is kyndlie to everything to respect the own original and Benefactor▪ as it is respected of them. I content my self with Scripture, to call Christ both the Author, and the Finisher of Faith. Heb. 12. 2. And to profess before men and Angels, that I am saved by the Grace of Christ. Ephes. 2. 5. And with holy Antiquity, to be then most sure, when I ascriue all the work of Salvation to the mercy of God, and the merit of Christ Jesus.

44. Conceat of Wisdom is great folie.

COnceat of Wisdom is a dangerous Counselor; while we intend our business, we think all is rypelie advised, but in the proceeding, and at the end, we find weakness: we think then both of our Wit and work, that we might have advised & done better; & that with some close Resolutiō, to see better to business following: But the next affairs find us in that same folie, and are a new matter of after-thinking, and Repentance, and our first Conceate misleadeth us, as of before.

Corrupt Counsellers have need of reformation, & there is no more corrupt Coūseller in our Soul, than this conceat: So long as it is Father to beget, or Mother to bring foort • , and the Nurse to foster our business▪ there can neither be hope of good success in our adoes, or of amendment of our error: Conscience of our weakness: imploring of God's assistance, and wariness in our proceedings, are better Directors.

When we distrust our self, and rely, and in call on God for a blessing, we shall either find that blessing which we ask, or contentment in the lack of it: But Conceat debarreth the blessing, and doubleth our miscontentment in the lack. He cutteth himself off both, from God's direction, and blessing in his adoes, who conceiteth strongely of his own wisdom: But he is compassed of both, who resteth on God.

As his mercy offereth, so his justice decerneth the save-guyding of him who distrusteth himself & trusteth in God▪ But it is the work of his justice to desert the self-conceated wise man: He gaineth much who dependeth on God: His business are begun, sweyeth, and accomplished by GOD'S wisdom, whereas the other left to himself, must wrestle with difficulties of affairs, and of crossing Providence. The best way to be wise indeed, is to be conscienciouslie humble under sense of folie, but the strong conceate of Wisdom is extreme madness.

45 Dead to the world.

THe world is wise in the own generation, but God turneth their wisdom to folie; it affecteth men as they are set towards it, the Worldlings with love, and the godly with hatred: These affections it testifieth by answereable actions, honoring the beloved worldlings, and troubling the hated godly: But it is foolish in both, and most in this second: If it did not so vex the godly, it might possibly ensnare them to bide in it. The Worldes fowning and flattery is more dangerous, than her frowning; and her open hostility, is the security of the Saints.

It is God's great mercy to us, who turneth their injuries to our mortification We are called to renounce the World, and it rageth thereat, and preassing either to retain, or recall, or destroy us, it chaseth us out of it self. All their contesting with us, putteth us further from them, than we were before, their hatred and injuries work a contempt of the world in us: This maketh a divorce, and in end, a Death to the world.

I take this as a dying and crucifying to it, when by the Grace of God, my Soul doeth neither conceive their folies, nor account or receive them, being suggested: When the heart neither willeth nor affecteth them, the memory remembereth them not, the mouth cannot utter them according to the worlds formalities, and the whole man hath a unfitness to walk in their fashions: He is living to God, and God liveth in him, who is so dead to the World.

46. The right placing of our affections.

HOw foolishly are our affections & actions placed? Christ appointed the matter, and order for them both, Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these earthly things shall be casten to you, Matt. 6. 33. And the Apostle, Set your affections on things above, and not on things on earth: Colos. 3. 2. Heaven is first, and most to be sought: The Earth both least and last; but man inverteth that order; he is not far traveled, nor high minded: The earth is at hand, and he goeth no further; as an home borne child, he bydeth in the house, & as a shell-snail he sticketh to the wall.

The Heaven, the great & first thing, scarcelie entereth in his heart, the renting cares of the world, do so pester it, that the thoughts of heaven cannot go through that throng: Earthly thoughts salute him first in the morning, busy him all the day, lay him down in his bed, and play in his fancy all night: The thoughts of God and his Kingdom find none access: He is all, where he should be least, or rather nothing: He is little or nothing, where he should be most, he maketh that his task which he should but touch by the way, and he blenketh but a squint on that which he should continually meditate. Many are busied about impertinent things with Martha, and far moe about impious things, but few with Marie choose the part that shall never be taken from them. Luke 10. 42.

By this I know, the right situation of my Soul, when God and his thoughts take up all the roumes of it, It is best to set the earth and her trash, at as base an account, as in situation, it is under our feet.

47. Contemplation and practice ought to be joined.

COntemplation and Practice, make up compleete Christianity: God hath joined them as the Soul and body, & requireth them joyntlie: and he who separateth them, offereth a lame sacrifice to God, and is scarce half a Christian: The first, as the eyes directeth us, the second, as the hands and feet performeth that direction. Theorie alone, is as the eyes without feet and hands, and practice without a solid knowledge, is as strong legs and nimble hands in a blind man.

Light and life are best together: The first, is the sweet eating of the Book: Ezech. 3. 3. The second, is the bitter disgesting of it: The one giveth Grace & contentment in secret; the other proveth the sincerity of that Grace to man. For our own joy, the first hath a sufficiency, but for the edification of others, and our confirmation in our calling and election: The second is necessar.

If naked knowing be sufficient, Satan is a most perfect creature: He excelleth all men in the knowledge of good & evil, but is behind all men in affecting them: He knoweth not good, to love & seek it, nor evil, to hate and flee from it, but his affections & actions are set cross to his knowledge: He is in that same degree of wickedness, that he is in excellency of understanding: His searching and piercing wit, hath purchased him the name of an understanding Spirit, but his wickedness calleth him, Satan, an enemy to God

The union and work of both, craveth some solid and inward ground: Outward means may occasion them, and inward motions set them on work, but they cannot have a constant byding in us, without a byding ground and principle. The life of God is this ground: What supernatural thing we do without it, is but hypocritical, or occasional, and easily intermitted.

The Fountain of this life, is God himself, and where this Fountain is, there is sufficiency for Theorie & practice: Without him, our professing is hypocrisy, our minting vanity, and our actions will die, and end, in their beginning: We can do nothing that is good without him; and with him, we shall be able to approve our self, in a lively Theorie, and a well grounded practice. As without Christ we can do nothing. John. 15. 5. So I am able to do all things through the help of Christ, who strengtheneth me. Philip. 4▪ 13 Yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me. 2. Cor. 15. 10.

48. The ambitious man dieth of his disease.

DOubtlesse Ambition is foolish, and God in Justice, doeth cross it in the greatest designs: But the humble man is truly wise, and God casteth more human respect on him, than he desireth: The Ambitious man hunteth after honor, but it flieth from him: What ever be his worth, in this he is unworthy, that he thirsteth honor. It is not guided by blind Fortune, but by a seeing providence, and flieth from them who proudlie affect it, and waiteth on them, who modestlie decline it.

He fetcheth and sucketh wind out of every Airth, but when he seeketh it most, there is greatest calm, both in respect of his desire and indeed; What is lacking that way, he supplieth it by his own breath of vntymous self praise, but that availeth not; all men's breathing in a ship will not fill the sails, he is the more vile in the eyes of the wise, the louder he proclaim his own supposed virtues: The humble man neither intendeth nor affecteth honor, yet it followeth him: As the shadow followeth the body, so doth true honor to true worth: He hath more of that gale of wind, than he craveth, and the more it blow, he is the more dejected: his care is to keep him from schelues and rocks before so fair a wind.

God is witness to his Soul, that herein he hath a secrete dejection, and still compting himself the vilest sinner in the earth: He wonders at that mercy, that hath so vndeseruedlie blessed him, and knoweth not how to begin to be thankful: He is more pensive how to pay the debt of gratitude to God, than puffed up in taking it on.

And saith with David Who am I, Lord God, and who is my Fathers house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? And finding himself unable to thank God, as he ought and would, he calleth God to witness his earnestness to honor God. What can David say more to thee? For thou Lord knowest the heart of thy servant.

And the more he is swallowed up in that sweet drowning sense of God's love, he is the nearer to true exaltation: He feeleth then the truth of that Martyrs, word, who said, HEE THAT PRAISETH MEE, SCOVRGETH MEE, & of the word of God, That he resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

49. Good Spirits are most free of passions.

GReat Spirits have least passions, but base Spirites are most passionate: The first is above their business, and not soon moved; the other is under all accidents, and perplexed in everything: The one as a large vessel, containeth easily water cast in it, and the other, as a small vessel runneth over.

If the power of Princes were in the hands of private men, or the passions of private men in the hands of Princes, the world could not stand. But God hath wisely separate them, that power without passion may be profitable, and passions without power, may be harmless: The highest Mountains have least storm, and wind on their tops, but the rains and tempest over-run the low hills & valleys.

There are few worldly Princes, but in Grace we are called to this heavenly principality, to command our passions.

The holy Spirit maketh the Souls of the truly sanctified, as the fleece of Gideon: They are free of passions and perturbations, while others are drowned in them. Broken water is in the shallow Seas: But the deep Seas have a soft swelling, and not these violent breakings.

If we be translated from Nature to Grace, we are above the surprysing of accidents, and bitterness of injuries, and so are secured from the violence of our own passions: Our heart is in the secret of God, and our head above the Heavens; while our state or body is buffeted on earth, our Souls enjoye a pleasant serenity in the face of GOD.

50. God alone better than all.

HEe shifteth much needless labor, and provideth great contentment, who closeth himself with God alone: To deal with man alone, beside God, is both an endless & fruitless labor: If we have counsel to ask, help or benefit to obtain, or approbation to seek, there is none end with man,: For every man we must have sundry reasons, & motives, and what pleaseth one, will offend twenty, as many heads, as many wits, and fancies: No man can give contentment to all, or change himself in so many fashions, as he shall encounter humors: And yet it is more easy, to take sundry fashions than to be active in them.

He preasseth to lift water in a sife, and sand in open fingers, who thinketh so, to carry himself, as to please all: He is prodigal of the peace of his soul, and careless of good success, who maketh man either his rule, or his rewarder: That Spirit must be rent asunder, that applieth it self to the contrariety of men's opinions.

Mans bodily senses, both ruleth and overruleth his reason, therefore, as he seeth men and not God, so he preferreth seen man, to an unseen GOD: But when he shall see God in the clouds, at the last day, & all mankynd present they shall all be nothing, in respect of God. The godly now see him, more than mā, and therefore, prefer him to all men, and run that course to offend and lose all men, rather than him. This is a course whereof he shall never need to repent.

It is grievous indeed to loose our friends or familiars: And he is foolish, who loseth any, that he may brook with God: But it is a great triumph of Grace, when for conscientious and faithful service to GOD, we lose them: They are not worth the keeping, who cannot be brooked with him: And he is not worthy of God, who will not forsake Father and Mother for him: All the hurt that these self-pleasing men bring to the God-pleasing Saints is the greater increase of the fruits, the scales, and sense of God's love in them.

Since I cannot please all, I will take me to please One, and that one who is better, than all, for Counsel, Approbation, and Reward: So long as God draweth, all my thoughts to him, and calmeth them in him, by sweet contentment, I will not buy a torture from foolish man: While he answereth my desires, & communicateth himself more to me, than I can conceive, I will not vex my self in courting of man. Whom have I in Heaven but thee, and there is none on the Earth that I desire, beside thee. Psal. 73. 25.

51. Rare accidents make many Prophets.

STrange Accidents breed us many Prophets: Before they fall forth, all men are silent, but when they are seen, many clame a prophetical fore-sight of them: It is sure speaking of them, when they are come to pass; but to boast then of their fore-sight, argueth lack of judgment: how shall he be a good fore-seer, who seeth not his own present folie in boasting idly of that which he hath not, & maketh none use of that which is done, or doeth not see, that that his vain boasting, maketh him ridiculous: He is as loud a proclamer of his own folie, as he clameth commendation from that foresight.

This is a sure note of such Spirites, to make none other use of Accidents, than astonishment and broad talking: Every one they meet with, & every dinner & supper must patiently hear the arguments, of their fore-sight; at every occasion they have a new edition, and a new discourse of it; and by long and oft prattling, they give some life to that which hath none other being, than of their own humor and breath.

When such things fall out, as cannot be particularly foreseen of man, it is better to ponder them seriously, and to see the work of God in them: And for our self, to draw near to him in Faith and Repentance, and to draw other to him also, in a religious reverence of him who ruleth all, to the good of the Saints: To spend our own Spirit, and weary the ears of others in idle babbling, is the work of an empty brain.

52. Damnable selvishnesse.

SElfe is both a near and a dear word to man: It draweth all our thoughts to it, & setting all to work that is in us, turneth them home again, to it self: It is both the Idole and idolater, the exacter, caruer, and receiver, the doer and sufferer in all duties: A fountain sending out all, and a Center, sucking back all that it sent out: And so selvish in this Self, that it accounteth even God to be a stranger. And is yet more foolish, parteing it self against it self, and is the own greatest enemy: So a man's greatest enemy is not only they of his own house, but of his own heart.

Blind love in the Ape, maketh it thrust o • t the enterals of the own brood while it embraceth them too straitly: The blindness of Self-love maketh it in preposterous safety to destroy it self: What more friend-like masters in us, than Self-love, Self wit, & Self-will, & yet what greater foes? The hatred craft, & power of our open enemies, do not so hurt us as these: I fear and suspect no Creature more than myself, and that even when I most respect myself.

I will profess and practice hostility against Seluishnesse, and render myself to be guyded by a foreign Wit-and Will, even the New-man created and directed of God: This is a better Self, than that natural Seluish One, there is no safety for me, but in hateing and destroying that evil One: By that saving overthrow of myself, I shall save myself.

This is the fruit of mine engraffing in the native Olive. The juice of that stock, changeth me to that Self-destroying, and Self-saving work, the more I seek mine own Salvation, the more I abhor my seluish corruption. I abhor myself, as I am of the first Adam, but love and seek my well, as I am in the second Adam Jesus Christ.

The holy Apostle maketh this perfect Anatomy of himself, Not I, but sin that dwelleth in me. Rom. 7. 17. There is the old and corrupt Self, like the first Adam in him: By the grace of God I am that I am, ye • not I, but the grace of God which is with me, 1. Cor. 15. 10. There is the new Self of Grace, by the second Adam in him; in both places himself as he is God's creature, is the common Subject of both these Selfes.

He is a stranger in himself, who doeth not mark this distinction of himself: And he is his own greatest foe, who destroyeth not the old Self in Adam, that he may save himself in the new Adam, Jesus Christ.

53. The wise and foolish Merchant.

EVerie man playeth the Merchant in his greatest business: We change & lose something, for gaining another: The godly with God have most care to save their Soul, They care not to loss their goods, their name, their body for that end. If labors waste their body, and afflictions bruife their Spirit, all is well bestowed in their count, if so be their Soul be safe.

The wicked mak their own conquesh with wit, like themselves, they care not to loss their Soul for keeping of their body and estate; their course is justifiable in their own judgment, no man can build better vpō their grounds, or see better with their eyes: They see not their Soul, and as little care they for it, as they know it: They see their body and state, and do think that their soul is given for their body.

True godliness ouerthoweth these grounds, and giveth better light: It teacheth, that all is for man, and the body for the soul, and himself for God: This maketh us to seek our safety more than our state, our Conscience more than our fame, our Soul more than our body: And GOD, more than all.

Nature in wordly things, condemneth our brutishness in spiritual: It teacheth men to buy the best things, of best use, of most gain, and at the lowest price: But in spiritual Merchādice, we buy the worst things, that are of no use, of less gain, and at the dearest rate: We spend our money on that, that is no bread, and our labor on that, which satisfieth not, Isa. 55. 2. Such is all our business on worldly things.

But God's Spirit, teacheth the godly a better form of barganning. The kingdom of Heaven is a precious Jewel: It endureth, when all these wordly trifles will evanish, and we find it without a price. The Mercat of it is cried free without money: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come, buy, and eat: yea, come without price. Isa. 55. 1.

These wise Merchants shall rejoice forever before God, who under terms of buying and selling, hath freely given them eternal Life, where the foolish seekers of the world, shall ever lament their neglect of this free Mercat and the loss of their labor, their fruit, and of themselves.

It is good to leave the worlds folie to it self, since we cannot cure it, let it not spoil Grace in us: The wicked losing their soul for their body, lose body and all together: The godly losing all for God, & their Souls save themselves fully: He is no loser, who hath God for his portion and him self in Soul and body unite to God in Christ.

Thinges wordly come not in this compt, before we were, we had them not, and in the Heaven we shall not have them: Their vanity, & not use, are as a not being to us. Where God filleth the heart, there is no room to desire, or receive them on so miserable conditions. Let them fall to these who are like to them; dust and dust do well agree, whē we shall enjoy God forever.

54. The love of good and hatred of evil.

SOme things there be which I cannot love, and some things which I cannot hate: I cannot love Satan, for he is God's enemy: Nor Hell, for it is his House: Nor Sin, for it is his work: And the more near that Sin is to me, the more I hate it: In the godly more than in the wicked: And in my self more than in any.

These again I cannot hate; God, because he is Goodness it self: Nor the Heaven, because it is his dwelling and reward: Nor his Grace, because it is his Image, both the causes of that love, and the work of it is from himself: I love them, because I love him, and it is his will and work in me, to love them.

I thank God, I cannot hate them, who have true Grace: I mislike their faults and shall digest their injuries, but my Soul cannot hate them, who love God, and are beloved of him: His Image and Grace, where ever I see it (though in my professed enemy) commandeth my dearest affection; all their injuries cannot so grieve me, as the conscience of my sincere love to them comforteth me: By this I know, that I am translated from death to life, because I love the Brethren. 1. John. 3. 14.

But there can be none assurance of his Love and Grace, where the Saints are hated. His love is shed abroad in our heart, not to remain there, but to run out to embrace them whom he loveth, neither am I beloved of him, nor have parte of that in shed love, if I hate them: who so are beloved of him, & are enclosed in his heart, & agree in Jesus Christ, as they are such, cannot hate one another. This is our victory, over their corruptiō & our own, that notwithstanding of their injuries, we love them deerelie.

God loved and chose us, when he saw us his enemies in the mass of lost mankind: And now loveth us, when we offend him daily: How then can the heart, sensible of this love, hate any that is so loved of God: If we do so, we hate God's Image, and love in the Saints, in our self, and in God & may justly doubt, if we be the Lord's beloved.

55. The best Lotte hath some want.

EVerie man's Lot is mixed with some want: And GOD hath so wisely temperated all estates, that no man hath all blessings, and no man lacketh all crosses: If we have some blessings, we lack other: Yea, our miscontentment can make wants, where none is, and augmenteth these which possibly are: We take on us a creating power, and that in evil: How oft do we compleane of that Lotte, which is good in it self, and better than we are, either worthy to receive, or wise to use aright.

Many have so large a Lotte, that if it were divided in an hundredth partes, it would content some hundredth persons, and everyone of them possibly, is more worthy, and would be more thankful, than he who hath it all alone, with miscontentment. The smallest Lot with God (if there can be any small with him) is a large Lotte: And the greatest Lot without him (if there can be any great without him) is extreme lack. He lacketh nothing, who hath God for his portion, and he hath nothing, who lacketh him: God carueth not sparingly to that Soul, to whom he giveth himself, and in that case, it lacketh nothing, but to know that Lotte, and enjoye it.

God hath indeed wisely tempered our Lottes, but the error of our desires, and miscontentment is our own, and yet he bringeth good out of that error. His care is to keep us ever loose from the earth: If we found all our desires contented here, we would forget to seek a better Lotte in heaven.

Let every lack chase us, to seek a supply: It is a daily and hourly earand to God by prayer: We cannot find it in this life, let us seek it where it is: Our Lot on earth satisfieth us not, but our Lot in heaven, shall fill us with contentment: It is perfect in it self, and craveth that we be perfect for it. If in the midst of so many lacks, we seek perfection in the earth, we prove the lack of wit, more than of a sufficient Lot, all lacks tell us, and command us to seek supply in God, who only is All-sufficient.

56. Danger of corruption daily.

THere is none hour, wherein we can say that we are free of danger, and yet not so much of outward accidents, as of inward surprysing of our Corruption: The more advanced in Grace, the more is that danger, both in it self, and to our feeling: Other see our infirmities, and they are more grievous to our self, than of before.

This is a bitter Experience, that when we have lamented our slips, renewed our vows, and chastened our self in an holy grief for them, they break out under our hand: Scarcelie is our heart calmed from a former grief, when it is conceiving either the same, or a greater infirmity. These Canaanites live still in us, they are left as a mater of our Exercise, the whetstone of grace, and a Spurre of Prayer: We cannot cast thē out, but we should put them under tribute. It is best to hold our eye continually on our corruption, that it break not out: or be grieved for that out-breaking.

Daylie danger, is a lesson of the necessity of a daily guard: And since that danger is most from within, our best Guarde must be from without: Nature in us, that worketh our woe, cannot prouid our safety: God by his Spirit is our best Guarde: When he keepeth our hearts in his hand, then we are secured from all dangers.

It is not good to sleep securely, whē a Serpent is in the house, or to be careless, whē a mad dog is tied with a loose roppe: Such carelessness is an infalible precedent of some gross fall: David at rest in his own place, fell worse, than when he was chased as a Patridge in the Wilderness.

If we cannot escape Satan's supprysings, we should turn them against himself: God maketh these out-breakings in his Saints, as a staff to break the head of Satan in their corruption. They are as the borrowing of a Baire, he houndeth out our corruption, to foil us, but God sendeth it home, as a carcase to him again. Beside the former exercises, it entertaineth Humility, and the sense of God's mercy, who beareth with our faults. Pride as a Page, attendeth excellent Spirit: But the slips and buffets of our corruption, layeth these feathers. Pride goeth before a fall, and an haughty heart before destruction.

57. God's best Gifts.

THere is no mā, who receiveth not of God's Liberalitie, but not all of that same kind, and that measure. Some as Keturahs sons, get common gifts, and go away from him: Other as his Isaac, get the Inheritance, and abide with him: Some have the gifts of body and mind, and Fortune (as they call them) gifts in themselves, but no sure pledge of his saving love: But to the godly, with his gifts he giveth himself, a spiritual being by Renouation, a spiritual life by his Son, a spiritual moving by his Spirit.

Our disposition will tell us his affection: If we take his gifts, run away with them, and use them without and against him, then we have gotten his gift, but not himself: But if they lead us to him, and make us seek him above them all, then we have himself with his gifts.

These are best gifts, which are most excellent in their kind: Greatest in measure, and most profitable for use: What is better, than GOD Himself? And amongst his gifts, none is better, thā saving Graces. They bring with thē the Image and warming power of a special love, and stamppe the heart of the receiver, with a re-loving of him. For measure, they are sufficient to our greatest necessity of Salvation. For use, they lead us through the Valley of this life; through the foorde of Death: And exalt us above all use, even to the fruitiō of God: And so in this life are the immediate matter of our contentment.

Common gifts come out naked, but saving Graces are guarded? that same choosing love of God, where from they flow, sendeth out a secrete virtue with them, to pull that heart to God, that receiveth them. Though they come out from him, yet they are not separate from him, neither suffer they us to stand abacke from him: That his love in Christ, that giveth them, quickeneth us with the sense of it self, that as by him we live, so we cannot live, but in him.

This is a sweet intercourse botweene God & us, in his saving blessings in Christ, I count more of his smallest grace with himself, than of all the world without him.

58. Discerning of Flesh and Spirit.

HOw profitable were it for us, to discern between the flesh and Spirit. But this discerning hath a great difficulty; and that because both parties are within us: And both of them in every parte and power of us: Their likeness also one to another, and the readiness of our mistaking, and most of all, because we incline more to the flesh, which is native to us, than to Grace, which is a stranger.

Flesh is first in us by Nature, and soonest at work: And so forestalling our minds, purchaseth our allowence to it self. Confusion of our mind maketh them as Rebekah's twins, we find them stirring within us, but cannot discern them: Passions and Self-love make us judge wrong, we take that for Spirit which is Flesh, and cherish it: And that for Flesh, which is Spirit, and neglect it: That coveting one against another, is sensible, but we know them not particularly: And more easily can we discern them in another, than in our self: The work is then manifest, and we are not prejudged by our self-love.

It is a great part of the work of conscience, to mark this difference: The Apostle excelleth in this, who said, I find another Law in my members. The best way to try them, is not to leave them to the event, but to bring them to the rule. The true knowledge of God's Law will tell us, That is Spirit, which agreeth with it, and that is Flesh, which agreeth not with it: At diverse times we have contrary thoughts of one thing, the one must be flesh, and the other Spirit, what savoreth of pride and vanity, is flesh: What savoreth of Humility and fear, is Spirit.

As the descerning of them argueth a great degree of Grace, so to do according to that discerning, proveth a greater degree of it: When the motions of the flesh are broken as a Cockatrice eggs before they be hatched, and the motions of that Spirit are entertained: Both these works are noisome to the flesh, but they are more profitable in that they grieve it. He hath a painful task, who pondereth all his thoughts in the balance of the Sanctuary, but the fruit of that labor in purity, and holiness is greater than all the pains.

Justice is painted with a balance in her hand, and the practice of a good Conscience in this discerning, is a continual pondering. Where this discerning is exact & particular, it is a singular preservative, to keep us from yielding to temptation, & a spurr to Repentance, when we are fallen: He who is so exercised, shall either not fall in sin, or come soon out of it.

59. God's merciful presence.

GOD'S Presence in mercy, is above all things in this life, to be sought and keeped. But everyone knoweth not what it is, or how to keep it: As Creator, he is with everyone, sustaining, maintaining, and directing them in their ways. The greatest A thiest cannot shift himself of that sort of presence. But we seek his presence as Redeemer in Christ.

In this he seeth us, and maketh us see him: He sheddeth abroad his love in our heart, and maketh us to love him, and by his working in love, maketh us both sensible and conscious of him, and careful to walk worthy of that his presence: His countenance both humbleth us in our peace, and comforteth us in adversity: Our well and woe are judged by his smyling and frowning: If he lift up the light of it above us, nothing can g • ieue us: If he hide it from us, we are swallowed up.

It hath both a changing and augmenting power: Thereby adversity is changed in prosperity, and prosperity is doubled by that Blessing of blessings, even as the lack of it changeth prosperity in adversity, and doubleth adversity by that cross of crosses.

His eye is more to us, than all the world, to see us, direct us, witness to us, in approving or reproving. In the darkness of the night, it shineth in our Soul, in our reteardnesse from men, it is powerful to keep us in order, yea, all mankind gathered in one, are but a solitude compared to his on-looking. This is both a trial of true Grace, and our proficience in it.

I see not how we can count our selves Christians, except in some measure, we know and walk under the reverence of a present God: Without this, all we do, is but by guess and custom. Heereby we know whom we worship, and are sensible of our spiritual estate, we measure his assistance and desertion, our strength and weakness, and by these, our joy and grief of them all. It is the earnest of our Inheritance, the first Fruits of the Spirit, our acquaintance with his Face in this life, and our Heaven on Earth. To be conscious of it, and careful to keep it, assureth us, that we have it now, and shall enjoye it forever hereafter.

60. GOD and Satan contrary to their ends and ways.

GOD and Satan draw us to contrary ends by contrary ways: GOD, his end is true happiness in Grace in this life, and glory in Heaven: Satan's end is misery in sin in this life, and damnation in Hell: The proceeding is as contrary: God beginneth his work at light in the mind: He revealeth the goodness of grace & glo • ie, & the vileness of our sin and misery: by the mind enlightened, and his holy Spirit, he boweth the will sweetelie to incline to the known Good, and decline the known evil: By these, he moveth the affections to seek the desired Good, and flee the refused evil.

But Satan taketh a contrary course; he first moveth the Humours, by them, the Affections, and by these, the Will, and by it, he carrieth the Mind headlong: As his on-sets are on our weaker partes, so are they preposterous: GOD leadeth us up ward, and fordward, as he made us: Satan draweth us backward, and downward, blindeth the mind, that he may surpryse it by our corruption.

The form of these proceedings tell us both the Nature of the Authors, and their ends: When the Mind is solidlie enlightened, and moveth the other powers, that is an orderlie proceeding: But where Humours lead the ringe, & the Mind is both last moved, and violentlie carried, there can be no good. If there were that much light in it, as to discern their proceeding, we might eschew the many temptations, which surprysse us, and obtain many blessings, which we neglect.

Humorous courses are both violent and dangerous; they begin with violence, and end in darkness, the more stirring of humor the less life of Grace: But the work that beginneth, and goeth on with • light, endeth in life and happiness. In all our business, we are guided by one of these two.

It is good to dispose of our affairs, with due consideration, that we may know who is our Guide, what is the Nature of our proceeding, and what shall be our end. He beateth the air, and thresheth the water, who walketh without these considerations, as he soweth the wind, he shall reap the whi • le wind. Many abhor Satan in word, who render themselves to his guiding: And many honor GOD in word, who pull their shoulders from his obedience.

61. Trial of Truth.

OUr speech in praise, and dispraise, arise of Estimation, and Estimation cometh of Discerning, and Discerning of Knowledge▪ A clear particular and distinct Knowledge, maketh good discerning, due Estimation, and a true Speach: But Ignorance maketh bad discerning, wrong estimation, and a false testimony, we cannot pry in the heart of man immediately, but the worlds affection is seen in their praise, or dispraise: For the most part, gold is called dross, & dross gold, good is called evil, and evil good, virtue is called vice, & vice virtue. And every man persuaded of his own wisdom, is both peremptory to pronounce of things themselves as he conceiveth them, and credulous to believe other reports of them. There is no just testimony, but from a sound Mind enlightened of God, and that as it is such; a mote may trouble the eye that is other ways enlightened, so will passion or prejudice an understanding Mind.

I pity posterior Ages, who have no further of former times, than historical report, which carry as much of the affection and disposition of the writer, as verity of the matter: Except the sacred History, there is none that hath infalible truth; it is a vexation to find out the Truth in the multitude of diverse, yea, contrary reports. A blind man eateth many flies, and a credulous mind many untruths.

I reverence every man as God hath gifted him, but I keep obsequious credulity to God alone in his word: I find nothing therein, but Truth: as for other reports, I have often found by diligent search, that to be dross which was called gold, and that to be gold which was rejected.

62. Politicks secrecy is open.

WOrldlie Politicks affect nothing more in their business than secrecy, but they are not so close as they believe: They are as the fish which thrusting the head under a stone, thinketh all is hid, but the Fisher pulleth it out of that supposed secret: They laugh all the world to scorn, and seeth not that they are seen by these whom they would blind: Conuoy as they will, yet they are perceived, and more justly mocked, both for their crooked doings and conceate of secrecy.

They delight to deceive man, but indeed they deceive themselves: As they gloss man, they cast a veil between God and them, thinking that he seeth them not, because they wink. and will not see him. But all that is seen of him, and shall be manifested to him all at the last day: Since men enlightened of God, do now see through these veils, shall not his face at the last day, more clearly discover their supposed secrecy and wickedness lurking under it.

If they work directly their mids, tell both their grounds and end: If indirectlie (as now many do, affecting God's prerogative to work by contrars) yet are they seen: They who can infer a like of like, can also infer a contrary of a contrary.

The truly wise in God seeth him thoroughly, smyleth at his opinion of secrecy, and sorroweth for his crooked policy: He out-seeth him in a better sight, and foreseeth his disapointment and repentance: He could as well mind and counter-mind him, if he pleased, but he will not. It is not lack of wit, but of will, and of corruption of wit, that stayeth him from playing the political: He knoweth God hath given him wit for a better end to honor God, do good to his neighbor, and save himself, but not to abuse it in weaving the spider web, or hatching the Cockatrice eggs. Isa. 59.

The troubler of mankind furnisheth Politicks with a quick Wit, and hard heart, and harder face, the first for plotting evil against Conscience: The second for affecting it against God: The third for effecting it with man. The first is both a corrupted and corrupting mind, the next, a senseless heart, the third, a shameless face: Such Furniture is neither to be enuyed nor coveted.

It is a witless Wit, that is witty to warppe a mischief to it self. Achitophe • s policy, put his house in order, and himself out of order: He gained by it nothing, but a roppe to his neck, and confusion to himself, and his estate.

This is true Wisdom, to fear God▪ and to depart from sin, is good understanding.

63. The life of the Soul.

THe Soul is the life of the body, but it self must live by some other life, and that not from within, but from without: Everyone seeketh not that same thing for the life of it. It is a second life in time, but should be better than the first, because it is the life of the first, even of the Soul it self; and should as far excel the Soul, as the Soul doeth the body: But the multitude chooseth a worse and a baser life to their Soul: Some live by their riches, some by their fame, others by their pleasures, and others by their conceits. This is not an exalting, but a debasing of their Soul, not a quickening, but a killing of it. It is God's work to quicken our earthly lumppe by an heavenly substance, but to destroy that Soul by a lumppe of earth and vanity, is Satan's destroying work.

It were extreme senselessness to live a day or an hour, and not know if our Soul were in us; and yet many put off long time, and never try if they have this spiritual life. They lack it who know it not, a special work of it, is to reveal it self to them who have it: It is a vigorous life, all in action and cannot lurk: Holy Motions Operations, and assiduous Care to keep it, are euidencies that we have it.

I will seek nothing for the life of my Soul, but that which is infinitely better than it, and that is God himself: When he dwelleth in the Soul, he maketh both Soul & body live in him, and exciteth them to an higher degree than they had before. There is no food so sweet to the mouth, as the sense of God's love to the heart; when it is warmed by that heavenly sweetness, then the body is refreshed by a wondefull presence.

The life that is of God, and is himself, living in me, both giveth me life, and telleth me what that life is, and by the sense and conscience of it self, redoubleth that life in the abundance of peace and joy.

Hencefoorth I live not, but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I live, I live by the Faith of the Son of God, who hath loved me, and given himself for me: yea, hath given himself to me, and taken me to himself. Galat. 2. 20.

64. Sense of weakness.

IT is absolutely necessar to be keeped under the sense of our weakness, but all means for it are not alike: Some learn it by falling in great temptations, as David in his sin, other find it in smaller and trifling oversights, as rashness in words, or out-breaking in passions: Both grievous falls and small over-sights discovereth our weakness, but this last hath neither such guiltiness before God, nor such slander before man, nor such a wound to our conscience as the first.

It is a great mercy of God, to be schooled by lesser infirmities; and it is the blessing of that mercy to make use of it: This is a point of heavenly wisdom to be made as conscious of our weakness, by small slips as by grievous sins; if it work in us a distrust of our selves, a constant adherence to God, we are brought to a guard for our weakness.

It is extreme weakness, or rather death, to be ignorant of our weakness, And it is both strength restored, & increased to feel it. Death feeleth no disease, but life & the integrity of it maketh us sensible of anything that hurteth us.

The trial of it, is to enterprise nothing, without earnest incalling of God for wisdom and direction: Never to proceed in anything, without imploring his assistance and blessing, and that not in greater business only, but in our smallest adoes: The watch-man of Israel will then preserve our going out, and coming in. When we absolutely rely on him in everything.

He is most secure and safe from his weakness, who by many proofs is made conscious of it, and by that conscience doeth ever depend on GOD; he shall overcome great difficulties to his own, & others, admiration. But he who presumeth in his own strength, is overthrown of smaller business: Humility in the one, grippeth God, to be led of him: But Presumption in the other, is Satan's snare to entrappe him, Humility, is both a degree of God's present assistance, and a presage of his accomplishing presence: But Presumption in the other, is both a just desertion of God, and a surrendering of the presumptuous man, to fearful inconuenients. Conscience of weakness findeth want within, and seeketh supply in God: But Conceate of strength holdeth them within: The first is blessed with help of God, the other is cōvinced by grievous losses.

65. The Scriptures unspeakable profit.

IT is impossible to live either Christianlie or comfortably, without the daily use of Scripture: It is absolutely necessar for our direction in all our ways, before we begin them, and for the trial of our ways, when we have done: For the warrand of our approbation of them, for resolu • ng of our doubts, and comforting us in our griefs: Without it our conscience is a blind guide, and leadeth us in mist of ignorance, error, and confusion. Therein we hear God speaking to us, declaring his will to us concerning our Salvation, and the way of our obedience, to meet him in that his good will.

What Book can we read with such profit and comfort: For matter, it is Wisdom: For authority, it is divine and absolute: For Majesty, GOD himself under common words and Letters expressing an unspeakable power, to stamp our heart: And where shall we find our minds so enlightened, our hearts so deeply affected, our Conscience so moved, both for casting us down, and raising us up: I cannot find in all the Books of the world, such an one speak to me, as in Scripture, with so absolute a conquesh of all the powers of my soul.

Contemners of Scriptures want food for their soul, a light for their life, and the sword of their spiritual war-fare: But the lovers of Scripture, have all that Furniture: Therein we hear the voice of our Beloved, we smell the savor of his Oyntments; and have daily access unto the Ark of propitiation: If in our knowledge we desire Divinity, Excellencie, Antiquity and Efficacie; we cannot find it, but in God's Word alone. It is the extract of heavenly Wisdom, which Christ the eternal Word of God brought out of the bosom of his Father.

Oft-times on this Meditation, I do both pity the Pagans, who have not this sacred Book, and were without warrand of their doing or comfort in their trouble: And I wonder at many Ch • istians, whō God hath blessed with this Book, but they know not their bl • ssing hereein; they find more delight in other books thā in this: And some affect such Treatises, as may be instruments of their uncleanness or ambition, and trifling complementing: Filthie and obscene Pamphlets are bought and read more greedilie, than this sacred Wryte. But this is a discovery of men's profane disposition.

It is a token of profannesse, to loath Scripture; but a note of true Grace to delight into it: And of a growing grace, to grow in that delight. The happy man that walketh not in the way of the wicked, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, cometh to all this blessedness, because his delight is in the Law of God, and he meditateth therein night and day, Let good Christians choose our these Pearls, while the Swine eat up their husks. It seasoneth the heart with an heavenly taste, and inducth it with divine p • operties.

If the Jews did recei • e an odd temper of body and Spirit, because of Manna, shall we not have a greater excellency by this heavenly Manna, and Jesus Christ in it, If we would be sure of the life of God in us, let us continually drink in these heavenly Oracles. The daily seasoning of our Souls by holy Scripture, keepeth in us the vigor of that life, and fostereth our Soul constantly in a spiritual taste.

66. The fearful calamity of Wars.

AS the Earth-quake to Earth, so is War to Mankind, a fearful commotion: The calamities of it destroyeth Ciuilitie, Liberty, Laws, Religion, and Humanity it self. It is a grievous thing to see man made for the good of man, so earnestly to destroy his neighbor, and that with the hazard of himself: For the desire of the life and blood of his Brother, to be prodigal of his own: And for the opinion of most manfull men, to turn beasts, void of humanity, in destroying their own kind, and devils in defacing the Image of God: God commanded man to increase and multiply, but they turn it in diminishing of mankind, and make a craft of it▪ to destroy one another. I cannot think, but mankind mourn more to find such rent in her bowels, than the persons so disposed.

It is one work, but hath diverse respects in it: Some thereby ambitiously seeketh preferment, some avaritiouslie hunt for gain: Others cruelly seek the sythment of a reuengfull heart, and others in that loosing of all order seek a license to all wickedness. But God both intendeth and worketh his good ends into it.

It is his Chirurgrie to draw some superfluous blood of mankind: And his discipline to such as are dissolute: Doubtless God hath some as Cornelius, warriors fearing God, but it is as sure that many are void of the fear God: they initiate themselves for wars in the Aile house and Bordell: And so soon as as they are girded with the Soldiers girdle, they loose themselves to all profannesse: God disciplineth them with the Muscat, Canon, and Sword, in the field, who would neither abide the admonition, nor censure of Pastors at home: It is his ehastening of his Church, she abuseth her peace in warring against him by sin, therefore he maketh mā to war against her, to bring her to repentance.

No wars are so cruel as these for Religion: In civil jars it is but as one Devil smiting another, the strokes will be soft: But here Satan is smiting the Light and the bearers of it; and that with certain victory to God's enemies, so long as God's quarrel remaineth against his Church: It is a parte of his process against her, and his enemies are a scourge in his hand, therefore, they must prevail, till his Church be sufficiently humbled.

Here the case of the victor, is worse than of these who are overcome; for the one are corrected in a wrath mixed with mercy, but the other is employed in that service, in a simple wrath: And while they are God's instruments to punish the sins of his Church, they are filling up the cup of their own sins, that full vengeance may overtake them.

It is our best not to fight against God in our peace; and if he bring war on us, not to rest, till we be at peace with him: The rage of War is bounded, if we be one with him, he will either give us our Soul for a prey, or take us to a better life.

All deaths are sanctified to the Elect, and to die for Religion is a most glorious death. Soldiers call it the bed of honor to die in the battle (though many of them be dead in sin) but to die in the Lord, is the bed of honor indeed, to lay down our life for his cause, who gave it; and to turn the natural debt of Death, in so glorious a sacrifice. It is a token of God's honorable accompt of us, to charge us with such a service; of his presence with us, in so triumphing a Grace, and a pledge of the greatest degree of Glory in Heaven.

67. God seeth the heart.

THat GOD seeth the secretes of our heart, is a point terrible to the wicked, but joyful to the godly: The wicked are sorry, that their heart is so open: It is a boiling potte of all mischief, a furnace and Forge-house for evil: It grieveth them that man should hear and see their words and actions: But what a terror is this? that their Judge whom they hate, seeth their thought. If they could deny this, they would: But so many of them as are convinced and forced to acknowledge a God, are shaken be times with this also, that he is All-seeing▪ Other proceed more summarlie, and atonce deny a God-head in their heart, and so destroy this conscience of his All-knowledge.

But it is in vain, the more they harden their heart on this godless thought, the more fear in them; while they chock and charm their conscience, that it crow not against them: It checketh them with fore-sight of fearful vengeance, and for the present, convinceth them of the conscience of a God-head, the more they preasse to suppress it.

But the godly rejoice herein, it is to them a rule to square their thoughts, there is no liberty of Thinking, Willing, Wishing, Affecting, in the heart: where that candle shineth, all are framed as worthy of him, and his sight whom they see, seeing their heart.

This work is all secrete, and known of them alone in whom it is: The stranger shall not meddle with the joy of that Soul. It seeth GOD All-eye, looking on it, and layeth it self open both to see him, and to be seen of him: And that not only for to be directed, but to be allowed: The first is the warrand, to do: The second, is the seal, that it is well done.

It is their comfort against man, traducing their words and actions: When man that seeth not their heart, expoundeth them contrary to their heart, they solace themselves in this appeal in the conscience of God's both knowing, & acknowledging sight of their heart: So also it is our best, while the world either thinketh that God seeth not, or would it were so, that we ever delight to cast our hearts open to God, not because it must be so, but because that we rejoice that it is so: We count not that terrible, which we find so comfortable.

That Soul is sufficiently guarded, for its innocence and sincerity, against the scourge of the tongue, which is conscious and sensible of God's Seeing, witnessing, and approbation: The seals of that approbation in a solid peace and unspeakable joy are stronger, than can be broken by the breath of man: That lying breath cannot dissolve, but doubleth them both in themselves, and the joyful use of their possessors.

This made the holy Apostle to say with as great liberty as truth, I pass very little to be judged of you, or of man's judgment; for I am not conscious to my self of anything. 1. Cor. 4. 3. 4.

68. Rest on Providence.

SOme cares are necessar, because commanded of God, others needless because forbidden: Every day hath enough of his own grief, and we should not care for tomorrow: God relieueth us of that care: He who made the World, disposseth all, and careth for all in it: Before we were borne, he ruled all, and needeth not our help in anything; and when we shall be at rest, he will rule all.

It is a matter of pity, to see many rent their heart, when they need not: God's providence easeth us of that care, if we be at peace with him, his providence is for us, it hath nothing more in head, than to content the Lord's beloved.

If once we loose our minds to apprehensions, and fears of crosses, there will neither be end, nor remeede of them: One will breed an hunder, and everyone will multiply answerablie, so that we shall be buried and overwhelmed with fears, before the feared evil come.

But these and the like shreds of tortouring apprehensions, shall be cutted, if we close our self within the compass of a merciful providence, and this shall be, if we can persuade our self: 1. That there is a GOD. 2. And that this GOD ruleth all. 3. That all his ruling worketh together to the good of them that love him. He needeth not be afraid of anything, who is at peace with him, who ruleth all things.

By distrustful care, we offend God, and make his providence to work matters to our grief. The course and event of things I leave to God, and his providence: He is more wise see, & more able to do that which is good, than all the world. I have no care, but to see that I offend him not, either in abuse of means commanded, or use of things forbidden: This provideth with a certainty of good, a solid contentment also; When I rest on his providence, fully resolving to welcome what it bringeth. I trust his Grace will work contentment in his work when it cometh: Since I reverence it before it come: If any take on them to counsel, or command providence, or to control the work of it, let that Soul resolve to lodge in continual miscontent. It is good wisdom to keep our selves in peace with God, who directeth providence, and to submit our selves unto it, so we shall find it serve us, and God's Grace to give us contentment in the work of it.

Commit thy ways unto the Lord, and trust in him, and he will do them. Psal. 37. 5. Cast thy burden on the Lord, and he will sustain thee. Psal. 55. 22. God dwelleth in that heart that so reposeth on him, but he deserteth the Soul that chydeth his Providence. He who trusteth in God, shall be as Mount Zion, that cannot be removed. Psal. 125. 1. He shall not be affrayed of evil tidings, because his heart is fixed on the Lord. Ps. 112 7.

This is Christian Stoicism or rather spiritual Security. The old Stoics preassing to exalt the natural man, above the reach of human passion, did both thrust him out of Nature, and shake him loose of God's protection: And turned him from himself, as far, as from God: But this holy disposition maketh us rest out of our self, in God: And so to find our self secured in him.

69. Afflictions fruit.

THere is nothing more grievous to man, and nothing more profitable, than Affliction: How foolish are we in the day of trouble? We think that God is slaying us, when he is saving us: A life indeed is taken from us, but such a life as we both may and should want: Such a life as killeth our Soul, but quickeneth us by the want of it: We have a worldly and a sinful life, even our love of the things of the world: God giveth them as cords and wings to lift us up to Heaven, but we turn them in weights to hold us on the earth.

When we love our name, our goods, our Children, our body, our self, more than we ought, God hath two quarrels at these things: The one of Jealousy, because we love them to his prejudice: The other of Violence, because they detain our Soul in them.

When he crosseth us in them, then he slayeth that our life in them: He killeth it in our name by calamities, in our goods by their removal, in our friends by death, and in our bodies by sickness: Then that hurt life reteareth from a wounded member of our lot, at least doeth not so use it as of before: When we are wounded in all these, the Soul draweth from them to GOD.

If he saw us not excessiuelie affecting them, he would not wound us in them, but there is no choice, herein it is better, to live in God, than to die by a seeming life in them: And this wounding is not so meikle the work of his Providence without, as the mighty draught of his saving love within, pulling us out of that wherein we would die, that we may truly live in him.

His blessings are good in themselves, but our corruption abuseth them, and killeth us: And it is necessary that our corruption be killed, we die by the leaving of it, and in its death we live: Crosses are pressours to express our corruption, even that venom of Satan which oppresseth us. The life of God, and of sin, have their contrary growth, standing and decay in us, as the one increaseth, the other answerablie decayeth, & the reign of the one is the destruction of the other. In all crosses God intendeth the health of our Soul.

Many see the hand of the Pysician, that see not his heart; & many feel the bitterness of his potions, and the pain of his cutting, that see not the health that followeth: as the first sight of sin is fall, because it seemeth pleasant and profitable; so the first sight of Affliction is false, because we see nothing then, but loss and hurt: The second sight of sin in Repentance, is the best, because we see it vile, so is the second sight of Affliction, then we see and feel the peaceable fruit of Righteousness, and the health of our Soul.

Every sanctified cross to the godly, hath both a sensible decay of that outward life, in the blessings of God, and as sensible an increase of the life of God, in God himself. The life of God, is more strong, and manifest by such wounding, than without it. I count it no loss to want that life, that chocketh the life of God in me: the more that life is destroyed, the more I live in God, and God in me: Herein is that notable saying verified, WEE HAD PERISHED, EXCEPT WEE HAD PERISHED.

It is good for me, that thou hast afflicted me, for thereby I have learned to keep thy Law. Psal. 119. 71. Many dear Children of God in their own sense, had perished eternally, if they had not been brayed in the mortar of Affliction.

70. Man the most disobedient Creature.

ALl Creatures stand in their order to God, as he placed them in the beginning, but Angels and Men his best Creatures, brake their order, and left their place: They were best gifted, and yet fell most, yea, they only fell, and Angels better gifted than man, fell worse than Man. And now, while all is subject to vanity, Man is most refractary to God, what law God hath set for other Creatures, they keep it without any break: The Seas keepeth their bounds, and passeth them not: The Birds know their time, and slip it not: The Heavens and Earth their place, and change it not; and all Creatures follow their Creator, and are in their kind affected towards Man, as God directeth them. When he is angry with Man, they can grieve him, when he is pleased, they comfort him: Onelie Man, knoweth not, or keepeth not bounds, time, place, nor disposition like to God.

God's will findeth no rebellion in the whole Creature, till it encounter with the Will of Man: The Patrons of Free-will may be ashamed of such a Client, and in that plea do profess a captivity of their own will, in the willful defense of such a rebellious free-dome.

This is our shame, that being better gifted, we are less obedient, although that God's Law to us, be more perfect, and his disposition more revealed to us, yet his law findeth not disobedience nor his disposition a contrariety, but in us.

Unspeakable is his patience that beareth with it, and his mercy, that pardoneth it: But let us strive to be pliable both in obedience and conformity with God. The gifts of God do both engage us to obedience, and enable us for it: And disobedience is punished answerablie to the greatness of our obligement: When we see these meanest Creatures keep their course, we should be astonished; their obedience is our conviction, as they declare the work of God in their order, so they preach our rebellion, who come not near to them in obsequiousnesse to him.

71. Good men most injured.

THe Christian warfare is full of mistaking; some knoweth not the parties, other know not the cause: It is not aye e • ill men that suffer, neither at the hands of evil, neither for evil. But oft-tentimes good men, even the best do suffer, and that for God, and at the hands of good men: Grosse evils are soon discerned, and as they make a dittay and bring on punishment, so they close the mouth of the guilty sufferer: But it is more hard, when Grace and acts of Grace, worthy of love and honor, are taken for gross sins, and that not of the wicked only, but even of the Children of God. This sinister judging is in them, not as they are his Children, but as corrupted.

He is blockish, who thinketh Satan so gross, as to enjure the Saint • s only by the wicked: As he can transfigure himself in an Angel of light, so can he die the corruption of men, otherwise godly with the color of Grace, and rub upon God's Children, and their obedience to God, the color of impiety.

Grace is never contrary to GOD'S Grace, but loveth and honoreth it, as a stream of that same Fountain, and Image of that same God: It is corruption that opposeth Grace: And the like corruption in others, doeth allow that opposing corruption as grace: And condemneth injured grace as corruption.

This mistaking runneth so deep and strong, that I think never to see it mended, till Christ come in the clouds.

Let everyone, who setteth his heart to serve God, resolve to suffer at the hands of the godly, and that for good: He shall not be a loser therein: That Grace shall grow, for which he is injured. It is a weak Grace, that is not worth an injury, and a weaker, that bringing an injury from indiscrete man, cannot sustain him who is injured for it. And let everyone pray for Charity and holy Prudence, to keep us, that we offend not God, in injuring his Children, and his Grace in them.

72 God's Beggers are best heard.

IT is not between God and us, as between man and man, when man giveth anything today, he is slower tomorrow, and though some three or four days he give, in end he will refuse, and upbraid the suitor as importune, & impudent. But God giveth liberallie, and reproacheth no man. I am. 1. 5. He hath an infinite treasure, which can neither be exhausted nor diminished.

His liberality is great, and the gifts he now giveth, are not our full portion, but beginnings and pledges of that perfection, which he hath promised and intendeth to give us; till we get perfection we have not gotten the full measure that he hath ordained; & the oftener we ask, the welcomer are we: And the more we receive, the more he giveth; he counteth it good service to beg his blessings.

It is happiness for our misery, to have such a Fountain and River to run to. Our condition is all in necessity of his goodness, and his goodness is all for the help of our necessities.

GOD indented with Abraham, under the name of All-sufficient, to tell him, that as man bringeth nothing to the Covenant but All-necessity, so he should meet with All sufficiency in God: Our state is nothing, but All-necessity, a want of all good: A want of the sense of that want: So the want of an heart to desire the supply; of a mouth to ask it, of an hand to receive it, and of a price to purchase it. But this Fountain sendeth out a supply to all these wants, he maketh us feel our misery; giveth us an holy thirst of his supply, the mouth for prayer to ask, a price in Christ to obtain it, and the hand of Faith to take it.

What is more convenient to help our necessity, than this sufficiency? It is a goodness both full and free to imparte it self, that it will both help the indigent, and in a sort act some part of his work, rather than it help him not. He is willing to give alms, who openeth the hand of the beggar, and then thrusteth money in that hand which he hath opened; so doeth God to us. There was never such a meeting, never a more indigent beggar, than man, nor a more liberal giver, than God. If as we are great beggars in poverty, so also in importunity of suiting, we shall find his fullness running over to our superaboundance, and his All-sufficiency turn our necessity in sufficiency.

It is helpful in the nature of it, in that it is good, contrary to our evil, and for the disposition of it, in that it is liberal to communicate it self to our help: But he cometh nearer to us, in that he hath made the fullness of his goodness to dwell in Christ, that is near to us; that is come to our nature: All Grace is treasured in Christ our Head: Beside this approaching of Grace in him, it is near to our possession, when as he hath it, so he hath procurred by his merits, the right of it to us, & by his intercession, obtaineth it, & by his dispensation, distributeth it daily. Here are grounds sufficient, both for suiting, and confidence of obtaining.

I find him never more ready to give, than when I have new received; neither is my Soul more desirous to crave of him than when it is yet warmed with the sense of his mercy in his new received blessing: He will never cease to give, till we cease to crave, perfection is his last gift, and our greatest measure: We need, no more, nor can contain no more, when once his bounty hath perfected us in glory.

73. Good motions are of God.

WEE are not sufficient of our selves to think any good. 2. Cor. 3. 5. As every good gift, so ever good motion cometh of God.

Heereby we understand not fleeing motions of his common and t • mporarie gifts, but the constant work of his indwelling Spirit, who after our sealing by him, abideth in us: That sealing is not so much in any motion, as in himself, for we a • e scaled by the Spirit of promise, for the day of Redemption, as the earnest of our Inheritance.

Infused habits of Grace, are his great work & gift, but they will remain habits still, or rather decay, and never produce actions without his operation. His Spirit is free, and worketh where he listeth, and in them whom he possesseth, he worketh not aye to their feeling, but when he will: His working, as his Kingdom come not by observation: The waters of Bethesda had their time of wholesome troubling, and so the holy Spirit hath his own diet of powerful operation. Occasion may be offered outwardly, but the inward power can not stir it self, without his hand, who gave it.

It is a great blessing to have that virtue and power of infused Grace, and good occasions; and holy necessities in our callings, are great provocations, but above all, the holy Spirit dwelling in the heart, is to be sought, when he kythes himself, small gifes will utter themselves excellently according to their Nature: When he lurketh, great Graces are on a sleep, they can neither move themselves, nor the Soul that hath them.

The Soul is the life of the body, and gifts and Graces are the life of the Soul: But the holy Spirit is the life of them all: Both they and we are dead without him: But in his mighty operation we are quickened, and that to our feeling.

So long as I find God in mine heart, I am sure of a timeous and fruitful stirring up of his gifts, his own work assureth me of his Presence, and his presence persuadeth me of his work: His time I leave to himself, who is as wise to choose the opportunity, as he is able to work the work: If I grieve not the Spirit of promise, and be not lacking to his working; I will find tymous and powerful operation in my necessity. Every life hath its own natural actions, whereby it is both manifested & discerned, and so hath the life of God, and it is a special work of it to keep it self in us, but to be careless of it, is a work of the flesh, and not of the Spirit.

74. The right use of observing of our neighbors infirmities.

OBseruation is a Commentary of every occurrent, but that Commentar is written in the heart of the observer: It is wisdom to observe at all times, but there is no necessity to utter all our observations to other: There is as great wisdom in some cases to suppress, as to mark them.

If we see God offended, we ought not then to be silent; when we see him dishonored, it is our part as loving Children, to plead zealouslie his cause, and to admonish the offender according to our calling. But if we observe our self injured by mē, it is better to misken that wrong, and suppress our own observation.

He who travaileth through a rough Forest, should not rub on every thorn, and brier; that will both rent his garments and flesh, and stop him in the way: He is more wise, who draweth his garments hard to his body, and shifteth the touch of thorns: And (if they fasten on him) softlie freeth himself off them.

It is a safe course through this thorny world, to have no meddling, but necessar: And then not to prouo • ke men's infirmities: Or if they will rub upon us, wisely to decline or pass them over.

He who carpeth at everything breedeth much needless and endless labor: But he who passeth by tolerable things without challenge, provided great peace to himself: Observation is the eye that seeth these thorns, Patience and Prudence are the two hands, the one to decline them, the other to loose them, when they fasten in us.

This is not a political Dissembling, but a Christian disgesting of wrongs: The first is a crafty smoothering of anger, which will arise to reueng at the own occasion, the second, is a burial of it, never to reviue or be remembered. The work of observation in it self, is a good degree of wisdom, but the right use of it is greater wisdom. If we shall ever communicate all our remarkes to men, we could not have peace in the world, men are not so sanctified, as to suffer themselves to be challenged of that whereof they are guilty: Passions in their hearts when they are touched by observation, are as Lions in the den, and Serpents in their holes. To show that we see them, prouocketh a greater irrit • tion. It is better to let a Dog sleep, than to waken him: It is sufficient to know he is a Dog, and wisely to decline his barking and biting.

The particular directions of this point would be many, but this is the sum of all; to make such use of observation, that GOD be not dishonored: Our Neighbor be not offended: Our peace with God, our Neighbor, and our selves be not broken.

75. Hardness of Heart.

DOubtlesse the heart is naturally hard, and accidentallie soft, as iron holden in the fire, is hot and soft, but out of it turneth cold & hard; whē God warmeth it with a spiritual motion, and sense of his love, then it is soft as wax, but atonce it becometh as a stone: By day even under spiritual exercise it stealeth it self away from sensibleness: And in the night, though we close our eyes, under a strong spiritual sense and softness, yet in the morning, we shall find it hard in our breast: It can be hardened not by Commission of evil only, but also by omission of good, and that while we are laboring to soften it.

Next to the pleasing of God, I never found an harder task than to keep the heart in tenderness. There is no pleasure to the softness of it, and no grief to the fell • hardness of it, and yet when I grieve for that hardness, I shall rejoice; if it were incurable, it would be vnfelt. The Conscience of my endeavoring to fly sin, giveth some comfort, & the unspeakable grief for the hardness of it mitigateth that grief. An heart fully deserted of God, and judiciallie hardened, can neither feel that hardness, nor grieve for it: If I fear it and feel it, I have it not; grief for it, is a softening and loosing of hardness.

He hath need to dwell in his heart, and in these thoughts continually▪ who would keep his heart in a tenderness and affectuousnesse to God.

The best way to keep hardness out of our heart, is to entertain an heavenly heat of Devotion in it: The Altar of God had always the fire that came down from heaven. If we keep our heart under the sense of God's love to us, and the work of our love to him, that warmness shall preserve our heart in that temper, that God at no time shall want a sacrifice, nor we a comfort.

76. God's worship done as his worship.

MAny exercise themselves in the work of God's worship, but not as his worship: The Hypocrite doeth it to be seen of men, and to purchase a name of piety; the Politic to be counted a professor, and eschew the suspicion of Atheism: And the Atheist himself to feed his curiosity. It is a good work in it self, but to them who do it with by respects, it is sin. Their life do prove how profanelie they act it, they are never one whit better, but go on in their profannesse, they obtain the end that they intend, and can suit no further: Their ende is not edification in the Grace of God, but other base respects, the desire whereof cerieth them to the work, and in it they find their satisfaction, further they look not, and find not.

The end of God's worship is our union with him, to partake his forgiving goodness, in the pardon of sin, and his giving goodness in all saving Grace: The form of it, is in giving divine homage & honor to him: But they mind none of these. If they can purchase the name of zealous professors, suitors of Sermons; though indeed they be but naturally or ciuillie disposed in all the work, and seekers of novelties, they have all their desire.

But to do the work of God's worship, as his worship hath unspeakable profit; we do it so, when the love of God and his Grace allureth us, and the grief of our misery forceth us to him, when we preasse not to please men, but God, & seek not any base respect, but his Glory, & the rest & comfort, of our Souls in Christ: We take time, occasion, place, Texts, & all as God's providence doth offer them to us, & in all we seek him, & find him, & rest on him. We may both please men, and our self, and deceive us both therein, in such by-respects: Yet God will not be deceived, what ever his secrete goodness work in man, yet no spiritual fruit is due to so fleshly a disposition.

77. God's stamppe in the Soul and Body.

GOD hath reserved the immediate search and knowledge of the heart to himself: But so as he hath left some indices for others to observe it.

GOD'S Image is principally seated in the Soul, yet it is not enclosed there, but the body hath the own part in it: Election, Justification, Sanctifiation, pertaineth to both Soul & B • die; though the soul be both more capable & sēsible of them. God's treasure of Grace in his own, is so laid up in the Soul, that it may be seen in some measure in the body, and that not only as the Souls Instrument, but as a Companion: That fellowship in partaking Grace with the Soul, doeth more affect the body, than a naked Instrument.

The countenance, conuoy of business, gesture, and words, give some notice how the heart is set: Though man by Education, Letters, Religion, and Grace, be subject to a change from his natural disposition, yet there is ever some Characteristicke thing in Nature to be seen in everyone.

Hypocrisy (the fittest visorne for deceat) cannot hyde that from the discerning eye: As the color of people testifieth the soil; their language, the Nation, their accent of speech, their Prouence, as a Galilean from an Jew: So every man's Character telleth his disposition; he must cast off himself before he cast it off: It is the Souls lineaments in the body, words and deeds; if we find it, we have found out the predominant, both in its • eat, and chief instrument: It is matter for our circumspectnesse to eschew men's evil, and of our hope to look for their good: What either good or evil can be remarkable in them, is marked by, and tasteth of that stamppe.

It is good, when the natural Character is stamped with Grace; when God reneweth me to his Image in righteousness and holiness, sure I am, he will make me a signet on his arm, and his heart; when he filleth all the heart with his Grace, his Name will be written in the forehead, so that they who can, may read, Holiness to the LORD.

Courtlie attendance giveth men a courtlie countenance: And Satan's slaves by their devilish consulting with him, draw on their face, a stern rasednesse, the horror of that unclean Spirit, deformeth his familiars: And shall not the heavenly familiarity with God, give an holy impression to his daily attendants: Familiar conversing with God, made Moses face to shine.

The Soul is naturally both affected with, and affecteth the body with the things that it most loveth. And what is more excellent, or giveth stronger impression in it, than God? If we come seldom to him, we are but lightly touched of him, but if our Souls by continual mynding of him, be sub-acted by these thoughts, and kned in them, doubtless as our Spirit within, so our body without shall give some testimonies of a divine disposition.

78. Of great natural Spirits.

I Saw never greater folie, than in these named greatest natural Spirits, odd wits have as odd gaddes, no great ingyne without some mixture of madness, and their vice oft-ten doeth equal or rather exceed their virtues: No moderate thing can content them, but all their work is in excess, and that in the worst sense; their end in intending, their practice in plotting, and they choose rather to hunt an uncertain, and imaginate contentment, than to enjoye a certain and present estate.

I do not so wonder at their course & folie, in judging it, as at the world, that counteth them great Spirits: Alexanders Courtiers mocked Diogenes, but he in his Hodged, was a greater Monarch than Alexander: For he commanded Pride, Ambition, and Lust, whereunto Alexander was a slave. I will leave reasoning with those Spirits, till they come home to themselves: They are not brought home usuallie, but by some great calamity, and many, not till their death.

Moderate Spirits prove best: With little business they do much, and holding themselves within their reach, they come softlie to their just and desired ends: But the other take great liberty over their Spirites and States and outreach them both: But Providence will not be commanded of them: It c • osseth their desires, and breaketh their purposes in shiuers.

What ever Spirit we have in natural partes, it is good to have it sanctified; our care shall be helped with heavenly prudence, & furthered by God's providence: These shall bring to our hand, more than ever we could dream. The supposed base Spirites of this holy temper, do infinitely exceed these falsely named great Spirits: Their greatness is more in the worlds style, than in the thing it self, but the event will prove them great in misery, they are great only in human things, & in man's account: True greatness is in true goodness: It is a base and bastard greatness, that is separate from goodness: These two are infinitely and joyntlie in God, who is both Optimus & Maximus, thee Goodest and Greatest: There is more true greatness in the meanest degree of saving Grace, than in all the human greatness in the world. How ever the world count of their own greatness, and of the baseness of the godly, yet the Saints are God's excellent Ones on Earth. Psal. 16. 3.

79. The work of Conscience.

THE Conscience is the most wonderful power in our Soul; it is both a parte of it, and a Partie in it; a power created in us by God, & set over us with divine authority: An eye looking out on all, and most on God, and returning again, and reflecting on our self; it hath in it atonce, both a light to see God, and to see him looking on us: The work of it is 1. to direct us in the right, 2. to watch over us in obedience of that direction: 3. To witness how we obey: 4. To judge our obedience & estate with God: If we obey, to gladen us with a sweet testimony; if we disobey to grieve us with a fearful check.

These offices are fruitful, but the last is the strength and force of the other: There may be Watching, Direction, and Witnessing, and yet but slow and weak judging in it. But when the conscience is brought to some odd exercise in that judging part; the other offices are more conscientiouslie discharged. After that exercise, her watching is more particular; her directing more forcible, and her witnessing more sincere.

GOD useth a great variety in this exercise: For the Measure, some are more heavily pressed down in their sense to the lower Hell; other more easily pass that burning fire: For Matter, some tremble before that fire, for supposed or small sin, where other are scarcely touched for gross offenses: For Tyme, some know it not, to their middle or old Age; others are prevented by it in their Youth. It is in it self a fruit of sin, a process of God's justice, a work of the Law; and a cross of crosses, when the Charter of our peace with God is turned in a bill of divorcement from him: And the ordinar applyer of our comfort, applieth nothing, but wrath to us: Yet it bringeth forth a glorious fruit in the Saints, and the sooner we be schooled in it, the greater fruit.

In our Youth it is a notable preparatiō for our effectual Calling: And when Grace is weak, and corruption strong to break forth at every occasion, and Satan busy to lead us in all sin, it is then a great blessing to be bridled by these terrors: Thereby sin is restrained, and a way prepared, both for obedience and sincerity in it: The Soul that hath been burnt with that fire, will never do that which will kendle it again. He who hath seen an angry God, and beareth the marks of his anger, dare not bourd with him: Thereafter, our Reading, Hearing, Thinking, and all occasions are turned to a conscientious kno •• edge, and that knowledge is set on work, to keep the peace and approbation of GOD, and GOD in them both.

The sooner we find that Exercise, we are the sooner schooled, for keeping our Conscience, in walking with God: There goeth nothing to odds in our deeds, or words, or thoughts, but all is called to the Touch-stone, and tried how it may stand with the will of God, and peace of our Conscience. It is good for a man to bear the yoke of God from his youth. Lament. 3. 27.

He who so judgeth himself daily, and keepeth himself clean, shall find at the last day, a friendly Judge, a favorable reckoning, and the greater and sweeter Glory, by resenting his former terrors: Though Heaven be infinitely pleasant in it self, it shall be the more pleasant to them who have tasted the sorrows of Hell in this life.

Happy is he, who is conscious of his own Conscience, and both setteth it to work, and reporteth the daily fruit of that work: And more happy is he, who knowing the weakness of his Conscience suiteth God's presence to overrule his Conscience: It is indeed our Watch, but that watch hath need of a better Watch-man; and this is God's Spirit, who is that Conscience of consciences.

Whē our body waiteth on our Soul, our Soul on our Conscience, and our Conscience dependeth on God: Then God by our Conscience will direct our Soul and Body in the good way, and bless us with happy success therein: And in end eternally cease on our Conscience, Soul and Body, with his full and perfect Ioyes.

80. Tendernesse of Body, a Blessing to the godly.

A Tender Body is an heavy burden: yet it is profitable to the renewed man: Health is God's blessing in it self, but sanctified infirmities bringeth health to the Soul: Constant health in many, is taken for a natural gift, as it is not sought of God, so neither is it holden of him as his blessing, nor used to his Glory. Their minds do neither mark the course of it with joy, nor turn them to God for it.

It may seem grievous to be night & day perplexed with a weak body, but the fruit of it is better than all these pains: God giveth not health in a constant tenor, but by partes, he tapes it so piece and piece, that every hour he giveth us both matter of prayer and praise. When I find daily the sentence of death, I have daily recouse to God for life, and every delivery of every on-set is a new gift and taker of the life: It is not sought for it self, but for God, that it may be employed to his honor.

A godly Soul hath more fruitful remarkes in one day about his tenderness, than a secure Soul in a constant health in all his lifetime: I had rather undergo the bodily infirmity, than want the daily spiritual profit: It is a sort of spiritualizing our bodily life, when all the hours of it are sought, obtained, possessed, and spent on God; and these frequent infirmities are tolerable that bring so spiritual a life both to Soul and body.

Profane men abuse the strength and health of their bodies to sin: They take it as an instrument and measure of their iniquity: So long, and so far do they offend, as their body serveth them: This is a giving of their body to be a weapon of unrighteousness, and a sacrificing of themselves to the Devil: Heereafter they will wish, that their strong body had been tied to the bed continually. But tenderness in the godly, turneth all their thoughts and care to immortality.

Strength and health of body is God's blessing, but our corruption abuseth it, either to needless business, or in gross acts of sin: Tendernesse is a cross • e, but where it is sanctified, it is a bridle to hold us from sinful works, and a spurr to Devotion. It sendeth us oft-ten to God, when possibly we would be worse exercised, as oft as it humbleth it self to God, among other suits, it putteth in the hand of our Spirit, the supplication for health and sanctification of that tenderness.

There is no cross, that either more occasioneth or causeth a serious preparation for death, than bodily weakness: Whē they find daily the cords of their tabernacle loosing, and the pillars of it bowing, they deal with God for a Mansion in heaven. That weakness may possibly hinder them from some bodily work in their calling, but it stayeth them also from many bodily sin, and holdeth them ever upon the main point, how they may be clothed after this life, with glorious immortality. As abused strength posteth to Hell, so sanctified terdernesse creepeth to Heaven.

81. Matter of continual ejaculations.

NOne observing Spirit can want new matter of continual prayer to God: If he be secret, he filleth his heart in reteardnesse: If he go abroad, it is forced on him. What difficulty shall we find to converse with men? What ignorance in our self to foresee, and weakness to eschew foreseen, or secret inconvenients: When God may desert us for a time, and leave us to the counsel of our heart, like Hezekiah; or Satan surpryse us by passion, or deceive us by allurement: These and the like shall give us matter with Nehemiah, to send up piercing ejaculations to God.

It is necessar we ever be requesting God, that we neither offend nor be offended of other: The least liberty of our thoughts may draw us to grievous inconuenients: There is no sure Guarde to us & our heart, but by a special guarding Grace: and that guard is most close about us, when we feel the need of it, and are earnest with God for it: So long as there is evil in the world, malice in Satan, weakness in our self, and goodness in God, we cannot want matter of continual prayer: That same light that seeth the necessity, directeth us to the Fountain, where it may be helped: And the goodness of God persuadeth us of a supply.

Our necessity is great, and God hath promised to hear when we call, his mercy and truth in Christ, are chief grounds of my persuasion: But I am greatly confirmed by a secondary mean, when I am conscious in all my doing with man, that I seek nothing, but God's glory, man's good, & mine own Salvation: We draw near to the Throne of Grace with boldness, when our hearts are purged from every evil Conscience. The gift and liberty of fervent ejaculations, are the work of God in us: He will doubtless answer that desire, which his own Spirit worketh: We need not in such stratnesse of time and business look so much to the shortness of our ejaculations, as to their fervency.

Pluralitie of business, lack of time, and throng of company, seem to cut off the possibility of these short prayers; But indeed they beget and bring them forth: God's intercourse with the godly Soul, knoweth no such impediment: Moses distress at the red Sea forced out these secret cries, and God answered him to his desire: The searcher of hearts heareth these secret and piercing prayers, and will answer them openly.

They are not so much in voice as in groans, and these groans are not separate from the heart, but in it; and the heart in them immediately thrusting it self on God: A free desire goeth out in words; but a restrained and suppressed desire doubleth it self, as a sparkle of fire, is hotter when it is covered with cold ashes.

82. Complementing. is a windy fullness.

COmplementing in speech, is a verbal, Idolatry; it is counted a perfection in talking, but is indeed the quintessence of prattling, and vnworhtie of a free and ingenuous mind. The giver and receiver are both deceived; the first speaketh that which he meaneth not, and the other troweth that which he exspecteth not: At titling men have arms and facts of hostility without wrath, they break their spears on other, & intend none hurt; so complementing hath friendly words without love: As jesters break their jests on other, so do Politicians their smoky wishes & praise.

They live by that smoke; but modest Spirits are tormented with it: That mist fleeth moste among men of least true worth: Where that flattery is mutual, then two birds of one feather • lee together, and two horse (of one itch) do nippe other.

It is a pity to see men teach their tongs to speak lies, & to labor to be trusted more than understood: But they trow not themselves, how shall other men trust them? No mā can justly crave more credit to his speech of other, thā himself giveth to it, or if he do, he must conceat strongly that he dealeth with a fool.

He mindreh one thing, and speaketh, or rather soundeth the contrary: He knoweth his Heart thinketh not what he speaketh, and therefore he taketh the floorish of fair speech to supply the want of truth: His heart must fetch the reasons of his own persuasion from his mouth, and measuring others by himself, he thinketh that many fair words shall beguile them, as well as he beguileth himself with them.

They are no more vexed to coin their words, than I am to keep my countenance when I hear them.

Ingenuitie of affection goeth plainly to work: The more care to fill mine ears with officious offers, the less credit they find in mine heart: I think their Spirit is so spent in that vapor, that there is left neither spirit nor life in their affection.

This sort of lying is not vulgare, but with a singular mode: Poets have liberty to lie, and for keeping their Rythme, they are licenced to quite Reason ofttimes. There is none odd vein of Poesie, without some degree of abstractnes of Spirit, the strictness of meeter looseth them from the strictness of verity, and secureth them from rigorous censure for that slip: And their hyperbolees do pass for good coin. But the Complementer do lie without either liberty or license: And their hyperbolees are none other thing in broad terms, than lies in folio.

Their speeches run usually on three things, 1. large praises of some excellent worth in them whom they idol: 2. Officious offers of service as due to it. 3. And large wishes of all happiness to them. In the first, their idols know they are speaking false, except they be as senseless of flatteries, as there flatterers are shameless. In the second, their own heart giveth them the lie: For they think themselves more worthy of service, than he to whom they offer it. In the third, their Conscience checketh them for mocking of God: For they pray for that which they desire not to be granted: Yea, they would be grieved if it were granted.

They are equivocaters, minding one thing, and speaking another: Many do practice the Jesuits, mental Reseruation, who know not their doctrine: (It must be a cozening Religion that teacheth, practiseth, & alloweth such cozening.) I never suspect them more, than when they double their complements.

He is short and shallow witted, who is glosed with these flowrishes▪ Let them paint out their speech and gesture, I will give less credit to so onerous and insidious speech. I shall trow the heart and the person so affected as it deserveth: An honest meaning simply expressed, hath more weight, than all these buskinges and fairdings.

The heart that God made (but they abuse) hath the own meaning: I trust that, but not the person which they assume, and lay down, as soon as they have spent their borrowed breath. The next moment, and the first man they meet with, findeth them in another, if not in a contrary mind; it cannot bide in their heart, which bred not in it, nor was never in it: Their words are but carcases of language, and let the credulous believer look for no more, than carcase of offices. Belike, they think their words either not to be idle, or that they shall not give an accompt of them at the last day.

The Soul indeed must be filled with something, but we may soon choose better substance to fill it withal, • han that wind of frothy complementing: While they are feeding themselves with their fancies, let the children of Truth, speak the Truth from their heart.

Let complementing have the own due, without a complement: It is the birth of an empty brain; the mask of hatred & envy: Refined hypocrisy, with simulation and dissimulation, her twins ingraned; the breathing of an evil mind under hope of good deed. He who knoweth it, can neither be moved to offer it, nor patiently admit it.

83. Consciencious, Knowledge.

If our hearts were narrowly searched, Atheism would be found in them; we know better then we do, and we worship not God as we know him: We can say, That God is good, and yet neither love nor seek him, that he is just and powerful; yet we fear not to offend him: That he is wise▪ yet we submit not our selves to his Wisdom; that he seeth our heart and thoughts afar of, and yet we breed and feed wicked thoughts in our hearts, which we would be ashamed to show to our neighbor: We believe there is an Hell for evil deeds, and yet go on in the way of sin: And that there is laid up a Crown of glory in Heaven for well doing, yet we are not moved to do good. What is then in our heart for all our knowledge, but Athiesme and Infidelity: Our actions giving our words the lie, and proclaiming to the Worlde that we believe not the thing that we speak. The want of the work of Conscience, is a special cause of this fleshly disposition: Without that work, Christianity is nothing but a speculation: We consider all things in abstract, but take them not in our persons and to our heart: We can abhor sin in it self, and in our neighbors, but excuse it in our self, we magnify Virtue and Grace in it self, but yet thirst not for it: Papists talk mightily of the worth of Faith, but do scorn the sense & Conscience of it: And many Christians will hear and read their own sins, convicted by the word of God, and yet not think themselves particularly taxed, nor bide at the conviction.

Happy is that man whose Conscience pulleth all to his heart, & his heart to God, who turneth his knowledge to Faith, his Faith to feeling, and all to walk worthy of God, and to live in Christ, as he learneth him daily: He hath not rest, but in walking according to the light of a well informed Conscience: when theorie is turned to practice, and speculatiō to a conscientious sensing, & doing, then we are Christians indeed.

God's word is his stamppe, he hath deeply sunk his Image in it, but it doth not instamp our heart, except some power thrust it upon us: When the holy Spirit maketh our conscience to set that word to our heart, then we are stamped, and take deeply the impression of his holiness in the inward habits, and express it evidently in our life and conversation.

God hath blessed us with many means of knowledge, but they do no more, than propone and open matters to us: They enlighten the mind, and go no further: But the Conscience worketh mightily on the heart. It letteth nothing abide in generalities, but turneth all to our particular and personal respect, and that not in the mind alone, but most in the heart.

As it reduceth all duties, promises, and threatenings to our persons, so it joineth affection to light, and moveth the heart according to things known: And out of all draweth actions that serve to express that knowledge, and doeth all as in the presence of God.

When Conscience bringeth Religion to the heart, and from the heart to the life, then we are truly religious.

84. The wise mixture of mankind.

HOw wisely hath God tempered human societies? All are not of one disposition; some hot and some co • de, some harsh and heady in their judgment, and violent in their actions, other ryper wits, calmer in their affections, & posed in their doings: Some again as grossly senseless; some crave the bridle, and some the spurr.

If a man cast his eyes on a multitude, he shall observe as much diversity in their disposition, voices, & opinions, as in their faces. If all were of a fiery humor, the world would fire at once. If all were sluggish, it would fall down in the pot: Stirring wits as quickening barme, put the dou • nesse of the simple to working: and the slowness of the other, tempereth their fordwardnesse, and so both these extremities are brought to mids.

If either extreme prevail, matters go wrong, but our wise God maketh that counterposing bring the balance to an equal standing, and so tumultuous meetings bring oft-ten forth just conclusions. There can be no standing of matters, if either witlesnesse or willfulness predomine; but where contrars by their strife, are brought to a mids, there is the good of mankind. Our complexion is made up of contrary qualities, of the elements; and harmony is a meeting of contrary sounds.

It is worth our labor to mark this disposition, and God's prudence bringing all to a temper, and a good end. And withal to incline to a tempered and tempering wit, & moderation, of courses: If there be any fault in such moderatiō, it is both less in it self, & more curable, than the faults of fleshly extremities.

If any consider these extremes a part, he cannot be without passion; he shall offend at the heady and hotter sort as fire-brands, and at the coldness of the sluggish, as impediments of good: But being joyntlie considered as they are tempered of God, to his own glory and the well of mankind, he shall lay down his offense: Their nature and action several, is to hurt, but God causeth everyone of them to hem in another, and so disposeth them to a better temper.

But the moderate Spirit shall be beaten of both extremes: He is indeed a friend to both, and yet is counted of both as an enemy: As a Land lying far in the Sea, is beaten on both sides by waves, yet keepeth the solidity of earth: So he is assaulted of both, & yet keepeth his moderate temper. Both extremes take him for their contrary extreme: Fyrie men call him sottish, and soft men call him fiery, but he standeth at his stayed posednesse, and enduring their frivolous censure reduceth them (if they be curable) to the golden mids.

He rejoiceth in God, who hath given him eyes, to see that his divine contemperation of mankynd, and hath turned his Spirit (of it self inclinable to extremes) to moderation. While both parties stand out against other in the claim of perfection to themselves, and imputing of folie to the other, he thanketh God, who both at the first, and in the constant carriage of his adoes, hath blessed him with that temper, which they can never attain, but by Repentance and amendment.

85. Needless fears are fruitful to the godly.

EVen false and needless fears, work true good in the godly: If they come not as they apprehend, our profit is double; one in the escaping of the feared evil, the other in the great store of Grace, which they produce: It is the best sort of error, when fears prove false, and the feared evil cometh not, but that error is recompensed with a true fruit, when it draweth us near to God: There is great odds between the true and false fear in their grounds, but not so in their f • uit: For the false doeth shake us, and bring out Repentance, and resolution for death, as well the other. Beside, the contempt of the world, the loathing of the vanities of it, holy vows of better obedience to God, a renouncing of all, come of such fears.

It is great mercy in God, to work the same work of Grace in us by false fears, that he would by true fear, and the greater that our losses are less, and our lesson the same. Wise Captains can give false alarms to their Soldiers; if they go franklie to their Arms, they conceat of their courage: So, if we go to our spiritual Armor, we are not feeble; if we look to our deserving, every appearance of danger may make us fear, we are under guiltiness, and God hath us under process for it, and all Creatures are ready to execute his will, how soon may the sentence both come forth, and bring forth the executiō against us: and it is a great mercy that the fray cometh before the stroke.

His judgment cometh out in the own degrees. 1. We sin: 2. And his justice-inquiring fi • death our sin worthy of punishment. 3. Our Conscience convincing us, and justifying him, do apprehend the presage of punishment.

If all these can turn us to Repentance, happy are we, with Ninivie we shall eschew the stroke it self: we may call fear needless, in respect of the event which God in mercy with-holdeth but it is not causl • sse, so long as sin remaineth. The best way to mitigate our needless fears, is to be at peace with GOD; and if they come, to reap that good fruit of them, Repentance, Resolution, and Obedience. Grace so obtained, is well purchased, & the peace that cometh after, is double pleasant, because it is so far contrary to our deserving and expectation. All things work to the good of these that love God. Rom. 8 28.

86. Thirst of News.

ALl are not borne, or live in Athens, yet we are all sick of the Athenian disease, in a desire to hear & tell news: And that not in the younger so • t, who may have a longer time in this life, but even in the aged, who are at the end of their race: Belike they are providing fresh News to carry with them out of this life •• but such wares will give no price th • ae.

What • business in inquyring for News and in reporting of them? Scarcely are they heard when they are loathed: They become stale with the first report, and are old in the very birth, the desire is full of them at their first noise, and yet desirous of some other: To tell these same news over and over again, is as tedious as their first report was pleasant. It seemeth to be a new work of a new man: To be ever thus busied about news, but it will be found the work of the old man.

There may be, and is a fruitful disposition about News in the prudent, but that is so new to these Nouellers, that they know it not: They seek only News for News, and go n • further, than to hear, and then to 〈◊〉 of them, and that not as they hear them, but as a liberal hoas they send them away with a new porta •• ▪ They give them a large allowan •• 〈◊〉 pass for News, that is, newlie ••• mented lies.

They may have some ground of truth for their beginning, but by few reports it is buried in the multitude of new additions. We would think it strange, to see a Book have as many editions as it findeth Readers: And yet News have that current and changing Noueltie, that many reporting the same thing, make it still new by some alteration or augmenting: Books have that immunity, because they are a standing report in print; but News le • t to a vanishing report, cannot be secured from change.

It is Satan's policy to abuse our ears in • earing, our tongues in speaking, 〈…〉 our hearts in believing lies, to disabl • us from the discerning of Truth. But God hath given them to be busied ab •• t Truth.

God hath given to his own a souera ••• e remeede of that disease, to be full •• possessed • ith the best News in the worl • , and then to make a spiritual use of common News. I find these good News: That Christ is come to save sinners: And that I am one whom he hath saved: The testimony of mine adoption; the Spirit witnessing to my Spirit, that I am one of his Children: The testimony of my justification, Son be of good comfort, thy sins are forgiven thee. The Seals of mine Election and calling in the • ruites of the Spirit.

These and the like are excellent news, their matter is good and glorious: Their delight is great and constant: Though they were heard every hour, yet they are ever fresh and new to the New man: They fall neither under stalenes in themselves, nor loathing to me; but their last hearing, delighteth me as much as the first hearing.

As for other matters, I rest not on them as News, but observe in them the providence of God, how he ruleth the world by over-ruling the malice of Satan, and madness of man, to his own glory, and good of his Saints, to make them new, and to put in their mouth a new song. To be grieved with Nebemiah, when we hear of Jerusalem's desolation, and rejoice when we hear of her prosperity, is a mark of Grace in the New man: When all trifling News shall be ended, God shall put a new Song in his mouth▪ to praise him eternally. The Soul enstamped with News of Grace, turneth all occurrent News to that better and biding substance.

87. The comfort of Calumnies.

ACalumnie is the Devils mind in the mouth of Man: and his arrow shot by man's bow: He lendeth him his lies and malice & borroweth his tongue to utter them: He hath this name from traducing and thrusting through the fame of the godly. His first and main care, is by temptation, to destroy their Conscience, and if he prevail not in this, he turneth him to their name, that he may rent it by Calumnies, whose Conscience he could not defile by temptation.

This is his policy against God's dearest Children, they are most hated of him, who are most beloved of GOD: He careth not to make evil reports of his own, and counteth no great gain to defile the face of a Moore, but all his care is, to blamish the face, and stenzie the name in whom God's Grace shineth cleerelie: He knoweth that treasure in them is given for his hurt: He cannot stay God from giving it to his beloved, but he turneth him to the next, to make it fruitless to other: He cannot stay a daily and fresh increasing of that Grace, but he pr • asseth to make it distasteful to man, that so it may be fruitless.

Surelie he loseth not all his labor, though he be overcome by the Saints, whom he calumniateth, yet he overcometh them, who do calumniate them: It is a fearful thing, to lend to Satan the Heart for devising, the Eare for hearing, and the Tongue for uttering of Calumnies, and in all, to disgrace the Grace of GOD in his Children, and make it fruitless to themselves. Where Satan hath set his porter of prejudice, though Christ himself were on Earth, that Soul would take no good of him: It is a devilish work, to envy the Grace of GOD, but more, to deny it, and most of all, to disgrace it.

We find herein a great proof, of that particular work of Conscience, in justifying us: At other times we can content us with common and slender examining of our selves, but being so falsely misconstrued, we are put to a second and a stricter trial, which upon the cace of our tried innocence, endeth in a notable seal of the holy Spirit: He both approveth our first innocence as good service to God, and our suffering for it, as a just matter of our gloriation. He who offereth up his Soul and body in a Sacrifice to God, must resolve to be crucified, in his Name daily by Calumnies, and these daily blows are an argument that his sacrifice is acceptable to GOD, because Satan rageth at him, who serveth God uprightly, he knoweth that Conscience within is replete with God, and his peace, therefore he laboreth to rent their Fame without, whose inward peace he cannot trouble. It is better to have him molesting us without, than possessing us within.

The godly Soul so afflected, goeth to God in the bitterness of Spirit, appealing him as a Judge of their cause, in the Conscience of their innocence: They commit their cause to him, and prayeth for pardon to their injurers: Their innocence is both the occasion & cause of calumnies with the Devil; and the sovereign remeede of them with God and their own Consciences. Herein they have a triple conformity with Christ: He was innocent, and yet he was calumniate, and prayed for his injurers. Better it is to endure the scourge of the tongue, than want this triple conformity.

Why should we not glory in so clear an Evidence of God's special love? Satan taketh both the cause of his hatred & the measure of it from the love of God: He hateth them most, whom God loveth most: He had moe calumnies, and evil tales against Job, than against many thousands in his time: He was a thorn in his eye, because he was dearelie beloved of God, and acceptable to him.

It is then the glory of the Saints, to be calumniat: Rejoice and be glad, when men revile you, and speak all manner of evil against you, for my sake falsely. Mat. 5▪ 11. It is a token Satan hath not prevailed against our Conscience, but is now in his flight, when he renteth our Name. As strength of God's grace, keepeth the Soul in temptation, so the Conscience of innocence, will comfort the heart under Calumnies.

The hail shower of Calumnies, proveth on God's part a special love to us, and on our part true happiness, in that his love and vigor of his Grace in us, overcoming • Satan: And on Satan's part, a double malice, for that our double happiness: And in the calumniator, a double misery; one, in being the Devils instrument in calumniating the Saints, the other in defrauding themselves of the fruit of God's Grace in them whom they traduce.

The best refutation of Calumnies is not by word, but by deed; GOD and our Conscience seeth our innocence, let men see it in our life: When God's Grace shineth in us as a light before men, then we refute realy our traducers, and proclaim them liars to the world.

88. Men are blind and quick sighted in their own cause.

EVery man is both blind & seeth best in his own cause: He knoweth the circumstances of his deeds, but is blind in the question of his right: Self • -love maketh him engross his person in his deed, and transchange his deed in his right: And so confounding right and deed in his own person; to take all as good. The Laws of God and man must give place to his opinion and humor, they are either close forgotten, or being applied to him, he is made the rule, and they must suffer such construction as his self-love appointeth.

It is kyndlie to an erring mind to nurish the own birth: As it erreth in directing a cou • se, so in approving of it when it is done. It is no more fordward to devise it, than pertinacious to defend it: & herewith is joined a more fearful sin, that as his humor is put in place of God's Law, so himself is put in God's steed. If many courses that seem good, were tried to this touchstone their appearing equity would be found iniquity, and their seeming obedience to God, would prove contemptuous rebellion.

Self-love is such an enemy to truth, and righteousness, as they can never prevail at her bar: She setteth us as a center to all her supposed good, & pleadeth greatest iniquity in the terms of our wealth: In just reason, sight should master that blindness, but the tyranny of Self-love blindeth our very light.

The special remeede of this voluntar and willful erring, is to transfer both our deeds and rights to the person of some other: We would judge more vnpartiallie in that case. If we censure them in other, and apply that our censure to our self, we shall be convicted of many infirmities, which we take for perfections. If we could draw our cause, deeds, and persons in the light of God's countenance, such self-deceiving would not have place in us: Mans judgment and our own may fail us, but there is no place for deceit, if we can sincerely process our selves before God, in the person of another. The strength of Self-deceit is in confusion and assuming another person than our own, but the remeede of it is in discerning that confusion, and transferring our person to another.

89. Particulars are mixed with common causes.

I Saw never a common cause without some particulars; all may seem to concur to choose and use good means to a common end: But if all hearts were disclosed, the ends might be found almost as many and particular, as the persons: By-ends are ever set up beside the main and good end, and for these, either means diverse, or contrary to the wholesome means, are invented.

If God did not over-rule so diverse & cōtrare projects, there culled never a common course be happily prosecute: As day and night make up time, and heat and moystnesse the life and health of man; so he turneth man's cont • are particulars to his good end: He can suffer them to intend their own ends, and plotte their own means, but yet wisely in his own time, he wosteth all their particular and curious spinning in the great web of his providence.

As little Brookes falling from sundry Hilles in a great River, keep no longer their course or channel, but are carried with the River to the Sea: So men's particular ends and ways are carried within the source of God's providence to his own end.

They may fight one against another, but cannot all resist him: His over-ruling power and wisdom, maketh good matter for his end out of them all. It is a wonder to see every man draw the public to his own particular: But more, how God sustaineth the public, in so manifold and manifest direptions of it: And most of all, how he turneth them to the preservation of the integrity of it It is a grief indeed to see men spoil the common with their own particulars, yet shall it be no prejudice to God: Man may propone, but God will dispone: the moe impediments, the greater discovery, of man's folie, and the more matter for proof of God's wisdom.

There be some particulars, which agree with the public, and are rather partes of it, than particulars: They intend a common good, and quite themselves for sustaining of it, and suffer their own small stream to fall in the greater River, and so come under God's blessing to the common.

But destroying particulars fall under his curse, who is the ranuerser of all crooked ways: They are the ivie or woodbeane, that draweth out the juce of the tree, which it strictlie embraceth, & turneth the waters of the river to their own ditch: Though they suck the marrow of the public to themselves, yet God maketh it to dry their bones, and not to feed them. Such interuerters like Pharaohs lean kyne, are as lean after the devouring of the fat kyne, as before.

It is a safe proceeding, to have our end one with God, and our mids, these same which he hath commanded: If we see men vntimouslie broyle with their particulars, let us not dispare of God's end: Whither man prosper, or fail of his purpose, yet the counsel of God shall stand. Prov. 19. 21.

He hath provided great furtherance for his adoes, who refuseth particular ends: GOD who watcheth over all things for his own purpose, shall bring it to pass. We may be sure that he will accomplish our desires, when they are closed in his.

We should not stay on this only consideration, but ascend more high, to conceive, that God's mercy from eternal, purposed to determine our will to a conformity with his, that in time he might bless us in the accomplishment of our will in his.

90. The Remeede of our Corruption.

• Ho can look in his own heart with the light of God without astonishment? All our natural powers given at the first for our good, are armed for our destruction: These who should suit and rest on good, as our Desires, Love, Hope, and Ioye, &c. are set on evil: And they which should fence us from evil, as Fear, Hatred, Dispare, and Griefe, &c. are either id • e from their work, or adhere to evil: And some monstrous passion seasing it self in every faculty of our Soul playeth the tyrrant by course.

And all these to be directed by an ignorant and erring mind, and swayed by a will free indeed, but all its freedom inclining and captivate to sin. The den of lions was no more terrible to Daniel, or the fire to the three Children, than these tyrrannous passions in the heart, are to him that seeth and feeleth them: What pleasure can we have to dwell among such Vipers, and to be daily stunge by them. This is our state, so long as we sojourn in Meshech and dwell in the tents of Kedar. Psal. 120. 5.

What joy can our hearts possess so long as they boil in these corruptions, Ambition in one corner, Avarice in another, Lust in a third, & miscontment distempering all: We can neither cast them out of us, nor separate our selves from them, except we provide some remeede, we must be burnt by that fire and rent by these beasts.

If God dwell in our heart, he will quench that fire, and stop the mouths of these Lions: He turneth these powers on their abused passions, in a godly grief, to be sorrowful for them, and a godly fear to eschew them, and by their renouatiō destroyeth their corruption, and that not for their slaughter only, but for their burial: A watchful Conscience over their stirring, that they draw us not to sin, an in-calling on GOD for pardon, and assistance against their fury, a striving to defraud their desires, and cross them by their contrares, are good remeedes for our corruption.

When that work of restraining and renewing Grace is constant & sensible in us, then the jaws of these Lions are broken, and the just cause of our grief is turned in as just matter of Joy.

I wish curious Spirits who neglect their own calling as too narrow a task for their large hearts, and busy themselves on the by, to take this cure of their corruption to heart: Though they had the power of seven Souls in one, there is here matter of work for all. But in the godly it is a work of Grace prevailing against Nature, when they so curb their corruptions, that the first motions of it are choked as the Cockatrick eggs are broken, before they bring out that serpent.

91. The godly heart hath both constant war and certain Peace.

THe heart in which God dwelleth, hath both continual War and Peace, War with sin both in others and in it self: The world compasseth us with evil, and is set on one of two works, either to infect us, or to injure us. It allureth us with the own vanity, to be like it, and if that succeed not, it afflicteth us, and God moveth us to renounce it, and it cannot digest that injury, at our hand, it hath the own peace in it self, & with its own, but the godly renouncers of it are noisome to it; it hath no rest but in their separation or destructio • n

As Grace in the godly maketh them withdraw from the world, so Satan in the world maketh it to cast them out: God cannot abide the wickedness of it: His Spirit moveth them whom he possesseth to please him above all, here are the grounds of perpetual warring.

As though that were not enough, our own corruption within molesteth us, we may shune the wickedness of men, but we are never out of the grippes of our own corruption, and that as an adversary, and on the worlds part. We are no more bitterlie assaulted of the world, than checked and vexed by our own corruption, for not following the world; the outward world hath the own inward extract in us working us to a conformity to the own pattern.

But all this war troubleth not our Peace: To be so exercised is a just matter of peace unspeakable: God by his Grace guardeth us from the worlds sin, and by his providence secureth us from their injury: And that same grace that maketh us overcome the world, defeateth also our corruption: When the inward evil is subdued, the outward hath no strength against us. The sense & conscience of this batteling, is our Peace.

It is better to endure the worlds violence, in wronging us, than to be like them in sin: And better to find our corruption in a daily stir, than in a false calmness. God is good to his own, who by such dealing both maketh them daily to war, and yet keep a solid Peace.

There can be no greater joy to the godly, than to find outward and inward corruption ready to destroy them, and God delivering them from both. This is the shame of the outward, and destruction of the inward corruption: The glory of God in both these works, and our security in all. The world thinketh that they undo the godly by trouble, but they work them to their grace: Their troubles chase them to God, and God embraceth them louinglie who are troubled for his cause: When Babes are affraied, they cast themselves in the Arms and bosom of their mother. Both these troubles are fortold, and the blessing is promised: As we feel the one, we shall find the other: In the world ye shall have trouble, but in me ye shall have peace, be of good comfort, for I have overcome the world. John. 16. 33.

92. Religious Religion.

IT is good to profess true Religion, and to practice the exercise of it, but the most part go no further, and so are void of Religion it self; and the fruits of it: To stand on the outward work of praying, preaching, praising, &c. is to offer the carcase of our service to God. To worship God only with our body, is an irreligious worship; our body may be busy, but they will never fasten upon God in such a superficial work: He is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit, else none union with him.

When he sendeth out his Virtue to our Souls, and our Souls do meet him answerablie, that is inward Religion, and our binding to him; he is most true, we trust in him; He is most gracious, good and merciful, we love him withal our heart: He is moste powerful, we fear to offend him, and confide in his protection: He is most wise, we quite our own will, and reverence him: He is most holy, we adore, admire, and imitate his holiness.

It is a mocking of God (if he could be mocked) to profess an union with him, and yet be loose from him. This Union is the end, and Religion the way to it: The end of God's infusing of saving Grace in us, is to bring us to him, and bind us to him.

But he is pitifully self-deceived, who contenteth himself with a profession of Religion, and neither knoweth nor careth for this Union: He who is not fastened to God in this life, shall have no fellowship with him hereafter. It is a religious Religion, when we become one Spirit with God in Christ.

These and other points make up our inward Religion: God revealing himself in his divine properties, our Souls affecting and adhering to him in their answerable powers; this tieth us not only for the space we are in the work of his worship, but by death constantly in us: The work of Preaching, or Praying, or Praising, do end in their time, but these inward bāds are never loosed: This inward Religion doeth both set us on work, and quickeneth in us the outward exercise of it.

There is more fruit of one hours service in such a disposition, than in years business without it. He who keepeth his heart under this religious disposition, lacketh never a manifest object to worship, nor a sacrifice to offer. He is sensible of God, and the very moving of his Soul in the Conscience and sense of these bands, is a sacrifice most acceptable to God, and profitable to himself.

The fleshly minded do wonder at the constant labor of the godly in God's worship, but if they knew these religious bands, they would not wonder. Natural actions oft repeated bring habits, and these become another Nature: Shall not the work of Grace, which hath both infused and acquired habits, turn in a constant disposition.

This is not obtained in our beginning of Christianity, but after long labors in the Lord. The daily tasting of his good nesse, bringeth our hearts to such a temper, that religious disposition turneth to be our element for place, and our diet for refreshment: It is our meat and drink to converse with God, and do his will. When God bringeth us to this degree of continual minding, loving and delighting in him, and to the sense of these religious bonds with him, then our divorce with the world, and marriage with God, are near their perfection.

93. Predominant vice and virtue.

COrruption is spread over the whole man, and all in man; there is neither part nor power of Soul or Body, which is not defiled therewith: According to the several powers it hath names: Original sin goeth under one name, yet hath many branches: In one power it is Avarice, in another Lecherie, in a third Ambition: All these sinful powers though they both incline to, and urge their own work, yet have they a predominant among them; a master vice, or captain sin, which commandeth both the man and all other vices in him: It is evil in it self and worst in the kind.

Here is a mass of wonders; one that so many evil things in man can have their order and respect to other, as a Captain among Pirates by Sea, or Brigants by Land: Next, that all of them can submit themselves and suffer the predominant to strengthen it self, by their defrauding: Prid in the wretch will quite honor to purchase gain, and avarice in the proud man will quite gain to purchase honor: Thirdly that it can change with time and age, so uncleanness in Youth, Pride in midde Age, and Avarice reigneth in old age. And most of all that it remaineth in the godly: Nature neither knoweth nor admitteth this, that two contrars shall dwell at once in their greatest degree, and predominion in one power of the Soul.

This is Satan's chief fortification against God and his Grace in us: His Posterne door whereby he entereth our Soul at his pleasure: The chain whereby he both bindeth and leadeth us in captivity: And the archetratour of our Soul yielding to his temptations.

It is good, both to know it, and find remeede: Natural complexion pointeth at it, what ever excelleth in our temperature, is the ordinary seat of it, but there are more infalible signs to find it out. 1. Frequency of Satan's temptations, because he ass • ulteth us oftenest in our weakest part, and that our strongest corruption, is our greatest weakness. 2. The multitude of our thoughts, for what is most in the heart, is most in the thought. 3. The end of our imaginations: Where ever they soar, it is sure, that as a weary bird after long fleeing, they light on our predominant.

But the remeed of it is most necessar: 1. To watch over all the motions of it, with a wake-ryfe Conscience. 2. To exercise our self daily under contrary virtue. 3. To pray to God daily for his mortifying Grace against tha corruption, that thereby we may overcome that master sin.

It grieveth God to see us pestered by Satan in our own corruption: He hath provided saving remeede for his own, and erected a counter-sconse against Satan; and placed our predominant Grace in the seat of our predominant sin: Grace in it self every way is above sin; it is of a divine Nature; but sin is devilish: Grace infused, is stronger than corruption, and the New Man stronger than the Olde; but the principal Spirit dwelling in us, is above all: The meanest grace of God in his hand, is stronger than our predominant vice.

This profane Age hath multiplied predominants: Senslesnesse domineth in the fleshly men: They know not their predominant in the kind, in the change, nor in the degree. And it is a predomining Grace, to know the sorts, changes, & degrees of their vices; & oppose them by the contrary good, and virtue: It is indeed a wonderful senselessness, that letteth men not feel so many tyrants in them: He is a Slaue of slaves, who hath both loosed his liberty, and the feeling of that tyranny. But he is God's free-man that remarketh all their changes, and laboreth for the dominion of Grace in himself: Both the Son and holy Spirit have made that man free.

This is a comfortable experience of the Saints, to find their predominant sin subdued, that tyrant that gave them Laws, to take Laws & admit the own defrauding: This is an happy change whē grace overruleth corruption, and God's spirit subdueth Satan in us. There is no condemnation to them that are in Jesus Christ, for the Law of the Spirit of Life in Jesus Christ, hath delivered me from the Law of sin and of death. Rom. 1. 2.

94. Phantasies Tyrannie, and Remeede.

MAny count it a foul aspersion, to be called Phantastick; but nothing to be so indeed: For what is man, but a fountain of fancies, intending, affecting, desiring, apprehending, absurdittes, impossibilities, impieties. We imagine that which was never, can never, nor will never be: Building and casting down, forming, and reforming, and in all, a strong apprehension of great wisdom.

It is hard to determine whither the imagination be more free to fancy folie, or we more confident of the verity of it.

As Boys with their breath, raise bells out of a little water, and then do pursue them in the wind: Either they do not at all catch them or if they do, they are nothing in their hand: So is all fancied happiness, it is the work of an humorous imagination: And either never attained, or if it be, there is more vanity in the obtaining, than in the want of it.

We come from imagination of our desires to a possibility, and from a possibility to a true existing, what we earnestly desire, we think it possible, and what we think possible, be time we take it as done indeed: So great is the power of fancy, that though it cannot produce the things themselves, yet it can force us to think that they are produced: The things themselves work no stronger affection, than this fancied apprehension doeth.

It is a mould that can form many strange fashions, and as other things are formed in it, so are we our selves: Though it be in us a restless power, yet we are as oft-ten framed in it, as we grant it liberty to plat-form and fashion our lot.

If guiltiness were not joined with the work of it, it were a matter of sport to see how busy it is to weary it self and us also: And yet it were something tolerable if it took this liberty in trifles, but it ascendeth even unto God, and our lot in him: It presumeth both to appoint a course to providence, and to judge, and sentence what Providence hath done. It carueth for us, according as it conceiteth our worth, and giveth a reason to us how to count of things, as it counteth.

We dream in our sleep, and roue in our Fevers, but our fancies waking, are worse than both: For we count our dreaming and roving to be such, but we count our fancies to be wisdom: How many are dreaming and roving all their days, and yet neither waken of their dreams, nor cool of their Fever, till death or some calamity come.

Phantasies have no fixed ends to bound them: Therefore they run out as water on plain ground, or air in an open field. They are extravagant indeed, & the inter-course between a vain mind and Nothing. And what solidity can there be in a course, between such two terms, as Vanity & Nullitie? If we could hold our Spirits directly on God, & hem in all their thoughts within the compass of his will and providence, we would relieve our selves both of wearisome labor, and disappointment following.

They spend our spirit more than serious thoughts, and their end is at the best, repentance of that fruitless labor.

They are indeed but fancied errors, yet they bring a real hurt. They bereave us of the use and comfort of our present lotte upon the imagination of a better, and so at once work a double discontent: One, present in not resting on our present Lotte: Another to come, in counting our Lotte, as a loss in respect of that other Lotte which we fancied to our self: He who taketh liberty to desire much, and then devoureth that large desire, by as large an hope, will never rest content with his present Lotte, though it were too good for him.

He hath escaped the tyranny of fancy, who is full of Truth and Humility. He seeketh nothing but true good, and hath drawn the portrate of true happiness in God, that his fantasies can no more abuse him.

His mind cannot fancy so much seeming or conceated good, as he findeth true good in himself already, by the Grace of GOD: To be a Child of GOD, an heir of Heaven, and a fellow-heir with Christ, is more than all the forged birth of out-racked fancies of earthly things.

They may break in, and scan some odd excellencies for him, but at once he dasheth out these lines: He resteth so on God, and the work of his Spirit that fantasies are choked in their beginning.

Whom have I in Heaven but Thee, and and on Earth I have desired none with Thee. Psal. 73.

95. The Christians refuge.

WEe live in a dangerous time; the full measure of former sins, and the rypenesse of God's wrath maketh every hour a time for calamities. Craft and policy in Satan, wickedness in the world, and nothing in us but weakness to resist them, driveth us all to a necessity of refuge.

The most part put the evil day far from them, and are surprysed by it, they are nearest to it, who put it farrest away. Other provide for it, but do it amiss: They run to the bruised reed of Egypt, and not to the Lord of Hosts.

It is indeed a tempting of God, to neglect lawful means, but it is a forsaking of him to trust in them. There is no sure refuge in the day of trouble, but under the shadow of the Almighty. Psal. 91. 1.

Many seek surety for their goods and life, but neglect their Soul. If the Soul be well secured, all the rest shall be disponed off by a merciful providence: It is foolishness to guard them, and leave the heart guardlesse, if it be chocked with fears, what comfort have we in the safety of these things? We will have no comfort, but rather grief of them under such astonishment: The more the heart go out to outward things, it is drawn the more from it self, and from God, and more guardlesse, than if it had no guard at all.

As necessities try our disposition, so danger discovereth our refuge, because we are ready to deceive our selves with conceate of confidence in God alone, Therefore, GOD sendeth ofttimes trouble to try our hearts. Rumours of trouble are as the Hunters horn, and the trouble it self as the noise of Dogs in the Forest. What ever we run to in our danger, that is our refuge: The Soul that hath God for a refuge, runneth the first way to him, and abideth in him.

This is our best at all times, to dwell in God and find him dwelling in us: If we be in his secret, we shall be secured, he shall deliver us from outward troubles, and inward fears. God is our guard, and the peace of a good Conscience is our lurking under his shadow. Though all turn up-side down, Ps. 46. 2. yet he will give rest to his beloved Ps. 127. 2. I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he will deliver that to me which I have committed to him. 2. Tim. 1. He is a faithful dispositar, & will restore it better than it was committed, we committed to him a frail and a mortal body, and an infirm Spirit, but he shall render it to us a perfect & glorious Soul and body.

96. Mankinds threefold degree.

MAnkind is one spece of Creature, but God's wisdom hath disposed them with three considerable degrees, The first in natural gifts and abilities, and so every man hath his own natural and human privileges; as gifts of body, of mind, and of estate. The second is civil, and so every man hath his particular calling: Some are as the Head in this Body, as Kings: And other as the Breast; some as the Hand and Feet of this great Body. The third is spiritual, whereby man is the mystical Body of Christ, wherein some are as the eyes directing, as Pastors: Some the other parts of this Body according to their spiritual gifts.

It is both profitable and comfortable to take up this triple respect: Every man hath some place in every of them: God hath so disposed, that diversities of gifts, callings, and graces, serve all to make up a comely proportion, and so a beauty in mankind in every respect, all natural gifts, though diverse in kinds and degree make up a comely beauty in the first respect: All callings from the King to the grinder at the Mill, have in their variety and diversity, a comely civil beauty, everyone filling his own place, and looking to other with the respects both of necessity and help: As the meanest calling hath need of the greater, so it helpeth it again in some necessity: And all spiritual gifts in Christ make up the heavenly proportion of Christ's mystical Body.

Though mankind be the subject of this wise ranking, yet the most part of men consider it not: They see no more in man, than Soul and a Body, and outward respects in prosperity or adversity. Their sight is so short, that they neither see these diverse degrees, nor the Harmonie which is among them all: Every one answering another, and all making up that beauty: Their thoughts herein are gross and confused, and their carriage is all for confusion: They disturb the order established of God, and deface the beauty that cometh of it: And so defraud other and themselves of that fruit that God offereth in the wise ranking of mankind.

But there is some in-equality in them, for natural gifts are sufficient Furniture for the civil callings, but both the natural and civil gifts do not so rule the spiritual calling: God in things natural hath a more press course, to lay callings on men, as they are naturally gifted: But in Christianity his work is more free, therein both the gift and their place in Christ go together, and they have no ground nor reason from man, but only God's most free disposing: Consider your calling, not many mighty, not many noble according to the flesh are called. 1. Cor. 1.

The best fruit of this consideration is, to know our place in all these three respects, and to use it to the good of mankind: To be thankful to God, who hath so many ways blessed us, and so we shall be most respective to our self, and others in all these respects. As this third is more excellent than the other two, so is it the right disposer of them, God craveth of these lower respects, that all return to him, but the most part stick on themselves, and forget God: But this is the blessing of Christianity, that it maketh us worthily to carry our self both in our natural and civil place in mankind.

67. Mans threefold Perfection.

GOD hath digested mankind in three several ranks, but therewith he giveth three sorts of Perfection indifferently to all ranks: And what ever be our place in nature, in civility, and Christianity, yet these attend them. The first is natural, and that is Reason, which perfecteth man as man: The second acquired, and is Learning, a perfection to Reason, and a lifting up of man above himself: The third is divine, and that is the Grace of Christ, and true sanctification, the perfection of both these Perfections.

Reason is a sort of ground to the other two; a solid wit is a good substance both for Learning and Grace: Reason enableth the Soul fundamentallie, making it capable of good: Learning enableth it accessorielie and artificiallie; what ever be our natural gifts, or civil calling, we are the more enabled for them by Learning, so a King governeth more wisely, the Pastor teacheth the word of God more skilfullie, the Lawer pleadeth more pertinently: And the meanest Callings are done more dexterouslie by Learning.

But Grace enableth us in both, the other with a transcendent perfection; the former two may be in Reprobates, and though good in themselves yet hurtful to the possessor, & his neighbor: Great wit without Learning, is a good knife, without a whetstone, & learning without solid judgment, is as the edge of glass, it is sharp but in brittle mettell; & wit, and Learning without Grace, are a body without a Soul, a carcase of perfection, and a sharp sword in the hand of a mad mā. They serve to devise & defend evil, & so to destroy the possessors.

Grace is merelie transcendent among the blessings of God, it translateth from Nature, and maketh us partakers of the Divine Nature. 2. Pet. 1. Reason doth not so far exalt man above beasts, or letters the learned above the unlearned, as Grace doeth the sanctified man above them both: These other differences may be counted, but this of Grace is as far above them, as heaven above the earth.

Happy is the man whom God hath blessed with sound Understanding, light of Learning; and life of Grace: All these three Perfections do meet together, and rest in him, to his compleete perfection.

All these deserve great respect, but not all alike: And there is a great mistaking of many herein, Grace is incomparablie the most excellent, and most to be sought, yet least respected of many. It is counted a common and base thing, but the other are admired for their supposed excellency, yea, riches, honor and the baggage of the world, are counted more excellent, and sought more than they all: The world ever loveth that which is like it self, and misliketh true Grace.

But he who hath the Grace of GOD, surpasseth the Wretch, the Ambitious, and the accomplished man in Nature and Art: And is exalted to a degree of Angelike perfection. The first two may be in old Adams corruption, but the third is our partaking of the second Adam.

98. Providence is particular to the Saints.

ALl things are subject to Providence, & this is the godly man's priueledge, that he is both sensible and conscious of it: Grace in him maketh these fruitful Observations, and then disposeth him with Love, and dependence on God, who sweyeth it so sweetly to his good.

Many blessings it bringeth to us, we know not how: Many are our seen dangers, and our dangers unseen by many millions exceed them, but God by his merciful Providence delivereth us out of them all.

Though we see not Satan, yet at every moment he would swallow us up, if God defended us not: He either with-holdeth occasions of evil that they come not, or if they come, he restraineth their work, that they hurt us not. It is impossible to see all the goodness of his Providence to us, but he acquainteth us with some of them, that we may see his goodness in the rest.

The particular respect of Providence to the godly may be seen in two special things: In the furthering of our designs, and in the crossing of them: for the furtherance, how doeth God tell us that he watcheth for us? We have possibly some business in hand, and have necessity of some persons, and occasions, and circumstances, and with all we are perplexed, how these things shall be brought together: God bringeth them to our hand, we go out full of desires, and as full of solicitude how to satisfy them. And he maketh men, time, and occasion to tryst so together, that our desires are satisfieth, and our expectation overcome.

Oft-times at the going out of our doors, we encounter with men, and occasion, longed for and desired, that our very imaginations could not devise better opportunity for our adoes. This cometh neither of our desert nor our disposing, but of God's mercy wy • ding and turning all about to their good, who depend on him. It is his will who ruleth the world, and hath the ways of all creatures in his hand, to dispose times, ways, and all, so as may best fit their desires who are at peace with him.

The crossing of our designs have no less proof of his Fatherlie care, how oft do we fret in our self, and chyde men for their neglects, that bring disappointment to our designs, and yet if we can have patience for a time, we shall find that disappointment to our greater contentment: He blesseth us in a means and way known to himself sevenfold more, than if our first desire had been accomplished: No, he turneth our chyding off men upon our self and our miscontentment for the first disappointment, in a thanksgiving that we were disappointed: If we could at such crossings rest on God, and persuade us, it is for a better in that same point wherein we are crossed, we should find in end our expectation were the work of his own Grace.

Scarcelie shall a day go over without some occasion of this Observation: If we mark it not, we are vngrate to so particular and gracious Providence: If we mark it aright, as furtherences, shall give us contentment so these disappointments shall give us patience, till a double contentment come.

99. The sight of a new and a better World in this old bad one.

• EE are called unto, and do profess a Pilgramage in this world, but how few do either understand or practice it? Some profess a contempt of it, and yet ofttimes are courting its applause by that contempt.

He is as well a slave of the world, who thirsteth her applause, as he who courteth her vanities, and that far more; because her applause is her vainest vanities: And others possibly shift themselves both of her vanity and love, and yet are not fastened on a better. He is foolish who loseth one thing, & findeth not another.

But the truly godly man, seeth and followeth a better world in this wicked one, we have in this visible world, an Heaven, and Stars, Earth, Air, and Creatures for our temporal use: But the spiritual eye taketh up an higher one: He seeth GOD for his Sun, and from his Face taketh his Light, from his Love his Warmenesse, from his Presence his Seasons: It is light and Day, when he shyneth on our Soul in the Face of Christ: It is Night & horrible darkness when he hydeth his Face. The course of his times, run not as in the world: The heavenly Day may fall at the midst of the natural night, & heavenly Summer and Harvest in the midst of the natural winter. Even at mid-night it is mid-day, in that Soul where God maketh our reins to teach us knowledge.

All Seasons are numbered by his F • ce allcane • lie: The earth of this world, is the Rock of Zion, Jesus Christ. No stability or rest to the Soul, but in him: The Air is the sense of his Favor and the comfortable Creatures are his Saints, who walk with him in righteousness and holiness.

This heavenly world is better, than that visible one, and will remain when the other is destroyed. It is a strange conceate in them, who by an odd Prospect seeth an earth, and cities, and men in the Moon: That fiction and fancy is verified in this Truth: The spiritual man seeth this heavenly world in the temporal one.

And with that same light, he seeth an hellish world in this visible one: For what is Satan abusing the world, and leading it in evil? but erecting of a world of his own, in the defacing of this created world.

These are solid grounds, to make us strangers on earth, and Burgesses in Heaven, when we take up these worlds distinctly: And the more cleerelie we see them, there will be less difficulty to forsake the evil, and • eeke the good one: Let the men of this world reckon their Seasons, Tymes, and Occasions by this world that they see: Our reckoning is better and surer by that supernatural one. They change their Almanackes from time to times: But our Sun of Righteousness shall distinguish our Seasons, and shine upon us both in this life and in Heaven.

This sight is the work of a new light and is to be found only in the new man whom God hath ordained for the new Heaven and for the new Earth: His Calender is neither directed by Stars in heaven, nor Tydes in the Sea, nor Horologes on the Earth: His Sun and stars is God's Face, his Tydes are the ebbing and flowing of the influences of Grace: And his Horologe the secret, yet the strong motions of God's Spirit, showing the increase of Grace in the own periods, though the promouing of it be oft-ten hid from us.

This Earth is a sort of mids between Heaven and Hell, and yet both of them have their image & beginning in it: We are called to forsake the evil, and seek the good, and what worse than Satan, and sin • e, and the wicked? And what better than GOD, his Grace, and his Saints,? If we see these distinctly, we shall be the more enabled to move our self from the evil to the good. This sight is the work of Grace, but the natural man taketh all confusedly, he neither seeth nor seeketh better than the world: And if he make any distinction, it is false, he forsaketh good as an evil, and cleeueth to evil as his happiness.

100▪ God is the dwelling place of the godly Soul.

EVerie Creature hath the own element and rest, for dwelling security, and delight; therein they are both frequentlie, and pleasantlie: It is a means to try our state by our resort and rest: The Worldling is ever in the world; there is no difference between him and the Earth, but that the one liveth, and the other doth not; and this that liveth is worse than the other, because he liveth in sin.

The godly Soul resteth on God▪ in all business it looketh to him, and all the thoughts of it end in him; to him above all it returneth, & resteth pleasantlie in him, and from him it cannot be rent: All being and business out of him, is a vexation, and our greatest labor is sweet by this only, that it goeth to him, and is acceptable to him.

God dwelleth in that Soul that cannot rest but in him; he hath loved it from eternal, and called it in time to himself, that is so taken with him and his delights: No rendezvous is so known to any Creature, and used of it, as God is to that Soul that resteth in him.

A proof of this rest, is God resting in us: In all the world he found not rest but in man: When he created the Heaven and the Earth, all Beasts and Fowls, he rested not til he created man, his Benjamin, his last Creature in work, but his first in affection, there he rested as in the end of his Creation.

His delight is to dwell with men, and among men with the godly, for them only of all mankind hath he assumed to union in Christ. If we find him dwell in us, then surely we dwell in him, & we may easily know if Christ dwell in us, except we be Reprobats. 2. Cor. 5.

There is great wisdom in choosing the best Lodging: We lodge now conuenientlie in our Body, but at Death it will cast us out, and the world our pleasant House will decay: We rest now in our contentmentes, but must flitte from them.

But God can neither decay nor cast us out, and at Death we shall still abide in him: We need not then flitte from him, but ascend, and be more joined to him: We cannot have Tabernacles here, nor abide, no, not in the beginnings and growth of Grace, which is now our contentment, but shall be received, and bide in everlasting Mansions that are in him.

Man naturally inclineth to two things, his beginning and end: His beginning recalleth him by right of his Original: The fishes will visit the place of their spawning yeerelie: And men of an hurt health, return to their native soil; as the air which they took in at their birth, gave them the first outward matter of their natural Spirits, so the use of it may bring them back again to their first integrity: The end calleth us to it, by right of perfection: the pryse of the runner, & the house of the Traveler are earnestly desired. So is it to the godly: Our beginning in Grace, is in God: The River of living waters flowe out from the Sanctuary, from under the Throne of GOD, and the Lamb.

The Grace of election hath no latter beginning than eternity, nor lower descent than heaven, and turneth us up to it again: The waters of life which Christ giveth us, shall be a fountain in our belly springing up to life eternal. How can it in our belly spring up to life eternal? but because it lifteth our hearts to GOD in Heaven.

The Soul which so adhereth to God, is more in him, than in the body, which it quickeneth: both because it goeth gladly out of it self, to be all in him; and next, because it cannot dwell in it self, but because of him; it can better dwell among Monsters in the desert, that in it self without him: And thirdlie, because when it is lost in sin and security, it seeketh and findeth it self more in him, than in it self: When we may say to him, O thou whom my Soul loveth! All these sorts and degrees of union with him are found.

The bosom of the mother is a kindlie rest to the Babe, both for sleep in health, & recovery in swerving; that natural heat wherein it was formed, doth kindlie cherish that life, that proceedeth of it: Whē we lie always in the bosom of God, and are warmed by the sense of that saving love in Christ, we are both sensible of the virtue of our beginning, and of the first fruits of our end.

The Needle of the Dial standeth not but towards the Pole, so doeth the godly Soul to God. If the secret virtue of a small stone can so move iron, shall not the Rock of Zion, Christ Jesus, the Miracle of love, draw our tender loving hearts unto him. How securlie shall we contemn all other things, and rest sweetlie content in him, under the sense of this his drawing and uniting virtue, expecting that happiness, which his saving Love procureth to his Beloved: Return now, O my Soul to thy Rest, and abide in it, for GOD hath been, and will be forever beneficial unto thee. Psal. 116. 7. AMEN.