Images de page
PDF
ePub

i

But

I will not contend with him; only I would desire to
see his miraculous faith justified by some miraculous
works, which I conceive do always attend it.
the converse with creature-cures, which I forbid, is
the immoderate seeking of them, or the inordinate
using of them. To seek after means in themselves
unlawful, can never become lawful: but I speak not
of these. For although some are come to that
height of atheism and abjuration of God, as to re-
tain the devil himself for a counsel in a time of
straits, as Saul did, and contract with the prince of
death for the preservation of life in time of sickness,
as Ahaziah did: and I doubt very many do fall into
acquaintance with that evil spirit, and receive assis-
tance from him before they be well aware, by med-
dling with unphysical, unscriptural, unwarrantable
cures: yet the greatest danger is not in these; the
greatest danger is of miscarrying about things in
themselves lawful, and that is chiefly by those two
ways which I named just now. Take heed there-
fore of immoderate seeking after created helps; be
not anxious, perplexed, tormented in mind by a pas-
sionate desire of any of these. O what a raging and
unquenchable thirst have many men after creature-
cures! they will move heaven and earth, and almost
hell too, (with her in the poet) but they will find
out relief. Give me a physician, or I die, says one:
give me trading, good markets, a plentiful crop, or
I am undone, says another. What, man! is thy
life wrapt up in a pill, or incorporated into a potion?
Is thy main happiness in the abundance of these
things here below? or wilt thou say to the wind,

blow here in this quarter, and no where else; tie up the supreme and free Agent to a form and method of working? Let not such a profane disposition be found amongst us. Again, if you have found out hopeful creature-cures, take heed of using them in an inordinate manner, laying stress upon them, looking earnestly on them, as though they by their own power and proper virtue could make the lame to walk, or the sick to recover. Eye not, much less depend upon the virtue of any created means, as distinct from God; but acknowledge the power, and virtue, and goodness of every created being, to be the power, and virtue, and goodness of God in that creature; and so consequently use it in subordination and subserviency to the supreme Cause, who can at pleasure let loose or suspend the influences and virtues of every such means.

4. "Converse not with creature-losses in a time of affliction." The sinful soul that hath strayed from God, and centred upon the creature, is always intemperate and restless: if it be disappointed in its converse with creature-cures, and sees that for all these his comforts are cut off, health, liberty, friends, are perished; then he falls to converse with his losses, and spends the powers of his soul in discontents, and many dismal passions. Oh then, alas! I am undone! "What shall I do for the hundred talents? I am the only man that hath seen affliction: no sorrow like unto my sorrow:" " I shall go softly all my days, for the joy of my heart is perished, the delight of mine eyes is cut off." Thus Rachel weeps for her children, and will not be comforted; Rizpah attends the carcasses of her sons, and will not be parted from them. It is a strange thing that a soul should live upon its losses; and yet how many do so? Their very soul cleaves to the dust, where their creature-comforts are interred; whose souls are so much bound up in the creature, that they will needs live and die together with them. If God smites the gourd, and make it to wither, Jonah droops, and will needs die too. If Joseph be missing a while, Jacob will not be comforted; no, he will go down into the grave unto his son mourning. Who would have thought to have heard such words from such wise men, as a prophet and a patriarch? Oh the strange and unbounded power which this unseemly creaturelove hath obtained over the best of men! which makes me call him a happy man, almost more than a man, a compeer of angels, who hath learned to converse with God alone. Well, converse not with creature-losses; let not your soul take up its lodging by the carcasses of your created comforts, with Rizpah; dwell not upon the lowest round of the ladder, but climb up by it to the meaning of God, and to some higher good, and more excellent attainment. They live to their loss who live upon their losses, who dwell upon the dark side of the dispensation ; for every dark providence hath one bright side, wherein a godly soul may take comfort, if he be not wanting to himself.

5. "Converse not with flesh and blood." By flesh and blood, I suppose, the apostle means no more than men-" I conferred not with flesh and blood." And indeed, if we confer with men only for counsel,

and repair to men only for comfort in a time of affliction, we shoot short of the mark. But by flesh and blood the Scripture elsewhere often means man in this his animal state, as he is in his corruptible, mortal body, as 1 Cor. xv. 50. and many other places. And in this sense I speak, when I say, converse not with flesh and blood. Judge not according to your senses; let not your own sensual appetite determine what is good or evil, sweet or bitter: consult with rectified reason, and not with brutish appetite; confer with faith, and not with fancy. Rectified reason will judge that to be really good which our sensual appetite dictates; an enlightened mind will judge that to make for the interest of the soul, and its eternal happy state, which sense judges hurtful to the interest of the body and its animal state. It is not possible there should be any order, nor consequently any peace or rest in that soul, where the inferior faculties domineer over the superior, and sensitive powers lord it over the intellectual, and where raging appetite and extravagant fancy must clamber up into the throne to determine cases, and right reason must stoop and bow before it.

Be admonished to fly converse with all these, if you would converse rightly, purely, properly, comfortably with God, which is the highest office and attainment of created nature. Consider what I have said concerning this excellent and high employment, and awaken your souls, and all the powers of them, to meet the Lord God, and converse with him aright in the way of his judgments. Converse with God, with God in Christ, with God in his promises, with God in his attributes; and labour to do it, not spe. culatively, notionally, but really, practically, according as I have directed in the foregoing discourse. Religion is not an empty, airy, notional thing; it is not a matter of thinking nor of talking, but it hath a real existence in the soul, and doth as really distinguish, though not specifically, one man from another, as reason distinguishes all men from beasts. Converse with God is set out in Scripture by living and walking, and the like. Let me inculcate this thing therefore again, and press it upon you, and I shall finish all. As the way of glorifying God in the world is not by a mere thinking of him, or entertaining some notion of his glory into our heads, but consists in a real participation of his image, in a God-like disposition, and holy conversation, according to that of our Saviour, " Herein is my Father glorified, in that ye bear much fruit;" so the way of conversing with God in his several attributes is not thinking often with ourselves, and telling one another that God is just, wise, and merciful, though this be good; but it is a drinking in the virtue and value of these divine perfections, a working of them into the soul; and, on the other hand, the soul's rendering of itself up to God in those acts of grace which suit with such attributes, as in water face answereth face. I do not call bare performance of duties a conversing with God; prayer and meditation, &c. are excellent means, in and by which our soul converses with God: but communion with God is properly somewhat more spiritual, real, powerful, and divine, according as I described it just now. As for example, the soul re

« PrécédentContinuer »