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losing God. Yea, and man's soul is a Spirit; and therefore cannot communicate with any corporal thing; so that all creatures, not being that infinite and spiritual fulness which our hearts have lost, and towards which they do still re-aspire; they cannot give it full contentment.

Nay, let me say more; howsoever a man may, in the midst of his sensual fulness, be convinced in his conscience that he is at enmity with God, and therefore in danger of his wrath and eternal damnation; and be thereupon moved to reform his life and amend his ways, and endeavour to seek peace and rest to his soul; o yet this being in the way of works, it is impossible that he should find it; for his conscience will ever be accusing him, that this good duty he ought to have done, and has not done it; and this evil he ought to have forborne, and yet, he has done it; and in the performance of this duty he was remiss, and in that duty very defective; and many such ways will his soul be disquieted.

But when a man once comes to believe, that all his sins, both past, present, and to come, are freely and fully pardoned, p and God in Christ graciously reconciled unto him, the Lord doth thereupon so reveal his fatherly face unto him in Christ, and so make known that incredible union betwixt him and the believing soul, that his heart becomes quietly contented in God, who is the proper element of its being; for hereupon there comes into the soul such peace, flowing from the God of peace, that it fills the emptiness of the soul with true fulness, in the fulness of God, so that now the heart ceases to molest the understanding and reason, in seeking either variety of objects, or augmentation of degrees, in any comprehensible thing; and that because the restless longing of the mind which did before cause unquietness and disorder, both in the variety of mental projects, and also in the sensual and beastly exercises of the corporal and external members, is satisfied and truly quieted. For when a man's heart is at peace in God, and is become truly full in that peace and joy passing understanding, then the devil hath not that hope to prevail against his soul, as he had before he knows right well that it is in vain to bait his hook with profits, pleasures, honour, or any other such like seeming good, to catch such a soul that is thus at quiet in God; for he hath all fulness in God, and what can be added to fulness but it runneth over? Indeed, empty hearts, like empty hogsheads, are fit to receive any matter which shall be put into them; but the heart of the believer being filled

o There.

p Namely, in respect of the guilt of eternal wrath. See page 242, notej.

with joy and peace in believing, doth abhor all such base allurements; for it hath no room in itself to receive any such seeming contentments. So that, to speak as the truth is, there is nothing that doth truly and unfeignedly root wickedness out of the heart of man, but only the true tranquillity of the mind, or the rest of the soul in God. And, to say as the thing is, this is such a peace, and such a rest to the creature in the Creator, that, according to the measure of its establishment by faith, no created comprehensible thing can either add to it, or detract from it; the increase of a kingdom cannot augment it, the greatest losses and crosses in worldly things cannot diminish it; a believer's good works do all flow from it, and ought not to return to it; q neither ought human frailties to molest it. r However, this is most certain, neither sin nor Satan, law nor conscience, hell nor grave, can quite extinguish it; for it is the Lord alone that gives and maintains it. "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" says David, "and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee," Psalm lxxiii. 25. It is the pleasant face of God in Christ that puts gladness into his heart, Psalm iv. 7. And when that face is hid, then he is troubled, Psalm xxx. 7. But, to speak more plainly, though the peace and joy of true believers may be extenuated or diminished, yet doth the testimony of their being in natures remain so strong, that they could skill to say, yea, even when they have felt God to be withdrawing himself from them,"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" (Psalm xxii. 1); yea, and in the night of God's absence to remain confident, that though sorrow be over night, yet joy will come in the morning, (Psalm xxx. 5,) nay, though the Lord should seem to kill them with unkindness," yet they will put their trust in him," (Job xiii. 15); knowing that for all this "their Redeemer liveth," (Job xix. 25); so strong is "the joy of their Lord," Nehem. viii. 10. These are the people that are kept in perfect peace, because their minds are stayed in the Lord. (Isa. xxvi. 3.)

Wherefore, my dear friends and loving neighbours, I beseech you

q Namely to any part of the fountain of it, for the time to come as the rivers return unto the sea, whence they came, making a part of the store for their own fresh supply; nay, it is the Lord alone that gives and maintains it, as our author afterwards expresses it.

r For these we are never free from in this life. And true repentance, and gospel mourning for sin, are so consistent with it, that they flow from it, according to the measure thereof. Psal. lxv. 3, "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions thou shalt purge them away." Zech. xii. 10, They shall look upon me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn."

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s That is, the evidence, that they (viz. the peace and joy of believers) are still in being, (in rerum natura) and not quite extinct.

take heed of deeming any estate happy, until you.come to find this true peace and rest to your souls in God. O beware last any of you do content yourselves with a peace rather of speculation than of power! O be not satisfied with such a peace as consists either in the act of oblivion, or neglect of examination! nor yet in any brainsick supposition of knowledge, theological or divine; and so frame rational conclusions, to protract time and still the cries of an accusing conscience. But let your hearts take their last farewell of false felicities, wherewith they have been, all of them, more or less, detained and kept from their true rest. O be strong in resolution! and bid them all farewell; for what have your souls to do any longer among gross, thick, and bodily things here below, that you should set your love upon them, or see happiness in them? your souls are of a higher and purer nature; and therefore their wellbeing must be sought in something higher and purer than they, even in God himself.

True it is, that we are all of us, indeed, too unclean to touch God in immediate unity: but yet there is a pure counterpart of our natures, t and that pure humanity is immediately knit to the purest Deity; and by that immediate union you may come to a mediate union; for the Deity and that humanity being united, make one Saviour, Head, and Husband of souls. And so you being married to him, that is, God, in him you come also to be one with God: he one by a personal union, and you one by a mystical. Clear up, then, your eye, and fix it on him, as on the fairest of men, the perfection of a spiritual beauty, the treasure of heavenly joy, the true object of most fervent love. Let your spirits look, and long, and seek after this Lord; let your souls cleave to him, let them hang about him, and never leave him, till he be brought into the chambers of your souls; yea, tell him resolutely, you will not leave him, till you hear his voice in your souls, saying, "My well-beloved is mine, and I am his :" yea, and tell him you are "sick of love." Let your souls go, as it were, out of your bodies and out of the world, by heavenly contemplations; and treading upon the earth with the bottom of your feet, stretch your souls up, to look over the world, into that upper world, where her treasure is, u and where her Beloved dwelleth.

And when any of your souls shall thus forget her own people, and her father's house, Christ her King shall so desire her beauty (Psalm xlv. 10, 11,) and be so much in love with her, that like a loadstone, this love of his shall draw the soul in pure desire to him

t Namely, the pure and spotless human nature of Christ.

u Your soul's.

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again; and then, as the heart panteth after the rivers of water, so will your soul pant after God," Psalm xlii. 1.

And then, according to the measure of your faith, your souls shall come to have a real rest in God, and be filled with joy unspeakable and glorious.

Wherefore, I beseech you, set your mouths to this fountain Christ, and so shall your souls be filled with the water of life, with the oil of gladness, and with the new wine of the kingdom of God; from him you shall have weighty joys, sweet embracements, and ravishing consolations. And how can it be otherwise, when your souls shall really communicate with God, and by faith have a true taste, and by the spirit have a sure earnest of all heavenly preferments; having as it were, one foot in heaven, whilst you live upon earth? O then, what an eucharistical love v will arise from your thankful hearts extending itself first towards God, and then towards man for God's sake and then, according to the measure of your faith, will be your willing obedience to God, and also to man for God's sake; for obedience being the kindly fruit of love, a loving soul bringeth forth this fruit, as kindly as a good tree bringeth forth her fruit; for the soul, having tasted Christ in a heavenly communion, so loves him, that to please him is a pleasure and delight to herself: and the more Christ Jesus comes into the soul by his Spirit, the more spiritual he makes her; and turns her will into his will, making her of one heart, mind, and will, with him.

So that, for a conclusion, this I say, that if the everlasting love of God in Jesus Christ be truly made known to your souls, according to the measure thereof, you shall have no need to frame and force yourselves to love and do good works, for your souls will ever stand bound w to love God, and to keep his commandments, and it will be your meat and drink to do his will. And truly this love of God will cut down self-love and love of the world, for the sweetness of Christ's Spirit will turn the sweetness of the flesh into bitterness, and the sweetness of the world into contempt. And if you can behold Christ with open face, you shall see and feel things unutterable, and be changed from beauty to beauty, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of this Lord, and so be happy in this life, in your union with happiness, and happy hereafter in the full fruition of happiness: x whither the Lord Jesus Christ bring us all in his due time. Amen.

v A love of thanksgiving, bearing thankfulness in its nature.

w Or constrained by the force of that love.

x That is, of God himself in Christ.

CONCLUSION.

"AND now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified," Acts. xx. 32.

Neo. Well sir, at this time I will say no more, but that it was a happy hour wherein I came to you, and a happy conference that we have had together. Surely, sir, I never knew Christ before this day. O what cause have 1 to thank the Lord for my coming hither, and my two friends as a means of in sir. for the pains that you have taken with

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