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ther would I have you hereupon, to hide yourself from this calling; but, to prepare yourself for it. These times call for them, that are faithful: and, if they may spare some learning, conscience they cannot. Go on happily: it argues a mind Christianly noble, to be encouraged with the need of his labours; with the difficulties.

EPISTLE VI.

TO MRS. A. P.

A Discourse of the Signs and Proofs of a true Faith. THERE is no comfort, in a secret felicity. To be happy, and not know it, is little above miserable.

Such is your state: only herein better than the common case of the most; that the well of life lies open before you, but your eyes, like Hagar's, are not open to see it; while they have neither water nor eyes. We do not much more want that, which we have not; than that, which we do not know we have.

Let me sell you some of that spiritual eye-salve, which the Spirit commends to his Laodiceans; that you may clearly see, how well you are. There is nothing, but those scales, betwixt you and happiness.

Think not much, that I espy in you, what yourself sees not: too much nearness ofttimes hindereth sight; and if, for the spots of our own faces we trust others' eyes, why not for our perfections?

You are in heaven; and know it not: He, that believes, is already passed from death to life: you believe, while you complain of unbelief. If you complained not, I should misdoubt you more, than you do yourself, because you complain. Secure and insolent presumption hath killed many that breathes nothing but confidence and safety; and abandons all doubts, and condemns them. That man never believed, that never doubted. This liquor of faith is never pure, in these vessels of clay, without these lees of distrust.

What then? Think not, that I encourage you to doubt more; but persuade you, not to be discouraged with doubting. All uncertainty is comfortless: those, that teach men to conjecture, and forbid to resolve, read lectures of misery. Those doubts are but to make way for assurance; as the oft shaking of the tree, fastens it more at the root.

You are sure of God; but you are afraid of yourself. The doubt is not in his promise; but your application. Look into your own heart. How know you, that you know any thing; that

you believe, that you will, that you approve, that you affect any thing? If a man, like yourself, promise you ought, you know whether you trust him; whether you rely yourself on his fidelity. Why can you not know it in him, that is God and man? The difference is not in the act, but the object.

But, if these habits, because of their inward and ambiguous nature, seem hard to be descried; turn your eyes to those open marks, that cannot beguile you. How many have bragged of their faith, when they have embraced nothing but a vain cloud of presumption! Every man repeats his Creed: few feel it; few practise it. Take two boughs in the dead of winter: how like is one wood to another! how hardly discerned! Afterwards, By their fruit you shall know them. That faith, whose nature was obscure, is evident in his effects. What is faith, but the hand of the soul? What is the duty of the hand, but either to hold or work? This hand then holds Christ, works obedience and holiness.

And, if this act of Apprehension be as secret, as the cause; since the closed hand hideth still what it holdeth; see the hand of faith open see what it worketh; and compare it with your own proof. Deny, if you can, yet I would rather appeal to any judge than your prejudiced self, that, in all your needs, you can step boldly to the Throne of Heaven; and freely pour out your enlarged heart to your God; and crave of him, whether to receive what you want, or that you may want; what you have, and would not. Be assured from God, this can be done by no power, but, that you fear to miss, of faith. God, as he is not, so he is not called, a Father, without this. In vain doth he pray, that cannot call God, Father: no Father, without the Spirit of Adoption; no Spirit, without faith: without this, you may babble; you cannot pray. Assume you, that you can pray; I dare conclude upon my soul, you believe.

As little as you love yourself, deny, if you can, that you love God. Say that your Saviour from heaven should ask you Peter's question, could your soul return any other auswer, than Lord, thou knowest I love thee? Why are you else in such awe to offend, that a world cannot bribe you to sin? Why, in such deep grief when you have sinned, that no mirth can refresh you? Why, in such fervent desire of enjoying his presence? why, in such agony when you enjoy it not? Neither doth God love you, neither can you love God, without faith.

Yet more do you willingly nourish any one sin in your breast? do you not repent of all? do you not hate all, though you cannot leave all? do you not complain, that you hate them no more? do you not, as for life, wish for holiness, and endeavour it? Nothing, but faith, can thus cleanse the heart: that, like a good housewife, sweeps all the foul corners of the soul; and will not leave so much as one web, in this roomy house. Trust to it, y u cannot hate sin for its own sake, and forsake it for God's sake, without faith the faithless hath had some remorse and fears; never, repentance.

Lastly, do you not love a good man, for goodness; and delight in God's saints? Doth not your love lead you to compassion; your compassion to relief? A heart truly faithful cannot but have a hand Christianly bountiful. Charity and Faith make up one perfect pair of compasses, that can take the true latitude of a Christian heart: faith is the one foot, pitched in the centre unmoveably; while charity walks about, in a perfect circle of beneficence: these two never did, never can go asunder. Warrant you your love, I dare warrant your faith.

What need I say more? This heat of your affections, and this light of your works, will evince against all the gates of hell, that you have the fire of Faith. Let your soul then warm itself with these sweet and cordial flames, against all those cold despairs, whereto you are tempted: say, Lord, I believe; and I will give you leave still to add, help my unbelief.

EPISTLE VII.

TO MR. ED. ALLEYNE.

A Direction how to conceive of God in our Devotions and Meditations. You have chosen and judged well. How to conceive of the Deity in our prayers, in our meditations; is both the deepest point of all Christianity, and the most necessary: so deep, that if we wade into it, we may easily drown, never find the bottom; so necessary, that, without it, ourselves, our services are profane, irreligious. We are all born idolaters; naturally prone to fashion God to some form of our own, whether of a human body, or of admirable light; or, if our mind have any other more likely and pleasing image.

First, then, away with all these wicked thoughts, these gross devotions; and, with Jacob, bury all your strange gods under the oak of Shechem, ere you offer to set up God's altar at Bethel : and, without all mental representations, conceive of your God purely, simply, spiritually; as of an Absolute Being, without form, without matter, without composition; yea, an Infinite, without all limit of thoughts. Let your heart adore a Spiritual Majesty, which it cannot comprehend, yet knows to be; and, as it were, lose itself in his infiniteness. Think of him, as not to be thought of; as one, whose wisdom is his justice, whose justice is his power, whose power is his mercy; and whose wisdom, justice, power, mercy is himself: as, without quality, good; great, without quantity; everlasting, without time; present every where, without place; containing all things, without extent: and, when your thoughts are come to the highest, stay there; and be content to

wonder, in silence: and, if you cannot reach to conceive of him as he is, yet take heed you conceive not of him as he is not.

Neither will it suffice your Christian mind, to have this awful and confused apprehension of the Deity, without a more special and inward conceit of Three in this One; three persons, in this one essence; not divided, but distinguished; and not more mingled, than divided. There is nothing, wherein the want of words can wrong and grieve us, but in this. Here alone, as we can adore, and not conceive; so we can conceive, and not utter; yea, utter ourselves, and not be conceived. Yet, as we may, think here of one substance, in three subsistences; one essence, in three relations; one Jehovah begetting, begotten, proceeding; Father, Son, Spirit: yet so, as the Son is no other thing from the Father, but another person; or the Spirit from the Son. Let your thoughts here walk warily: the path is narrow: the conceit either of three substances or but one subsistence, is damnable.

Let me lead you yet higher and further, in this intricate way, towards the Throne of Grace. All this will not avail you, if you take not your Mediator with you: if you apprehend not a true manhood, gloriously united to the Godhead, without change of either nature, without mixture of both; whose presence, whose merits must give passage, acceptance, vigour, to your prayers.

Here must be, therefore, as you see, thoughts holily mixed; of a Godhead and Humanity; one person, in two natures; of the same Deity, in divers persons, and one nature: wherein, if ever, heavenly wisdom must bestir itself, in directing us, so to sever these apprehensions, that none be neglected; so to conjoin them, that they be not confounded. Oh, the depth of divine mysteries; more than can be wondered at! Oh, the necessity of this high knowledge, which who attain not, may babble, but prayeth not!

Still you doubt, and ask if you may not direct your prayers to one person of three. Why not? Safely, and with comfort. What need we fear, while we have our Saviour for our pattern; O my Father, if possible, let this cup pass: and Paul, every where, both in thanks and requests: but, with due care of worshipping all in one. Exclude the other, while you fix your heart upon one; your prayer is sin: retain all, and mention one; you offend not. None of them doth ought for us, without all. It is a true rule of Divines: All their external works are common: to solicit one therefore, and not all, were injurious.

And if you stay your thoughts upon the sacred Humanity of Christ, with an inseparable adoration of the Godhead united, and thence climb up to the holy conceit of that blessed and dreadful Trinity, I dare not censure; I dare not but commend your divine method. Thus should Christians ascend from earth to heaven; from one heaven to another.

If I have given your devotions any light, it is well: the least glimpse of this knowledge, is worth all the full gleams of human and earthly skill. But I mistake, if your own heart, wrought upon with serious meditations, under that Spirit of Illumination, will not

prove your best master. After this weak direction, study to conceive aright, that you may pray aright; and pray, that you may conceive; and meditate, that you may do both: and the God of Heaven direct you, enable you, that you may do all.

EPISTLE VIII.

TO MR. THOMAS JAMES

OF OXFORD.

A Discourse of the Grounds of the Papists' Confidence, in appealing to the Fathers: applauding his worthy offers and endeavours, of discovering the Falsifications and Depravations of Antiquity.

SIR:

I KNOW no man so like as you, to make posterity his debtor. I do heartily congratulate unto you so worthy labours; so noble a project. Our adversaries, knowing of themselves, that which Tertullian saith of all heresies, that if appeal be made to the sacred bench of Prophets and Apostles, they cannot stand; remove the suit of religion, craftily, into the Court of the Fathers: a reverend trial, as any under heaven; where it cannot be spoken, how confidently they triumph ere the conflict. "Give us the Fathers for our judges," say Campian and Possevine; "the day is ours." And whence is this courage? Is Antiquity our enemy; their advocate? Certainly, it cannot be truth, that is new: we would renounce our religion, if it could be over-looked for time. Let go equity: the older take both.

There be two things then, that give them heart in this provocation: one, the bastardy of false Fathers; the other, the corruption of the true.

What a flourish do they make, with usurped names! whom would it not amaze, to see the frequent citations of the Apostles' own Canons, Constitutions, Liturgies, Masses? Of Clemens, Dennis the Areopagite, Linus, Hippolytus, Martial of Bourdeaux, Hegesippus? Donations of Constantine the Great, and Lewis the Godly? Of fifty Canons of Nice? of Dorotheus, Damasus his Pontifical; Epistles Decretal of Clemens, Euaristus, Telesphorus, and a hundred other Bishops holy and ancient; of Evodius, Anastasius, Simeon Metaphrastes, and more yet than a number more; most whereof have crept out of the Vatican or Cloisters, and all carry in them manifest brands of falsehood and supposition? That I may say nothing of those infinite writings, which either ignorance

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