Susurrium cum Deo soliloqvies, or, Holy self-conferences of the devout soul upon sundry choice occasions with humble addresses to the throne of grace : together with The souls farwell to earth and approaches to heaven / by Jos. Hall. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. This text is an enriched version of the TCP digital transcription A45322 of text R2803 in the English Short Title Catalog (Wing H420). Textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. The text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with MorphAdorner. The annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). Textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. This text has not been fully proofread Approx. 260 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 204 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. EarlyPrint Project Evanston,IL, Notre Dame, IN, St. Louis, MO 2017 A45322 Wing H420 ESTC R2803 09542686 ocm 09542686 43559 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A45322) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 43559) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1332:31) Susurrium cum Deo soliloqvies, or, Holy self-conferences of the devout soul upon sundry choice occasions with humble addresses to the throne of grace : together with The souls farwell to earth and approaches to heaven / by Jos. Hall. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. Soules farewell to earth and approaches to heaven. This text is an enriched version of the TCP digital transcription A45322 of text R2803 in the English Short Title Catalog (Wing H420). Textual changes and metadata enrichments aim at making the text more computationally tractable, easier to read, and suitable for network-based collaborative curation by amateur and professional end users from many walks of life. The text has been tokenized and linguistically annotated with MorphAdorner. The annotation includes standard spellings that support the display of a text in a standardized format that preserves archaic forms ('loveth', 'seekest'). Textual changes aim at restoring the text the author or stationer meant to publish. This text has not been fully proofread [8], 391, [3] p. Printed by Will. Hunt and are to be sold by George Lathum Junior, London : 1651. "The sovles farewell to earth and approaches to heaven" (p. 307-391) has special t.p. Reproduction of original in the British Library. eng Devotional literature. A45322 R2803 (Wing H420). civilwar no Susurrium cum Deo. Soliloquies: or, Holy self-conferences of the devout soul, upon sundry choice occasions, with humble addresses to the thr Hall, Joseph 1651 47107 15 0 0 0 0 0 3 B The rate of 3 defects per 10,000 words puts this text in the B category of texts with fewer than 10 defects per 10,000 words. 2005-11 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2006-04 Jonathan Blaney Sampled and proofread 2006-04 Jonathan Blaney Text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion SUSURRIUM CUM DEO SOLILOQVIES : OR , Holy Self-Conferences of the DEVOUT SOUL , upon sundry choice Occasions , With Humble Addresses to the Throne of Grace . Together with The Souls Farwell to Earth , AND Approaches to Heaven . The second Edition . By JOS. HALL , B. Norwich . LONDON , Printed by Will : Hunt , and are to be sold by George Lathum junior , at the Signe of the Bishops Head in St Pauls Churchyard . 1651. THE AUTHORS SVPPLICATORY DEDICATION . TO thee only , O my God , who hast put these holy Thoughts into my soule , doe I most humbly desire to Dedicate both my selfe and them ; Earnestly beseeching thee graciously to accept of both : And that thou wouldst be pleased to accompany and follow these my weak practicall Devotions , with a sensible blessing in every Reader . Let these good Meditations not rest in the eie , but descend into the Bosome of the Perusers : and effectually worke in their Hearts , that warmth of pious Affections , which I have here presumed to exemplifie in mine ; To the glory of thy great Name , and our mutuall comfort , in the day of the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus . Amen . THE Heads of the severall Soliloquies . 1. The best Prospect . 2. The happy Parting , 3. Heavenly conversation . 4. Love unchangeable . 5. The Happiest Object . 6. Vnchangeable duration . 7. Trust upon Triall . 8. Angelicall Familiarity . 9. The unanswerable Christian . 10. Hellish Hostility . 11. False Joy . 12. True Light . 13. Bosome-Discourse . 14. The insensible fetters . 15. Satans Prevalence . 16. Leasurely growth . 17. Allowable variety . 18. Misconstructions of holinesse . 19. Two Heavens in one . 20. The stock imployed . 21. Love of Life . 22. Equall Distribution . 23. The Bodies subjection . 24. The ground of unproficiency . 25. The sure Refuge . 26. The light Burden . 27. Joy intermitted . 28. Vniversall Interest . 29. The spiritual Bedleem . 30. The difference of actions 31. The necessity of labour . 32. Acquaintance with heaven . 33. The All-sufficient knowledge . 34. Poor Greatness . 35. Acceptation of desires . 36. Heavenly ioyes . 37. Mixed Contentments . 38. True Wealth . 39. False Light . 40. The haste of Desire . 41. Deaths remembrancers . 42. Faiths victory . 43. The unfailing friend . 44. Quiet Humility . 45. Sure Mercies . 46. Dangerous Prosperity . 47. Cheerfull Obedience . 48. Heavenly accordance . 49. Divine Bounty . 50. Sweet use of Power . 51. The power of conscience . 52. Proud Poverty . 53. The happiest Society . 54. Honey from the Rock . 55. Sure Earnest . 56. Heavenly Manna . 57. The Hearts treasure . 58. The narrow way . 59. Gods various proceedings . 60. The waking Guardian . 61. The sting of guiltines . 62. Beneficiall want . 63. Interchange of conditions . 64. The rule of devotion . 65. Hels triumph . 66. Dumbe homage . 67. Indifferency of events . 68. The transcendent love . 69. Choice of seasons . 70. The happy return home . 71. The confinements of Age . 72. Sin without sense . 73. The extremes of devotion . 74. The sick mans vowes . 75. The suggestions of a false heart . 76. Sacred Melody . 77. Blemishes of the holy Function . 78. The blessed reward . 79. Presages of judgement . 80. Vnwearied motion , and rest eternall . June the 26th , 1650. I Have perused these divine and holy Soliloquies between God and the faithfull Soule , and doe finde them to bee so pious and profitable , so sweet and comfortable , and full of pious and spiritual devotion , that I judge them well worthy to be Printed and Published . IOHN DOWNAME . Selfe-Conferences . Soliloq . I. The best Prospect . O My God , I shall not bee worthy of my eyes , if I think I can imploy them better , than in looking up to thy heaven : and shall I not be worthy to look up to heaven , if I suffer my eyes to rest there , and not looke through heaven at thee , the Almighty Maker and Ruler of it ; who dwell'st there in all glory and Majesty ; and if seeing thee I doe not alwaies adore thee , and find my soul taken up with awfull and admiring thoughts concerning thee : I see many eyes have looked curiously upon that glorious frame else they could not have made so punctuall observation of the fire , and motion of those goodly Globes of light , which thou hast placed there , as to fortell all their Conjunctions , and Oppositions , for many hundred yeeres before ; but , whiles they look at the Motions , let me look at the Mover ; wondring , not without ravishment of spirit , at that infinite Power and Wisddome , which keepes up those numberlesse and immense bodies in so perfect a regularity , that they all keepe their just stations , and times , without the least varying from the course which thou settedst them in their first Creation ; so whiles their observation makes them the wiser , mine shall make me the holier . Much variety of Objects hast thou given us , here below , which do commonly take up our eyes ; but it shall bee my fault , if all those doe not rather lead my thoughts to thee , than withdraw them from thee ; since thy power and Majesty is clearly conspicuous in them all . O God , whiles I have eyes , let me never but see thee in all things , let me never but enjoy thee ; Let me see thee here as thou maiest be seen , by the eye of faith , till I may see , as I am seen , hereafter , in glory : Let me see thee as through a glasse darkly here on earth , till I may come to see thee face to face in Heaven . Soliloq . II. The happy parting . I Have lived divers yeers longer than holy David did ; yet I can truely say with him ; if that Psalme were his which hath the Title of Moses ; We have brought our yeares to an end , as it were a tale that is told : Me thinks , O my soule , it is but yesterday since we met ; and now we are upon parting ; neither shall we , I hope , be unwilling to take leave ; for what advantage can it bee to us to hold out longer together ? One peece of me cannot but grow more infirme with use and time ; and therupon must follow a decay of all faculties , and operations : Where the Tooles are growne bad and dull , what worke can be exquisite ? Thou seest it then necessary , and inevitable that we must yeeld to age , and grow worse with continuance . And what privilege can meer time give us in our duration ? We see the basest of stones last longer than the durablest plants ; and we see trees hold out longer then any sensitive Creatures ; and divers of those sensitive Creatures out-last man , the Lord of them all : neither are any of these held more excellent because they weare out more houres : Wee know Henoch was more happy that was fetcht away at three hundred sixty five yeares , than Methuselah at nine hundred sixty and nine : Difference of age doth nothing but pull downe a side where there are not supplies of increasing abilities . Should we continue our partnership many yeares longer , could wee hope for more health and strength of body , more vigour of understanding and judgement , more heate of good affections ? And can wee doubt that it will be else-where better with us ? Doe wee not know what abides for us above ? Are we not assured that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved , we have a building of God , an house not made with hands , eternall in the heavens . Why therefore , oh , why , should ye be loath to part upon faire termes ? Thou , O my soule , to the possession of that happy Mansion , which thy deare Saviour hath from eternity prepared for thee in his Fathers house : and thou , O my body , to that quiet repository of thy Grave , till ye both shall happily meet in the blessed Resurrection of the just , never , never to be severed ? Soliloq . III. Heavenly Conversation . IT matters not a little with whom wee hold our familiar Conversation ; for commonly wee are transformed into the Dispositions and manners of those whose company we frequent : We daily see those who by haunting the society of Drunkards , and debauched persons , have from civill and orderly men growne into extremity of lewdnesse ; and on the contrary , those who have consorted themselves with the holy and vertuous , have attained to a gracious participation of their sanctity : Why shouldst thou not then , O my soule , by a continuall conversation with God , and his Angels , improve to an heavenly disposition ? Thou canst not , whiles thou art here , but have somewhat to doe with the world ; that will necessarily intrude into thy presence , and force upon thee businesses unavoidable ; and thy secular friends may well looke to have some share in thy sociable entertainements : But these are but goers and commers , easily and willingly dismissed , after some kind interlocutions : The Company that must stick by thee is spirituall , which shall never leave thee , if thou have the grace to apply thy selfe to them upon all occasions . Thou maist hold faire correspondence with all other not offensive companions ; but thy entirenesse must be onely with these . Let those other be never so faithfull , yet they are uncertaine ; bee their will never so good , yet their power is limited ; these are never but at hand , never but able , and willing to make and keepe thee happy . O my God , thou seest how subject I am to distractions ; Oh hold mee close to thee : Let me enter into the same company here in my Pilgrimage , which I shall for ever enjoy hereafter in my home . Solilo . IV. Love unchangeable . OUr younger years are wont to bee delightted with variety , and to be much affected to a change , although to the worse : The childe is better pleased with his new Coat , though the old be farre handsomer : Whereas age and experience fixeth our desires and teacheth us to set the greatest vallue upon those good things wherewith we have been longest acquainted . Yea , it is the generall disposition of nature to be cloyed with continued blessings , and upon long fruition to complaine of that good which we first commended for pleasing , and beneficiall : What could relish better with the Israelites the first morning than the Angels food which fell downe from heaven every day about their Campe ? the taste whereof was like to wafers made with honey : If we stay but a while , wee shall , ere many yeeres , heare them calling for the Onions and Garlike of Egypt ; and crying out : Now our soule is dried away ; there is nothing but this Manna before our eyes . Our wanton appetite is apt to be weary of the best blessings , both of earth and heaven , and to nauseate with store : Neither is any thing more tedious to us , than the enjoyned repetition of a daily-tasked Devotion . But contrarily , Grace endeares all blessings to us by their continuance , and heightens our affections , where they are rightly placed , by the length of the time of their enjoying . O God , it is thy mercy that thou hast vouchsafed to allow mee an early interest in thee , even from my tender yeeres , : the more and longer I have known thee , the more cause have I still found to love thee , and adore thee ; Thou art ever one and unchangeable ; Oh make thou my heart so ; Devote thou me wholly unto thee ; and by how much cooler my old age is in all other affections , inflame it so much the more in my love to thee . Solil . V. The happiest Object . IF we could attaine to settle in our thoughts a right apprehension of the Majesty of God , it would put us unto the comfortable exercise of all the affections that belong to the Soule : For surely , if wee could conceive aright of his Omnipotent power , and transcending glory , and incomprehensible infinitenesse , we could not but tremble before him , and be alwaies taken up with an adoring feare of him : And , if we could apprehend his infinite goodnesse both in himselfe and to mankinde , wee could not but be ravished with a fervent love to him , and should thinke our selves happy , that we might bee allowed to love such a God ; and if we could conceive of that absolute beauty of his holinesse , and blissefull presence , we could not but be enflamed with a longing desire to enjoy such a God ; and if wee could apprehend all these ; we could not bee but both transported with an unspeakeable joy , that we have a sure interest in a God so holy , so good , so almighty , so glorious , and stricken with an unexpressible griefe , that we should either offend him , or suffer our selves to want but for a moment the feeling presence of that all-sufficient , and all-comprehending Majesty : On the contrary , those men begin at the wrong end , who go about to draw their affections to God first , and then after seeke to have their mindes enlightned with right conceits of his Essence and Attributes : who meeting with those occurrent Temptations , which mainly crosse them in their desires and affections , are strait set off from prosecuting their good motions , and are as new to seeke of a God , as if they had never bent their thoughts towards heaven . O God , let it be the maine care of my life , to know thee , and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ thy Son my Saviour . I cannot through thy mercy fail of an heavenly disposition of soule whiles I am here , and of a life of eternall glory with thee hereafter . Solilo . VI . Vnchangeable duration . IN the first minute wherin wee live , we enter upon an eternity of being ; and , though at the first , through the want of the exercise of reason , we cannot know it ; and afterwards , through our inconsideration , and the bewitching businesses of time , we doe not seriously lay it to heart , we are in a state of everlastingnesse ; there must upon the necessity of our mortality be a change of our condition , but with a perpetuity of our being ; the body must undergo a temporary dissolution , and the soule a remove , either to blisse or torment ; but both of them , upon their meeting , shall continue in an unchangeable duration , for ever and ever : And if wee are wont to slight transitory and vanishing commodities , by reason of their momentany continuance , and to make most account of things durable ; What care and great thoughts ought I to bestow upon my selfe , who shall outlast the present world ; and how ought I to frame my life so , as it may fall upon an eternity infinitely happy and glorious ? O God , doe thou set off my heart from all these earthly vanities , and fix it above with thee . As there shall bee no end of my being , so let there bee no change of my affections ; Let them before-hand take possession of that heaven of thine , whereto I am aspiring : Let nothing but this clay of mine bee left remaining upon this earth whereinto it is mouldring ; Let my spirituall part bee ever with thee whence it came , and enter upon that blisse which knows neither change nor end . Soliloq . VII . Trust upon Triall . WHat a Providence there is over all the creatures in the world , which both produceth them to their being , and over-rules , and carries them on , to and in their dissolution without their knowledge , or intended cooperation ; but for those whom God hath indued with the faculty of ratiocination , how easie is it to observe the course of the divine proceedings with them , how that all-wise God contrives their affaires and events quite beyond , and above the power of their weak projections ; how he prevents their Desires , how he fetches about inexpected and improbable occurrences to their hinderance , or advantage ; sometimes blessing them with successe , beyond all their hopes , sometimes blasting their projects , when their blossomes are at the fairest ? Surely , if I looke onely in a dull stupidity upon the outsides of all accidents , that befall me , and not improve my reason and faith to discerne , and acknowledge that invisible power , that orders them to his owne , and their ends , I shall bee little better than bruitish ; and if upon the observation of all that good hand of God , sensibly leading mee on , in all the waies of my younger , and riper age , in so many feeling and apparent experiments of his gracious provisions and protections , I shall not have learned to trust him with the small remainder of my daies , and the happy close of that life which he hath so long , and mercifully preserved , the favours of a bountifull God shall have been cast away upon a barren , and unthankfull heart . O God , I am such as thou hast made me , make up thy good worke in me , and keep me that I do not marre my selfe with my wretched unbeliefe , I have tryed thee to the full ; Oh that I could cast my selfe wholly upon thee ; and trust thee both with my body and soule , for my safe passage to that blessed home ; and for the perfect accomplishment of my glory , in thine . Soliloq . VIII . Angelicall Familiarity . THere is no reason to induce a man to thinke that the good Angels are not as assiduously present with us , for our good , as the evill Angels are for our hurt ; since we know that the evill spirits cannot bee more full of malice to work our harm , than the blessed Angels are full of charity , & wel-wishing to mankinde ; and the evill are only let loose to tempt us by a permission of the Almighty , wheras the good are by a gracious delegation from God encharged with our custody ; Now , that the evill spirits are ever at hand , ready upon all occasions to present their services to us for our furtherance to mischiefe , appeares too plainly in their continuall temptations which they inject into our thoughts ; in their reall and speedy operations with the spels and charmes of their wicked Clients , which are no lesse effectually answered by them , immediately , upon their practice , than naturall causes are by their ordinary and regular productions . It must needs follow therefore , that the good Angels are as close to us , and as inseparable from us : and though we see neither , yet hee that hath spirituall eyes perceives them both , and is accordingly affected to their presence . If then wicked men sticke not to goe so far as to endanger , and draw on their owne damnation , by familiarly conversing with malignant Spirits ; Why should not I for the unspeakable advantage of any soule affect an awfully-familiar Conversation with those blessed Angels which I know to be with me ? The language of spirits are thoughts : Why doe not I entertaine them in my secret cogitations , and hold an holy discourse with them in mentall allocutions ; and so carry my selfe as that I may ever hold faire correspondence with those invisible companions , and may expect from them all gracious offices , of holy motions , carefull protection , and at last an happy conveyance to my glory ? O my soule , thou art a Spirit , as they are ; doe thou ever see them , as they see thee ; and so speak to them , as they speake to thee ; and blesse thy God for their presence , and tuition ; and take heed of doing ought that may cause those heavenly guardians to turne away their faces from thee as asham'd of their charge . Soliloq . IX . The unanswerable Christian . IT is no small griefe to any good heart that loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity , to see how utterly unanswerable the greater sort of men that beare the name of Christ are to the example and precepts of that Christ whose name they beare : He was humble and meeke , they proud and insolent ; hee bade us love our enemies , they hardly can love their friends ; he prayed for his persecutors , they curse ; hee that had the command of all , cared not to possesse any thing , they not having right to much , would possesse all ; hee bade us give our Coat also to him that takes our Cloak , they take both Coat and Cloake from him that hath it ; he bade us turne our cheek for the other blow , they will bee sure to give two blowes for one ; he paid obedience to a Foster Father , and tribute to Caesar , they despise Government ; his trade was onely doing good , spending the night in praying , the day in preaching and healing ; they debauch their time , revelling away the night , and sleeping away , or mispending the day ; he forbad Oaths , they not onely sweare and forsweare , but blaspheme too ; hee bade us make friends of the Mammon of unrighteousnes , they make Mammon their God ; hee bade us take up his Crosse , they impose their own ; he bad us lay up our treasure in heaven , they place their heaven in earth ; he bids us give to them that ask , they take violently from the owners ; he bade us return good for evill , they for good return evill ; he charged his Disciples to love one another , they nourish malice and rancor against their brethren ; hee left peace for a Legacy to his followers , they are apt to set the world on fire : His businesse was to save , theirs to destroy . O God , let rivers of waters run downe mine eyes because they do no better keep the law of thy Gospel . Give grace to all that are called by thy name , to walke worthy of that high profession wherto they are called : And keepe me thy unworthy servant that I may never deviate from that blessed patterne which thou hast set before me : Oh let mee never shame that great name that is put upon me : Let mee in all things approve my self a Christian in earnest ; and so conform my selfe to thee , in all thy example and commands , that it may be no dishonour to thee to owne mee for thine . Soliloq . X. Hellish Hostility . I Cannot but observe how universall it is in all kindes for one creature to prey upon another , the greater fishes devoure the lesse , the birds of Rapine feed upon the smaller Foules , the ravenous wild beasts sustaine themselves with the flesh of the weaker and tamer cattle ; the Dog pursues the Hare , the Cat the Mouse ; Yea the very Moale under the earth hunts for the worm , and the Spider in our Window for the flye : Whether it pleased God to ordain this antipathy in nature , or whether mans sin brought this enmity upon the creature I enquire not , this I am sure of ; that both God hath given unto man ( the Lord of this inferiour world ) leave and power , to prey upon all these his fellow-creatures ; and to make his use of them , both for his necessity , and lawfull pleasure ; and that the God of this world is only hee that hath stirred up men to prey upon one another ; some to eat their flesh , as the savage Indians ; others to destroy their lives , estates , good names : this proceedes only from him that is a murtherer from the beginning . O my soule , doe thou mourne in secret to see the great enemy of mankinde so wofully prevalent as to make the earth so bloody a shambles to the sons of men ; and to see Christians so outragiously cruell to their own flesh : And O thou that art the Lord of Hosts , and the God of peace , restraine thou the violent fury of those which are called by thy name , and compose these unhappy quarrels amongst them that should be brethren . Let me ( if it may stand with thy blessed will ) once again see peace smile ore the earth , before I come to see thy face in glory . Soliloq . XI . False Joy . AMongst these publicke blusters of the World , I finde many men that secretly applaud themselves in the conceit of an happy peace which they find in their bosom : Where all is calme and quiet ; no distemper of passions , no fear of evill , no sting of remorse , no disturbance of doubts ; but all smoothnesse of brow , and all tranquility of minde ; whose course of life , yet , without any great enquiry hath appeared to bee not over-strict and regular . I hear them boast of their Condition , without any envy of their happinesse , as one that had rather heare them complaine of their inward unquietnesse , than brag of their peace . Give me a man that after many secret bickerings , and hard conflicts in his breast , upon a serious penitence , and sense of reconciliation with his God hath attained to a quiet heart , walking conscionably and close with that Majesty with whom he is attoned ; I shall bless and emulate him as a meet subject of true joy : For spiritually there is never a perfect calme but after a tempest ; the winde and earthquake and fire make way for the soft voice . But I pitty the flatteries , and selfe-applauses of a carelesse and impenitent heart : This jollity hath in it much danger , and without some change , death . Oh Savior , I know thou cam'st to send fire on the earth ; yea fire into these earthen bosomes , whereof the very best hath combustible matter enough for thee to worke upon ; and what will I ( thou saist ) if it be already kindled ; O blessed Jesu , my will agrees with thine ; I desire nothing in the world more than that this fire of thine may flame up in my soul , and burne up those secret corruptions which have lyen smothering within me : Set me at full variance with my selfe , that I may be at peace with thee . Soliloq . XII . True Light . THou hast taught us , O Saviour , that even the light of man may be darknesse , and that the light endarkned causeth the greatest darknesse : neither can it be otherwise ; since the very obscuring of the light maketh some kind of darknesse , the utter extinction of it must needs make the darkenesse absolute . Now what is darknesse but a meere privation of light : There is but a double spirituall light , the absence whereof causeth darknesse : Thine Evangelist hath justly said of thee , Thou art the true light , that enlightnest every man that commeth into the world ; Thy Psalmist hath said of thy Divine Oracles , Thy Word is a Lanterne unto my feet , and a light unto my steps ; whosoever wants both , or either of these , cannot but be in darkness , yea his pretended light cannot but be darkness it selfe . I see , O Lord , there is much of this dark light in the World ; In one I observe a kinde of Glow-wormelight , which in a Summers evening shines somewhat bright , but he that should offer to light his Candle at it would be much deceived ; this is justly a darke light , since it shines not at all by day , neither is at all communicable to another , no not to the bearer it selfe : In another , I see the light of a dark Lantern ; which casts out some Gleams of light , but only to him that bears it ; even this mans light is darknesse also , to all the world besides himselfe : In a third I see a resemblance of that meteoricall light , which appears in Moorish places , that seems fire , but is nothing but a slimy glittering exhalation , causing both the wonder and errour of the Travailer ; leading him , through the impulsive motion of the air , into a Ditch ; and of this kind I find too much variety ; all of them agreeing in this , that they pretend Visions and Revelations of the Spirit even for contrary projections . O Saviour , what light soever is not derived from thee , is no better than darknesse : Thou hast sufficiently revealed thy selfe and thy will to us in thy Word ; as for any new lights ( except it be a clearer manifestation of the old ) O Lord give me the grace not to follow them : I finde a double light to proceed from thee , one which is a generall light , that enlightens every man that comes into the world ; the other a speciall light of thy spirit illuminating the soul of every beleever with a right apprehension of thee and heavenly things : O do thou shine into my soule with this heavenly light of thine ; and if this bee not enough to make me happy , ( without the acce●sion , and with the rejection of other new lights ) let mee sit in perpetuall darknesse . Soliloq . XIII . Bosome-Discourse . O Lord , if I had the skill , and grace to be ever communing with my owne heart , and with thee , I should never want either worke , or company , never have cause to complaine of solitarinesse , or tedious houres : For there is no time wherein there is not some maine business to be done between thee and my soul ; one while finding my heart dull and stupid , I should have cause to rowse it up by some quickning meditation ; another while finding it dejected with some inexpected Crosse , I should be chearing it up with some comfortable Applications : One while finding it distracted with some scrupulous doubts , I should be labouring to settle it in just resolutions ; another while perceiving it to incline towards idle thoughts , I should bee cheeking it with a seasonable reprehension : One while , finding it faint and flacke in holy duties , I should chide it into a more sensitive vigour ; another while , finding it more cheerfull in the performances of Devotion , I should encourage it with the assurance of a gracious acceptation : One while I should find cause to fortifie it against temptations ; another while to erect it after a foile : one while to Conflict ; another to Triumph : One while to examine my condition ; another while either to deplore , or congratulate it : One while I should finde time to sue to thee my God for the supply of some want ; another while to blesse thee for favours received : One while to bemoane my wretchednesse , another while to adore thy infinite greatness : One while to renew my vowes ; another while to beg pardon for my omissions : One while to seeke thee with teares and due Humiliation ; another while to rejoyce in thy great salvation : The varieties of my ever-changing condition , whiles I am in this vale of misery , cannot want the perpetuall imployment of a busie soule . O God , let me be dumbe to all the world , so as I may ever have a tongue for thee , and my owne heart . Soliloq . XIV . The insensible Fetters . WHat a subtile Devill wee have to deale with ? He will be sure to give the sinner line enough , so he may be sure to hold him : he shall have his full scope and freedom to all honest , and religious practices ; so as by some one secret sin that evill spirit may have power over his soul , both to ensnare , and retaine it : Hee cares not how godly we seem , how conscionable we are in all other actions , so as he may still in one dear sinne keep us fast intangled : Wherupon it often comes to pass , that not onely the eyes of the World , but even our own are too often deceived in the judgement of our spirituall estate : We profess strict holiness ; and give good proofes , upon occasion , of a tender , and well-guided Conscience , so as this glorious shew wins us the reputation of rare vertue and exemplary piety : yet still that wicked Devill hath a tie upon our heel : there is some peccadillio of smothered lust , or concealed pride , or zealous cruelty , and uncharitableness , that gives him the command of our soules at pleasure : and this shall no less fetch us within his power and mercy , than if we were lockt up under a thousand chaines . O God , thou who art infinite both in wisdom and power , do thou enable me not only to resist the power , but to avoid the wiles of that cunning Spirit : let me give him no advantage by the close entertainment of any bosome sin : Let my holiness and obedience be as universall , as either thy commands , or his mischievous intentions . Soliloq . XV . Satans prevalence . HOw busie and prevalent Satan is , in this present age , above all former times , appeares too plainly in those universall broiles , and combustions which he hath raised all the world over ; whereof no nation of the whole knowne habitable earth is at this day free ; in the strange number and variety of Sects , Schismes , Heresies , set on foot by him , every where ; the like whereof were never heard of , in the preceding times of the Church ; in the rifenesse of bold and professed Atheisme ; and most clearly , in the marveilous multitude of Witches abounding in all parts . Heretofore one of those Clients of Hell in a whole Country was hooted at as a strange Monster ; now , hundreds are discovered in one shire ; and ( if Fame deceive us not ) in a village of fourteen houses in the North parts are found so many of this damned breed : heretofore , onely some barbarous , and wild Deserts ; or some rude uninhabited Coasts , as of Lapland , and Finland , &c. were thought to bee haunted with such mis-creant guests ; now the civillest , and most religious parts are frequently pestered with them : heretofore some silly poore and ignorant old women were thus deluded by that Infernall impostor ; now we have known those of both sexes which have professed much knowledge , holiness , devotion , drawne into this damnable practice : What shall we say to all these over-pregnant proofes of the unusually prevailing power of hell ? Certainly , either Satan is now let loose ( according to the prediction of the holy Evangelist in Pathmos ) towards the end of the world : Or because he finds his time but short , hee rageth thus extremely ; as if what he must lack in time , he would make up in fury : But , oh blessed God , thine infinite wisdome and omnipotence , knows how to make a just advantage of that increased power , and successe , which thou hast permitted to this great enemy of mankind ; Thy Justice is hereby magnified in thy just judgements , upon the wicked ; and thy mercy in the gaine that hence accrues to thy chosen ; for certainly , thy true Saints would not be so eminently holy , if Satan were not so malicious : Thou who in naturall causes are wont to work by contraries , ( so as inward heat is ordinarily augmented by the extremity of an ambient cold ) canst , and wilt doe so much more in spirituall ; What thy visible Church loseth in the number of formall professors , is abundantly made up in the vigorous graces of thy reall Saints . Still and ever doe thou so order and over-rule these busie workings of the powers of darknes , that thou maiest repay thine unreclaimeable enemies with judgements , and heighten the piety , vigilancy and zeale of thy faithfull ones . Soliloq . XVI . Leasurely growth . WEE are all commonly impatient of leasure ; and apt to over-hasten the fruition of those good things wee affect : one would have wealth , but he would not be too long in getting it ; hee would have golden showres raine downe into his lap , on the suddaine : Another would bee wise and learned ; yet hee cannot abide to stay for gray haires , or to spend too much oile in his tedious lucubrations : One would be free , but he would not weare out an Apprentiship : Another would bee honourable , but he would neither serve long , nor hazard much : One would be holy , but he would not wait too long at the door-posts of Gods house , nor lose too many houres in the exercise of his stinted Devotions : Another , would be happy , but he would leape into heaven suddainly , not abiding to thinke of a leasurely towring up thither by a thousand degrees of ascent , in the slow proficiency of grace . Whereas the great God of Heaven , that can doe all things in an instant , hath thought good to produce all the effects of naturall agency not without a due succession of time . When I looke into my Garden , there I see first a small spire looke out of the earth , which in some moneths time growes into a stalke ; then after many daies expectation , branches forth into some leaves ; at last appeares the hope of a floure , which ripened with many Sunnes and Showres , arises to its perfection , and at last puts forth its seed for a succeeding multiplication . If I looke into my Orchard , I see the well-grafted Siens yield first a tender Bud ; it self after many yeeres is bodied to a solid stock , and under the patience of many hard Winters , spreads forth large Armes ; at last being growne to a meet age of vegetation , it begins to grace the Spring with some fair blossoms , which falling off kindly , give way to a weake Embryon of fruit ; Every day now addes something to the growth , till it attaine in Autumne to a full maturity : Why should I make account of any other course in my spirituall proceedings ? O God , I shall be alwaies ready to censure my slow pace in grace , and holy obedience , and shall bee ever ambitious of aspiring higher in thy gracious favour ; but when I shall have endeavoured my utmost , I shall wait with humble patience upon thy bountifull hand ; as one that desires thankefully to acknowledge the little that I have received , and meekely to attend thy good pleasure for what I may receive . So thou bring mee to Heaven , take what time , and keepe what pace thou pleasest . Soliloq . XVII . Allowable Variety . IT is a great and insolent wrong in those men , who shall think to reduce all dispositions , and forms of Devotion and usages to their owne ; since in all these there may bee much variety ; and all those different fashions may receive a gracious acceptation in heaven : One thinkes it best to hold himselfe to a set forme of Invocation ; another deems it farre better to be left free to his arbitrary and unpremeditated expressions : one pleases himselfe with this notion of that Omnipotent Deity whom he implores ; another thinkes that may be more proper , and affective : one thinks this posture of body may bee the meetest for his humble addresse to the throne of Grace , or to the Table of the Heavenly Manna ; another likes that better : one is for a long prayer ; another for short ejaculations : one desires to raise up his spirits ( with the Prophet ) by the aid of an harmonious melody ; another holds them better fixed in a sad silence : one holds it best to set forth Gods service in a solemne state and magnificence ; another approves better of a simple and inceremonious Devotion : One requires a sacred place , and a peculiar habit , as best becomming Gods publike worship ; another makes no difference of either roome , or dresse : One makes scruple of comming otherwise than fasting to the Lords Table : another conceives it more seasonable after a Love-Feast : One thinkes his Christian Liberty allowes him the moderate scope to all not-unlawfull Recreations : anothers austerity interdicts all pastimes : One judgeth this haire , and that attire not lawfull onely , but comely : another thinks he espies sinne in both : O God , as thou hast ever shewed thy selfe justly severe in the avenging of sin , so I know thee graciously indulgent in allowing thy servants much latitude in the free use of all that thou hast not prohibited , In imitation whereof , give me an heart holily zealous to abhorre every thing that is truely evill , and charitably affected to the favourable censure of all usages that are meerely indifferent . Let my maine care bee to look to the sincerity of my Soule , and to the sure grounds of warrant for my actions ; For other circumstantiall appurtenances , where thou art pleased to be liberall , let mee not be strait-handed . Soliloq . XVIII . Misconstructions of holinesse . IT is no marvell if there bee nothing that undergoes more variety of constructions from the lookers on , than holinesse ; for that being an inward gracious disposition of the soule , conformed to God , in all the renewed faculties thereof , lyes so close in the bosome , that it can only be guessed at by such uncertaine emanations of words , and actions , as flow from it to the eares , and eyes of others : The particular graces and affections of Love , Feare , Hope , Joy , godly Sorrow , Zeale , and the rest breake forth apparently in such symptomes , and effects as may win a certainty of beliefe from the beholders , neither indeed are easily concealed from the view of others : all these may bee read in the face : but , if the heart it self could be seen , and that curiously dissected , yet even thus could not holinesse be discovered . Beside the closenesse , every man is apt to measure his judgement of holinesse , by a false rule of his own , whereby it comes to passe that it is so commonly mis-taken . One thinkes him holy that forsakes the World , and retires into some wilde Desert , or mures up himselfe in an Anchorites Cell : Another judges him holy that macerates his body with Fasting , that disciplines his hide with whips and haire clothes , that lies hard , and fares hard : that abstaines from all that relates to flesh in his Lent , and Embers : that passionately hugges his Crucifix , and tosses his Beads , and duely observes his Shrifts , and Canonicall houres : Now this man that in their way is in danger of Canonization for a Saint , is by the professor of an opposite holinesse decryed to hell for superstition and Idolatry : One stiles him holy , who segregates himselfe from the contagious Communion of formall Christians , professing to serve his God in a purer way of worship ; rejecting all stinted formes of Prayer and Psalmony ; spitting at the mention of an Hierarchy , allowing no head sacred , but by the imposition of what we miscall , Laick hands ; abandoning all Ceremonies of humane Institution ; abiding no Circumstances of Divine Worship but Apostolicall : Another allowes him onely holy , who is already a Citizen of the new Jerusalem , advanced to such an entirenesse with God as that hee is no lesse than glorified ; hee hath left the Scriptures below him as a weake and dead Letter , and is farre above all whatsoever Ordinance ; Yea ( which I tremble to report ) above the blood of Christ himselfe . A third reputes him onely holy , who having left the Society of all Churches as too impure , stands now alone , waiting for some Miracles from Heaven to settle his Resolution . Now , Lord , after all these and many more weake and idle misprisions , upon the sure and unfailing grounds of Truth ( thy Word is Truth ) I know that man to bee truely holy , whose understanding is enlightened with right apprehensions of thee and Heavenly things ; whose Will and Affections are rightly disposed to thee , so as his heart is wholly taken up with thee ; whose Conversation is so altogether with thee , that he thinkes all time lost , wherein hee doth not enjoy thee , and a sweet and heavenly Communion with thee ; walking perpetually with thee ; and labouring in all things to bee approved of thee . O God , doe thou worke me up to this temper , and keepe me still in it ; and then , however I may differ in a construction of holinesse from others , that thinke themselves more perfect , howsoever , I may bee censured as defective in my judgement or affections , yet I doe , not without sound and sensible comfort , know , that my Judge is in Heaven , and my Witnesse in my bosome . Soliloq . XIX . Two Heavens in one . I Was wont to say , It is in vaine for a man to hope for , and impossible for him to enjoy a double heaven ; one below , and another above : since our sufferings here one earth must make way for our future glory : but , now I finde it in a better sense , very faisible for a true Christian to attaine both : for , as we say , where the Prince resides , there is the Court : so surely , where the supreme and infinite Majesty pleases to manifest his presence , there is heaven : whereas therefore God exhibits himself present two waies , in grace , and in glory ; it must follow , that the gracious presence of God makes an heaven here below , as his glorious presence makes an heaven above . Now it cannot but fall out , that as the lower materiall heaven comes far short of the purity of the superior Regions , being frequently over-cast with Clouds , and troubled with other both watery and fiery Meteors : so this spirituall heaven below , being many times darkened with sad desertions , and blustred with temptations , cannot yeeld that perfection of inward peace , and happines , which remaines for us above this sphere of mutability : yet affords us so much fruition of God as may give us a true Title , and entrance into blessednesse . I well see , O God , it is no Paradox to say that thy Saints reigne with thee here on earth ; though not for a thousand yeers , yet during the time of their sojourning here below ; not in any secular splendor and magnificence , not in bodily pleasures , and sensuall contentments : Yet in true spirituall delectation , in the joys of the holy Ghost unspeakeable , and full of glory . O my God , doe thou thus set my foot over the threshold of thy heaven : put thou my soule into this happy condition of an inchoate blessedness : so shall I cheerfully spend the remainder of my daies in a joyfull expectation of the full consummation of my glory . Soliloq . XX . The Stock imployed . WHat are all excellencies without respect of their use ? How much good ground is there in the World , that is neither cultured nor owned ? What a world of precious metals lies hid in the bowels of the earth , which shall never be coined ? What store of rich Pearles and Diamonds are hoarded up in the earth and sea , which shall never see the light ? What delicacies of Fouls and Fishes doe both Elements afford , which shall never come to the Dish ? How many great wits are there in the world , which lie willingly concealed ? whether out of modesty , or idlenesse , or lacke of a wished opportunity . Improvement gives a true value to all blessings : A peny in the purse is worth many pounds , yea talents in an unknown mine : That is our good which doth us good . O God , give thou me grace to put out my little stocke to the publike banke ; and faithfully to imploy those poore faculties thou hast given me , to the advantage of thy Name , and the benefit of thy Church ; so besides the gaine of others , my pounds shall be rewarded with Cities . Soliloq . XXI . Love of Life . WE are all naturally desirous to live ; and though we prize life above all earthly things , yet we are ashamed to profess that we desire it for its owne sake , but pretend some other subordinate reason to affect it . One would live to finish his building , or to cleare his purchase ; Another to breed up his children , and to see them well-matched : One would faine outlive his triall at law ; Another wishes to outweare an emulous corrivall : One would faine out-last a lease , that holds him off from his long-expected possessions ; Another would live to see the times amend , and a re-establishment of a publike peace : Thus wee that would bee glad to give skin for skin , and all things for life , would seeme to wish life for any thing , but it selfe : After all this hypocrisie , nature above all things would live ; and makes life the maine end of living ; But grace has higher thoughts , and therefore though it holds life sweet and desirable , yet entertaines the love of it upon more excellent , that is , spirituall termes . O God , I have no reason to bee weary of this life , which , through thy mercy , long acquaintance hath endearead to me ( though sauced with some bitter disgusts of age ; ) but how unworthy shall I approve my selfe of so great a blessing , if now , I do not more desire to continue it for thy sake , than my owne ? Soliloq . XXII . Equall Distribution IT was a most idle question which the Philosophers are said to have proposed to Barnabas the Colleague of Saint Paul : Why a small Gnat should have six legges , and wings beside ; whereas the Elephant , the greatest of beasts , hath but foure legs , and no wings ? What pity it is that those wise Masters were not of the Counsel of the Almighty , when hee was pleased to give a being to his Creature ; they would surely have devised to make a winged Elephant , and a corpulent Gnat : A fethered man , and a speaking Beast . Vaine fooles , they had not learned to know and adore that infinite wisdome wherin all things were made : It is not for that incomprehensible Majesty and power to bee accountable to wretched man for the reasons of his all-wise , and mighty Creation ; yet so hath he contrived it , that there is no part of his great workmanship , whereof even man cannot bee able to give an irrefragable reason , why thus framed , not otherwise . What were more easie than to say , that six legges to that unweildy body had beene cumbersome , and impeditive of motion , that the wings for so massie a bulk had been uselesse . I admire thee , O God , in all the workes of thy hands ; and justly magnifie not onely thine omnipotence both in the matter and forme of their Creation ; but thy mercy and wisdome in the equall distribution of all their powers and faculties , which thou hast so ordered , that every Creature hath some requisite helpes , no Creature hath all : The Foules of the aire , which are ordained for flight , hast thou furnisht with Feathers to beare them up in that light Element ; The Fishes , with smooth scales and finnes for their more easie gliding through those watery Regions : the Beasts of the Field , with such Limbes and strong Hides as might fit them for service : As for man , the Lord of all the rest , him thou hast endued with Reason , to make his use of all these : whom yet thou hast so framed , as that in many qualities thou hast allowed the brute Creatures to exceed their Master : Some of them are stronger than he ; some of them swifter than he , and more nimble than he : he were no better than a mad man that should aske , why man should not flye as well as the bird , and swimme as well as the Fish , and run as fast as the Hart ? Since that one faculty of Reason wherewith he is furnished is more worth than all the brutish excellencies of the world put together . O my God , thou that hast enricht me with a reasonable soule , whom thou mightest have made the brutest of thy Creatures , give me the grace so to improve thy gift , as may be most to the glory and advantage of thy owne name ; Let me in the name and behalf of all my brute fellow-Creatures blesse thee for them ; and both for them and my selfe in a ravishment of Spirit cry out with the Psalmist ; O Lord my God , how wonderfull and excellent are thy workes , in wisedome hast thou made them all . Soliloq . XXIII . The Bodies subjection . BOdily exercise , saith the Apostle , profits little : Little sure in respect of any worth that it hath in it selfe ; or any thanke that it can expect from the Almighty : For what is it to that good and great God , whether I be full or fasting , whether I wake or sleepe , whether my skinne be smooth or rough , ruddy or pale , white or discoloured ; whether my hand be hard with labour , or soft with ease ; whether my bed be hard , or yeelding ; whether my dyet bee course , or delicate : But though in it selfe it availe little ; yet so it may bee , and hath been , and ought to be improved , as that it may be found exceedingly beneficiall to the soule : Else the same Apostle would not have said , I keepe under my body , and bring it into subjection , lest that by any meanes , when I have preached to others , I my selfe should be a cast-away . In all the records of History , whom doe we finde more noted for holinesse , than those who have been most austere in the restraints of bodily pleasures and contentments ? In the Mount of Tabor who should meet with our Saviour in his Transfiguration , but those two eminent Saints , which had fasted an equall number of dayes with himself ? And our experience tells us , that what is detracted from the body is added to the soule . For the flesh and spirit are not more partners , than enemies ; one gaines by the others losse : The pampering of the flesh , is the starving of the soule : I finde an unavoidable emulation between these two parts of my selfe . O God , teach me to hold an equall hand betwixt them both ; Let me so use them , as holding the one my favourite , the other my drudge ; not so humouring the worse part , as to discontent the better ; nor so wholly regarding the better , as altogether to discourage the worse : Both are thine , both by gift , and purchase ; inable thou me to give each of them their Dues , so as the one may be fitted with all humble obsequiousnesse to serve ; the other to rule and command with all just authority , and moderation . Soliloq . XXIV . The ground of Vnproficiency . WHere there is defect in the Principles , there can be no possibility of prevailing in any kinde : Should a man be so foolish as to perswade his horse that it is not safe for him to drinke in the extremity of his heate ; or to advise a child that it is good for him to be whipt , or in a case of mortall danger , to have a fontinell made in his flesh , how fondly should hee mispend his breath ? bebecause the one wants the faculty , the other the use of reason . So if a man shall sadly tell a wild sensualist , that it is good for him to bear the yoake in his youth ; that it is meet for him to curbe and cross his unruly appetite ; that the bitterest cup of afflictions ought to bee freely taken off , as the most soveraigne medicine of the soule ; that wee ought to bleed and die for the name of Christ ; that all the suffering of the present times are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall bee revealed in us ; his labour is no lesse lost , than if hee had made an eloquent Oration to a deafe man ; because this carnall hearer lacks that principle of grace and regeneration which onely can enable him to apprehend and relish these divine Counsailes : I see , O God , I see too well , how it comes to passe that thy Word sounds so loud , and prevailes so little ; even because it is not joyned with faith in the hearers : The right principle is missing , which should make the soule capable of thy divine mysteries : Faith is no lesse essentiall to the true Christian , than reason is to man , or sense to beast : O doe thou furnish my soule with this heavenly grace of thine ; and then all thy sacred Oracles shall bee as cleare to my understanding , as any visible object is to my sense . Soliloq . XXV . The sure Refuge . SUfficient unto the day is the evill thereof , saith our Saviour : Lo , Every day hath its evill , and that evill is load enough for the present , without the further charge of our anticipated cares . Surely the life of man is conflicted with such a world of crosses succeeding each other , that if he have not a sure refuge to flee unto , he cannot chuse but bee quite over-laid with miseries : One while his estate suffers , whether through casualty , or oppression ; another while his Children miscarry , whether by sicknesse , or death , or disorder : One while his good name is impeached ; another while his body languishes : One while his minde is perplexed with irksome sutes ; another while his soule is wounded with the sting of some secret sinne : One while he is fretted with Domesticall discontents ; another while distempered with the publike broiles : One while the sense of evills torments him ; another while the expectation . Miserable is the case of that man , when hee is pursued with whole Troops of Mischiefs , hath not a Fort wherein to succour himself : and safe and happy is that soule , that hath a sure and impregnable hold whereto hee may resort . O the noble example of holy David ; Never man could bee more perplexed than hee was at his Ziklag ; His City burnt , his whole stock plundered , his Wives carryed away , his people cursing , his Souldiers mutining , pursued by Saul , cast off by the Philistims ; helplesse , hopelesse : But David fortified himselfe in the Lord his God : There , there , O Lord , is a sure helpe in the time of trouble , a safe protection in the time of danger , a most certaine remedy of all complaints : Let my Dove get once into the holes of that Rock , in vaine shall all the birds of prey hover over me for my destruction . Soliloq . XXVI . The light burden . WHy do wee complaine of the difficulty of a Christian profession , when we heare our Saviour say , My yoak is easie , and my burden is light ? Certainely hee that impoposed it , hath exactly poised it , and knowes the weight of it to the full : It is our fault if we make or account that heavy , which he knowes to be light : If this yoake and burden be heavy to our sullen nature , yet to grace they are light : If they be heavy to feare , yet they are light to love : what is more sweet and easie than to love ? and love is all the burden wee need to take up : For love is the fulfilling of the Law ; and the Evangelicall law is all the burden of my Saviour . O blessed Jesu , how willingly doe I stoope under thy commands : It is no other than my happinesse that thou requirest ; I shall bee therefore my owne enemy , if I be not thy servant : Hadst thou not bidden me to love thee , to obey thee , thine infinite goodness , and perfection of divine beauty would have attracted my heart to bee spiritually inamoured of thee ; now thou bidst me to doe that which I should have wisht to bee commanded ; how gladly doe I yeeld up my soule to thee ? Lay on what load thou pleasest ; since the more I bear , the more thou enablest me to bear , and the more I shall desire to bear : the world hath so clogg'd me this while , with his worthlesse and base lumber , that I have beene ready to sinke under the weight , and what have I got by it , but a lame shoulder , and a galled backe ? O doe thou free me from this unprofitable , and painfull luggage ; and ease my soule with the happy change of thy gracious impositions ; so shall thy yoake not bee easie onely but pleasing , so shall thy fulfilled wil be so far from a burden to me , that it shall bee my greatest delight upon earth , and my surest and comfortablest evidence for heaven . Soliloq . XXVII . Joy intermitted . WHat a lightsomenesse of heart do I now feele in my selfe , for the present , out of a comfortable sense of thy presence , O my God , and the apprehension of my interest in thee ? Why should it not be thus alwaies with me ? Surely thine Apostle bids me rejoyce continually , and , who would not wish to do so ? for there is little difference betwixt joy and happinesse ; neither was it ghessed ill by him that defined that man onely to be happy that is alwayes delighted ; and certainely , there is just cause , why I should be thus alwaies affected : Thou , O my God , art still and alwaies the same : yea the same to me , in all thy gracious relations , of a mercifull Father , a loving Saviour , a sweet Comforter : Yea thou art my head , and I am a limb of thy mysticall Body . Such I am , and shall ever be ; Thou canst no more change , than not be : and for me , my crosses and my sinnes are so farre from separating me from thee , that they make mee hold of thee the faster . But , alas , though the just grounds of my joy be steady ; yet my weake disposition is subject to variablenesse ; Whiles I carry this flesh about me , my soule cannot but be much swayed with the temper of my body ; which sometimes inclines me to a dull listlesnesse , and a dumpish heavinesse of heart , and sadnesse of spirit ; so as I am utterly unapt to all cheerfull thoughts , and finde work enough to pull my affections out of this stiffe clay of the earth , and to raise them up to heaven . Besides , this joy of the holy Ghost is a gift of thy divine bounty , which thou dispensest , when , and how thou pleasest ; not alwaies alike to thy best Favourites on earth : Thou that givest thy Sun and Raine , dost not command thy Clouds alwaies to be dropping , nor those beams to shine continually upon any face : there would bee no difference betwixt the proceedings of nature and grace , if both produced their effects in a set and constant regularity : and what difference should I finde betwixt my pilgrimage , and my home , if I should here be taken up with a perpetuity of heavenly joy ? should I alwaies thus feelingly enjoy thee , my life of faith should bee changed into a life of sense : It is enough for me , O God , that above in those Regions of blisse , my joy in thee shall be full and permanent : if in the mean while it may please thee , that but some flashes of that Celestiall light of joy may frequently glance into my soule : It shall suffice if thou give me but a taste of those heavenly pleasures , whereon I shall once liberally feast with thee to all eternity . Soliloq . XXVIII . Vniversall Interest . IT was a noble praise that was given to that wise Heathen , that hee so carried himselfe as if hee thought himselfe born for all the world : Surely the more universal a mans beneficence is , so much is it more commendable ; and comes so much neerer to the bounty of that great God , who openeth his hand , and filleth all things living with plenteousness : There are too many selfish men , whose spirits as in a close retort , are cooped up within the compasse of their owne concernments ; whose narrow hearts think they are born for none but themselves : Others that would seeme good natur'd men , are willing enough to enlarge themselves to their kindred ; whom they are carefull to advance with neglect of all others , however deserving ; some yet , more liberall minded , can be content to be kinde and open-handed to their neighbours ; and some perhaps reach so farre , as to professe a readinesse to do all good offices to their Countrey-men ; but here their largesse findes its utmost bounds : All these dispositions are but inclosures ; Give mee the open Champaine of a generall and illimited benefacture : Is he rich ? hee scatters his seed abroad by whole handfulls over the whole ridge , and doth not drop it downe betweene his fingers into the severall furrowes ; His bread is cast upon the waters also : Is he knowing and learned ? He smothers not his skil in his bosome : but freely laies it out upon the common stock ; not so much regarding his private contentment , as the publike proficiency : Is he deepely wise ? Hee is ready to improve all his cares and counsels to the advancement and preservation of peace , justice , and good order amongst men . Now although it is not in the power of any but persons placed in the highest Orbe of Authority , actually to oblige the world to them ; Yet nothing hinders but that men of meaner ranke may have the will to bee thus universally beneficent , and may in preparation of mind be zealously affected to lay themselves forth upon the common good : O Lord ; if thou hast given me but a private and short hand , yet give mee a large and publick heart . Soliloq . XXIX . The spirituall Bedleem . HE that with wise Solomon affects to know not wisedome onely , but Madnesse and Folly , let him after a serious observation of the sober part of the world , obtaine of himselfe to visit Bedleem , and to looke into the severall Cells of distracted persons ; where , it is a world to see what strange varieties of humors , and passions shall present themselves to him : Here he shall see one weeping , and wringing his hands for a meerely-imaginary disaster ; there another , holding his sides in a loud laughter , as if hee were made all of mirth : here one mopishly stupid , and so fixed to his posture , as if he were a breathing statue ; there another apishly active and restless : here one ragingly fierce , and wreaking his causeless anger on his chaine ; there another gloriously boasting of a mighty stile of Honour , whereto his rags are justly intitled ; and when he hath wondred a while at this woefull spectacle , let him know and consider that this is but a slight image of those spirituall phrensies , wherewith the world is miserably possessed ; The persons affected believe it not ; surely should I goe about to perswade any of these guests of Bedleem , that in deed , he is mad , and should therefore quietly submit himselfe to the meanes of cure , I should be more mad than he : Only dark rooms , and cords , and Ellebore are meet receits for these mentall distempers ; In the meane while , the sober and sad beholders too well see these mens wits out of the socket , and are ready out of Christian charity , to force upon them due remedies , who cannot be sensible of their owne miseries . Now having learn'd of the great Doctor of the Gentiles to distinguish man into spirit , soule , and body , ( whereof the body is as the earthly part , the soule as the ethereall , the spirit as the heavenly : the soul animall , the spirit rationall , the body meerely organicall , ) it is easie for him to observe that as each of these parts exceeds other in dignity , so the distemperatures thereof is so much greater , and more dangerous , as the part is more excellent ; When therefore he shall hear the Prophet Hosea say , The spirituall man is mad , hee cannot thinke that charge lesse than of the worst of phrensies : And such indeed they are which have been epidemicall to all times : Could they passe for any other than sottishly mad , that would worship Cats , and Dogs , and Serpents ? so did the old Egyptians , who thought themselves the most deeply learned of all nations . Could they be lesse mad than they , that of the same Tree , would make a block for their fire , and a God for their Adoration ? so did Isaiah's Idolaters . Could they be any bettter , who when they had molten their Earings , and with their own hands had shaped a golden Calf , could fall down and worship it , and say , these bee thy Gods , O Israel , which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt ? so did they which should have knowne themselves Gods peculiar people . Could they bee any other than mad men , that thought there was one God of the hils , another of the vallies ? so did the Syrian Courtiers . Could they bee any other than stark mad that would lance , and gash their owne flesh , because their Block did not answer them by fire ? so did the Baalites . Lastly , could they be other than the maddest of men , who would passe their owne Children through the fire , and burn them to ashes in a pretence of Devotion ? so did the Clients of Moloch . Yea , what speake I of the times of ignorance ? even since the true light came into the world , and since the beams of his glorious Gospel shined on all faces , there hath been no lesse need of darke roomes and manicles than before : Can we thinke them other than notoriously mad , that having good clothes to their backes , would needs strip them off , and go stark naked ? so did the Adamites of old , about the yeare of our Lord , 194. So did certaine Anabaptists of Holland at Amsterdam in the yeer 1535. so did the Cynicall Saint Francis in the streets of Assissium . Could they bee other than mad which would worship Cain , Iudas , the Sodomites ? So did those good Devotionists which were called Caiani , about the yeer 159. Nay , were they not worse than mad , who if we may beleeve Hosius , and Lindanus , and Prateolus , worshipt the Devill ten times every day ? so did those Hereticks which were in the last age called Demoniaci . Could they be better than mad which held that beasts have Reason as wel as man , that the Elements have life , that Plants have sense , and suffer paine in their cutting up ? so did the Manichees . Could they be other than blasphemously mad , that held there are two Gods , one good the other evill , and that all creatures were made by the latter ? so did the Gnosticks . Were there ever mad men in the World , if they were not such who would beseech , yea force passengers to doe them the favour to cut their throats , in a vain affectation of the praise of Martyrdome ? so did the Circumcellions , a Faction of Donatists in the year 349. But above all other , did not those surpass in madnesse , who allowed of all Heresies , and professed to hold all opinions true ? so did Rhetorus and his followers : St. Augustines Charity sticks at the beleefe of so impossible a Tenet ; I must crave leave to wonder at his reason : For ( saith hee ) many opinions being contradictory to cach other , no man that is compos mentis can thinke both parts can bee verifiable : as if it could be supposed that a Rhetorius , thus opening , could bee any other than beside all his wits : Surely had he been himselfe , so impossible an absurdity could not have falne from him : neither could any of these fore-cited practises or opinions have been incident into any but braines highly distempered . But what doe we raking in the ashes of these old forgotten Lunaticks ; would to God wee had not work more than enough to looke for the prodigious phrensies of the present age , than which there were never since the world began either more or worse , Can there be under the cope of heaven a madder man , than hee that can deny there is a God ? such a monster was rare and hooted at in the times of Paganisme : The Heathen Orator tels us of but two in those darke ages before him , that were so far forsaken of their wits ; and we know that the old Athenians , when a bold Pen durst but question a Deity , sentenced the booke to the fire , and the Author to exile . But now , alas , I am ashamed to say that this modern age under so clear beames of the Gospel hath bred many professed Atheists , who have dared , not in their heart onely , as in Davids time , but with their blasphemous lips to deny the God that made them . And are the phrensies of those insolent soules any whit lesse wilde and outragious , that dare boast themselves to be God ; and sticke not to stile themselves absolutely deified ? avowing that the soule in their body is the onely Christ , or God in the flesh ; That all the acts of their beastly and abominable lusts are the workes of righteousnesse ; that it is their perfection , and the highest pitch of their glory to give themselves up to all manner of abominations , without any reluctation ; that there is no hell , but a dislike of , and remorse for , their greatest villanies : Now shew mee amongst the savagest of Pagans any one that hath been thus desperately brain-sick , and let me bee branded for a slanderer . What should I need to instance in any more , or to contract a large Volume of Hereseology ? In short , there is no true Heretick in the world , that is not in some degree a mad-man ; And this spirituall madnesse is so much worse than the naturall , as in other regards , so especially in this ; that whereas that distemper of the braine containes it self in its own bounds , without any danger of Diffusion to others , the spirituall , is extreemly contagious , spreading its infection to the perill of all that come within the aire of it . In this sad case what is to bee done ? Surely wee may , as we doe , mourn for the miserable distractions of the world ; but it is thou onely , O Lord , that canst heale them . O thou , that art the great and soveraigne Physician of soules ; that after seven yeares brutality , restoredst the frantick Babylonian to his shape and senses , looke downe mercifully upon our Bedleem , and restore the distracted World to their right temper once againe : as for those that are yet sound , keepe them O God , in their right wits unto the end , preserve them safe from all the pestilent taintures of Schism and Heresie : And for me , the more insight thou givest me into , and the more sense of , these woefull distempers , so much the more thankfull doe thou make me to thine infinite goodnesse , that thou hast beene graciously pleased to keep me within compasse . And O , do thou still and ever keep mee within the compas of thy revealed will , and all just moderation ; and suffer me not to be miscarried into any of those exorbitances of judgement which may prove a trouble to thy Church , and a scand all to thy Name . Soliloq . XXX . The difference of actions . THere is great difference in sins , and actions whether truly or seemingly offensive ; there are Gnats , and there are Camels ; neither is there lesse difference in Consciences : There are consciences so wide and Vast , that they can swallow a Camel ; and there are consciences so strait , as that they straine at a Gnat ; Yea , which is strange to observe , those very consciences which one while are so dilated that they straine not at a Camel , another while are so drawne together by an anxious scrupulousnesse that they are ready to bee choaked with a Gnat . How palpably was this seen in the chief Priest and Pharisees and Elders of the Jewes : the small Gnat of entring into the judgement Hall of the Roman Governor , would by no meanes down with them ; that hainous act would defile them , so as they should not eat the Passeover ; but in the mean time the huge Camel of the murther of the Lord passed down glib , and easily through their throats : They are ready to choak with one poor ear of corn pulled on a Sabbath by an hungry passenger ; Yet whole houses of widowes , the whiles , passe down their gorges with ease : An unwashen had or cup was piacular ; whiles within their hearts are full of extortion and excess . I wish the present age did not abound with instances : It is the fashion of Hypocrites to bee seemingly scruplous in small things , whiles they make no conscience at all of the greatest : and to bee so much less conscionable of greater matters of the Law , Judgement , Mercy and faith ; as they are more scrupulously punctuall in their Mint , Anise , and Cummin . O God , I would not make more sins than thou hast made ; I desire to have an heart wisely tender , not fondly scrupulous ; Let my soule endure no fetters but thine ; If indifferent things may be my Gnats , let no known sin be other than a Camell to me ; and let mee rather choak in the passage , than let down such a morsell . Soliloq . XXXI . The necessity of Labour . THe great and wise God that hath been pleased to give to all creatures their life and being , without their endeavour or knowledge , hath yet ordained not to continue their being , without their owne labour , and co-operation ; so as hee hath imposed upon them all a necessity of paines-taking for their owne preservation : The wild beasts of the desart must walk abroad , and forrage far for their prey ; The beasts of the field must earne their Pasture with their worke , and labour in very feeding to fill a large maw with picking up those severall mouthfulls , whereby they are sustained ; The Fowles of severall kindes must flye abroad to seek their various Diet , some in the hedges , some in the fields , some in the waters ; The Bee must with unwearied industry gather her stock of wax and honey out of a thousand flowers ; Neither know I any that can bee idle and live : But man , as hee is appointed to be the Lord of all the rest , so hee is in a speciall manner borne to labour ; as he upon whom the charge lies to provide both for himselfe , and all the creatures under his command ; being not more impotent than they in his first entrance into the world , than he is afterwards by the power of his reason more able to governe them , and to order all things that may concerne both their use , and conservation . How willingly , O Lord , should I stoop to this just condition of my Creation ? Labour is my destiny , and labour shall bee my trade : Something I must alwaies doe ; both out of thy command , and my owne inclination ; as one whose not un-active spirit abhorres nothing more than the torment of doing nothing : O God , doe thou direct mee to , and imploy me in , those services that may be most for thy glory , for the good of others , and my own discharge and comfort . Soliloq . XXXII . Acquaintance with Heaven . WHat an high favour is it in the Great God of heaven , that he is pleased to stoop so low as to allow wretched man here upon earth to be acquainted with so infinite a Majesty ? yet in the multitudes of his mercies , this hath hee condescended unto : so farre hath hee yeilded to us , as that hee is pleased wee should know him ; and to that end hee hath clearly revealed himself to mankind , and more then so , he is willing and content that we should enjoy him , and should continually make a comfortable use of his presence with us ; that we should walke with him , and impart all our secret thoughts and counsels to him ; that wee should call for his gracious aid upon all our occasions ; that we should impart all our wants and feares and doubts to him , with expectation of a mercifull and sure answer , and supply from heaven ; Yea , that hee should invite us , silly wretches , to his presence , and calls us up to the throne of grace , and incourage us poor souls , dejected with the conscience of our unworthinesse , to put up our sutes boldly to his mercifull hands ; Yea , that hee should give this honour to dust and ashes as to stile us his friends : how shamefully , unthankfull , and how justly miserable shall I bee , if I make not an answerable use of so infinite a mercy ? O God , how utterly unworthy shall I be of this grace , if notwithstanding these mercifull proffers and solicitations , I shall continue a willing stranger from thee , and shall make no more improvement of these favours than if they had never been rendred ? O let me know thee , let me acknowledge thee , let me adore thee , let me love thee , let mee walke with thee , let me enjoy thee ; let me , in an holy and awfull familiarity bee better and more entirely acquainted with thee than with the World , than with my self ; so I shall be sure to be happy here , and hereafter glorious . Soliloq . XXXIII . The All-sufficient knowledge . I Finde much inquiry of curious wits , whether wee shall know one another in heaven ; There is no want of arguments on both parts , and the greatest probabilities have seemed to bee for the affirmative : But , O Lord , whether or no wee shall know one another , I am sure we shall all thy glorified Saints know thee ; and in knowing thee wee shall be infinitely happy ; and what would wee more ? Surely , as we finde here , that the Sun puts out the fire , and the greater light ever extinguisheth the lesse : so why may wee not think it to be above ? When thou art all in all to us , what can the knowledge of any creature adde to our blessednesse ? And if when we casually meet with a Brother , or a Son before some great Prince , we forbeare the ceremonies of our mutuall respects , as being wholly taken up with the awfull regard of a greater presence ; how much more may we justly think , that when wee meet before the glorious Throne of the God of heaven , all the respects of our former earthly relations must utterly cease , and bee swallowed up of that beatificall presence , divine love , and infinitely blessed fruition of the Almighty . O God , it is my great comfort here below to thinke and know that I have parents , or children , or brothers and sisters , or friends already in possession of glory with thee , and to believe assuredly that in my time I shall bee received to the association of their blessednesse : but if upon the dissolution of this earthly Tabernacle , I may be admitted to the sight of thy all-glorious essence , and may set eye upon the face of my blessed Saviour , now sitting at the right hand of thine incomprehensible Majesty , attended with those millions of his heavenly Angels , I shall neither have need , nor use of enquiring after my kindred , according to the flesh . What can fall into my thoughts or desires , beside , or beyond that which is infinite ? Soliloq . XXXIV . Poor Greatnesse . I Cannot but look with much pitty mixed with smiles upon the vaine worldling , that sets up his rest in these outward things , and so pleases himselfe in this condition , as if he thought no man happy but himselfe : how high he looks , how big he speakes , how proudly hee struts ? with what scorne and insultation doth he look upon my dejectednesse ? the very language of his eye is no other than contempt , seeming to say , Base Indigent , thou art stript of all thy wealth , and honour ; thou hast neither flocks , nor heards , nor lands , nor mannors , nor bagges , nor barne-fulls , nor titles , nor dignities , all which I have in abundance ; no man regards thy meanenesse ; I am observed with an awfull veneration . Be it so , great Sir , thinke I ; enjoy you your height of honor , and heaps of treasure , and ceremonies of state , whiles I go shrugging in a thred-bare coat , and am glad to feed on single dishes , and to sleepe under a thatched roofe ; But let me tell you , set your all against my nothing , if you have set your heart upon these gay things , were you the heire of all the earth , I would be loath to change conditions with your eminence ; and will take leave to tell you , that at your best , you shall fall within my commiseration : It is not in the power of all your earthly privileges to render you other than a miserable vassall : If you have store of gold , alas , it is but made up into feetters and manicles ; and what is all your outward bravery but meere matter of opinion ? I shall shew you an Indian slave , that shall no lesse pride himselfe in a Bracelet of Glasse beades , that you can in your richest Jewels of Rubies and Diamonds : All earthly things are as they are valued : The wise and Almighty Maker of these earthen Mines , esteemes the best Metals , but as thicke Clay ; and why should we set any other price of them than their Creator ? And if we be wont to measure the worth of al things by their vertues and uses , and operations , what is it that your wealth can do ? Can it free you from cares ? can it lengthen your sleeps ? can it keepe you from head-aches , from Gouts , Dropsies , Feavers and other bodily distempers ? can it ransome you from death ? can it make your account easier in the great day of reckoning ? Are you ever the wiser , ever the holier , ever the quieter for that which you have purchased with teares , and blood ? And were it so precious as you imagine , what hold have you of it ? what assurance to enjoy it , or your self but one hour ? As for despised me , I have wealth that you know not of ; My riches are invisible , invaluable , interminable : God all-sufficient is mine ; and with him all things : My treasure is not lockt up in earth , or in heaven , but fils both : My substance is sure ; not obnoxious to plunder or loss , or diminution : No man hath bled , no widow or orphan hath wept for my enriching ; The onely difference is this ; You are miserable , and think your self happy ; I am happy whom you think miserable : How ever our thoughts may beare us out in both for a while , yet at the last , except truth it selfe can deceive us , the issue must fall on my side . O God , be thou my portion , and the lot of mine inheritance , let the scum of the world spit in my face as the most despicable of all creatures , I am above the despight of men and devils , and am secretly happy , and shall be eternally glorious . Soliloq . XXXV . Acceptation of Desires . WHat a comfort it is to us weake wretches that we have to deal with a mercifull God , that measures us not by our performances , but by the truth of our desires : David had a goodmind to build God an House , his hands were too bloody to lay the foundation of so holy a fabrick ; Yet God takes it as kindly from him , as if hee had finished the work ; and rewards the intention of building an house to his Name ; with the actuall building of an house to David for ever . Good Ezekiah knew how easie and welcome a sute he made , when after all endeavours of sanctifying the people , for the celebration of that great Passeover , he prayed , The Lord pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seeke God , the Lord God of his Fathers , though he be not cleansed according to the purification of the Sanctuary . Alas , we cannot be but lame in all our obediences : What can fall from defective causes , but imperfect effects ? If we pray , we are apt to entertaine unmeet notions of the infinite Spirit to whom wee addresse our supplications , and suddain glances of wandring thoughts ; If we read or hear , wee are subject to vaine distractions ; if wee approach Gods table , our souls fail of that exact preparation & purity wherewith they should be decked , when they come to that celestiall banquet ; If we doe the workes of Justice , or Mercy , it is not without some light touch of self-respect ; & well may we say with the blessed Apostle , The good that I would , I do not : we should therefore finde just cause of discouragement in our selves , if our best actions were to bee weighed by their own worth ; and not by our better intentions : But that gracious God , who puts good desires into us , is so ready to accept of them , that he looks not so much at what wee have done , as at what we wisht to have done ; and without respect to our defect , crownes our good affections . All that I can say for my selfe , O my God , is , that the desire of my heart is to please thee in all things : my comfort then is , though my abilities fail in the performance , yet thy mercies cannot faile in my acceptation . Soliloq . XXXVI . Heavenly Ioyes . DOubtless , O God , thou that hast given to men , even thine enemies , here upon Earth , so excellent meanes to please their outward senses ; such beautifull faces , and admirable flowers to delight the eye ; such delicate sents from their garden , to please the smell ; such curious confections , & delicate sauces , to please the taste ; such sweet Musick from the birds , and artificiall devises of ravishing melody from the art of man , to delight the eare ; hast much more ordained transcendent pleasures , and infinite contentments for thy glorified Saints above . My soule , whiles it is thus clogged and confined , is too straight to conceive of those incomprehensible waies of spirituall delectation , which thou hast provided for thy dear chosen ones , triumphing with thee in thy heaven : O teach me to wonder at that which I cannot here attaine to know , and to long for that happinesse which I there hope to enjoy with thee for ever . Soliloq . XXXVII . Mixed Contentments . WHat a fool were I , if I should thinke to finde that , which Solomon could not ; contentment upon earth ? his greatnesse , wealth and wisdome gave him opportunity to search , where my impotency is shut out : Were there any thing under heaven free from vanity and vexation , his curious inquisition could not have missed it . No , alas , all our earthly contentments are like a Jewish Passeover , which wee must eate with soure herbes : Have I wealth ? I cannot bee void of cares : Have I honour ? I cannot bee rid of envy : Have I knowledge ? Hee that increaseth knowledge , increaseth sorrow , saith the Kingly Preacher : Have I children ? it were strange , if without crosses : Have I pleasures ? not without a sting : Have I health ? not without the threats of disease : Have I full diet ? not without the inconveniences of satiety : Have I beauty ? not without a snare to my soul . Thus it is in all our sublunary comforts ; I cannot have the Rose , but I must be content with the prickles : Pure and absolute pleasure dwels elsewhere , far above the reach of this vale of misery . O God , give me to seeke it there onely : not without a contemptuous neglect of all those deceitfull vanities which would withdraw my soule from thee ; and there let me finde it , whiles I am here by faith , when I remove hence by personall fruition : In the mean time , let me take what thou givest me with patience , and thankfulness : thankfulnesse for the meat , and patience with the sauce . Soliloq . XXXVIII . True Wealth . ALL a mans wealth or poverty is within himselfe : It is not the outward abundance or want that can make the difference . Let a man bee never so rich in estate , yet if his heart be not satisfied , but he is still whining , and scraping and pining for more , that man is miserably poore ; all his bagges cannot make him other than a starke beggar . On the other side , give mee a man of small means whose minde is throughly content with his little , and enjoyes his pittance with a quiet and thankefull heart , that man is exceeding rich ; all the World cannot rob him of his wealth . It is not having , by which we can measure riches , but enjoying : The Earth hath all Treasures in it , yet no man stiles it rich : Of these which the world call goods of Fortune , onely opinion sets the value : Gold and Silver would bee metals whether wee thinke them so , or not ; they would not bee riches , if mens conceit and institution did not make them such . O my soule , bee not thou carried away with the common Error to covet and admire those things which have no true worth in themselves : If both the Indies were thine , thou shouldest bee no whit the wealthier ; Labour for those riches whereby thy stocke may bee advanced : The great Lord of all , who knowes best where his Wealth lies , and where thou shouldst hoord up thine , hath told thee where to seeke it , where to lay it : Lay not up for your selves Treasures upon earth , where moth and rust doth corrupt , and where theeves break thorow and steale ; But lay up for your selves Treasures in Heaven : There thou shalt bee sure to finde it entire , free from plunder , and all danger of diminution . O God , give me to covet that my minde may bee rich in knowledge , that my soule may be rich in grace , that my heart may bee rich in true contentation ; as for this pelfe of the World , let it make them miserable that admire it . Soliloq . XXXIX . False Light . LOoking forth one starry evening , my eye met with a glorious light , that seemed fairer than its fellowes : Whiles I was studying what Planet it might be , it suddainly glided downe , and vanished . O God , how can we hope to avoid delusions upon earth , when even the face of heaven may thus deceive us ? It is no otherwise in the firmament of the Church : How many have there been , that have seemed eternally fixed in that high sphere , which have proved no other than base Meteors , gilded with fair beames ; they appeared starres , their substance was but slime . Woe were to the earth , if a true starre should fall ; Yea , I doubt whether the Fabrick of heaven would stand , if one of those glorious Lights should drop downe : If therefore the star Wormwood shall fall , and imbitter the waters , hee shall shew himselfe to be but a false star , and a true Impostor ; else , heaven should fall as soon as hee . O my God , give mee grace to know the truth of my substance and the firmnesse of my station : Let me hate all counterfeit exhalations ; Let me know my selfe the least and most insensible star in thy Galaxie ; so shall I bee happy in thee , and thou shalt be by me glorified . Soliloq . XL . The haste of Desire . HOw slowly the houres seem to pace when we are big with the desire and expectation of any earthly contentment ? we are ready to chide the time for standing still , when wee would over-hasten the fruition of our approaching comfort : So the School-boy longs for his play-day , the Apprentice for his freedome , the Ward for his livery , the Bride for her nuptialls , the Heire for his inheritance : so approvedly true is that of wise Solomon , Hope deferred makes the heart sick . Were it not , O my soule , for that wretched infidelity , which cleaves so close unto thee , thou couldst not but bee thus affected to thy heaven ; and shouldst bee yet so much more , as the joyes there are infinitely more exquisite than which this earth can afford : Surely thou dost but flatter mee with the over-weening conceit of the firm apprehension of my faith ; whiles I finde thee so cool in the longing desires of thy glorification : What ? hast thou no stomack to thy happinesse ? Hath the world benummed thee with such a dull stupidity that thou art growne regardlesse and insensible of eternall blessednesse ? Oh shake off this Lethargick heavinesse of spirit , which hath possessed thee , and rouze up thy selfe to those ardent desires of glory which have sometimes enflamed thee : Yea , Lord , do thou stir up that heavenly fire that now lies raked up in the Embers of my soule , and ravish my heart with a longing desire of thy salvation . Soliloq . XLI . Deaths Remembrancers . EVery thing that I see furnishes me with fair monitions of my dissolution : If I look into my garden , there I see some flowers fading , some withered ; If I look to the earth , I see that mother , in whose wombe I must lie ; If I goe to Church , the graves that I must step over in my way , shew me what I must trust to ; If I look to my Table , death is in every Dish , since what I feed on did once live . If I look into my glasse , I cannot but see death in my face ; If I goe to my bed , there I meet with sleepe the Image of death ; and the sheets , which put mee in minde of my winding up . If I look into my study ; what are all those books , but the monuments of other dead authors ? O my soul , how canst thou bee unmindfull of our parting , when thou art plyed with so many monitors ? Cast thine eyes abroad into the world , what canst thou see but killing and dying ? Cast thine eyes up into heaven , how canst thou but thinke of the place of thy approaching rest ? How justly then may I say with the Apostle , By our rejoycing which I have in Christ Jesus , I die daily : And , Lord , as I daily die in the decay of this fraile nature ; so let me die daily in my affection to life , in my preparation for death . O do thou fit me for that last , and happy change . Teach me so to number my daies that I apply my heart to wisdom , and addresse it to ensuing glory . Soliloq . XLII . Faiths Victory . WEE are here in a perpetuall warfare , and fight wee must ; Surely , either fight , or dye ; some there are that doe both ; That is according as the quarrell is , and is managed : There are those that fight against God ; these medling with so unequall a match , cannot looke to prevaile . Again , The flesh warreth against the spirit ; this intestine rebellion cannot hope to prosper ; but if with the chosen vessell , I can say , I have fought a good fight , I can neither lose life , nor misse of victory : And what is that good fight ? Even the same Apostle tels me , the fight of faith ; this is the good fight indeed , both in the cause and managing , & the issue : Lo this faith it is , that wins God to my side , that makes the Almighty mine ; that not only ingages him in my cause , but unites me to him ; so as his strength is mine : In the power of his might therefore I cannot but be victorious over all my spirituall enemies by the onely meanes of this faith : For Satan ; This Shield of faith is it that shall quench all the fiery darts of that wicked one . For the world ; this is the victory that overcomes the world ; even our faith . Be sure to finde thy self furnished with this grace ; and then say , O my soule , thou hast marched valiantly : the powers of Hell shall not bee able to stand before thee ; they are mighty and have all advantages of a spirituall nature , of long duration , and experience ; of place , of subtilty : Yet this conquering grace of faith is able to give them the foile , and to trample over all the powers of darknesse . O my Lord God , doe thou arme and fortifie my soule with a lively and stedfast faith in thee , I shall not feare what man or Divell can doe unto me : settle my heart in a firme reliance upon thee , and turne mee loose to what enemy thou pleasest . Soliloq . XLIII . The unfailing Friend . NExt to the joy of a good conscience , there is no greater comfort upon earth , than the enjoyment of dear friends ; neither is there any thing more sad than their parting ; and by how nearer their relations are , so much greater is our sorrow in forgoing them : What moane ▪ did good David make , both for Absalon as a Sonne , ( though ungracious ) and for Jonathan as a friend : Surely , when our dear ones are pulled away from us , we seeme to have limbes torne away from our bodies ; yet this is a thing must bee lookt for ; wee are given to each other , ( or lent rather ) upon condition of parting , either they must leave us , or we them ; a parting there must bee , as sure as there was a meeting : It is our fault if we set our hearts too much upon that , which may , yea , which must be lost . Be wise , O my soul , and make sure of such friends as thou canst not be bereaved of : Thou hast a God , that hath said , I will not leave thee nor forsake thee : It was an easie sute , and already granted which the holy Psalmist made : Cast me not off in the time of old age , forsake me not when my strength faileth : And againe , When my Father and my Mother forsake me ( in their farewell to a better world ) yet then the Lord will take me up . It is an happy thing to have immortall friends : sticke close unto them , O my soule , and rejoyce in them evermore , as those that shall sweetly converse with thee here , and shall at last , receive thee into everlasting habitations . Soliloq . XLIV . Quiet Humility . HE is a rare man that is not wise in his owne conceit ; and that saies not within himselfe , I see more than my neighbours : For wee are all borne proud , and selfe-opinionate ; and when we are come to our imaginary maturity , are apt to say with Zedechiah , to those of better judgement than our own , which way went the Spirit of God from me to speak unto thee ? Hence have arisen those strange varieties of wilde paradoxes , both in Philosophy and Religion , wherewith the world abounds every where . When our fancy hath entertained some uncouth thought , our selfe-love is apt to hatch it up , our confidence to broach it , and our obstinacy to maintain it ; and ( if it bee not too monstrous ) there will not want some credulous fools to abet it : so as the onely way both to peace and truth , is true Humility ; which will teach us to thinke meanly of our own abilities , to be diffident of our own apprehensions and judgments , to ascribe much to the reverend antiquity , greater sanctity , deeper insight of our blessed Predecessors . This onely will keepe us in the beaten road , without all extravagant deviations to untrodden by-paths : Teach me , O Lord , evermore to think my self no whit wiser than I am ; so shall I neither bee vainly irregular , nor the Church troublesomely unquiet . Soliloq . XLV . Sure Mercies . THere is nothing more troublesome in humane society than the disappoint of trust , and failing of friends : For besides the disorder that it works in our owne affaires , it commonly is attended with a necessary deficiency of our performances to others : The leaning upon a broken Reed gives us both a fall and a wound : Such is a false friend , who after professions of love , and reall offices , either slinkes from us , or betrayes us : This is that which the great patterne of patience so bitterly complaines of , as none of his least afflictions , My Kinsfolk have failed me , and my familiar friends have forgotten me . It went to the heart of David , that his owne familiar friend , in whom hee trusted , which did eate of his bread , should lift up his heele against him : And surely , those that are stanch , and faithfull in themselves , cannot but bee so much the more deeply affected with the perfidious dealing of others ; and yet also so much the more , as their confidence and entirenesse was greater ; this was that which heightned the vexation of that man who is so famous for the integrity of his heart . It was thou , O man , mine equall , my guide , my acquaintance ; we took sweet counsell together , and walked to the house of God in company . And still our daily experience gives us miserable instances in this kinde : Hee hath had little to doe in the world that hath not spent many a sigh upon others faithlesness . And now , O my soule , the more sad proofe thou hast had of the untrusty disposition and carriage of men , the more it concernes thee to betake thy selfe , in all zealous & absolute affiance , unto the sure protection and never-fayling providence of thy God ? the God who being Truth it selfe , never did , never can forfeit his Trust to any soule that relyed upon his most certaine promises , upon his promised mercies , upon his mercifull and just performances . My soule wait thou only upon God ; for my expectation is from him ; He onely is my Rock , and my salvation ; In God is my salvation and my glory , the Rocke of my strength , and my refuge is in God . It shall not trouble thee to send men false , whiles thou hast such a true God to have recourse unto . Soliloq . XLVI . Dangerous Prosperity . IT was a just and needfull precaution , O God , which thou gavest of old to thine Israel . When thou shalt have eaten , and art full , then beware lest thou forget the Lord : There was not so great feare of forgetting thee , whiles they were in an hungry and dry Wilderness , although even there they did too often forget themselves , in an ungracious murmuring against thee and their Leaders ; the greatest danger of their forgetting Thee would be , ( thou knewest ) when they should come to be pampered in the Land that flowed with Milk and Honey : There it was that accordingly Jesurum waxed fat and kicked ; there being growne thick and covered with fatnesse , he forsooke God which made him , and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation . Nothing is more difficult than to keep our selves from growing wanton by excess ; whereas nature kept low is capable of just obedience : Like as in the body also , a full feed breeds superfluous and vicious humors , wheras a spare diet keeps it both clean and healthfull . Do not I see , O Lord , even the man that was after thine owne heart whiles thou kepst him in breath , with the prosecution of an unjust Master , how tenderly consciencious hee was ; remorsed in himselfe for but cutting off a lappe of the robe of his causelesse pursuer : who yet when he came to the full scope of his ease , and Courtly jollity , made no scruple of the adulterous bed of faire Bathsheba , or the bloody murther of a faithfull Vriah . Who was I , O Lord , that I should promise my self an immunity from the perill of a prosperous condition under which thy holier servants have miscarried . It was thy goodnesse and wisdome who fore-seest not what shall be onely , but what might bee also , in prevention of the danger of my surfeit , to take away the dish , whereon I might have over-fed . O God , I do humbly submit to thy good pleasure ; and contentedly rest upon thy Providence , which hast thought fit rather to secure me in the safe use of my little , than to exercise mee with the temptations of a bewitching plenty . Soliloq . XLVII . Cheerfull Obedience . IT is not so much the worke that God stands upon as the mind of the worker . The same act may bee done with the thanke and advantage of one agent , and with frowns and disrespect to another . If we doe our businesse grudgingly , and because we must , out of the necessity of our subsistence , we shall have as much thanke to sit still : It is our owne need that sets our hands on work , not our obedience : So as herein wee are our own slaves , not Gods servants ; Whereas , if we go about the workes of our calling cheerfully , offering them up to God , as our willing sacrifice in an humble compliance with his commands , and an awfull and comfortable expectation of his gracious acceptance , we are blessed in our holy endeavours , and cannot faile of an Euge from our Master in Heaven . Alas , Lord , it is but little that I can doe , and , without thy enabling , nothing . Thou that vouchsafest to give me an abilitation to the worke , put into me also good affections to thee in performing of it : Let me doe thy will here , as thy Angels doe in heaven , with all gracious readinesse , and alacrity ; and be no lesse glad that I shall doe it , than that it is done : so whiles carnall hearts shall languish under their forced taskes , my labour shall be my pleasure ; and I shall finde unspeakable comfort both in the conscience of my act , and the crown of my obedience . Soliloq . XLVIII Heavenly Accordance . AS our condition here upon earth is different ; so must our affection needs be also : that which is one mans joy is anothers griefe ; one mans fear is another mans hope : neither can it be otherwise , while our occasions draw us to so manifest contradictions of disposition : These diversities and contrarieties of inclination and desire , are the necessary symptomes of our wretched mortality ; and the nearer we grow to the perfection of our blessednesse , the more shall we concentrate in the united scope of all our actions , and affections , which is the sole glory of our Creator : Know then , O my soul , that the closer thou canst gather up thy selfe in all the exercise of thy faculties , and proposals of thy desires , to the only respect of the honour of that great and good God which gave thee thy being , thou aspirest so much nearer to thy heaven , where all the blessed Saints and Angels agree together in one perpetuall imployment of praising their Maker ; and sweetly accord in that one most perfect ditty and note of an eternall Allelujah to him that sits upon the Throne of that Celestiall glory . O God , doe thou draw in my heart more and more from this variety of earthly distractions , and fixe it upon this one heavenly worke : put me upon that blessed Taske here below , which shall never know any end , but endure for ever in heaven . Soliloq . XLIX . Divine Bounty . HAd not the Apostle said so , yet our owne sense and experience would have told us , that every good and perfect gift is from above , and commeth downe from the Father of Lights : For sure , from below it cannot come . How should any perfect gift arise from the region of all imperfection ? How should evill afford any good ? What is below but earth and hell ? whereof the one yeelds nothing but torment , the other nothing but misery , and sin : If therefore it be pefect , or good , ( since nothing can give what it hath not ) it must needs come from above : And from whom above ? Not from those lightsome bodies of the Starres , whose influences cannot reach unto the soule , whose substance is not capable of any spirituall power , whether to have , or give perfect gifts : Not from the blessed Spirits , which are Angels of Light : They may helpe , through Gods gracious appointment , to convey blessings to us , they neither wil or can challenge an originall and primary interest in the blessings which they convey . Onely therefore from the Father of Lights ; who as he is light , so is the Author of all whatsoever light , both inward and outward , spirituall and sensible : and as light was the first good and perfect gift which hee bestowed on the world , so it well may imploy all the spirituall blessings conferred on the Creature : So as he that said , Let there bee light ; said also , Let this man be wise ; Let that bee learned ; Let that other be gracious and holy : whence then , O whence can I look for any good thing , but from thy hands , O my God , who givest to all men liberally and upbraidest not : whose infinite treasure is not capable of any diminution ; since the more thou givest , thy store is not the lesse , thy glory more . Thou dost not sell thy favours , as we men are apt to do , looking through our small bounty , at an expected retribution ; but thou givest most freely , most absolutely : neither dost thou lend thy best blessing , as looking to receive them back again , but so conveyest them to us , as to make them our owne for ever : since therefore thy gifts are so free , that all thy heavenly riches may be had for asking ; how worthy shall I bee to want them if I doe not sue for them to the Throne of thy grace ; Yet even this ( since it is a good thing ) I cannot do without thee . O then give thou mee the grace that I may bee ever begging faithfully of thee ; and give mee the graces that I beg for . Soliloq . L. Sweet use of Power . I See that great , wise , and holy God , who might most justly make use of his absolute power , yet proceeds sweetly with his creature in all his wayes : Hee might force some to salvation in spight of their wills ; He might damne others meerely for his pleasure , without respect to their sin : But he doth not , hee will not doe either of these ; but goes along graciously and gently with us , inviting us to Repentance , and earnestly tendring to us the meanes of salvation on the one side with effectuall perswasions , and strong motives , and kindly inclinations to an answerable obedience ; on the other side , laying before us the fearfull menaces of his judgements denounced against sinners , urging all powerfull disswasions , and using all probable meanes to divert us from all the waies of wickednesse ; and when those prevaile not , justly punishing us for our wilfull disobedience , impenitence , and infidelity . O God , how should we learne of thee to proceed with all our fellow-Creatures , ( but much more with our Christian Brethren ) not according to the rigour of any pretended prerogative of power , but in all mercifull tenderness , in all gentle and faire meanes of their reclamation on the one side , & on the other , in an unwilling and constrained severity of necessary justice . And how much doth it concerne thee , O my soule , not to stay till thy God shall drag thee to Repentance and salvation , but gladly to embrace all those happy opportunities , and cheerfully to yeeld to all those mercifull solicitations , which thy God offers thee for thy full Conversion ; And carefully to avoid those waies of sinne and death which he hath under so dreadfull denunciations graciously warned thee to shun : Else thy God is cleared both in his justice and mercy , and thy perdition is of thy self . Soliloq . LI. The power of Conscience . IT is a true word of the Apostle , God is greater than our Conscience ; and surely , none but he : under that great God , the supreme power on earth is the conscience . Every man is a little world within himselfe ; and in this little world there is a Court of Judicature erected , wherein next under God the Conscience sits as the supreme Judge , from whom there is no appeale ; that passeth sentence upon us , upon all our actions , upon all our intentions ; for our persons , absolving one , condemning another ; for our actions , allowing one , forbidding another : If that condemn us , in vaine shall all the World besides acquit us ; and if that cleare us , the doom which the World passeth upon us , is frivolous ▪ and ineffectuall . I grant this Judge is sometimes corrupted with the Bribes of Hope , with the weake feares of losse , with an undue respect of persons , with powerfull importunities , with false witnesses , with forged evidences , to passe a wrong sentence upon the person , or cause ; for which hee shall be answerable to him that is higher than the highest ; but yet this doom , ( though reversible by the Tribunall of Heaven ) is still obligatory on earth : So as it is my fault that my conscience is mis-led ; but it is not my fault to follow my Conscience . How much need have I therefore , O my God , to pray that thou wouldst guide my Conscience aright ; and keepe this great Judge in my bosome from Corruption and errour ? and what need hath this intestine arbiter of mine to take speciall care that he may avoid all misinformations that may mislead his judgment , and all the base suggestions of outward advantage , or losse that may deprave his affections ? And , O thou , that only art greater than my Conscience , keep mee from doing ought against my Conscience : I cannot disobey that but I must offend thee ; since that is but thine Officer under thee , and only commands for thee . Soliloq . LII . Proud Poverty . THat which wise Solomon observed in the temporall estates of men , holds no lesse true in the spirituall : There is that maketh himselfe rich , yet hath nothing ; There is that maketh himself poor , yet hath great riches : On the one side , we meet with a proud but beggarly Laodicean , that saies , I am rich , and increased with goods , and have need of nothing ; which will not know that he is wretched , and miserable , and poor , and blinde , and naked ; This man when the means of further grace are tendred him , can say , as Esau did of the profered herds , I have enough my Brother ; and with the bragging Pharisee can boast of what he is not , and of what he is ; of what hee hath , of what he doth ; admiring his owne nothing , and not caring to seek for more , because he thinks he hath all ; this fond Justiciary can overdoe his duty , and supererogate ; contemning the poverty of soules better furnished than his 〈◊〉 ; and laying his merits in the dish of the Almighty . On the other side , there is an humble soule , that is secretly rich in all spirituall endowments ; full of knowledge , abounding in grace , which out of the true poverty of spirit under-values himselfe , and makes no shew of ought but a bemoaned disability : as wee have seen those grounds wherein the richest Mines are treasured , bewray nothing but barrennesse in their outside . O my soul , what estimation soever others may set upon thee , thou art conscious enough of thy owne wants ; be thankfull for the little thou hast , and abased for the much thou lackest ; and if thou wilt needs bee advancing thy selfe above others , let it be in the contestation of thy greater humblenesse , and lower dejection . Thy grace shall be no lesse because thou thinkst it so : but shall rather multiply by a modest diminution . And , O Blessed Lord , thou who resistest the proud , and givest grace to the humble , give me more humility , that I may receive more grace from thee ; and thou whose gracious raine shelves downe from the steep mountains , and sweetly drenches the humble vallies ; depresse thou my heart more and more with true lowliness of Spirit , that the showers of thy heavenly grace may soke into it , and make it more fruitfull in all good affections , and all holy obedience . Soliloq . LIII . The happiest Society . I Finde , O Lord , some holy men that have gone aside from the world , into some solitary wildernesse , that they might have their ful scope of enjoying thee freely , without any secular avocations ; who no doubt improved their perfect leisure to a great entirenesse of conversation with thee . Surely I could easily admire the report of their holinesse , and emulate their mortified retirednesse , if I did not hear them say , The Woolfe dwels in the Wood , and that they could as soone leave themselves , as the World behind them . There is no Desart so wild , no Mountaines or Rockes so craggy , wherein I would not gladly seeke thee , O my God , and which I would not willingly climbe up to finde thee , if I could hope that solitude would yeeld a spirituall advantage of more enjoying thee . But , alas , I find our weak powers are subject to an unavoidable lassitude ; and wee can no more contemplate alwaies those divine Objects , than our bodily eyes are able to fix themselves on the body of the Sun in his brightest splendor : so as , if our mindes should not bee sometime taken off with a safe variety of Cogitations , wee should be overwhelmed with thy Glory , and with too much light blinded : by this meanes it comes to pass that these small interspirations set an edge upon our re-assumed speculations , and renewed Devotions : Although also in the mean time , I should hate all secular diversions , if they should take thee for a moment quite out of my sight ; If I did not finde that I may still refer them to thee , and enjoy thee in them . O God , doe thou so fix my soul upon thee , that what ever occasion shall take me up , I may never be out of thy blessed society , and make me so insensible of the noise of the world , that even in the midst of the Market I may bee still alone with thee . Soliloq . LIV. Honey from the Rock . O God , thou didst miraculously refresh thy murmuring Israel of old with water out of the Rock , in that dry wildernesse ; and now I hear thee say , If they had hearkened to thy voice , and walked in thy waies , with honey out of the Rock thou wouldst have satisfied them . Loe , that which thou wouldest have done to thine ancient people , if they had obeyed thee , thou hast abundantly performed to thine Evangelicall Israel . With Hony out of the Rock hast thou satisfied them ; The Rock that followed them was Christ my Saviour : Lo , out of this Rock hath flowed that hony whereby our soules are satisfied ; Out of his side ( saith the Evangelist ) came water and blood , This Rock of our salvation affordeth both what Israel had , and might have had . Surely , O my God , there can be no hony so sweet , as the effect of the precious bloud of my Saviour to the soul of the Beleever ; By that bloud we have eternall redemption from death , and Remission of all our sinnes ; By that bloud are we justified in the sight of our God , and saved from the wrath to come ; By that bloud we have our Peace made in Heaven , and are fully reconciled to our God ; By that blood wee are cleansed and purged from all our iniquity ; By that bloud we are sanctified from our Corruptions ; By that blood we receive the Promise and possession of an eternall inheritance . O the spirituall Hony so sweet , that the materiall Hony is but bitternesse to it ! Jonathan of old did but dip his Speare in the honey of the wood , and but with one licke of that sweet moisture had his eies cleared , and his spirits revived ; O God , let me but taste , and see how sweet the Lord Jesus is , in all his gracious Promises , in all his mercifull and reall Performances , I shall need no more to make me happy . Thy Solomon bids me to eat honey : Lo , this is the honey that I desire to eat of ; Give me of this honey and I shall receive both clearnesse to my eies , and vigour of my spirits to the foiling of all my spirituall enemies . This is nothe honey whereof I am bidden not to eate too much : No , Lord , I can never eat enough of this Celestiall honey ; Here I cannot surfet ; Or , if I could , this surfet would be my health . O God , give me still enough of this honey out of the Rocke , so shall my soul live , and bless thee , and bee blessed of thee . Soliloq . LV . Sure Earnest . O My God , what a comfortable assurance is this which thou hast given to my soule ? Thou hast , in thy great mercy , promised and agreed to give me heaven ; and now because thou dost not put me into a present possession , thou hast given me earnest of my future inheritance ; and this earnest is that good Spirit of thine , which thou hast graciously put into my soule . Even we men , whose stile is deceitfull upon the ballance , think our selves sure when in civill transactions we have received an earnest of the bargaine ; and much more when we have taken that small piece of coine , as part of the bargained payment ; How then can I fear to fail thee , my God , whose Title is faithfull and True ; whose Word is Yea , and Amen . It is ordinary with the World to cheat my soule with fair promises , and faithlesse engagements of yielding me those contentments , which it neither can , nor meant to performe . But for thee , O Lord , heaven and earth shall passe away , but not one jot of thy Word shall passe unfulfilled : Hadst thou then , but given mee that Word of thine , I durst have set my soul upon it , with all firme confidence ; but now that thou hast seconded thy Word with thy Earnest , what place can be left for my doubt ? What then , what is it that thou canst sticke at , O my soul ? Canst thou make question of the truth of the Earnest ? Thou knowest that thou canst not ; the stamp is too well known to be misdoubted ; the impressions are full and inimitable ; this seale cannot be counterfeit ; the graces of the Spirit which thou hast received , thou feelest to be true and reall ; thou findest in thy selfe a faith , though weak , yet sincere ; an unfeigned repentance joyned with an hearty detestation of all thy sinnes ; a fervent love of that infinite goodnesse that hath remitted them , a conscionable care to avoid them , a zealous desire to bee approved to God in all thy waies : Flesh and bloud cannot have wrought these graces in thee ; It is onely that good Spirit of thy God , which hath thus sealed thee to the day of Redemption . Walke on therefore , O my soule , confidently and chearfully in the strength of this assurance , and joyfully expect the full accomplishment of this happy contract from the sure hands of thy God : Let no temptation stagger thee in the comfortable resolutions of thy future glory ; But say boldly with that holy Patriarke , O Lord I have waited for thy salvation . Soliloq . LVI . Heavenly Manna . VIctory it selfe is the great reward of our fight ; but what is it , O God that thou promisest to give us as the reward of our Victory ? even the hidden Manna : Surely were not this gift exceeding precious , thou wouldst not reserve it for the remuneration of so glorious a Conquest . Behold that materiall and visible Manna , which thou sentest down from heaven , to stop the mouths of murmuring Israel , perished in their use ; and if it were reserved but to the next day , putrified , and instead of nourishing , annoyed them ; But the hidden Manna , that was laid up in the Arke , was incorruptible , as a lasting monument of thy power , and mercy to thy people ; But now , alas , what is become both of that Manna , and of that Arke ? Both are vanished ( having passed through the devouring jawes of time ) into meer forgetfulnesse . It is the true spiritual Manna that came down from the highest heaven , and ascending thither again is hidden therein the glorious Arke of Eternity , that thou wilt give to thy Conqueror : That is it , which being participated of here below , nourisheth us to eternall life ; and being communicated to us above , is the full consummation of that blessed life , and glory . O give me so to fight that I may overcome , that so overcomming , I may bee feasted with this Manna . Thou that art , and hast given me thy selfe , the spirituall Manna , which I have fed on by faith ; and the symbolicall Manna , whereof I have eaten sacramentally ; give me of that heavenly Manna , whereof I shall partake in glory : It is yet an hidden Manna , hid from the eies of the world , yea in a sort from our owne ; hid in light inaccessible : For our life is hid with Christ in God ; but shall then bee fully revealed : for it shall then not onely cover the face of the earth round about the tents of Israel . but spread it self over the face of the whole heaven , yea fill both heaven and earth . I well thought , O my God , that if heaven could afford any thing more precious than other , thou wouldst lay it up for thy Victor : for it is an hard service that thy poore Infantry here upon earth are put unto ; to conflict with so mighty , so malicious , so indefatigable enemies ; and therefore the reward must be so much the greater , as the warefare is more difficult . O doe thou who art the great Lord of Hosts , give me courage to fight , perseverance in fighting , and power to overcome all my spirituall enemies , that I may receive from thee this hidden Manna , that my soul may live for ever , and may for ever blesse thee . Soliloq . LVII . The Hearts Treasure . IT is a sure Word of thine , O Saviour , that where our Treasure is , there our hearts will be also ; neither can wee easily know , where to finde our hearts , if our Treasure did not discover them : Now , Lord , where is my Treasure ? Surely I am not worthy to bee owned of thee , if my Treasure be anywhere but in heaven : my lumber and luggage may be here on earth , but my Treasure is above ; there thou hast laid up for me the richest of thy mercies , even my eternall salvation : Yea Lord , what is my richest Treasure but thy selfe ? in whom all the Treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge , yea of infinite Glory are laid up for all thine : All things that this world can afford me , are but meere pelfe in comparison of this Treasure ; or , if the earth could yeeld ought that is precious , yet I cannot call that Treasure . Treasure implies both price , and store of the dearest Commodities : never so great abundance of base things cannot make a Treasure ; neither can some few peeces of the richest mettals bee so accounted ; but where there is a large congestion of precious Jewels , and Metalls , there onely is Treasure : If any at all , surely very little , and mean is the wealth which I can promise my selfe here ; perhaps some brasse Farthing , or light and counterfeit Coine , meer earthy dross , which may load but cannot enrich my soule ; my only true riches are above with thee ; and where then should my heart bee but there ? My hand and my braine too must necessarily bee sometimes here below , but my heart shall be still with my Treasure in heaven . It is wont to be said , that however the memory of old age is short , yet that no old man ever forgot where hee laid up his Treasure . O God , let not that Celestiall Treasure which thou hast laid up for me , be at any time out of my thoughts ; let my eye be ever upon it ; let my heart long for the full possession of it ; and so joy in the assured expectation of it ; that it may disrelish all the contentments , and contemne all the crosses which this World can afford me . Soliloq . LVIII . The narrow Way . O Saviour , I hear thee say , I am the Way , the Truth , and the Life ; and yet again , thou ( who art Truth it selfe ) tell'st me , that the way is narrow , and the gate straight that leadeth unto life : Surely , thou who art the living Way , art exceeding large ; so wide that all the World of Beleevers enter into life by thee only : but the way of our walke towards thee is straight and narrow ; Not , but that thy Commandement in it self is exceeding broad ; for Lord , how fully comprehensive it is of all morall and holy duties ? and what gracious latitude hast thou given us in it of our Obedience ? and how favourable indulgence and remission in case of our faylings ? But narrow in respect of the weaknesse and insufficiency of our obedience ? It is our wretched infirmity that straitens our way to the . Lo , heaven , which is thy All-glorious Mansion , when wee are once entred into it , how infinitely large and spacious it is ; even this lower contignation of it , at how marvailous distance it archeth in this Globe of aire , and earth , and waters ? and how is that again surrounded with severall heights of those lightsome Regions , unmeasurable for their glorious dimensions ? But the heaven of heavens , the seat of the blessed , is yet so much larger , as it is higher in place , and more eminent in glory ; yet thou wouldst have the way to it narrow , and the gate of it straight : And even thus it pleaseth thee to ordain in the dispensation of all thine inferiour blessings ; Learning dwells fair within , but the entrance is straight through study , watching , bending of braines , wearing of spirits : the house of honour is sumptuous and goodly within , but the gate is straight that leads into it ; which is through danger , attendance , plots of emulation : Wealth hath large Elbow-roome of lodging , but the gate is straight ; hard labour , careful thrift , racking of thoughts , painfull adventures . How much more wouldst thou have it thus in the best of all blessings , the eternell fruition of heaven ? And why is this way narrow , but because it is untracked , and untrodden ? If I may not rather say the way is untracked and found by few , because it is narrow , and not easie to tread in . Surely grace is the way to glory , and that path is not for every foot : the straighter and narrower it is , O my God , the more let me strive and shoulder to enter into it . VVhat vaine quarrels doe we daily heare of for the way ; but Lord enable me to strive for this way even to blood : And if thou have been pleased to set me a deep way , or a rough way through many tribulations , to that happy and eternall life , let me passe it with all cheerfull resolution . How oft have I not grudged to go a foule way to a friends house , where I knew my entertainement kind and cordiall ? O let me not think much to come to those thy everlasting Mansions of bliss , through tears and blood . The end shall make an abundant amends for the way ; If I suffer with thee , I shall reign with thee . Soliloq . LIX . Gods various Proceedings . WHat strange varieties doe I finde in the workings of God with men : One-where I finde him gently , and plausibly inviting men to their Conversion ; another-where , I finde him frighting some others to heaven : some he traines up in a goodly education , and without any eminent change , calls them forth to an exemplary profession of his Name ; some others he chuseth out of a life notoriously lewd , to be the great patternes of a suddain Reformation ; One that was only formall in his Devotion without any true life of grace , is , upon a grievous sicknesse , brought to a lively sense of godlinesse ; another comes to Gods house with a purpose to sleep or scoffe , and through the secret operation of Gods Spirit working with his Word , returnes full of true compunction of heart , with teares in his eyes , and resolutions of present amendment of life : One that was proud of his owne righteousnesse is suffered to fall into some foule sin , which shames him before men , and is thus brought down to an humble acknowledgement of his owne frailty ; another , that was cast down with a sad despair of Gods mercy , is raised up by the fall of an unbroken glasse , or by some comfortable dreame , or by the seasonable word of a cheerfull friend : One is called at the sixt hour , another not till the eleventh ; one by faire and probable meanes , another by contraries ; so as even the worke of Satan himself hath been made the occasion of the conversion of his soule . O God , thy waies are infinite , and past finding out : It is not for us to prescribe thee what to do , but humbly to adore thee in what thou doest . Far be it from me , so to cast my self upon thy All-working providence , as to neglect the ordinary means of my salvation : Inable me chearfully to endeavour what thou requirest , and then take what way thou pleasest ; so that thou bringst me to the end of my hope , the salvation of my soul . Soliloq . LX . The waking Guardian . IT is a true word which the Psalmist said of thee , O God ; Thou that keepest Israel , neither slumbrest , nor sleepest : Fond Tyrants thinke that thou winkest at their cruell persecutions of thy Church , because thou dost not speedily execute vengeance upon them , whereas , if the fault were not in their eyes , they should see thine wide open , and bent upon them for their just destruction ; onely thou thinkst fit to hold thy hand for a time from the infliction of judgment , till the measure of their iniquity be full , and then they shall feel to their cost , that thou sawest all their secret Plots and Conspiracies against thine Israel . The time was , O Saviour , when in the daies of thine humane infirmity thou slept'st in the sterne of the Ship , on a pillow , when the Tempest raged and the Waves swelled ; yet even then when thy Disciples awoke thee and said , Lord save us we perish , thou rebukedst them sharply , with , Why are yee fearfull , O yee of little faith ? Their danger was apparently great , but yet thou telst them their feare was causelesse , and their faith weake , that they could not assure themselves that thy presence ( though sleeping ) was a sufficient preservative against the fury of windes and waters : How much more now , that being in the height of thine heavenly glory , and ever intentively vigilant for the safegard of thy chosen ones , may we rest secure of thy blessed protection , and our sure indemnity ? O God , do thou keep my eies ever open , that I may still wait upon thee , for thy gracious tuition , and the mercifull accomplishment of thy salvation : Thou seest I have to doe with those enemies that are never but waking , never but seeking all advantages against my soul ; What can they doe when thine eye is ever over me for good ? O then let mine eyes be ever unto thee , O God my Lord ; in thee let me still put my trust : so shalt thou keepe me from the snares that they have laid for me , and the grins of the workers of iniquity . Soliloq . LXI . The sting of guiltinesse . GUiltinesse can never thinke it selfe sure ; if there were no Fiends to torment it , like a bosome-Devill , it would ever torture it selfe : no Guard can bee so sure , no Fort so strong as to secure it from terrors . The first Murderer after his bloody fratricide , when there is no mention of any man ( beside his Father ) upon earth , yet can say , It shall come to passe that every one that findeth me shall slay mee ; and I marvaile that he added not ; if none else will doe it , I shall do that deadly office to my selfe : Hee was sure hee could meet with none but Brethren or Nephewes ; and even the face of those was now dreadfull to him : hee that had been so cruell to him that had laine in the same wombe with himselfe , feares that no neereness of bloud can shield him from the violence of the next man . Conscience when once exasperated , needs not stay for an accuser , a witnesse , a solicitor to enforce the evidence , a Judge ; but it selfe alone acts all these parts , and oft-times also the executioners to boot . It was a just question of the wisest of men , A wounded spirit who can bear ? But there are divers and different degrees of the wounds of spirit : All are painefull , some mortall ; as in the body , there may bee some wounds in the outward and fleshly part , which have more pain than peril , but those of the principall , and vitall parts are not more dolorous than dangerous , and often deadly : so it is in the soul , there are wounds of the inferiour and affective faculties , as griefe for crosses , vexation for disappointment of hopes , pangs of anger for wrongs received , which may be cured with seasonable remedies ; but the wounds of conscience inflicted by the sting of some hainous sin , which lies belking within us , carries in it horror , despaire , death . O God , keep me from bloud-guiltinesse , and from all crying and presumptuous sins ; but if ever my frailty should be so fouly tainted , do thou so work upon my soul , as that my repentance may walke in equall paces with my sin , ere it can aggravate it selfe by continuance . Apply thy soveraign plaister to my soule whiles the wound is greene , and suffer it not to fester inwardly through any impenitent delay . Soliloq . LXII . Beneficiall VVant . IT is just with thee , O God , when thou seest us grow wanton , and unthankfully neglective of thy blessings , to withdraw them from us , that by the want of them we may feel both our unregarded obligations , and the defects of our duty : So we have seen the Nurse , when the childe begins to play with the dugge , to put up the breast out of sight . I should not acknowledg how precious a favour health is , if thou didst not sometimes interchange it with sicknesse ; nor how much I am bound to thee for my Limbes , if I had not sometimes a touch of lamenesse : Thirst gives better relish to the drinke , and hunger is the best sauce to our meate . Nature must needs affect a continuance of her wellfare ; neither is any thing more grievous to her , than these crosse interceptions of her contentments : but thou , who art wisdome it selfe , knowest how fit it is for us , both to smart for our neglect of thy familiar mercies , and to have thy blessings more endeared to us by a seasonable discontinuance . Neither dost thou want to deale otherwise in the mannaging of thy spirituall mercies . If thy Spouse , the faithfull soul , shall ( being pampered with prosperity ) begin to grow secure and negligent , so as at the first knock of her beloved , she rise not up to open to Him , but suffers his head to bee filled with Dew , and his lockes with the drops of the night ; she soon findes her beloved withdrawne and gone : she may then seeke him , and not finde him ; she may call , and receive noe answer ; she may seek him about the streets , and in stead of finding him lose her vaile , and meet with blowes and wounds from the watch-men . O God , keep thou me from being resty with ease ; hold mee in a continuall tendernesse of heart : continue me in a thankfull , and awfull use of all thy favours : but , if at any time thou seest me decline to a careless obduration , and to a disrespective forgetfulnesse of thy mercies , doe thou so chastise me with the fatherly hand of thy afflictions , and so work me to a gracious use of thy desertions , that my soul may seeke thee with more vigour of affections , and may recover thee with more sensible comfort . Soliloq . LXIII . Interchange of Conditions . IT is not for nothing , O my God , that thou hast protracted my time so long , and hast given me so large experience of thy most wise and holy dealing with my selfe and others . Doubtlesse it is , that I might see , and feele , and observe , and teach the gracious changes of thy carriage towards thy poore sinfull Creatures upon earth . Thou dost not hold us alwaies under the rod , ( though we well deserve a perpetuall correction ) as considering our miserable impotence , and aptnesse to an heartlesse dejection ; Thou dost not alwaies keep our hearts raised up to the jollity of a prosperous condition , as knowing our readinesse to presume , and to bee carried away with a false confidence of our unmoveablenesse ; but graciously interchangest thy favours with our sufferings : When thou seest us ready to faint , and to be discouraged with our adversity , thou takest off thy hand , and givest us a comfortable respiration from our miseries ; When thou seest us puft up with the vaine conceit of our owne worth , or successe , thou takest us downe with some heavy crosse . When thou findest us overlaid with an unequall match , and ready to bee foiled in the fight , thou givest us breath , and puttest new strength into our armes , and new courage into our hearts ; When thou findest us insolent with our Victory , thou sham'st us by an unexpected discomfiture . And as for the outward estate of the Nations and Kingdomes of the earth , thou whirlest them about in a perpetuall , yet constant vicissitude ; Peace breeds plenty , Plenty wantonnesse and pride , Pride Animosity , from thence followes war , VVar produces Vastation and want , Poverty causeth Industry , and ( when nothing is left to strive for ) Peace , an industrious peace brings plenty againe , and in this gyre thou hast ordained the world still to turne about . Be not too much moved then , O my soule , when thou findest thy selfe hard pressed with afflictions , and conflicted with strong temptations , but beare up constantly in the strength of thy faith , as being assured , that having rid out this storme , thou shalt bee blessed with an happy calme ; Neither bee thou lifted up too much when thou findest thy selfe carried on with a fair gale of prosperity , since thou knowst not what tempests may suddenly arise ; and many hopefull vessell hath been sunke in sight of the Port : And when thou seest the world every where full of woefull combustions , bee not over-much dismaied with the sight and sense of these publike Calamities , but waite patiently upon that Divine Providence ; which , after those revolutions of change , shall happily reduce all things to their determinate posture : To which purpose , O God , do thou fix my heart firmly upon thee ; doe thou keep me from the evill of prosperity , from dejectednesse in affliction , from the prevalence of temptation , from misprision of thy Providence : VVorke me to that due temper which thy Solomon hath prescribed me ; In the day of prosperity be joyfull ; but in the day of adversity consider : God also hath set the one over against the other , to the end that man should finde nothing after him . Soliloq . LXIV . The rule of Devotion . THy will , O God , as it is alwaies holy , so in what thou hast decreed to doe with us , is secret , and in what thou wouldst have us doe to thee , is revealed : It is thy revealed will that must regulate both our Actions , and our Prayers . It may be that I may lawfully sue to thee for what thou hast decreed not to grant : As Samuel ceased not to pray for thy favour to that Saul , whom thou hadst rejected ; and many an Israelite prayed for raine in that three yeeres and an halfe , wherein thou hadst commanded the Clowds to make good the prophecie of thine Elias ; yea , thine holy Apostle prayed thrice to have the Messenger of Satan taken off from him ; and heard no answer , but , My grace is sufficient for thee : So , Lord , we pray for the removall of thy judgements from this sinnefull and deplored Nation , which for ought we know , and have cause to feare , thou hast decreed to ruine and de●●station ; and many a good soule prayes for a comfortable sense of thy favour , whom thou thinkest fit to keepe downe for the time in a sad desertion ; and I thy unworthy servant may pray to be freed from those temptations , wherewith thou seest it fit that my faith should be still exercised . O God , give me the grace to follow thy revealed will , and to submit my selfe to thy secret . What thou hast commanded , I know I may doe ; what thou hast promised , I know I may trust to ; what thou hast in a generality promised to do , may in some particular cases by the just decree of thy secret Counsell bee otherwise determined : If I aske what thou hast decreed to do , I know I cannot but obtaine ; If I aske what thou hast warranted ( notwithstanding the particular exception of thy secret will ) though I receive it not , yet I receive not pardon onely , but acceptation . O God , give me grace to steer my selfe , and my prayers by thy revealed Will ; and humbly to stoop to what the event shews to have been thy secret will . Soliloq . LXV . Hels Triumph . THou hast told us , O Saviour , that there is joy in the presence of thine Angels , for a sinners repentance ; those blessed Spirits are so far from envying our happinesse , that as they endeavour it here , so they congratulate it in heaven : and we wel know , that these good Spirits do not more rejoyce in the conversion of a sinner , than the evill Spirits do in the mis-carriage of a convert . The course of the holy obedience of thy servants here is doubtlesse a pleasing object to thine Angels , neither are those malignant spirits lesse pleased with the wicked practises of their Vassals ; but the joy arises to both from the contrary condition of those parties , over which they have prevailed : The alleagance of a good subject ( though wel-accepted ) yet is no newes to a gracious Soveraigne ; but the comming in of some great Rebell is happy tidings at the Court : On the contrary , where there is a rivality of soveraigntie , for a professed enemy to do hostile actions , is no other than could bee expected ; but for a subject or a domestick servant to bee drawne into the conspiracie , is not more advantage than joy to the intruder . O God , thou hast mercifully called me out of the world to a profession of thy Name ; I know what eies those envious Spirits have ever upon me : O doe thou lead me in thy righteousnesse because of mine enemies ; If thine Angels have found cause to joy in my conversion , O doe thou keepe me from making musicke in hell by my miscarriage . Soliloq . LXVI . Dumbe Homage . HOw officious , O God , doe I see thy poore dumbe Creatures to us ? how doe they fawne , or crouch , as they see us affected ? how doe they run and fetch , and carry , and draw at our command ? how doe they beare our stripes with a trembling unresistance ? how readily doe they spend their strength , and their lives in our service ? how patiently doe they yield us their milk and their fleeces for our advantage ? and lie equally still to be shorne , or slain at our pleasure ? expecting nothing from us in the mean time but a bare sustenance , which , if it bee denyed them , they do not fall furiously upon their cruell Masters , but meekly bemoane themselves in their bruitish language , and languish , and die ; If granted them , they are fatned for our use . I am ashamed , O God , I am ashamed to see these thy creatures so obsequiously pliant unto me , whiles I consider my disposition and deportment towards thee my Creator : Alas , Lord , what made the difference betwixt me and them , but thy meere good pleasure ? thou mightest have made them rationall , and have exchanged my reason for their brutality ; They are my fellowes by Creation , and owe both their being and preservation to the same hand with my selfe : Thou art the absolute Lord of both , to whom I must bee accountable for them ; they are mine onely by a limited substitution from thee ; why then should they bee more obedient to my will , than I am to thine ; since they have onely Sense to lead them in their Way , I have both Reason and Faith to teach me my duty . Had I made them , I could but require of them their absolute submission : Why should I then exact of them , more than I am ready to performe unto thee ? O God , thou that hast put them under my hand , and me under thy owne , as thou hast made me their Master for command , so let me make them my Masters to teach me obedience . Soliloq . LXVII . Indifferency of Events . THou givest us daily proofes , O God , of the truth of that observation of wise Solomon , That all things come alike to all , and that no man knowes love or hatred by all that is before them : In these outward things thy dearest friends have not fared better then thine enemies ; Thy greatest enemies have not suffered more than thy beloved Children . When therefore I looke abroad , and see with what heavy afflictions thou art pleased to exercise thy best Favourites upon earth , I cannot but stand amazed to see what horrible Torments of all kindes have beene undergone by thy most precious Martyrs , whose patience hath overcome the violence of their executioners : and to see those extreme tortures which some of thy faithfull servants have endured in the beds of their sickness ; one torne , and drawn together with fearefull convulsions , another shrieking under the painefull girds of an unremoveable stone ; one wrung in his Bowels with pangs of cholicke , and turning of guts , another possessed with a raging gout in all his Limbes ; one whose bladder after a painefull incision is ransack'd , another whose Leg or Arme is cut off to prevent a mortall Gangrene : I cannot but acknowledge how just it might be in thee , O God , to mix the same bitter cup for me ; and how merciful it is , that knowing my weakness thou hast forborn hitherto to load mee with so sad a burthen . What thou hast in thine eternall Councell determined to lay upon mee , thou onely knowest . If thou bee pleased to continue thy gracious indulgence to me still , make me truly thankfull to thee for health and ease , as the greatest of thy outward favours ; but let mee not build upon them , as the certaine evidences of thy better mercies : and if thou thinke fit to interchange them with a vicissitude of sickness and paine , let mee not misconstrue thy severe chastisements as arguments of thy displeasure : But still teach mee to feare thee in my greatest prosperity , and to love thee in my greatest sufferings ; and to adore thine infinite Wisdome , Justice , and mercy in both . Soliloq . LXVIII . The transcendent Love . HOw justly doe I marvaile , O God , to see what strength of naturall affection thou hast wrought in poore brute Creatures towards their Masters , and towards their owne Mates , towards their dammes and their young : We have plentifull instances of those whom Death could not separate from their beloved Guardians , some that have died for their Masters , some with them ; some that have fearlesly hazarded their owne lives for the preservation of their young ones , some that have fed their aged dammes with that food which they have spared from their own Mawes Amongst the rest how remarkable is that comparison of thine , O Saviour , wherein thou wert pleased to set forth thy tender care of thine Israell by the resemblance of an Hen gathering her Chickings under her wings ? how have I seen that poor Fowl , after the patience of a painfull hatching , clocking her little brood together ? and when she hath perceived the Puttock hovering over her head , in a varied note calling them hastily under the wing of her protection , and there covertly hiding them not from the Talons onely , but from the eye of that dangerous enemy , till the perill hath been fully over ; after which she calls them forth to their liberty and repast , and with many a carefull scrape discovers to them such grains of food as may bee fit for them , contenting her self to carve for them with neglect of her owne sustenance . O God , thou who hast wrought in thy silly creatures such an high measure of indulgence and dearnes of respect towards their tender brood , how infinitely is thy love and compassion towards the children of men , the great Master-peece of thy Creation ? How past the admiration of men and Angels , is that transcendent proof of thy divine love , in the more than marvelous work of our Redemption ? How justly glorifiable is thy name in the gracious , and sometimes miraculous , preservation of thy Children ? In the experience whereof , if I forbeare to magnifie thee , or dare not to trust thee , how can I be but unworthy to bee owned of thee , or blessed by thee ? Soliloq . LXIX . Choice of Seasons . HOw regularly , O God , hast thou determined a set season for all thy Creatures , both for their actions and their use ? The Storke in the heaven , saith thy Prophet Jeremy , knoweth her appointed times , and the Turtle and the Crane , and the Swallow observe the time of their comming : Who hath seen the * Stork before the Calends of August , or a Swallow in the Winter ? Who hath heard the Nightingale in the heat of harvest ? or the Bittern bearing her base in the coldest Moneths ? Yea the Fishes in the Sea know and observe their due seasons , and present us with their Shoales only when they are wholsome and useful ; The Herring doth not furnish our Market in the Spring , nor the Salmon , or Mackerell in Winter : Yea the very flies both have and keepe their daies appointed ; the Silke-worme never looks forth of that little Cell of her Conception , till the Mulbery puts forth the leaves for their nourishment ; and who hath ever seen a Butter-flie , or an Harnet in Winter ? yea there are Flies wee know appropriate to their owne moneths , from which they vary not : Lastly , how plain is this in all the severall varieties of Trees , Flowers , Herbes ? The Almond tree looks out first , the Mulberry last of all other ; The Tulip , and the Rose , and all other the sweet Ornaments of the earth are punctuall in their growth and fall : But as for Man , O God , thou hast in thy infinite VVisdome indued him with that power of reason , whereby he may make choice of the fittest seasons of all his actions . Thou that hast appointed a time for every purpose under heaven , hast given him wit to finde and observe it . Even lawfull acts unseasonably done , may turne evill ; and acts indifferent , seasonably performed , may prove good , and laudable . The best improvement of morality , or civility , may shame us , if due time bee not as well regarded , as substance : Onely Grace , Piety , true Vertue can never be unseasonable . There are no seasons in Eternity ; There shall bee one uniforme and constant act of glorifying thee : Thy Angels and Saints praise thee above , without change or intermission ; The more we can do so on earth , the nearer shall wee approach to those blessed Spirits . O God , let my heart be wholly taken up evermore with an adoration of thine infinite Majesty , and let my mouth bee ever sounding forth of thy praise ; and let the Hosannahs , and Hallelujahs which I begin here , know no measure but Eternity . Soliloq . LXX . The happy return home . EVery Creature naturally affects a return to the originall whence it first came . The Pilgrim , though faring well abroad , yet hath a longing homeward ; Fountaines and Rivers run back with what speed they may to the Sea whence they were derived ; all compound bodies return to their first Elements ; The vapors rising up from the earth , and waters , and condenss'd into clouds , fall down again to the same earth , whence they were exhaled ; This body that we beare about us , returnes at last to that dust whereof it was framed : And why then , O my soul , dost not thou earnestly desire to returne home to the God that made thee ? Thou knowest thy Originall is heavenly , why are not thy affections so ? What canst thou finde here below worthy to either withdraw , or detain thee from those heavenly Mansions ? Thou art here in a Region of sin , of misery and death ; Glory waites for thee above : Fly then , O my soul , fly hence to that blessed immortality ; If not as yet in thy dissolution : ( for which thou must waite on the pleasure of thy deare Maker & redeemer ) yet in thy thoughts , in thy desires and affections ; soar thou up thither , and converse there with that blessed God and Father of Spirits , with those glorious Orders of Angels , and with the soules of just men made perfect ; And if the necessity of these bodily affairs must needs draw thee off for a time , let it bee not without reluctation and hearty unwillingnesse , and with an eager appetite of quick returne to that Celestiall society . It will not be long ere thou shalt bee blessed with a free , and uninterrupted fruition of that glorious Eternity : In the meane time doe thou prepossesse it in thy heavenly dispositions ; and contemning this earth , wherewith thou art clogged , aspire to thy heaven , and be happy . Soliloq . LXXI . The confinements of Age . DOst thou not observe , O my soule , how time and age confines , and contracts , as our bodies , so our desires and motions here upon earth , still into narrower compasses ? VVhen we are young the world is but little enough for us ; after wee have seen our own Island , wee affect to crosse the Seas , and to climbe over Alpes , and Pyrennes , and never thinke we have roved far enough ; VVhen we grow ancient , wee begin to bee well-pleased with rest ; now long and unnecessary journeyes are laid aside . If businesse call us forth , wee go , because we must ; As for the visits of friendship , one Sun is enough to measure them , with our returnes ; And still , the older we grow , the more we are devoted to our home ; there we are content to sit still , and enjoy the thoughts of our youth , and former experience , not looking farther than a kind neighbour-hood : But , when Age hath stiffened our joynts , and disabled our Motions , now , our home-pastures , and our Gardens become our utmost boundaries ; from thence a few yeares more confine us to our owne floor ; Soon after that , we are limited to our chamber , and at last to our chaire , then to our bed , and , in fine , to our Coffin . These naturall restrictions , O my soule , are the appendences of thy weary Partner , this earthly body : but for thee , the nearer thou drawest to thy home , the more it concernes thee to bee sensible of a blessed inlargement of thy estate and affections ▪ Hitherto thou art immured in a straight pile o● clay ; now , heaven it selfe shall be but wide enough for thee : The world hath hitherto taken thee up●… which ( though large is yet but finite ; ) now , thou art upon the enjoying of that God who alone is infinite , in all that he is : O how inconsiderable is the restraint of the worse part , in comparison of the absolute inlargement of the better ? O my God , whose mercy knowes no other limits than thy essence , worke me in this shutting up of my daies to all heavenly dispositions , that whiles my outward man is so much more lessened , as it drawes nearer to the Center of its corruption , my spirituall part may be so much more dilated , in , and towards thee , as it approacheth nearer towards the circumference of thy celestiall glory . Soliloq . LXXII . Sin without sense . ALas , Lord , how tenderly sensible I am of the least bodily complaint that can befall mee ? If but a tooth begin to ake , or a thorn have rankled in my flesh , or but an angry Corne vexe my Toe , how am I incessantly troubled with the pain ? how feelingly doe I bemoane my selfe ? how carefully do I seek for a speedy remedy ? which till I feel , how little relish doe I finde in my wonted contentment ? But for the better part , which is so much more tender , as it is more precious , with what patience ( shall I call it , ) or stupidity , doe I endure it wounded ( were it not for thy great mercy ) no lesse than mortality ? Every new sin ( how little soever ) that I commit , fetches bloud of the soule ; every willing sin stabs it ; the continuance wherein festers inwardly ; and , without repentance , kills . O God , I desire to be ashamed , and humbled under thy hand for this so unjust partiality ; which gives me just cause to fear that sense hath yet more predominance in me than Faith . I do not so much sue to thee to make mee lesse sensible of bodily evills , ( whereof yet too deep a sense differs little from impatience ) as to make me more sensible of spirituall : Let me feele my sin more painefull than the worst disease ; and rather than wilfully sin , let me die . Soliloq . LXXIII . The extremes of Devotion . I Acknowledge it to bee none of thy least mercies , O God , that thou hast vouchsafed to keepe mee within the due lines of devotion ; not suffering mee to wander into those two extremes , which I see and pitty in others . Too many there are , that doe so content themselves in meer formalities , that they little regard how their heart is affected with the matter of their prayers : so have I grieved to see poore misdevout soules under the Papacy , measuring their Orisons , not by weight , but by number ; not caring which way their eie strayed , so their lips went ; resting well apaid that God understood them , though they understood not themselves : too neer approaching whereunto , are a world of wel-meaning ignorant soules at home , that care only to pray by rote , not without some generall intentions of piety , but so , as their hearts are little guilty of the motion of their Tongues ; Who , whiles they would cloake their carelesnesse , with a pretence of disability of expressing their wants to God , might learn that true sense of need never wanted words to crave reliefe : Every begger can with sufficient eloquence importune the Passenger for his Almes . Did they not rather lack an heart than a tongue , they could not be defective in bemoaning themselves to heaven for what they lack ; Especially , whiles we have to doe with such a God , as more esteemes broken clauses made up with hearty sighes , than all the complements of the most curious Eloquence in the world . On the other side there are certain zealous Devotionists , which abhorre all set formes , and fixed hours of Invocation , teaching ( and so practising ) that they may not pray , but when they feele a strong impulsion of Gods Spirit to that holy work ; whereupon it hath come to pass , that whole daies , yea , weekes , have gone over their heads , unblessed by their prayers ; who might have taken notice , that , under the Law , God had his regular course of constant hours for his morning and evening Sacrifices ; that the ancient Saints under the old Testament , held close to Davids rule , Evening and Morning , and at Noon to pray and cry aloud ; so as the very Lions could not fright Daniel from his taske : And even after the vaile of the Temple was rent , Peter and Iohn went up together to Gods house , at the ninth hour , to Evening Prayer . Yea , what stand we upon this ? when the Apostle of the Gentiles charges us , To pray continually : Not that wee should in the midst of a sensible indisposednesse of heart fall suddainly into a fashionable Devotion ; but that by holy Ejaculations , and previous Meditation , wee should make way for a feeling Invocation of our God , whose eares are never but open to our faithfull Prayers . If wee first ( though silently ) pray that we may pray , the fervour of our Devotion shall grow upon us in praying : these holy Waters of the Sanctuary , that at first did but wet the soles of our feet , shall , in their happy processe , rise up to our chinnes . I thanke thee , O God , that thou hast given me a desire to walk even between these extremities : As I would be ever in a praying disposition to thee , so I would not willingly break houres with thee ; I would neither sleepe nor wake without praying ; but I would never pray without feeling . If my heart goe not along with formes of words , I do not pray , but babble ; and if that be bent upon the matter of my sute , it is all one to thee , whether the words be my own , or borrowed . Let thy good Spirit ever teach me to pray , and help me in praying : Let that ever make intercessions for me with groanings which cannot be expressed ; and then , if thou canst , send me away empty . Soliloq . LXXIV . The sick mans Vowes . THe answer was not amisse , which Theodoricus Bishop of Coleine is said to have given to Sigismond the Emperor , who demanding how he might be directed the right way to heaven , received answer ; If thou walk so , as thou promisedst in thy painfull fit of the Stone , or Gout . Our extremities commonly render us holy : and our paine is prodigall of those Vowes , which our case is as niggardly in performing . The distressed Mariner , in the perill of a Tempest , vows to his Saint a Taper as big as the Mast of his ship ; which upon his comming to shoare , is shrunk into a rush-candle . There was never a more stiffe-necked people than that , which should have been Gods peculiar , yet , upon every new plague , how doe they crouch and creep to the power , which their murmurs provoked ? And wee daily see Desperation makes those Votaries , whom health dispenseth with , as the loosest of Libertines . Were it essentiall to prosperity , thus to pervert and debauch us , it were enough to make a good heart out of love with welfare , since the pleasure and profit of the best estate is far too short of recompensing the mischiefe of a depraved jollity : but now , the fault is in our owne wretched indisposition ; the blessing is Gods , the abuse is ours . Is the Sun to be blamed that the Travellers cloak swelts him with heat ? Is the fruit of the Grape guilty of that Drunkennesse which followes upon a sinful excess ? Can we not feed on good meate without a surfet ? And whose fault is it but ours , if wee forget the engagements of our sicke beds ? Rather than health should make us godlesse , how much better were it for us to be alwaies sicke ? O my God , I do acknowledge , and bewaile this wretched frailty of our corrupt nature ; Wee are not the same men sick and whole ; we are apt to promise thee fair , and to pay thee with disappointment ; and are ready to put off our holy thoughts with our biggens : It is thou only that canst remedy this sicknesse of our health , by working us to a constant mortification . O do thou ever blesse thy servant , either with sanctified crosses , or a temperate prosperity . Soliloq . LXXV . The suggestions of a false heart . SUrely , if thousands of souls perish by the flattery of others , more perish by their own ; whiles their naturall selfe-love soothes them with plausible , but untrue suggestions , concerning their estate : Is the question concerning grace ? the false heart tells a man he is stored to superfluity , and excesse ; when hee is indeed more bare and beggarly than the proud Pastor of Laodicea . Is the question of sinne ? It proclaimes him , not innocent only but a Saint ; it tells him his hands are pure , when hee is up to the elbows in blood ; that his tongue is holy , when it is foule with perjury and blasphemy ; that his eye is honest and chaste , when it is full of adultery ; that his soul is clean , when it is defiled with abominable lusts , or with cruell rancour , and malice . Is the question concerning Vertue ? It tels a man hee is just , when he is all made up of rapine , and violent oppression ; that hee is eminently wise , when hee hath not wit enough to know himselfe a fool ; that he is free handed and munificent , when he sticks not to rob beggars ; that he is piously religious , whiles he puls downe Churches : Thus is the man still hid from himself , and is made to see another in his owne skin : He cannot repent , because hee thinkes himselfe faultles ; he cannot amend , because hee is ever at the best : his only ease and advantage is , that he is carried hoodwinkt into hell . If the question be concerning some scrupulous act to bee done or omitted , now self-respect plaies its prizes at all weapons ; what shifting and traversing there is to avoid the dint of a present danger ? what fine colours , and witty Equivocations doth the soule finde out , to cozen it self into a safe offence . If the question be of a sinfull act already committed , what a shuffling there is to face it out by a stout justification ? maugre conscience , it was not lawfull onely , but ( such as the circumstances were ) expedient also ; And if it be so foul , that an apology is too odious , yet an extenuation cannot but be admitted : be it amisse , yet , not hainous , not unmeet for pardon . One would thinke Hell should have little need of the fawning assentation of others , when men carry so dangerous Parasites in their owne Bosomes : But sure both together must needs helpe to people that Region of darkness . Take heed , O my soul , how thou givest way to these flattering thoughts , whether arising from thy own breast , or injected by others ; and know , thou art never in more danger , than when thou art most applauded : Looke upon thine Estate , and Actions with unpartiall and severe eies ; Behold thine owne face , not in the false glasse of opinion , and mercenary Adulation , but in the true and perfect glasse of the Royall Law of thy Creator ; that shall duely represent unto thee , whether the beauty of thy graces , or the blemishes of thy manifold imperfections ; that alone shall tell thee how much thou art advanced in a gracious proficiency , and how shamefully defective thou art in what thou oughtedst to have attained : Judge of thy selfe by that unfailing rule , and bee indifferent what thou art judged of by others . Soliloq . LXXVI . Sacred Melody . WHat a marvailously chearfull service was that , O God , which thou requiredst , and hadst performed , under the Law : Here was not a dumbe and silent act in thy Sacrifices , a Beast bleeding before thy Altar , and a Smoake , and Flame arising out of it ; Here was not a cloudy perfume quietly ascending from the golden Altar of thine Incense : but , here was the merry noise of most melodious musick , singing of Psalmes , and sounding of all harmonious instruments . The Congregation were upon their knees , the Levites upon their Stage sweetly singing , the Priests sounding the Trumpets , together with Cymbals , Harps , Psalteries , making up one sound in praising and thanking the Lord . Me thinks I hear , and am ravished to hear in some of thy solemne daies , an hundred and twenty of thy Priests sounding with Trumpets ; Thy Levites in greater number , singing aloud with the Mixture of their musicall instruments ; So as not the Temple onely , but the Heaven rings again ; and even in thy daily Sacrifices , each morning and evening , I find an heavenly Mirth ; Musicke , if not so loud , yet no lesse sweet , and delicate ; no fewer than twelve Levites might bee standing upon the stage every day singing a divine Ditty over thy sacrifice ; Psalteries not fewer than two , nor more than sixe ; Pipes , not fewer than two , nor more than twelve ; Trumpets two at the least , and but one Cymball ; so proportioned by the Masters of thy Chore , as those that meant to take the heart through the eare : I finde where thy holy servants , David , Solomon , Hezekiah , ( doubtlesse by thy gracious direction , yea , by thy direct command * ) both appointed , and made use of these melodious Services ; I doe not finde where thou hast forbidden them : this I am sure of , since thou art still and ever the same , under both Law and Gospell , that thou both requirest , and delightest in the chearfull devotions of thy servants ; If wee have not the same sounds with thy legall worshippers , yet we should still have the same affections . As they might not waite upon thee , sorrowfull ; so it is not for us to praise thee with drooping and dejected spirits . O God , doe thou quicken my spirituall dulnesse in thy holy service ; and when I come to Celebrate thy great Name , whiles the Song is in my mouth , let my heart be the stage , wherein Trumpets and Psalteries , and Harps shall sound forth thy praise . Soliloq . LXXVII . Blemishes of the holy function . I Cannot but blesse my selfe at the sight of that strange kinde of curiosity , which is reported to have been used in the choice of those , who were of old admitted to serve at the Altar ; If Levi must bee singled out from all Israel , yet thousands must bee refused of the Tribe of Levi : Wee are told , that , notwithstanding that priviledge of bloud , no lesse than an hundred and forty blemishes might exclude a man from this sacred Ministration ; whereof nineteen in the eyes , nine in the eares , twenty in the feet ; such an holy nicenesse there was in the Election of the legall Priesthood , that , if there were not found an exact symmetrie of all parts of the body , & not comelines onely , but a perfection of outward forme in those Levitical Candidates , they might by no meanes be allowed to serve in the Sanctuary ; they might have place in some out-roomes , and cleave Wood for the Altar ; and might claime a portion in the holy things ; but they might not meddle with the sacred Utensils , nor set foot upon the floor of the holy place . It was thy charge , O God , that those Sons of Aaron , which drew neare to thee , should be void of blemish ; thou , which wouldst have the beasts of thy Sacrifice free from bodily imperfection , wouldst much more have thy Sacrificers so : The generality of the Command was thine ; the particularities of the numbers are Traditionall : And well might the care of these outward observations agree with the pedagogie of that law , which consisted in externall rites ; but we well know , it was the inward purity of the heart , and integrity of an unspotted life , that thou meant'st to aime at , under the figure of these bodily perfections , which , if it were wanting , it was not a skin-deep beauty , and exquisitenesse of shape , that could give a son of Aaron an allowed accesse to thine Altar : Hophni and Phinehas , the ill sonnes of good Eli , were outwardly blemishlesse , else they had not been capable of so holy a●… attendance ; but their insolencies and beastlinesse made them more loathsome to thee , than if they had been Lepers , or Monsters of outward deformity : And can wee thinke that thou hast lesse regard to the purity of the Evangelicall Ministerie , than thou formerly hadst of the Legall ? Can we think the spirituall blemishes of thine immediate servants under the Gospel , can be a lesse eye-sore to thee , than the externall blemishes of thy Priesthood under the Law ? Oh that my head were waters , and mine eies a fountaine of teares , that I might weep night and day for the enormities of those , who professe to waite on thy Evangelicall Sanctuary ? My sorrow and piety cannot but bewaile them to thee , though my charity forbids me to blazon them to the world . Oh thou , that art as the Refiners fire , and the Fullers soap , doe thou purifie all the sonnes of thy spirituall Levi : Do thou purge them as Gold and silver , that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousnesse ; Then shall the Offerings of our Judah and Jerusalem bee pleasant to the Lord , as in the daies of old , and as in former yeers . Soliloq . LXXVIII . The blessed Reward . WHen Paulinus came first into this Island , to preach the Gospell , to our then-Pagan Ancestors , King Edwin thought good to consult with his Priests , and Nobles , whether it were best to give any entertainment to the Christian Religion , which was by that stranger Preached , and recommended to his people . Up starts one Coifi , the Arch-Priest of those Heathen Idols , and freely saies ; There is no vertue or goodnesse , O King , in this Religion , which wee have hitherto embraced ; There is none of all thy Subjects , that hath more studiously addicted himselfe to the Service and worship of our gods , than my selfe ; Yet I am sure there are many that have prospered better , and have received more favours from thee , than I have done ; And if our gods could doe any thing , they would rather have been beneficent to me , that have most carefully served them : It remaines then , that if these new doctrines , which are preacht to us , bee found upon examination , to bee better , and more availeable , that without all delay we do readily receive , and welcome them . Thus spake a true Idols Priest , that knew no Ell whereby to measure Religion , but Profit ; no proofe of a just Cause , but successe ; no Conviction of Injustice , but mis-carriage . Yea , even thine Altars , O righteous God , were never quit of some such mercenary attendants , who seek for onely gain in godliness : If the Queene of Heaven afford them better penny worths and more plenty than the King of Heaven , she shall have their Cakes , and their Incense , and their hearts to boot . I know thee , O Lord , to be a munificent Rewarder of all that serve thee ; yet if thou shouldest give me no wages , I will serve thee ; If thou shouldest pay mee with hunger and stripes , and prisons , and death , I will serve thee . Away base thoughts of earthly remuneration , I will honour and serve thee , O God , for thine owne sake , for thy services sake ; yet I have no reason not to regard thine infinite bounty ; It is no lesse than a Crown that thou hast promised me ; and that I shall humbly aspire unto , and expect from thee , not as in the way of my merit , but of thy meer mercy ; My service is free in a zealous and absolute Consecration to thee , thy hand is more free in my so gracious Retribution : If thou be pleased to give thy servant such a weight of glory , the glory of that Gift is thine : My service is out of my just duty , thy Reward is of thy Grace , and divine Beneficence . Doe thou give me to doe what thou bidst me , and then deal with me as thou wilt . As the glory of thy Name is the drift of all my actions , so the glory that thou givest mee cannot but redound to the glory of thine infinite mercy . Blessed bee thy Name in what thou givest , whiles thou makest mee blessed in what I receive from thee . Soliloq . LXXIX . Presages of Judgement . SEldome ever doe wee read of any great mutation in Church or State , which is not usher'd in , with some strange Prodigies ; either raining of Bloud , or apparitions of Comets , or airy Armies fighting in the Clouds , or Sea-Monsters appearing , or monstrous Births of men , or Beasts , or bloudy Springs breaking out , or direfull noises heard ; or some such like uncouth premonitors ; which the great and holy God sends purposely to awaken our Security , and to prepare us either for expectation , or prevention of Judgements ; wherein , the mercy of God marvellously magnifies it selfe towards sinnefull Man-kind , that he wills not to surprise us with unwarned evills , but would have his punishments anticipated by a seasonable repentance : But of all the fore-tokens of thy fearefullest plagues prepared for any Nation , O God , there is none so certain , as the prodigious sinnes of the people committed with an high hand against Heaven , against so cleare a light , so powerfull Convictions . The monstrous and unmatchable Heresies , the hellish Blasphemies , the brutish Incests , the savage Murthers , the horrible Sacrileges , Perjuries , Sorceries of any People , can be no other than the professed Harbingers of Vengeance ; these are our shoures of bloud ; these are our ill-boding Comet ; these are our mishapen Births ; which an easie Augurie might well construe to portend our threatned destruction . The Prophet did not more certainely foretell , when he heard of an hand-broad Cloud arising from the Sea , that a vehement Rain was comming , than Gods Seers might foreknow , when they saw this darke Cloud of our sins mounting up towards Heaven , that a Tempest of Judgement must necessarily follow . But , Oh thou God of infinite mercy and compassion , looke downe from Heaven upon us , and behold us from the Habitation of thy Holines : Where is thy Zeale , and thy Strength , the sounding of thy Bowells , and of thy mercies towards us ? Are they restrained ? If so , it is but just ; For surely wee are a sinfull Nation , a People laden with iniquity : We have seen our Tokens , and have felt thy Hand ; yet we have not turned to thee from our evill waies : to us therefore justly belongeth confusion of Faces , because we have sinned against thee : But to thee , O Lord our God , belong mercies and forgivenesses , though wee have rebelled against thee ; Oh spare , spare the remnant of thy people : Let thine Anger and thy fury be turned away from thy chosen inheritance . O my God , hear the Prayer of thy servant , and his Supplications , and cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary that is desolate : O Lord heare , O Lord forgive , O Lord hearken , and defer not for thine owne sake , O my God . Soliloq . LXXX . Vnwearied Motion , and Rest Eternall . I See thy Heavens , O God , move about continually , and are never weary of their revolution ; whereas all sublunary Creatures are soon tyred with their motions , and seek for ease , in their intermissions : Even so , O my soule , the nearer thou growest to celestiall , the more constant shall thy courses be , and the freer from that lassitude that hangs upon thine earthly part . As it is now with me , thou seest , I soone find an unavoidable defatigation in all things . I am weary of labour , and , when that is done , I am no lesse weary of doing nothing ; weary of the day , and more weary of the night ; weary of all postures ; weary of all places ; weary of any one ( if never so pleasing ) imployment ; weary , even of varieties ; weary of those , which some men call , recreations ; weary of those ( wherein I finde most delight ) my Studies . But , O my soule , if thou be once soundly heaveniz'd in thy thoughts , and affections , it shall bee otherwise with thee ; then thou shalt be ever ( like this Firmament ) most happily restlesse ; thou shalt then finde ever worke enough to contemplate that infinite Deity , who dwels in the Light inaccessible ; to see ( with ravishment of spirit ) thy deare Saviour in his glorified humanity , adored by all the powers of heaven ; to view the blessed Orders of that Celestiall Hierarchy , attending upon the throne of Majesty ; to behold , and admire the unspeakable , and incomprehensible glory of the Saints : These are Objects , with the sight whereof thine eie shall never bee satisfied , much lesse cloyed : Besides that the hopes and desires of enjoying so great felicity , and the care of so composing thy selfe , as that thou maiest be ever readily addressed for the fruition of it , shall wholly take thee up , with such contentment , that all earthly pleasures shall bee no better than torments in comparison thereof . O , then my soule , since ( as a spark of that heavenly fire ) thou canst never be but in motion , fix here above , where thy movings can bee no other than pleasing , and beatificall . And as thou , O my God , hast a double Heaven , a lower heaven for motion , and an Empyreall heaven for rest ; One , patent to the eye , the other visible to our faith : so let my soule take part with them both ; Let it ever bee moving towards thee , and in thee , ( like this visible heaven ) and ( since the end of all motion is rest ) let it ever rest with thee , in that invisible Region of glory . So let it move ever to thee whiles I am here , that it may ever rest with thee in thine eternall glory hereafter . Amen . FINIS . THE SOVLES FAREWELL TO EARTH , AND APPROACHES TO HEAVEN . BY J.H. B.N. THE SOULES Farewell to Earth , AND Approaches to Heaven . SECT. I. BE thou ever , O my soule , holily ambitious ; alwaies aspiring towards thine heaven ; not entertaining any thought that makes not towards blessednesse : For this cause therefore put thy selfe upon thy wings , and leave the earth below thee ; and when thou art advanced above this inferiour world , look downe upon this Globe of wretched mortality , and despise what thou wast , and hadst ; and think with thy selfe : There was I not a sojourner , so much , as a prisoner , for some tedious yeeres ; there have I been thus long tugging with my miseries , with my sinnes ; there have my treacherous senses betrayd mee to infinite evills both done and suffered : How have I been there tormented with the sense of others wickednes , but more of my own ? What insolence did I see in men of power ? What rage in men of bloud ? What grosse superstition in the ignorant ? What abominable sacrilege in those that would bee zealous ? What drunken revellings , what Sodomitical filthinesse , what hellish profanations in Atheous ruffians ? What perfidiousnesse in friendship , what cozenage in contracts , what cruelty in revenges ; Shortly , what an Hell upon Earth ? Farewell then sinful world , whose favours have been no other than snares , and whose frownes no lesse than torments : farewell for ever ; for , if my flesh cannot yet clear it self of thee , yet my spirit shall ever know thee at a distance ; and behold thee no otherwise than the escaped Mariner looks back upon the rock whereon he was lately splitted . Let thy bewitched Clients adore thee for a Deity , all the homage thou shalt receive from me shall bee no other than Defiance , and if thy glorious showes have deluded the eies of credulous Spectators , I know thee for an Impostor : Deceive henceforth those that trust thee , for me , I am out of the reach of thy fraud , out of the power of thy malice . Thus doe thou , O my soul , when thou art raised up to this height of thy fixed contemplation , cast down thine eies contemptuously upon the region o● thy former miseries , and bee sure ever to keep up in a constant ascent towards blessednesse ; not suffering thy self to stoop any more upon these earthly vanities : For , tell me seriously , when the World was disposed to Court thee most of all , what did it yield thee but unsound joyes sauced with a deep anguish of spirit ; false hopes shutting up in an heart-breaking disappointment ; windy proffers mocking thee with suddain retractions ; bitter pils in sugar ; poison in a golden cup . It shew'd thee perhaps stately Palaces , but stuft with cares ; faire and populous Cities , but full of toile and tumult ; flourishing Churches , but annoyed with Schisme , and Sacrilege ; rich Treasures , but kept by ill spirits ; pleasing beauties , but baited with temptation ; glorious titles , but surcharged with Pride ; goodly semblances with rotten in-sides ; in short , Death disguised with pleasures and profits . If therefore heretofore thy unexperience have suffered thy fethers to be belimed with these earthly intanglements , yet now , that thou hast happily cast those plumes , and quit thy selfe of these miserable incombrances ; thou maiest soare aloft above the sphere of Mortality ; and be stil towring up towards thine heaven ; And as those that have ascended to the top of some Athos or Tenariffe see all things below them in the Vallies small , and scarce , in their diminution , discernable ; so shall all earthly objects in thy spirituall exaltation seem unto thee ; either thou shalt not see them at all , or at least so lessened , as that they have to thee quite lost all the proportion of their former Dimensions . SECT. II. IT will not be long , O my soul , ere thou shalt absolutely leave the world in the place of thine habitation , being carried up by the blessed Angels to thy thy rest and glory ; but in the meane time , thou must resolve to leave it in thy thoughts , and affections : thou maist have power over these even before the hour of thy separation ; and these rightly disposed have power to exempt thee before-hand from the interests of this inferiour World , and to advance thine approaches to that World of the blessed . Whiles thou art confined to this Clay , there is naturally a luggage of Carnality that hangs heavy upon thee , and swayes thee downe to the earth , not suffering thee to mount upward to that blisse whereto thou aspirest ; this must bee shaken off , if thou wouldst attaine to any capacity of happiness ; Even in this sense , Flesh and Bloud cannot inherit the Kingdome of God : It behoves thee to be , so far as this composition wil admit , spirituallized , ere thou canst hope to attaine to any degree of blessednesse . Thy conjunction with the body doth necessarily clog thee with an irrationall part , which will unavoidably force upon thee some operations of its owne ; and thy senses will be interposing themselves in all thy intellectuall imployments , profering thee the service of their guidance in all thy proceedings : but if thou lov'st eternity of blessednesse , shake them off as importunate sutors ; gather up thy selfe into thine owne regenerated powers , and doe thy worke without , and above them . It is enough that thou hast at first taken some hint from them of what concernes thee ; as for the rest , cast them off as unnecessary , and impertinent ; the prosecution whereof is too high , and too internall for them to intermeddle with : thou hast now divine and heavenly things in chase , whereof there cannot be the least sent in any of these earthly faculties . Devest thy selfe therefore ( what thou possibly maiest ) of all materiality both of objects , and apprehensions ; and let thy pure , renewed , and illuminated intellect work only upon matter spirituall , and celestiall ; And above all , propose unto thy selfe , and dwell upon that purest , perfectest , simplest , blessedest Object , the glorious and incomprehensible Deity : there thou shalt finde more than enough to take up thy thoughts to all eternity . Be thou , O my soule , ever swallowed up in the consideration of that infinite self-being Essence , whom all created spirits are not capable sufficiently to admire : Behold and never cease wondering at the Majesty of his Glory . Thy bodily eies dazle at the sight of the Sunne , but if there were as many Sunnes as there are stars in the Firmament of Heaven , their united splendour were but darkenesse to their All-glorious Creator : Thou canst not yet hope to see him as he is : but loe thou beholdest where he dwels in light inaccessible ; the sight of whose very outward verge is enough to put thee into a perpetuall extasie . It is not for thee as yet to strive to enter within the vaile ; Thine eies may not be free where the Angels hide their faces ; What thou wantst in sight , O my soule , supply in wonder . Never any mortall man , O God , durst sue to see thy face , save that one intire servant of thine , whose face thy Conference had made shining and radiant ; but even he ( though inured to thy presence ) was not capable to behold such glory , and live : Far be it from me , O Lord , to presume so high ; Onely let me see thee as thou hast bidden me ; and but so , as not to behold thee ( after thy gracious revelation ) were my sinne : Let mee see , even in this distance , some glimmering of thy divine Power , Wisdom , Justice , Mercy , Truth , Providence , and let me bless and adore thee in what I see . SECT. III. OH the infinitenesse of thine Almighty power , which thou not hast , but art , beyond the possibility of all limitations of objects or thoughts : In us , poor finite Creatures , our power comes short of our will ; many things we fain would doe , but cannot ; and great pitty it were that there should not bee such a restraint upon our unruly appetites ; which would otherwise worke out the destruction both of others , and our selves . But , O God , thy Power is beyond thy Will ; Thou canst doe more than thou wilt : Thou couldst have made more worlds when thou madst this one ; And even this one , which thou hast made , Lord , how glorious a one it is : Lo , there needs no other demonstration of thine omnipotence . Oh what an heaven is this which thou hast canopied over our heads ? how immensely capacious ? how admirably beautifull ? how bestudded with goodly Globes of Light ? Some one whereof hath in it such unspeakable glory , as that there have not wanted nations , ( and those not of the savagest ) which have mis-worship'd it for their God : And if thou hadst made but one of these in thy firmament , thy workmanship had been above our wonder ; for even this had surpassed the whole frame of this lower world ; but now as their quality strives with their greatnesse , so their magnitude strives with their number , which of them shall more magnifie the praise of their Almighty Creator ; and these three are no less than matched by the constant regularity of the perpetuall motion of those mighty bodies ; Which having walked their daily rounds about the World above this five thousand six hundred and sixty yeares , yet are so ordered by thy inviolable Decree , that they have not varied one inch from their appointed Line , but keepe their due course and just distance each from other : although not fixed in any solid Orbe , but moving singly in a thin and yeelding skie , to the very same point whence they set forth . And if the bodily and visible part of thine heavenly Hoast , O God , be thus unconceivably glorious , where shall we finde room to wonder at those spirituall and living powers which inhabite those celestiall Mansions , and attend upon the Throne of thy Majesty : the thousand thousands of thy blessed Angels , Arch-angels , Cherubim , Seraphin , Thrones , Principalities , Dominions , which in thy presence enjoy a bliss next to infinite ? any one of which if wee could see him , were enough to kill us with his glory : Not one of those millions of mighty spirits , but were able to destroy a World : Oh then how infinitely transcendent is that power of thine , which hast both created all this heavenly Hierarchy , and so movest in them , that onely in and by thee they are thus potent . Yea , Lord , let me but cast mine eies downe to this earth I tread upon , and view thy wonders in the deep , how manifestly do these proclame thy divine Omnipotence ? When I see this vaste Globe of earth , and waters , dreadfully hanging in the midst of a liquid Air , upheld by nothing but by the powerfull word ; When I see the rage of the swelling waves ( naturally higher than the shores they beat upon ) restrained to their bounds by thine over-ruling command : When I see the earth beautifully garnished with marvailous variety of trees , herbs , flowers ; richly stuffed with precious metals , stones , minerals : When I see ( besides a world of men ) the numberless choice and differences of the substance , formes , colours , dispositions , of Beasts , fowles , fishes , wherewith these lower Elements are peopled , how can I be but dissolved into wonder of thine Almighty power ? SECT. IV. NEither is thy power , O God , either more , or more thy selfe than thy Wisdome , which is no lesse essentiall to thee , than infinite . What have we to doe , silly and shallow wretches , with that incomprehensible wisdom which is intrinsecall to thy divine Nature ; the body of that Sunne is not for our weak eies to behold : it is enough for mee if I can but see some raies of that heavenly light which shines forth so gloriously upon thy creature : in the framing and governing whereof , whether thy Power or Wisdome did and doe more exhibite it selfe , thou only canst judge . O the divine Architecture of this goodly Fabricke of Heaven , and Earth , raised out of nothing to this admirable perfection ! What stupendious artifice of composition is here ! What exquisite symmetrie of parts , what exact Order of Degrees , what marvailous analogie betwixt beasts , fishes , plants , the natives of both Elements ! Oh what a comprehensive reach is this of thine Omniscience , which at once in one act beholdest all the actions and events of all the creatures that were , are , or shall be in this large Universe ? What a contrivance of thine eternall Counsell , which hast most wisely and holily ordered how to dispose of every Creature thou hast made , according to the pleasure of thy most just will ? VVhat a sway of Providence is this that governes the world ? over-ruling the highest , and stooping to the meanest peece of thy Creation ? concurring with , and actuating the motions and operations of all second causes of whatsoever is done in heaven , or in earth ? Yea , Lord , how wonderfull are those irradiations of knowledge and wisdome , which thou hast beamed forth upon thine intelligent creatures , both Angels and men ? As for those Celestiall spirits which see thy face continually , it is no marvaile if they be illuminated in a degree farre above humane apprehension ; but that the rationall soule of man , even in this woefull pilgrimage below , notwithstanding the opacity of that earth wherewith it is encompassed , should bee so far enlightned , as that it is able to know all the motions of the Heavens , the magnitudes and distances of Starres , the natures , properties , influences of the Planets , the instant of the Eclipses , Conjunctions and severall Aspects of those Celestiall bodies ; that it can discover the secret Treasures of Earth and Sea ; and knowes to unlock all the close Cabinets both of art and nature ; O God , what is this but some little gleame of that pure and glorious light , which breakes forth from thine infiniteness upon thy creature : Yet were the knowledge of all men on earth , and all the Angels in heaven , multiplied a thousand fold , how unable were it being united together , to reach unto the height of thy divine Counsels , to fadome the bottome of thy most wise and holy Decrees ? so as they must bee forced to cry out with that Saint of thine , who was rapt into the third heaven , O the depth of the riches both of the VVisdome and Knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements , and his waies past finding out ! SECT. V. BUt with what a trembling adoration , O my soul , must thou needs look upon the infinite Justice of thy God ; whose inviolable rule is to render to every man according to his workes . Alas , the little good thou wert able to do , hath been allayed with so many , and great imperfections , that it can expect no retribution but displeasure ; and for the many evills whereof thou art guilty , what canst thou look for but the wages of sinne , Death ? not that temporary , and naturall only , which is but a separation of thee , a while , from thy load of earth ; but the spirituall and eternall separation from the presence of thy God , whose very want is the height of torments . Lo , whatever become of thee , God must be himselfe : In vain shouldst thou hope that for thy selfe he will abate ought of his blessed Essence , of his sacred Attributes : That righteous doome must stand , The soule that sinnes shall die : Hell claimes his due ; Justice must bee satisfied ; where art thou now , O my soul ? what canst thou now make account of but to despair and die ? surely , in thy self , thou art lost : there is no way with thee but utter perdition . But looke up , O soul , look up above the Hils whence commeth thy salvation ; see the heavens opening upon thee ; see what reviving , and comfortable raies of grace and mercy shine forth unto thee from that excellent glory ; and out of that heavenly light hear the voice of thy blessed Saviour , saying to thee , O Israel , thou hast destroyed thy selfe , but in me is thy helpe . Even so , O Jesu , in thee , onely in thee is my helpe : wretched man that I am ; in my selfe I stand utterly forfeited to death and hell : it is thou that hast redeemed me with no lesse ransome than thy precious bloud . Death was owing by me , by thee it was payed for me , so as now my debt is fully discharged , and my soule clearly acquitted : Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect ? It is God that justifieth ; who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died , yea rather that is risen again . Lo now the rigor of thine inviolable justice is taken off by thine infinite mercy ; the sum that I could never pay , is by the power of that faith which thou hast wrought in me , set off to my all-sufficient surety , & by thy divine goodnesse graciously accepted as mine ; I have paid it in him , he hath paid it for me ; Thy justice is satisfied , thy debtor freed , and thy mercy magnified . SECT VI . THere are no bounds to bee set unto thy thoughts , O my soul , since whatsoever thy God either is , or hath done comes within thy prospect : There , besides the great worke of his Creation , thou maiest dwell upon the no lesse almighty worke of his Administration of this universall world , whereof the preservation and government is no lesse wonderfull than the frame ; there thou shalt see the marvelous subordination of creatures , some made to rule , others to obey ; the powerfull influences of the Celestiall bodies upon the Inferiour ; the continuall transmutation of elements , forsaking their own places and natures to serve the whole ; formes dying , matter perpetuall ; all things maintained by a friendly discord of humors , out of which they are raised ; the circular revolution of fashions , occurrences , events ; the different and opposite dispositions of men over-ruled to such a temper ; that yet government is continued in the hands of few , society and commerce with all : shortly , all Creatures whiles they doe either naturally , or voluntarily act their own part , doing unawares the will of their Creator . But that which may justly challenge thy longer stay , and greater wonder , is the more-than-transcendent worke of mans Redemption ; the mysteries whereof the holy Angels have desired to look into , but could never yet sufficiently conceive or admire : That the Sonne of God , the Lord of Glory , Coeternall , Coequall to his Father , God blessed for ever , should take upon him an estate lower than their own ; should cloath his Deity with the ragges of our flesh ; should stoop to weake and miserable man-hood , and in that low and despicable condition , should submit himselfe to hunger , thirst , wearinesse , temptation of Devils , despight of men , to the cruelty of tormentors , to agonies of soule , to the pangs of a bitter , ignominious , cursed death , to the sense of his Fathers wrath for us wretched sinners , that had made our selves the worst of Creatures , enemies to God , slaves to Satan , is above the reach of all finite apprehension . O never-to-bee-enough-magnified mercy ! Thou didst not , O Saviour , when thou sawest mankind utterly lost , and forlorn , content thy selfe to send down one of thy Cherubim , or Seraphin , or some other of thy heavenly Angels to undertake the great work of our deliverance ( as wel knowing that taske too high for any created power ) but wouldst , out of thine infinite love and compassion , vouchsafe , so to abase thy blessed selfe , as to descend from the Throne of thy Celestiall glory to this Dungeon of earth ; and not leaving what thou hadst , and what thou wast , to assume what thou hadst not , man ; and to disparage thy selfe by being one of us , that wee might become like unto thee , co-heirs of thy glory and blessednesse . Thou that art the eternall Sonne of God , wouldst condescend so low , as to be man ; that wee who are wormes and no men might bee advanced to bee the Sonnes of God ; thou wouldst bee a servant , that wee might reigne ; thou wouldst expose thy self to the shame and disgrace of thy vile Creatures here , that thou mightst raise us up to the height of heavenly honour with thee our God , and thy holy Angels ; thou wouldst dye for a while , that we might live eternally . Pause here a while , O my soule , and do not wish to change thy thoughts ; neither earth nor heaven can yeild thee any of higher concernment , of greater comfort : Onely withall , behold the glorious person , of that thy blessed Mediator , after his victories over death and hell , sitting triumphant in all the Majesty of heaven , adored by all those millions of Celestiall Spirits , in his glorified humanity ; and ( what thou maist ) enjoy the vision of him by faith , till thou shalt be everlastingly blessed with a cleare , and present intuition . Long after that day ; and be ever carefull in the meane time to make thy self ready for so infinite an happinesse . SECT. VII . ANd now , O my soul , having left below thee all the triviall vanities of Earth ; and fixed thy selfe ( so farre as thy weak eies will allow thee ) upon thy God , and Saviour , in his Almighty works , and most glorious Attributes , it will be time for thee ( and will not a little conduce to thy further addresse towards blessednesse ) to fasten thy selfe upon the sight of the happy estate of the Saints above , who are gone before thee to their bliss , and have ( through Gods mercy ) comfortably obtained that which thou aspirest unto : thou that wert guided by their example , bee likewise heartned by their successe : thou art yet a Traveller , they comprehensors ; thou art panting towards that rest which they most happily enjoy ; thou art sweating under the crosse , whiles they sit crowned in an heavenly magnificence . See the place wherein they are , the heaven of heavens , the paradise of God : infinitely resplendent , infinitely delectable ; such as no eye can behold , and not be blessed : shouldst thou set thy Tabernacle in the midst of the Sun , thou couldst not but bee encompassed with marvailous light ; yet even there it would bee but as midnight with thee in comparison of those irradiations of glory which shine forth above in that Empyreall Region ; For thy God is the Sun there : by how much therefore those divine raies of his exceed the brightest beams of his Creature ; so much doth the beauty of that heaven of the blessed surpasse the created light of this inferior & starry firmament . Even the very place contributes not a little to our joy , or misery ; It is hard to bee merry in a Goale ; and the great Persian Monarch thought it very improper for a Courtier to bee of a sad countenance within the verge of so great a Royalty . The very devils conceive horror at the apprehension of the place of their torment , and can beseech the over-ruling power of thy Saviour not to command them to go out into the deep . No man can be so insensate to thinke there can bee more dreadfulnesse in the place of those infernall tortures , than there is pleasure and joy in the height of that sphere of blessednesse ; sith we know wee have to doe with a God that delights more in the prosperity of his Saints , than in the cruciation , and howling of his enemies . How canst thou then , O my soule , bee but wholly taken up with the sight of that celestiall Jerusalem , the beautious City of thy God , the blessed Mansions of glorified Spirits ? Surely , if earth could have yeelded any thing more faire , and estimable than gold , pearles , precious stones , it should have been borrowed to resemble these supernall habitations : but , alas , the lustre of these base materials doth but darken the resplendence of those divine excellencies . With what contempt now , dost thou looke downe upon those muddy foundations of earth , which the low spirits of worldlings are wont to admire ? and how feelingly dost thou blesse and emulate the spirits of just men made perfect , who are honoured with so blisfull an habitation . But what were the place , O my soule , how goodly & glorious soever in it self , if it were not for the presence of him whose being there makes it heaven ? Lo there the Throne of that heavenly Majesty , which filling and comprehending the large circumference of this whole , both lower and superior world , yet there keepes and manifests his state , with the infinite magnificence of the King of eternall glory : there he in an ineffable manner communicates himselfe to blessed Spirits , both Angels and men : and that very Vision is no lesse to them than beatificall : Surely , were the place a thousand degrees lower in beauty and perfection than it is , yet that presence would render it celestiall ; the residence of the King was wont to turn the meanest Village or Castle , into a Court : The sweet singer of Israel saw this of old , and could say , in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy ; and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore . It is not so in these earthly and finite Excellencies : A man may see mountaines of treasure , and bee never a whit the richer ; and may bee the witness and agent too in anothers honour ( as Haman was of Mardochees ) and be so much more miserable ; or may view the pompe and splendour of mighty Princes , and be yet still a beggar : but the infinite graces of that heavenly King are so communicative , that no man can see him but must bee transformed into the likeness of his glory . SECT. VIII . EVen thy weak and imperfect Vision of such heavenly Objects , O my soule , are enough to lay a foundation of thy blessednesse ; and how can there chuse but bee raised thence as a further degree towards it , a sweet complacency of heart in an appropriation of what thou seest ; without which nothing can make thee happy ? Let the Sun shine never so bright , what is this to thee if thou bee blinde ? Be the God of heaven never so glorious , yet if hee bee not thy God : bee the Saviour of the World never so mercifull , yet if hee be not mercifull to thee : be the heaven never so full of beauty and Majesty , yet if thou have not thy portion in that inheritance of the Saints in light ; so far will it be from yielding thee comfort , that it will make a further addition to thy torment . What an aggravation of misery shall it be to those that were children of the kingdom , that from that outer darknesse whereinto they are cast , they shall see aliens come from the East and West , and sit downe with Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob in the Kingdome of heaven ? Cease not then , O my soul , till by a sure and undefaisible application , thou hast brought all these home to thy self ; and canst look upon the great God of Heaven , the gracious Redeemer of the world , the glory of that celestiall Paradise as thine owne . Let it be thy bold ambition , and holy curiosity to finde thy name enrolled in that eternall Register of Heaven : And if there bee any one room in the many Mansions of that celestiall Jerusalem , lower and lesse resplendent than other , thither doe thou finde thy selfe ( through the great mercy of thy God ) happily designed . It must bee the worke of thy faith that must do it : that divine grace is it , the power whereof can either fetch downe heaven to thee , or carry thee before-hand up to thy heaven ; and not affix thee only to thy God , and Saviour , but unite thee to him , and ( which is yet more ) ascertaine thee of so blessed an union . Neither can it bee but that from this sense of appropriation there must necessarily follow a marvellous contentment , and complacency in the assurance , of so happy an interest . Lord , how doe I see poore worldlings please themselves in the conceit of their miserable proprieties ? One thinks , Is not this my great Babylon which I have built ? Another , Are not these my rich Mines ? Another , Is not this my royall and adored Magnificence ? And how are those unstable mindes transported with the opinion of these great ( but indeed worthlesse ) peculiarities ; which after some little time moulder with them into dust ? How canst thou then , bee , but pleasingly affected , O my soul , with the comfortable sense of having a God , a Savior , an heaven of thine own ? For in these spiritual and heavenly felicities , our right is not partiall and divided , as it useth to be in secular inheritances ; so as that every one hath his share distinguish'd from the rest , and parcelled out of the whole ; but here each one hath all ; and this blessed patrimony is so communicated to all Saints , as that the whole is the propriety of every one Upon the assurance therefore of thy Gods gracious promises made to eevery true beleever , finde thou thy selfe happily seized of both the King , and Kingdom of heaven , so far as thy faith can as yet feoffe thee in both ; and delight thy selfe above all things in these unfailing pledges of thine instant blessednes , and say with the holy Mother of thy redeemer , My soul doth magnifie the Lord ; and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour . SECT. IX . FRom this feeling complacency in the owning of thy right to glory and happinesse , there cannot but arise a longing desire of the full possession thereof : for thou canst not so little love thy selfe , as what thou knowest thou hast a just title unto , and withall apprehendest to bee infinitely pleasing and beneficiall , not to wish that thou maist freely enjoy it . If thou have tasted how sweet the Lord is , thou canst not but long for more of him , yea , for all : It is no otherwise even in carnall delights , the degustation whereof is wont to draw on the heart to a more eager appetition ; much more in spiritual ; the pleasures whereof as they are more pure , so they are of the heavenly-minded with far greater ardency of spirit affected . The covetous mans heart is in his bags ; what he hath doth but augment his lust of more ; and the having of more doth not satiate but enlarge his desires ; Hee that loveth silver , shall not be satisfied with silver ; nor he that loveth abundance with encrease : but these celestiall riches are so much more allective , as they are more excellent , than those which are delved out of the bowels of the earth . O my soule , thou hast through the favour of thy God sipp'd some little of the cup of immortality , and tasted of that heavenly Manna the food of Angels ; and canst thou take up with these slight touches of blessednes ? Thou hast ( though most unworthy ) the honour to be contracted to thy Saviour here below ; thou knowest the voice of his Spouse , Draw me and we shall runne after thee ; stay me with flagons , comfort me with apples , for I am sick of love ; make hast my beloved , and be thou like to a Roe , or to a young Hart upon the mountaines of Spices : Where is thy love if thou have not fervent desires of a perpetuall enjoyment ? if thou doe not earnestly wish for a full consummation of that heavenly match ? O my Lord and Saviour , as I am not worthy to love thee ; so I were not able to love thee ( how amiable soever ) but by thee . O thou that hast begun to kindle this fire of heavenly love in me , raise thou it up to a perfect flame ; make me not onely sick of thy love , but ready and desirous to die for thee , that I may enjoy thee : Oh let me not endure that any worldly heart should be more enamoured of these earthly beauties , which are but varnished rottennes , than I am of thee who art of absolute and infinite perfections ; and bestowest them in being loved . Oh when shall the day be , wherein thou wilt make up these blessed Nuptials ; and endow me with a ful participation of that glory wherewith thou art invested , from , and to all eternity ? whereto have all thy sweet favours , and gracious love-tokens tended , but to this issue of blessednesse ? Oh doe thou Crown all thy mercies in me , and mee with immortality . SECT. X. VPon this desire of fruition , ( if thou wouldst be truly happy ) there must follow a constant prosecution of that desire : for if thy wishes be never so fervent , yet if they be onely volatile and transient , they shall be able to availe thee little ; slight and flickering motions of good , if they be not followed with due indeavours , sort to no effect . Content not thy selfe therefore , O my soule , that thou hast entertained into thy selfe some affective thoughts of thy beatitude ; but settle thy selfe in firme resolutions to pursue , and perpetuate them : Let them not call in as strangers , but dwell in thee as in-mates , never to be , by any secular occasions , dislodged . These morning dewes of holy dispositions , which are ready to be exhaled with every gleam of worldly prosperity , as they finde little acceptance from God , so they are able to afford small comfort to thee ; as whose condition is such , that they leave thee more disconsolate in their vanishing , than they yielded thee pleasure in their momentany continuance . Be thou able to say with holy David , my heart is fixed , O God , my heart is fixed ; and then thou maiest well adde , I will sing and give praise ; otherwise thy distracted thoughts will admit no cause of sound joy . In this case it fals out with thee , O my soul , as with some fond child , who eagerly following a Bee in hope of her bag , sees a gay Butterflie crosse his way ; and thereupon leaves his first chase , and runs after those painted wings ; but in that pursute seeing a Bird flie close by him , hee leaves the flie in hope of a better purchase ; but in the meane time is disappointed of all , and catcheth nothing . It mainely behoves thee therefore to keep up thy Cogitations and Affections close to these heavenly objects ; and to check them whensoever thou perceivest an inclination to their wandring : like as the carefull Huntsman , when he findes his Hound offering to follow after a new game , rates him off ; and holds him to his first sent . Whither are yee stray , O my thoughts ? what means this sinfull and lossefull inconstancy ? Can yee bee happier in a change ? Is there any thing in this miserable world that can be worthy to carry you away from the hopes and affectations of blessednesse ? Have yee not full often complained of the worthlesnesse , and satiety of these poore vanities here below ? Have yee not found their promises false , their performances unsatisfactory , their disappointment irksome ? Away then yee frivolous temptations , and solicit those mindes that are low , and empty like your selves : For me , I disdaine your motions ; and being taken up with higher imployments , scorne to descend to your base suggestions , which tend to nothing but meer earthliness . But ( as there is no fire which will not go out if it be not fed ) it cannot be enough that thou hast entertained these gracious resolutions , unlesse thou doe also supply and nourish them with holy meditations , devout prayers , continual ejaculations , and the due frequentation of all the holy ordinances of thy God ; without which , if they shall languish through thy neglect , thou shalt finde double more worke , and difficulty , in reviving them , than there could have been in maintaining , and upholding them in their former vigour . Bee not therefore wanting to thy selfe in the perpetuall exercise and improvement of all those holy meanes , that may further and perfect these heavenly longings after salvation ; thy God shall not be wanting to thee in blessing thee with an answerable successe . SECT. XI . IT is the just praise of the marvailous bounty of thy God , O my soule , that he will fulfill the desires of them that feare him . If therefore thou canst hunger and thirst , after righteousnesse , if thy heart can yearn after heaven , he shall bee sure to satisfie thee with goodnesse ; and not onely shall bring thee home at the last to that land of promised blessednesse , but in the meane time also put thee into an inchoate fruition of happinesse ; which is the next degree of thine ascent to heaven . That which is complete may bee the surest rule of knowing and judging of that which is imperfect : Wherein doth the perfection of heavenly blisse consist , but in a perpetuall enjoying the presence of God , in a cleare vision of the divine Essence , in a perfect union with God , and an eternall participation of his life and glory ? Now as grace is glory begun , and glory is grace consummate , so dost thou , O my soule ( being wrought to it by the power of the Spirit of thy God ) even in this life ( how weakely soever ) enter upon all these acts and privileges of Beatitude : Even here below thou art never out of the presence of thy God ; and that presence can never be other than glorious ; and that it is not beatificall here , is not out of any deficiency in it , but in thine own miserable incapacity ; who , whiles thou abidest , in this vale of tears , and art clogged with this flesh , art no fit subject of so happy a condition . Yea that blessed presence is ever comfortably acknowledged by thee , and enjoyed with such contentment and pleasure that thou wouldst not part with it for a world , and that thou justly accountest all earthly delights but meer vexations to that alone ; Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and what doe I desire on earth in comparison of thee ? A Balaam could say ( how truly soever ) I shall see him , but not now ; I shall behold him , but not nigh : But , Lord , I see thee even now ; I behold thee so nigh me , that I live in thee , and would rather die than live without thee ; I see thee , though weakly and dimly , yet trulie and reallie ; I see thee as my God all-sufficient , as my powerfull Creator , my mercifull Redeemer , my gracious comforter ; I see thee the living God , the Father of Lights , the God of Spirits , dwelling in light inaccessible , animating , filling , comprehending this glorious world ; and doe awfully adore thine infinitenesse . Neither doe I looke at thee with a trembling astonishment , as some dreadfull stranger , or terrible avenger ; but I behold thy majesty so graciously complying with my wretchednesse , that thou admittest mee to a blessed union with thee : I take thee at thy Word , O dear Saviour , even that sweet word of impetration , which thou wert pleased to utter unto thy coeternal Father , immediately before thy meritorious passion , I pray not for these alone ; but for them also which shall beleeve on me through their Word ; That they all may be one , as thou , Father , art in me , and I in thee ; that they may be One in us : And the glory which thou gavest me , I have given them , that they may bee one even as we are one ; I in them , and thou in me , that they may bee made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me , and hast loved them , as thou hast loved me . I know thou couldst not but be heard in all that thou prayed'st ; and therefore I take what thou suedst for , as done . Lord , I do beleeve in thee , unite thou me to thee : make me one spirit with thee : It is no presumption to sue and hope for what thou hast prayed for , and promised to performe : Oh make mee according to the capability of my weake humanitie , partaker of thy divine nature ; Vouchsafe to allow me , even me poor wretched soul , to say of thee , I am my beloveds , and my beloved is mine : And by vertue of this indissoluble union , why shouldst thou not , O my soule , finde thy selfe endowed with a blessed participation of that heavenly life and glory , which is in , and with him ? In that thou art united to thy body , thou impartest to it vegetation , sense , motion ; and givest it a share in the exercise of all thy noble faculties : how much more entire and beneficiall is the spirituall union of thy God , and thee ? Alas , that bond of naturall conjunction is easily dissolved by ten thousand waies of death : this heavenly knot is so fast tied , that all the powers of hell cannot unloose it ; And the blessings communicated to thee by this divine match are so much more excellent , as the infinite giver of them is above thy meanenesse : Lo , now thou art actually interessed in all that thy God is , or hath ; his kingdome is thine , his glorie is thine to all eternitie . SECT. XII . ANd what now can follow , O my soule , upon the apprehension of thus enjoying the presence of thy God , and the vision of so blessed an object ; and thine union with him , and participation of him , but a sensible ravishment of Spirit with a joy unspeakable , and full of glorie ? Heretofore , if some great friend should have brought mee to the Court , and having shew'd me the splendor and magnificence of that seat of Majesty , should have brought mee in to the sight of his Royal person ; and should have procured me not onely a familiar conference with him , but the entire affection of a favourite ; and from thence there should have been heaped upon me , Titles of honour , and large revenues , and ( yet higher ) a consociation of Princely dignitie : How should I have been transported with the sense of so eminent an advancement ? how great and happie should I have seemed , not more in others eies , than in my own ? what big thoughts had hereupon swolne up my heart in the daies of my vanitie ? But , alas , what poor things are these in comparison of those heavenly promotions ? I might have been brought into the stateliest Court of this World ; and have been honoured not only with the presence , but the highest favours , of the best and greatest of Kings , and yet have been most miserable : Yea , which of those Monarchs , that have the command , and dispensation of all greatness , can secure himselfe from the saddest infelicities ? But these spiritual prerogatives are above the reach of all possible miserie ; and can , and do put thee ( in some degree ) into an unfailing possession both reall and personall of eternall blessednesse . I cannot wonder that Peter when with the other two Disciples upon Mount Tabor , he saw the glorious transfiguration of my Saviour , was out of himself for the time , and knew not what he said ; yet , as not thinking himselfe and his partners , any otherwaies concerned , than in the sight of so heavenly a vision , he mentions onely three Tabernacles , for Christ , Moses , Elias , none for themselves ; it was enough for him , if without doors he might be still blessed with such a prospect : But how had he been wrapt from himselfe , if he had found himselfe taken into the society of this wondrous transformation , and interessed in the communion of this glory ? Thy renovation , and the power of thy faith , O my soul , puts thee into that happy condition ; thou art spiritually transfigured into the similitude of thy blessed Saviour , shining with his righteousness and holiness ; so as he is glorified in thee , and thou in him ; Glorified , not in the fulnesse of that perfection which will be , but in the pledge and earnest of what shall , and must bee hereafter . O then , with what unspeakable joy , and jubilation , dost thou entertaine thy happinesse ? How canst thou containe thy selfe any longer within these bounds of my flesh , when thou feelest thy selfe thus initiated into glory ? Art thou in heaven and know'st it not ? Know'st thou not that hee who is within the entry , or behinde the screen , is as trulie within the house , as he that walkes in the Hall , or sits in the parlour ? And canst thou pretend to bee within the verge of heaven , and not rejoyce ? What is that makes heaven , but joy and felicity ? thy very thought cannot separate these two , no more than it can sever the Sun and light : For both these are equally the originals and fountaines of light and joy ; from whence they both flow , and in which both are complete ; there is no light which is not derived from the Sun ; no true joy but from heaven : as therefore the nearer to the body of the Sun , the more light and heat , so the nearer to heaven , the more excesse of joy . And certainly , O my soul , there is nothing but infidelity , can keepe thee from an exuberance of joy , and delight in the apprehension of heaven . Can the wearie Traveller after he hath measured many tedious miles , and passed many dangers both by sea and land , and felt the harsh entertainements of a stranger , chuse but rejoyce to draw near in his returne to a rich , and pleasant home ? Can the Ward , after an hard pupillage chuse but rejoyce that the day is comming wherein he shall freely enjoy all his Lordly revenues and roialties ? Can a Joseph chuse but finde himself inwardly joyed , when out of the dungeon he shall be called up , not to liberty only , but to honour ; and shall be arraied with a vesture of fine Linnen ; and graced with Pharaoh's ring , and chain ; and set in his second Chariot , and in the next chair to the throne of Egypt ? And canst thou apprehend thy selfe now approaching to the glorie of the heaven of heavens , a place and state of so infinite contentment and happinesse , and not be extasied with joy ? There , there shalt thou , O my soule , enjoy a perfect rest from all thy toiles , cares , fears ; there shalt thou find a true vitall life , free from all the incombrances of thy miserable pilgrimage ; free from the dangers of either sins , or temptations ; free from all anxiety and distraction ; free from all sorrow , pain , perturbation ; free from all the possibility of change , or death : A life wherein there is nothing but pure and perfect pleasure ; nothing but perpetuall melodie of Angels and Saints , singing sweet Allelujahs to their God ; A life which the most glorious Deitie both gives , and is : A life wherein thou hast the full fruition of the ever-blessed God-head , the continuall society of the celestial spirits , the blissefull presence of the glorified humanitie of thy dear Saviour : A life wherein thou hast ever consort with the glorious companie of the Apostles , the goodly fellowship of the Patriarks , and Prophets , the noble Army of Martyrs and Confessors , the Celestiall synod of all the holy fathers , and illuminated Doctors of the Church ; Shortly , the blessed Assembly of all the faithfull Professors of the Name of the Lord Jesus , that having finished their course , sit now shining in their promised glory : See there that yet-unapproachable light , that divine magnificence of the heavenly King ; See that resplendent Crown of righteousnesse , which decks the heads of every of those Saints , and is readie to be set on thine , when thou hast happilie overcome those spirituall powers , wherewith thou art still conflicting ; See the joyfull triumphs of these exsulting victors ; See the measures of their glory different , yet all full , and the least unmeasurable ; Lastly , see all this happinesse not limited to thousands , nor yet millions of years , but commeasured by no less than eternity . And now , my soul , if thou have received the infallible ingagement of thy God , [ in that having beleeved , thou art sealed with that holy Spirit of promise , which is the earnest of thine inheritance , untill the full Redemption of thy purchased possession ] if , through his infinite mercy , thou bee now upon the entring into that blessed place and state of immortality , forbear ( if thou canst ) to be raised above thy self with the joy of the holy Ghost , to bee enlarged towards thy God with a joy unspeakable and glorious : See if thou canst now breath forth any thing but praises to thy God , and songs of rejoycing ; bearing evermore a part in that heauenly ditty of the Angels ; Blessing , and Glory , and Wisdome , and thanksgiving , and Honour , and power , and might be unto our God for ever , and ever . SECT XIII . ANd now what remaines , O my soule , but that thou do humbly and faithfully wait at the gate of heaven for an happie entrance ( at the good pleasure of thy God ) into those everlasting Mansions . I confess , should thy merits bee weigh'd in the ballance of a rigorous Justice , another place ( which I cannot mention without horror ) were more fit for thee , more due to thee : for , alas , thou hast been above measure sinfull , and thou knowest the wages of sin , death . But the God of my mercy hath prevented thee with infinite compassion : and in the multitudes of his tender mercies hath not onely delivered thee from the nethermost hell , but hath also vouchsafed to translate thee to the Kingdom of his dear Son ; In him thou hast boldnesse of access to the Throne of Grace ; thou , who in thy selfe art worthy to bee a child of wrath , art in him adopted to be a co-heire of Glory ; and hast the livery and seizin given thee beforehand of a blessed possession ; the full estating wherein I do in all humble awfulnesse attend . All the few daies therefore of my appointed time will I wait at the threshold of grace untill my changing come ; with a trembling joy , with a longing patience , with a comfortable hope . Onely , Lord , I know there is something to be done , ere I can enter ; I must die , ere I can be capable to enjoy that blessed life with thee : one stroke of thine Angell must bee endured in my passage into thy Paradise ; And lo , here I am before thee ready to embrace the condition ; Even , when thou pleasest , let me bleed once to bee ever happy . Thou hast , after a weary walk through this roaring wilderness , vouchsafed to call up thy servant to Mount Nebo , and from thence aloof off , to shew me the land of Promise , a land that flowes with milk and honey ; Do thou but say , Die thou on this Hill , with this prospect in mine eye , and do thou mercifully take my soul from mee , who gavest it to me ; and dispose of it where thou wilt in that Region of Immortality . Amen , Amen . Come Lord Jesu , Come quickly . BEhold , Lord , I have by thy Providence dwelt in this house of Clay more than double the time wherin thou wert pleased to sojourn upon earth ; Yet I may well say with thine holy Patriark , Few and evil have been the dayes of the yeeres of my pilgrimage : Few in number , evill in condition : Few in themselves , but none at all to thee , with whom a thousand yeares are but as one day . But had they beene double to the age of Methusaleh , could they have been so much as a minute to eternity ? Yea , what were they to me ( now that they are past ) but as a tale that is told and forgotten . Neither yet have they been so few , as evill . Lord what troubles and sorrowes hast thou let me see , both my owne and others ? What vicissitudes of sicknesse and health ? What ebbes and flowes of condition ? How many successions and changes of Princes both at home , and abroad ? What turnings of times ? What alterations of Governments ? What shiftings and downfalls of Favourites ? What ruines and desolations of Kingdoms ? What sacking of Cities ? What havocks of warre ? What frenzies of rebellions ? What underminings of treachery ? What cruelties and barbarismes in revenges ? What anguish in the oppressed and tormented ? What agonies in temptations ? what pangs in dying ? These I have seen , and in these I have suffered : And now , Lord , how willing I am to change time for eternity , the evils of earth , for the joyes of heaven , misery for happinesse , a dying life for immortality ? Even so , Lord Jesu , Take what thou hast bought ; Receive my soule to thy mercie , and crowne it with thy glorie . Amen . Amen . Amen . FINIS . A Catalogue of the severall Bookes written by the Author in and since his Retiring , Namely , 1. THe Devout Soule , and Free Prisoner . 2. The Remedy of Discontentment , Or , A Treatise of Contentation in whatsoever condition . 3. The Peace-Maker , laying forth the right way of Peace in matter of Religion . 4. The Balm of Gilead , Or , Comforts for the distressed ; both Morall and Divine . 5. Christ Mysticall , Or , The blessed union of Christ and his Members . To which is added , An holy Rapture , Or , A Patheticall Meditation of the Love of Christ . Also , The Christian laid forth in his whole disposition and carriage . 6. A modest offer , tendred to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster . 7. Select thoughts in two Decades , with the breathing of the Devout Soule . 8. Pax Terris . 9. Imposition of Hands . 10. The Revelation unrevealed — Concerning , The thousand yeeres raigne of the Saints with Christ on earth . 11. Satans Fierie Darts quenched , Or , Temptations repelled ; In 3 Decades . 12. Resolutions and Decisions of divers practicall cases of Conscience ; In 4 Decades . Select Thoughts , one Centurie , with the breathing of the Devout Soul . 13. Susurrium cum Deo , &c. This present Tract , newly Reprinted . Notes, typically marginal, from the original text Notes for div A45322e-1890 1 Cor. 13.12 . Euthym in Praefat. Psalmorum . Psal. 90.9 . Gen. 5.2.24.27 . 2 Cor. 5.1 . Exo. 16.13 . Deut. 8.3 . Exo. 16.31 . Num. 11.6 . Heb. 1. ult. Psal. 119.136 . 1 Kin. 19. Luk. 12.49 . Mat. 6.23 . John 1.9 . Psa. 119.105 . Clement . de gestis Petri . 1 Tim. 4.8 . 1 Cor. 9.27 . Rom. 8.18 . 1 Sam. 30.6 Cato . 1 Thes. 5.23 . Hos. 9 ▪ 7. Esa. 44.16 . Exod. 32.4 2 Kin. 20.23 . 1 Kin. 18.28 . 2 Kin. 23.11 . Cicer. de Natur. Deorum , initio . Heart bleedings for Professors abominations ; Set forth under the hands of 16 Churches of Christ baptized into the name of Christ . p. 5.6 , 7. &c. Joh. 18.28 . Mat. 23.25 2 Chro ▪ 30.18 , 19 ▪ Rom. 7.19 ▪ Mat. 6.19 . Pro. 13.12 . 1 Cor. 15.31 . 2 Tim. 4.7 . 1 Tim. 6.2 . Eph. 6.16 . 1 Ioh. 5.4 . Psal. 71.9 . Psal. 27.10 . 1 Kin. 22.24 . Iob 19.14 . Psal. 41.9 . Psal. 55.13 , 14. Psal. 61.7 . Deut. 6.11 , 12. Deut. 32.15 . 1 Sam. 24.5 Iam. 1.17 . Iam. 1.5 . Prov. 13.7 . Rev. 3.17 . Psal. 81.16 . 1 Cor. 10. Heb. 9.12 . Eph. 1.7 . Rom. 5.9 . Col. 1.20 . Heb. 9.22 . Heb. 13.12 , 14. 1 Pet. 1.2 . Heb. 9.15 . 1 Sam. 14.29 . Pro. 14.23 . Pro. 25.16 . Eph. 1.14 . Mat. 24.35 Colos. 3. Psal. 119. Psal. 12.14 . Mat. 8.24 , 25 , &c. Mat. 4.37 . Luk. 8.13 . Psa. 141.8 . Gen. 4 14. Cant. 5.2.3.4.5.6.7.8 . Eccle. 7.14 . 1 Cor. 12. Luk. 15.10 . Psal. 5.8 . Eccl. 9.1 , 2. Mat. 23.37 . Ier. 8.7 . * Oecolampad . in locū Ierem. Eccl. 3.1 . Psal. 55.17 . Act. 2.1 . 1 Thes. 5.17 . Rom. 8.26 . Aeneas Sylv. de Reb. gest ▪ Alph. 2 Chro. 29.25 , 28. 2 Chro. 5.12 , 13. Mamonides in Cle. hamikdash . c. 3 * Chro ▪ 29.25 , 28. Maymon . in giath hamikdash . Ier. 9.1 . Mal. 3.2 . Mal. 3.4 . Beda Eccles. Hister . l. 2. cap. 13. Ier. 44.17 , 18. 1 King , 18.44 . Esa. 63.15 . Esa. 1.4 . Dan. 9.8 . 9. Dan. 9.16 . 17. Dan. 9.19 . Notes for div A45322e-6710 Rom. 11.33 Ose . 13.9 . Rom. 8.33 . 34. 1 Pet. 1.12 . Bernard . Serm. de passione Domini . Rev. 21.23 Nehe. 2.2 . Luk. 8.31 . Heb. 12.23 Mat. 8.11 . Dan , 4.30 . Luk. 1.46.47 . Eccl. 5.10 . Cant. 1.4 . 2.5 . 8.14 . Psal. 57.7 . Psal. 145.19 Psal. 73.24 . Num. 24.17 . Ioh. 17.20 . 21. 22. 23. 1 Cor. 6.17 . 2 Pet. 1.4 . Can. 6.3 . Mar. 9.6 . Luk. 9.33 . Rom. 12.2 Eph. 4.24 . Ioh. 17.10 . 2 Thes. 1.12 . Eph. 1.13 . 14. 1 Thes. 1.6 . Rev. 7.12 . Psal. 59.10 . Psal. 86.13 . Col. 1.13 . Gen. 47.9 .