03.07. CHAP. VII. Religion considered in the consequence, of not thirsting

CHAP. VII.

Religion considered in the consequence, of not thirsting; divine grace gives a solid satisfaction to the soul; this aphorism confirmed by some scriptures, and largely explained in six propositions: first, that there is a raging thirst in every soul of man after some ultimate and satisfactory good: second, that every natural man thirsteth principally after happiness in the creature; Paite third, that no man can find that soul- filling satisfaction in any creature-enjoyment: fourth, that grace takes not away the soul’s thirst after happiness: fifth, that the pious soul thirsteth no more after rest in any worldly thing, but in God alone; how far a good man may be said to thirst after the creature: sixth, that in the enjoyment of God the soul is at rest; and this in a double sense, namely, so as that it is perfectly matched with its object: secondly, so satisfied as to have joy and pleasure in him: the chapter concludes in a passionate lamentation over the levity and earthliness of christian minds..

Hitherto we have taken a view of true religion, as it stands described in this pregnant text, by its origin, nature, and properties: we are now to consider it in the certain and genuine consequence of it; and that is, in one word, affirmatively, satisfaction; or, if you will, negatively, not thirsting: for so it is, in our Saviour’s phrase, “ Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.”

Whilst I address myself to the explication of this phrase, I suppose I need not be so exact and curious as to tell you in order, with a certain kind of scholastical gravity, first, what is not; and then, what is meant by it: for I presume nobody will dream of a corporeal or gross kind of thirsting to be meant here. Grace doth no more quench the thirst of the body, than elementary water can relieve the panting of the soul. Nay, he himself was subject to this gross kind of thirst, who gave to others the water whereof, if they drank, they should never thirst more. If it be understood of a spiritual thirst, yet I suppose I need not to tell you either, that then it must not be understood absolutely: for it cannot possibly be, that the thirst of a soul should be perfectly allayed till all its faculties be filled up to the brim of their respective capacities, which will never be until it be swallowed up in the infinite and unbounded ocean of the Supreme Good. But I conceive we may fairly come to the meaning of this phrase, never thirst, either by adding or distinguishing.

1. Then let us supply the sentence thus, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst after any other water.”” There is no worldly liquour can be so accommodated or attempered to the palate as to produce a universal satisfaction, as that a man should be perfectly mortified to all variety: but this heavenly water which our Saviour treats of here, is so fitted to the palate of spirits, and brings such satisfaction along with it, that the soul that is made to drink of it suspends its chase of all other delights, counts all other waters but a filthy and offensive puddle, thirsts no more after any other thing, either through necessity or for variety. The more indeed the soul drinks of this water, the more it thirsteth after fuller measures and larger portions of the same; and does not only draw in divine virtue and influences, but even longs to be itself swallowed up in the divinity, as we shall see further in the procedure of this discourse: but its thirst after all created good, after all the waters of the cistern, is hereby extinguished, or at least mastered and mortified. Or,

2. By distinguishing upon thirst, the sense of the phrase will be clearly this, “ Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him” shall never be at a loss more, never be to seek any more, never be uncertain or unsatisfied as to his main happiness or supreme object; he shall not rove and range up and down the world in an unfixedness and suspence any more; shall not run up and down to seek satisfaction and rest any more. From an internal unsatisfiedness of the body, spring violent and restless motions and runnings up and down, by which thirst is contracted; so that, by a metonomy, thirst comes to be used for unsatisfiedness which is the remote cause of it; and, by a metaphor, the same phrase comes to be applied to the soul. I suppose I am warranted, by the sacred style, thus to interpret; especially by the use and explication of the phrase in Jeremiah 2:25, where the Prophet intimates, that by thirst is to be meant a restless and discontented running up and down to seek satisfaction “ Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst;’ which two phrases are of the same import, and signify no more than cease from gadding after your idols; and that this is the meaning of that thirsting appears by the answer that the wilful and desperate people make in the sequel of the verse: for instead of saying. No, but we will thirst; they cry, “ No, but after them will I go.” To thirst then is, in an unsatisfiedness and spiritual disquiet, to range up and down seeking something wherein ultimately to acquiesce. And, in this sense, it is most true what our Lord here pronounceth, that “ whose ver drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.”’ Of which thirst that famous proclamation of our Saviour’s is to be understood — “ If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink;’“ in which place also we must necessarily understand what is here expressed, that then he shall never thirst more.

It matters not much by which of these two ways we explain the phrase here of not thirsting; for, according to either of them, it will result in this theological maxim, namely, that “ Divine grace, or true Christian religion, gives a real and solid satisfaction to the soul that is principled with it." This will appear plain though we apply but out of each Testament of the holy scriptures one text thereunto. I think it cannot reasonably be doubted, but that the prophecy and promise made in Isaiah 49:10, is to be performed to believers in this present life; for so must the foregoing verses necessarily be understood: and there we have the doctrine expressly asserted, “ They shall not hunger nor thirst, &c. for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.’’ To which those words of our Saviour are parallel, ’’ He that believeth on me shall never thirst f’ which doctrine of his is yet amplified and enlarged in John 7:38, “ He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” What greater security from thirst can be desired, than that one should be led by springs of water? Yes, one may be led by the springs of water, and yet not be suffered to drink of them: well therefore to put all out of fear, the pious soul shall contain within himself a spring of water; he shall have rivers of living waters in himself; and for his fuller security, these rivers shall be ever flowing too. It shall suffice at present, thus briefly to have established this conclusion. And now, having wrapt up the meaning of the words in this short position, I shall endeavour to unfold it in these six following propositions:

1. “ There is a raging thirst in every soul of man after some ultimate and satisfactory good.”’ The God of nature hath implanted in every created nature a secret but powerful tendency towards a centre, the dictates of which, arising out of the very constitution of it, it cannot disobey until it cease to be such, and utterly apostatize from the state of its creation. And the nobler any being is, the more excellent is the object assigned to it, and the more strong and potent, and uncontrollable are its raptures and motions thereunto. Wherefore the soul of man must needs also have its own proper centre, which must be something superior to, and more excellent than itself, able to fill up all its indigencies, to match all its capacities, to master all its cravings, and give a plenary and perfect satisfaction: which therefore can be no other than the uncreated goodness, even God himself. It was not possible that God should make man of such faculties, and of that capaciousness as we see them, and appoint anything below himself to be his ultimate happiness.

Now, although it be sadly true, that the faculties of the soul are miserably maimed, depraved, benighted, and distorted; yet I do not see that the soul is utterly •changed in its nature by sin, so as that any other thing should be obtruded upon it for its centre and happiness, than the same infinite good that was such from the beginning, or so as that its main and cardinal motions should be ultimately directed to any other than its natural and primitive object. The natural understanding hath not indeed any clear or distinct sight of this blessed object; but yet it retains a darker and more general apprehension of him, and may be said, even in all its pursuits of other things to be still groping in the dark after him: neither is it without some secret and latent sense of God, that the will of man chooseth or embrac€th anything for good. The Apostle hesitates not to -affirm, that the idolatrous Athenians themselves did worship God, though at that time indeed they knew not what they worshipped; their worship was secretly ^nd implicitly directed to God, and did ultimately resolve itself into him, though they were not aware of it — “ whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”“ Now that he declared God to them, appears abundantly by the following verses. What he says in point of worship, the same methinks I may say in point of love, trust, delight, dependence, and apply it to all sorts of idolaters, as well as image-worshippers, and affirm that the covetous idolater, even when he most fondly hugs his bags, and most firmly confideth in his riches doth ignorantly love and trust in God; the proud idolater, in the highest acts of self-seeking and selfpleasing, doth ignorantly admire and adore God; the ambitious idolater, even in the hottest chase of secular glory, and popular applause, doth ignorantly pursue, and advance God. For that rest, contentment, peace, happiness, satisfaction, which these mistaken souls do aim at, what is it other than God, though they attribute it to something else which cannot afford it, and so commit a real blasphemy? for they that do in their hearts and course of their lives, ascribe a filling and satisfying virtue to riches, pleasures, or honours, do as truly, though not so loudly, blaspheme, as they who cried out concerning the calf of gold, Exodus 32:4, “ These be thy gods, O Israel! “ &c. And in this sense that I have been speaking, one may safely affirm, that the most professed atheist in the world doth secretly pursue the God whom he openly denies, whilst his will is catching at that which his judgment renounceth, and he allows that Deity in his lusts which he will not own in heaven. The hypocrite professes to know God, but in works denies him; on the other hand, the atheist, though in words he deny God, yet in his works he professeth him: so natural and necessary it is for all men to acknowledge a Deity, though some are so brutish and besotted as to confine him to their own bellies; of whom the Apostle speaks, “ Whose god is their belly/’’

I say natural; for it is not only some few men of better education, and more contemplative complexions, that hunt after this invisible and satisfying good; but indeed the most vulgar souls, retaining still the nature of souls, are perpetually catching at an ultimate happiness and satisfaction, and are secretly stung and tormented with the want of it.

Certainly the motions of a soul are more strong and weiglity than we arc ordinarily aware of; and, I think, one may safely conclude, that if there were no latent sense, or natural science of God, the poor man could not spend the powers of his soul so intensely for the purchasing a little food and raiment for the body, nor the covetous man so insatiably thirst after houses and land, and a larger heap of refined earth: did they not secretly imagine, some contentment, happiness, or satisfaction, were to be drunk in together with these acquirements, they would seem to be but dry and insipid morsels to a soul; which ultimate happiness and satisfaction, as I said before, can be no other than God himself, whom these mistaken souls do ignorantly adore, and feel for in the dark. Neither let any one think that this ignorant and unwary pursuit of God can pass for religion, or be acceptable in the sight of God; for, as it is impossible that ever any man should stumble into a happy state, without foresight and free choice, and be in it without any kind of sense or feeling of it, so neither can God accept the blind for sacrifice, or be pleased with anything less than reasonable service from a reasonable creature. As the Athenians, worshipping God by altars and images, are counted superstitious, not devout, so the whole generation of gross and sensual souls admiring, loving, and ignorantly coveting after God in the pictures and images of true goodness, are, indeed, truly blasphemers and idolaters, but religious they cannot be. We cannot excuse them from idolatry, who direct their worship purposely to the true God, by or through images; much less can we be favourable to them who bestow their love, joy, confidence and delight, ignorantly upon the supreme and self-sufficient good, by or through any created good, in which they, as far as they understand, do terminate their devotion. I do not say that all souls have a distinct discovery of the good they aim at, it is evident they have not; but yet the will of every man is secretly in chase of some ultimate end and happiness, and indeed in its eager tendencies outflies the understanding. All which mystery seems to be wrapped up in that short but pithy inquiry, which, if it were a little otherwise modified, would be an excellent description of the natural soul, “ Many say. Who will show us any good.’^” The nature of the object is set out in the word ^ooc?,- the eagerness of the motion, in the form of the question^ “Who will show us.^^” and the ignorance of the mover appears in the indeterminateness of this object, which is well explained by the supply of the word any; “Who will show us any good? “*”* And that this is the cry of every rational soul is insinuated by the word many; which many is also in metre multiplied into the greater sort, and must indeed necessarily be extended unto all.

2. “Every natural man thirsteth principally after happiness and satisfaction in the creature.” The fall of the soul consisteth in its sinking itself into the animal life, and the business of every unrenewed soul is in one kind or other still to gratify the same life; for although, as I have shown, God is in the bottom of these men’s cares, and loves, and desires, and implicitly in all their thirstings, yet I may well say of them, as God says of the Assyrian monarch, at what time he executed his pleasure in correcting his people Israel, “Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so.” God is not in all their thoughts, whilst they pursue that in the creature which really none but God alone can be unto them. They do ultimately direct, as to their intention, all their cares, and covetings, and thirstings, to some created object; all which are calculated for the animal life, the gratifying and accomplishing their own base lusts. This is very apparent in the idolatry of the Pagans, whose lusts gave being to their gods; and so their deities were as many as their concupiscences and filthy passions, to sacrifice to their own revenge and sensuality, under the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Venus, what was it else but to proclaim to all the world, that they took the highest contentment and satisfaction in the fulfilHng of such kind of lusts? this was to them their god or supreme felicity. The case is the same, though not so expressly and professedly, with all carnal Christians who, although they profess the true God, yet in truth make him only a pander to their own lusts and base ends, though they name the natne of Christ, yet in very 4ee.(J deify their own passions, and sacrifice to the gratification of their animal powers. The Psalmist, as we have seen, determines the main end of all men to be good, Psalms 4:6, but, lest any man should be deceived in them, he presently tells us where this good was placed, Psalms 4:7, namely, in “corn and wine;” by which we must understand the animal life, and whatsoever administers to the delight thereof. And certainly this will go far; for not only meats and drinks, sensual pleasures, gorgeous apparel, sumptuous buildings, splendid descent, honourable preferments, popular applause, inordinate recreations, and an unwieldy bulk of earthly riches; but also orthodox opinions, philosophical, political, yea, and scholastical learning, fair professions, much pompous worship, yea, and worship industriously void of pomp, specious performances; to which we may add the most seemly exercises of undaunted valour, unshaken constancy, unbribed justice, uninterrupted temperance, unspotted chastity, and unlimited charity, if much giving may deserve so sacred a name; even all these, and as many more, may serve only as fuel for the rapacious fire of lust and self-love, to maintain and keep alive the mere animal, or at most logical, life; and are ordinarily designed as sacrifices to that which we significantly call self^ in contradistinction from God. I need not here declaim against covetous, luxurious, ambitious souls, the Apostle having so expressly prevented me by his plain and punctual arraignment of such men. Colossians 3:5, Php 3:19, where he charges them with placing a deity in their bags and bellies: otherwise I durst appeal to all the world that are not parties, yea, to the parties themselves, whether it be God or themselves that these persons do intend to serve, and please, and gratify; whether it be a real assimilation to God, and the true honour of his name, or some lust or humour of self-pleasing, self-advancing, and self-enjoying, that they sacrifice their cares and pains, and the main thirstings of their souls to. I am confident it will be easily acknowledged, that the covetous, voluptuous, and ambitious, do sacrifice all they are and do to the latter; but, alas! it is not yet agreed among men who are such; the hypothesis is granted, but the thesis is disputed: and indeed this is no wonder either; for it is as natural for the animal self-life to shift off guilt as it is to contract it; and the pride of the natural man is no less conspicuous in his wrongful endeavours to seem innocent of what he is indeed guilty, than his covetousness and voluptuousness is apparent in the matter wherein his guilt consisteth. It is not only these, and some few of the grossest and profanest sort of souls, that are guilty in this kind which I have been describing, though they indeed are grossly and most visibly guilty; but verily the whole generation of mere animal men, who have no principle of divine life implanted in them, do spend all their days, bestow all their pains, and enjoy all their comforts, in a real strain of blasphemy, from first to last. What a blasphemous kind of philosophy was that which professedly placed the supreme good and chief happiness of man in the fruition of pleasures? And indeed all those kinds of philosophy which placed it elsewhere, in things below God himself, and the enjoyment of him, were no less profane, though they may seem somewhat less beastly: for whether the Epicureans idolized their own senses, or the more exalted Stoics deified their own faculty, placing their main contentment in their self-sufficiency, and the perpetual serenity and tranquillity of their own minds, it is too apparent that both the one and the other still moved within the narrow and low sphere of natural self, and grasped after a deity in the poor dark shadows, and glimmering representatives of him. But I am speaking to Christians: and, amongst these, let no man tell me how orthodox his opinions, how pure and spiritual his forms, how numerous and specious his performances are, how rightly he pays his homage, and prays to one living God by one living Mediator; I will willingly allow, and do with delight observe these things wherever they are; but yet all this doth not denominate a Christian: for still that of the Apostle must hold good, “ His servants ye are to whom ye obey;”’ and I may add by somewhat a like phraseology, “His children ye are whom ye resemble C his creatures ye are, as far as you can make yourselves so, whose sufficiency and sovereignty is most magnified in your hearts; his worshippers ye arc whom ye mostly love, trust in, delight in, depend upon; in a word, that is your god which your soul doth mainly rest, and centre, and wrap up itself in. And, alas! how visibly dear and precious is the self-central life, which is so universally pampered, cherished, and sacrificed unto, besides the invisible and more spiritual oblations that are made for this purpose. This is as true an Antichrist in the mystery as there is any literal Antichrist in the world: and of this one may as truly say, as St. John doth of the other, ’’All the world wondercth after the beast.” In a word then, whosoever saith in his heart concerning anything that is not God, what that rich man in the gospel said concerning his goods, “ Soul, take thine ease in them and be merry,” the same is an idolater and blasphemer: and this I affirm to be the language of every apostate spirit, and unregenerate soul of man.

3. “ No man can find that happiness, and soulfilling satisfaction in any creature-enjoyment, which every natural man principally seeketh therein.”

Here are two things to be spoken to, namely, the enjoyments of men, or what they possess, and the satisfaction which the natural man seeketh in such possessions. For the first of these, I do not believe that ever any natural man had his fill of such possessions, I mean as to the quantity of them; he never had so much of them as to be able freely to say, “ It is enough.” The rational soul hath a strong and insatiable appetite, and wherever it imagineth its beloved prey to be found, and filling enjoyment to be had, it is exceedingly greedy and rapacious; whether the same will ever be able to afford it or not, it matters not. The animal life is that voracious idol, not like Bel in the story, which seems only to eat up, but which doth really devour all the fat morsels, and sensual pleasures that are sacrificed unto it, and yet it is not filled therewith. The whole employment of the natural man, is nothing else but as the Apostle elegantly describes it, Romans 13:14, “ To make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof;’’ wherein however, to speak the truth, he loses his labour; for he sacrifices all to an insatiable idol, and pours it into a gulf that hath neither bottom nor bounds, but swalloweth up all into its barren womb, and is rather made to thirst, than to cease from thirsting by all that is or can be administered to it. I take that of Solomon, Ecclesiastes 1:8, to be a clear proof in general of what I affirm, “ The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing;”“ the eye of man, as little as it is, is bigger than the whole visible world, which, although it may be wearied with looking upon various objects, as the English annotators observe upon these words, yet still desires new ones, and can drink them in without surfeiting: so that, although the acts of the eye be scant and finite, yet the lusts of the eye seem to have a kind of infinity in them. And indeed by the insatiableness of the eye and ear, is meant the greediness and voracity of the flesh or animal life, as Mr. Cartwright hath well observed upon, “ Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied;”“ where, by not being satisfied, is meant not having enough in quantity, as appears by the similitude in the former part of the verse. To the same sense he speaks, Ecclesiastes 4:8; Ecclesiastes 5:10. It would be endless to relate the monstrous and inexplicable gapings of covetous, ambitious, voluptuous, proud, vain-glorious minds after their respective idols. And indeed I need not descend to particular instances; for I suppose never any natural man could heartily say he had enough of riches, promotions, applause, sensual delights, eloquence, policy, prowess, or victory, or of any other thing which is accommodated to the gratification of the flesh, no more than any pious soul sojourning upon earth could ever yet be able to say he had enough of God and eternal life. So that, in a word, I know not how to apply any description to this insatiable and devouring principle more properly than that which the Prophet makes of hell, “ She enlargeth herself, and openeth her mouth without measure, and all glory, multitude, and pomp, descend into it.” I know there are of those men that pretend to have enough in quantity of these fleshly provisions; but I fear falsely and unjustly: for, as for the rich and honourable of the earth, it is too evident that they are still climbing higher, and grasping after more, as the great Alexander is said to have whined after more worlds, when he conceited himself to be master of all this: as for the poorer and meaner sort of people, who are as ready sometimes to lay claim to this virtue of thinking themselves to have enough, as any other people whatsoever, it is too manifest to a wise observer, that it is not a real apprehension that they have enough, but either a lowness and weakness of spirit, arising from the meanness of their education, or a downright despair of ever getting more. But be it imagined that the enjoyments of some natural men are enough in respect of quantity, yet still there is certainly wanting a true and sincere satisfaction of soul in such possessions; no man of all these finds that real happiness in those things which he so vehemently hunteth after. Solomon reduces all the pleasure and contentment that is to be found in multiplied riches to a very pitiful sum total, “ What good is there to the owners thereof, save the beholding of them with their eyes “f And, alas! what is the sight of the eye to the satisfaction of the soul! The whole visible world is utterly too scant for, and incommensurate to the wide and deep capacity of an immortal spirit; so that the same can no more satisfy than a less can fill a greater, which is surely impossible. Whatever is in the world out of God, is described by the Prophet, Isaiah 55:2, to be not bread, there is the unsuitableness; and not to satisfy, there is the insufficiency of it as to the soul of man: on the other hand, the soul of man is so vastly capacious, that though it be also ever so greedy and rapacious, snatching on the right hand, and catching on the left hand, as the Prophet describes the famishing people, Isaiah 9:20, yet still it is hungry and unsatisfied. AVhich ravenous and insatiable appetite of the sensual soul, is elegantly described by the Prophet in the similitude of a whorish woman, who prostituteth herself to all comers, and “ multiplieth her fornications,” yet is “ unsatiable, is not, cannot be satisfied.” The soul may indeed feed, yea, and surfeit upon, but it can never satisfy itself from any created good; nothing can ultimately determine and centre the motions of a soul, but something superior to its own essence; which, whilst it misses of, it is as it were divided against itself, perpetually struggling and fluctuating, and travailing in pangs with some new design or other to be at rest; like the old lioness in the parable of Ezekiel, breeding up one whelp after another to be a lion wherein to confide, but disappointed in all; or like the poor discontented butterfly, lighting and catching every where but sticking no where, adoring something for a god to-day, which it will be ready to fling into the fire to-morrow, after the manner of idolaters creating gods to themselves.

Neither the quantity, variety, nor duration of any created objects, can possibly fill up that large and noble capacity wherewith God hath endued the rational soul; but having departed from its centre, and not knowing how to return to its original, it wanders up and down as it were in a wilderness, and having an imperfect glimmering sight of something better than what itself as yet either is or hath, but not being able to attain to it, is miserably tormented, even as a man in a thirst which he cannot quench; yea, the more he runs up and down to seek water, the more is his thirst increased whilst he misses of it; so this distempered and distracted soul, whilst it seeks to quench its thirst at the creature-cistern does but inflame it, and in a continual pursuit of rest becomes most restless. That every unregenerate soul is in such a distressed, weary, restless state as I have been describing, appears most evidently by those famous gospel proclamations; one in Isaiah 55:1, Isaiah 55:3,” Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;’’’’ where, by the thirsters are meant those unfixed, unsatisfied souls, as appears by the second verse; the other in Matthew 11:28, “ Come unto me, all ye that labour,” &c. where the promise of giving rest does plainly imply the restless state of the persons invited. There is a certain horror and anguish in sin and wickedness, even long before it be swallowed up in hell; a certain vanity and vexation folded up in all earthly enjoyments, though the same do not always sting and pierce the soul alike: so true is that famous aphorism of the Prophet Isaiah, “ There is no peace to the wicked.’“’

4. “ Grace takes not away this thirst of the soul after happiness and plenary satisfaction.”“ love and desire, and a tendency towards blessedness, are so woven into the nature of the soul, and inlaid in its very essence, that she cannot possibly put them off: however, it is the work of grace to change and rectify them, as we shall see under the next head. The soul of man is a kind of immaterial fire, an inextinguishable activity, always necessarily catching at some object or other, in conjunction with which she thinks to be happy; and, therefore, if she be rent from herself and the world, and be mortified to the love of fleshly and animal lusts, she will certainly cleave to some higher and more excellent object, as will more clearly appear by and by.

Grace does not stupify the soul as to its sense of its own indigency and poverty, but, indeed, makes it more abundantly sensible and importunate. There are more strong emotions, and more powerful appetites in the pious soul towards its true and proper happiness, than in the ungodly and wicked. For the understanding of the regenerate soul is so enlightened, as that it doth present the will with an amiable and satisfactory object; which object, therefore, being more distinctly and perfectly apprehended, doth also apprehend, or lay hold upon, the soul, and attract her unto itself That “the eyes are leaders in love,”“ is most true of the eye of the soul; I mean the understanding, that first affects the heart with fervid passions. The first and fundamental error and mistake of the rational soul, seems to lie here, even in the understanding; here lies the very root of the degenerate souPs distemper; and if this were thoroughly restored and healed, so as to present the will with pure and proper ideas and representations of God, it might be hoped that this ductile faculty would not be long before it clave unto him entirely: nay, it may be doubted whether it could possibly resist the dictates of it. Now in the regenerate soul this faculty is repaired; yea, I may say, that the spirit of regeneration first of all spreads itself into the understanding, and awakens in it a sense of self-indigency, and of the perfect, all-sufficient, suitable, and satisfactory fulness of God, in whom it sees all beauty, sweetness, and loveliness, in an infinitely ineffable manner, wrapped up and contained; which will be so far from allaying the essential thirst of the soul, and stifling its eager pantings, that it must needs give a mighty edge and ardour to its inclinations, and put it upon a more bold and earnest contention towards this glorious object, and charm the whole soul into the very arms of God. Therefore not thirsting in the text, must not be understood absolutely, as if grace did utterly extinguish the natural activities of the soul, and its propensions: but the regenerate and gi’acious soul doth not thirst in such a sense, as thirst implies a want of a suitable good, or dissatisfaction, or includes torment properly so called. In this notion of thirst grace doth indeed quench it, as I intimated in the beginning of this discourse, and as it will further appear in the procedure of it. But as to this most essential thirst, this natural desire, or vergency of the soul after central rest and happiness, the same is so far from being extinguished or moderated by divine grace, that it is greatly improved, and mightily inflamed thereby. I suppose I need not enlarge upon so acknowledged a subject; therefore I will but present you with the instances of holy David in the Old Testament, and gracious Paul in the New.

I need not, I suppose, magnify the holy and divine frame of David’s spirit by any rhetoric of mine; God himself hath given the amplest testimony, and fairest character of him that I remember to have been, at any time, given of any man, when he owns him for “a man after his own heart:” and what a longing, thirsting soul this was, I need do no more to demonstrate than to turn you to some passages and professions of his own in his devout Psalms, such as Psalms 13:1, Psalms 113:1, where he borrows the strongest inclinations that are to be found in the whole creation, to represent the devout ardours of his own soul; “ As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” — “0 God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee; my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” — “I stretch forth my hands unto thee; my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land:” yea, he seems like one that would swoon away for very longing: “Hear me, speedily, O Lord, my spirit faileth; hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit; I lift up my soul unto thee; I flee unto thee,^ &c. The very same temper you will find in holy Paul, that chosen -vessel of God, if you peruse his Epistles, in all which you will meet with devout and strong breathe ings of the same kind; particularly Php 3:11-14, where he seems to be so thirsty after a state of heavenly perfection, that he longs after, if I mistake not the meaning of the eleventh verse, something that yet he knows he cannot arrive at whilst he is in this world, even the resurrection of the dead, or such a perfect state of purity and holiness, as belongs to the children of the resurrection.

5. “The pious soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature, nor rests in any worldly thing, but in God alone.’’ This particular consists also of two branches: the former and negative part whereof seems to me to contain in it the scope and meaning of our Saviour, in these words which I am now interpreting. We have already seen that every unsanctified soul is restless, and craving, wavering, unsatisfied, inconstant to itself, and its choice: by reason of its natural activity, it is always spending itself in restless and giddy motions; but by reason of its ignorance, and unacquaintedness with the one supreme and all-sufficient Good, and the multiplicity of lower ends and objects, it is miserably distracted, and doth necessarily grapple with inevitable disturbances, in a continual unsteadiness, putting forth itself now towards one thing, anon to another, courting every thing, but matching with nothing; like a fickle lover, that is always enamoured with the last feature he saw; or a greedy merchant, that being equally in love with the pleasure of being at home, and the profit of being abroad, can stay long no where with any content, but has always most mind of the place where he is not. The description that our Lord gives of the unclean spirit that is “ gone out of a man,^’ seems very aptly to agree with that unclean spirit that is in man, that being departed from God its proper rest and habitation, walketh through dry and desert places, I mean, empty and unsatisfying creatureenjoyments, seeking rest but finding none. It was an accidental affliction of believers, but is the natural and necessary affliction of every unbelieving and wicked soul, to wander up and down the world destitute, afflicted, tormented. Sinful self is so multiform, and that one root, the animal life, has such a world of branches, that it is impossible to administer due nourishment to them all; and yet they are all importunate and greedy suckers too: so that he must needs have a difficult task, and a painful province, that is constrained to attend upon so many, so different, and yet all of them so impatient and imperious masters. But I shall lose ground by thus going backward to what I considered under the second head, except I can make this advantage of it, to enforce that which I was going to speak of, with the greater strength and clearer evidence. The case standing thus with the unregenerate soul, as we have seen in this short review, I now say, that divine grace allays the multifarious thirst of the soul after other waters, of which it could never yet drink deep, or if it drunk ever so deep, could not be quenched; it determines the soul to one object, which before was rent in pieces amongst many. It does not destroy any of the natural powers, nor dry up the innate vigour of the soul, as I made evident under the last head, but it takes it off from the chase of all inferior ends, and inadequate objects, setting it upon a vehement pursuit of, and causing it to spend all its powers not less vigorously, but far more rationally and satisfactorily upon, that object worthy of our love, the infinitely amiable and self-sufficient God. When the soul hath once met with this glorious object, is once mastered with this Supreme Good, is, by divine grace, enlarged, it cannot, with any ease, stretch itself upon the creature any more; that is too scant and insufficient for it.

Certainly the soul that understands its own origin, nature, and capacity, and once comes to view itself in God, will see itself too large to be bounded by the narrow confines of self, or any creature, and too free to be bound down and chained to any earthly object whatever. The world indeed may, yea, and will labour to take o^’ the soul; “ What is thy beloved more than another beloved,”“ that thou art so fond of him? “ Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” Be content, here is hay and provender; Stay with me this night; let us dally and make merry together a little longer. But these Syren songs are sung to a deaf ear; they cannot inchant the wise and devout soul that hath her senses rightly awakened, and exercised to discern between good and evil: O no, “ I am sick of love,’’ and sick of every thing that keeps me from my Beloved; and therefore, however you may go about to defile me through fraud or force, through surprise or violence, yet I will not prostitute myself to you. The gracious soul hath now discovered the most beautiful, perfect, and lovely object, even Him whose name is love itself; which glorious vision hath so blasted and withered the choicest flowers in nature’s garden, that they have now no more form or comeliness, beauty or fragrancy, so as to deserve to be desired; she hath tasted the pure and perfect sweetness of the fountain, which has so imbittered all cistern-waters, that she finds no more thirstings in herself after them; which is that which our Saviour promiseth here, “shall never thirst.” A pious soul cannot possibly be put off with anything short of God; give him his God, or he dies; give him ever so much fair usage in the world, ever so much of earthly accommodations, they are not accommodated to his wants and thirst, if they have not that God in them out of whom all worldly pleasures are even irksome and unpleasant, and all fleshly ease is tedious and painful: creature-employments are but a wearisome drudgery to a soul that is. acquainted with the work of angels; and creature-enjoyments, in themselves considered, are very insignificant, if not burdensome to a mind that is feelingly possessed of the chief good. But here it will be seasonable to take into consideration a grand inquiry, namely. Whether a good man may not be said in some sense to desire the creature, and how far such a person may be said to thirst after it. This I shall speak to as briefly, and yet as clearly as I can, in these four following particulars: —

1. “All pious souls are not equally mortified to worldly loves, nor equally zealous and importunate lovers of God.’ This is so evident, that I need not insist upon it. Abraham seems to have been as much higher and nobler in spirit than his brother Lot, as Lot was more excellent than one of the ordinary sons of Adam, I had almost said, than one of the Sodomites amongst whom he dwelt. The one leaves all the pleasant and plentiful accommodations of his native country, at the very first call out, not knowing whither he went, only relying upon the gracious guidance of him whom he followed; he seems to reckon all soils alike for his sojourning, and the whole habitable world as his own city and home, as appears by his readiness to break up house, and quit his present habitation, rather than interfere with the conveniences of his nephew, Genesis 13:9 - The other preferred a fruitful soil before a faithful society, and so in some sense his body before his soul; and yet, as if it had not been enough to make so unadvised a choice, he rests in it too; yea, though he was so severely reproved by the captivity that befel him there, whereby he was not so much called, as indeed carried away thence, yet this will not loosen him from his earthly conveniences, but he returns to Sodom, and from thence he will not part till he be fired out, nay, and then also it is with much lingering and lothness, Genesis 19:16. It is evident I say, both from this and many other instances which I purposely omit, that it is so, that all pious souls are not equally careless of these earthly things, nor carried out with equal ardour and intemperance, as I may call it, towards the supreme and most glorious object; of which I can assign no better reason than this, because they are not all equally pious. For,

“ So far as grace prevails, and religion in the power of it actuateth the soul in which it is planted, so far earthly loves decay and wither.” For these two cannot stand together, the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God; “ If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’’ So far as any soul is sanctified, so far is it mortified also to all creature-enjoyments, to all things that are only fuel for the animal life, honour, ease victory, plenty, liberty, relations, recreations, all the entertainments and delights in this lower life, yea, and this very life itself. Earthly and heavenly loves arc to each other as the two scales of a pair of balances, save that they are never found equally poizing, as the one rises the other falls; just so much advantage as this gets, that loses. The more the sensual and self-central life thrives and prospers, and the creature is exalted, the more religion and the divine life faint and flag in the soul: and as certainly, on the other hand, the more divine grace prevails, and the divine life flourisheth in the soul, the more all earthly objects wither away and lose their beauty, and the soul cooleth and languisheth as to its love and desire of them. So far as a regenerate soul is unregenerate, so far will she be bustling after other lovers: which regeneration will not, I conceive, be thoroughly perfected, and therefore these passions, not utterly extinguished, till this mortal put on immortality; or, as the Apostle speaks elsewhere, till “ mortality be swallowed up of life.”“

3. For the preventing of rash and uncharitable judging, I do affirm, that “ divine and holy souls are often mistaken by them that behold their ordinary converse and actions in the body.” They are thought sometimes to take pleasure in the creature, and to gratify the flesh, when indeed it is no such matter; but they take pleasure in the image of God, or the evidence of his fatherly love, which they contemplate therein, and do perhaps, most of all, serve a spiritual end, and an eternal design in those very actions which others may think are calculated for the gratification of the animal life, and the service of the flesh. Let not the purblind world, nor the self-befriending hypocrite, be judge, and it will appear that the truly pious soul counts nothing savoury to itself, but what represents, teaches, exhibits something of God, nothing pleasant but what hath a tendency to him: such a man doth not feel himself in his highest raptures, doth not value himself on his noblest accomplishments, doth not seek himself in his most excellent performances; be not mistaken, he doth not so much thirst after long life, riches, friends, liberties, as indeed after God in them all; these all signify nothing to him, if they bring him not nearer to his God, and conduce to his real and spiritual happiness. Yea, possibly, in his most suspected actions, and those that seem most alien from religion, and most designed to please the flesh, he may be highly spiritual and pure: so was our blessed Saviour we know, even in his conversing with scandalous sinners, eating and drinking with Publicans and notorious offenders, however he was traduced by a proud and hypocritical generation; and so I doubt not is many a good Christian, according to his measure, pure as Christ was pure. When a painted hypocrite, who can guess at the temper of others no other way but by what he finds in himself, and by what he should be and do, if he were under the same circumstances, comes to be judge of the actions or disposition of one who is transformed into the image of the divine freedom and benignity, you may easily imagine what a perverse sentence he will pass. It needs not seem very Strange, methinks, in spiritual things, any more than it is in corporeal things, that the most sound and healthful constitutions should, upon a lawful call, adventure themselves further than the crazy, and sickly, and familiarly converse with and handle, yea, and make good work with those briers and thorns, which would prove a snare, or a wound, or a pricking temptation to others. If it were possible for any man to arrive at the purity and perfection of his Saviour, and his firm and immoveable radication in true goodness, he would find himself so wholly dead to sin, and all temptations and motions thereunto, that he would be able to walk upon the most boisterous waves, without fear of being swallowed up in them, and to take up in his hands the most venemous serpent, not dreading the sting of it.

However, the apprehensions and actions of more perfect and refined souls are not rashly to be judged; for they may easily be mistaken, either by the unhallowed hypocrite, or the more imperfect and impotent saint.

4. To answer yet more fully, I do affirm, that “ no truly religious soul in the world doth so thirst after the creature, as to place its main happiness in it, or to seek satisfaction from it.” However all holy souls may not be alike weaned from the world, nor equally loving of God, however the affections and actions of some may really be, and of others may seem to be, too gross and fleshly, yet no one of all these, in whom this new and divine life is indeed found, doth erect a self-supremacy in his own soul, nor take his full and complete rest and happiness to consist in any creature-communion whatsoever.

Surely this, of not thirsting, is so far a consequence of true religion, as that no religious soul in the world can be content to exchange the presence of God, and acquaintance with him, for any thing, for all things besides; or, if you will, plainly thus, no such person could be content, no, not for all the world, the glory of heaven not excepted, if it may be supposed, to be wicked and ungodly: so that by thirsting here must not be meant some weak wishings, and fainter propensions of the soul towards created objects; for certainly there is no soul found in a body of earth, in which these are not found, no, nor yet some more lively and stronger strugglings after them, (how strong they may be in a good Christian, and yet predominated over by grace, we cannot punctually determine;) but, by thirsting here, must be meant the most quick and powerful breathings, the highest and strongest ardencies, the predominant and victorious motions and desires of the soul, which do, as it were, fold up the whole soul, and lead all its powers and faculties with it into a grateful captivity. Thus shall he thirst no more, who hath once drunk of these waters which flow forth from the presence of the Lord of life, and which the blessed Redeemer of the world is here said to give.

But, which is the latter branch of this particular, this inspired soul which we have been describing, thirsteth after his happiness in God alone, that is, in the enjoyment of him. We have already seen that grace does not destroy the natural and essential longings of the soul after a satisfactory good, but rather enhances them, and that the pious soul is most thirsty of all, but not with a creature-thirst, as is before proved; it remains then, that his thirsting after rest and happiness is terminated upon God alone. And so indeed it appears in the instances of holy men recorded in holy writ, which I have under the last head spoken something to. But to those passages and professions which I quoted out of Psalm xh1:1, 2, &c. you may add such as Psalms 4:6, which is the voice of every pious soul; “ Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us:”

Psalms 39:6-7, “ Surely every man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain; he heapeth up riches, &c. And now. Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee;” where you have the different seekings and centrings of the ungodly, and of the godly soul, elegantly described. Lastly, You may, in Psalm I23:25, again view the term or end of the pious man’s ambition; “ Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee!” Which translation of the words doth in a lively manner set out the good man’s end, and aim, and object, and happiness, and indeed his all: or, if we translate, perhaps more fitly, with Mollerus, yet they afford us the same doctrine, “ Who will give me to be in heaven and with thee? on earth I desire nothing.” And thus have we despatched the fifth proposition, namely, that the pious soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature, or rest in any worldly thing; and come to the sixth and last particular designed for the explication of this not thirsting of the religious soul, which is this: — In the enjoyment of God, this soul is at rest, is fully satisfied. I do not mean so satisfied as not to thirst after any more of him, as I have often hinted; but so satisfied, as to be perfectly matched with an object transcendently adequate to all its faculties, and their respective capacities; and so satisfied as to have peace, and joy, and triumph in him. To these two I will speak distinctly, and so pass on.

Now, for the better understanding of the first of these it should be noticed, that the reasonable soul and the faculties of it are of a vast, large, and noble capacity. It is universally granted by all that are not Sadducees, that the capacity of angels is very great and noble; and that the condition of the human soul is not much inferior to it, may, I think, be gathered from the Psalmist’s words, “ Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels:” which words, although the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies them to Christ, Hebrews 2:9, and indeed they have a marvellous aptness to him, according to the Dutch translation, which runs thus, “ We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, who was become a little less than the angels, by reason of the sufferings of death; that he should, by the grace of God,” Sec. Yet I see nothing hindering but that they may be well applied to the excellent condition of man by creation; especially considering that many other passages of the Old Testament have a double aspect, one more ordinary and obvious, which was most clearly understood by the Prophet that wrote them; the other more abstruse and mysterious, principally intended by the Spirit that inspired him, and only to be understood by the revelation of the same Spirit: such are those passages, I conceive, which are found in Isaiah 7:14. Hosea 11:1, interpreted by the Evangelist, Matthew 1:23, and Matthew 2:15; as also Jeremiah 31:15, with many more. But however it goes with that text, and whether or not the souls of men be so near of kindred to the angels, as to their own comprehensions; yet, that they are capable of a most noble and excellent happiness, and much allied to God himself, doth appear from such texts of scripture as doth require them to be “ holy as God is holy C to be “ perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect.”*’ Neither need it seem to any incredible, that the rational soul should be so capacious; for we are no more to judge of the angelical temper, and noble actings of the separated soul, by what we see it to be and do in this body of flesh, than one can judge of the prowess and puissance of a renowned warrior at the head of an army, by what we discern in him when he lies bound in chains, or of the ^owqr and splendour of the sun, by what we discern of it when it is eclipsed, or miserably beclouded; or, if you will, no more than we can judge of a man by the imperfections of his childhood: for so the Apostle Paul seems to state the case, 1 Corinthians 13:10-11, plainly implying, that the present and future condition of the soul is comparable to the minority and adult state of a man; as if he had said, “the soul, in its future and separate state, will act as much nobler a part than what it doth now, as the soul of the wisest man in the world acteth more nobly than what it did when he was a child:” yea, and what is still more to our present purpose, he seems clearly to intimate in the twelfth verse, that this improvement shall happen not so much by the more evident propounding of the object, as by the more ample illumination and corroboration of the faculties. In the next place it will be easily inferred, that all created good is too scant and insufficient for this capacious spirit of man; too short a bed to stretch itself upon: nay, it cannot contract itself so as to be accommodated to any worldly good, without pain and anguish. From both which it will be naturally and necessarily concluded, that God alone is that adequate object which can match the soul of man, and satisfy it, as being infinitely superior and transcendent to it. The enjoyment of God is that ultimate end, and perfect good that is only able to fix the spirit of man; which otherwise, not meeting with its chief good, would be tossed to and fro, and labour under perpetual disquietness, and restless fluctuations. God is that almighty goodness and sweetness, who alone is able to draw out all the appetites of the soul into himself, satisfy all its cravings, charm all its restless motions, and cause all its faculties, in the purest and most complacential manner, to conspire together to give up themselves wholly and entirely to himself,

Secondly, From this conjunction with omnipotent goodness, ariseth pure peace, yea, joy and triumph, to the religious soul. For the clearer understanding of this I should premise, what some have wisely observed, that there is a natural congruity between God and the soul, she being a spiritual substance, and he being a spiritual good, only suitable to her. This seems to be evident by experience; for we see how difficult, I had almost said, impossible it is, utterly to eradicate and extinguish all sense of virtue and goodness out of the soul of man; to which purpose I think our divines generally speak, when they allow of some holy relics, something of the image of God remaining in the most degenerate souls, however all men have reduced the same to a very poor and inconsiderable spark, and many have raked that very spark under ashes too, and imprisoned that remainder of truth in unrighteousness, living according to those unnatural and foreign principles and conceptions that they have unhappily drunk in. Hence it is, I suppose, that sin and wickedness are so often styled the defilement of the soul. Now, we know, that whatsoever defileth, is adventitious and improper; and hence it is, that sin many times stings and wounds the consciences of those that take most pleasure in it, because being so perfectly contrary to this noble and inbred sense of the soul. Allowing, then, this natural sympathy that the soul of man hath with its Creator, it will be easy to give a philosophical account of that peace, joy, and triumph, of which the soul must needs be possessed, or rather indeed transported with, that finds and feels itself in conjunction with its centre, and in the dearest embraces of its Creator. It needs not seem strange, that the soul should mightily congratulate itself in its arrival at its own haven; nay, it were strange if it should not dissolve into secret joy and pleasure in the hearty entertainments of so blessed and proper a guest as God is to it; nay, indeed it were unreasonable to imagine, that the conjunction of such noble and discerning faculties with so perfect and proper an object, should not beget the truest and sincerest delight and pleasure imaginable. The delights of an earthly and sensual mind are filthy and dreggy, in comparison of those pleasures of the refined and puriiied soul, which must needs live most gracefully, triumphantly, and deliciously, when it converseth with God most intimately. Certainly if there be any innocent and well-natured self-feeling, or self-pleasing, in the world, this is it; though indeed to speak truly, it deserves a better name.

It cannot be but that a pious soul, being in its right senses, should taste a sweetness in these pure and divine accomplishments wrought in it by the eternal spirit of righteousness; which self-pleasing is no more blameable, than that natural pleasure which every creature finds in the enjoyment of that which is most aptly accommodated to its necessities, and most perfective of its happiness; which pleasure, I say, ariseth in the soul from its sensible union with God in the spirit, and enjoyment of him: by which enjoyment of God, you will easily perceive that I do not mean the bare pardon of sin, or an abstract justification; for this is not the attainment that is perfective of the soul, neither could it alone, if we could suppose it alone, fill up the capacities of the soul, or make it happy, however the rapturous joys of the unprincipled hypocrite spring principally from the opinion and false apprehension of this; which indeed I take to be a notable, though not infallible, sign of a mercenary, low-spirited, and fleshly-minded Christian: but, by it, I mean the soul’s being really regenerated into the image of God, consisting in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and her implantation into the root Christ Jesus, by which she partakes of his divine life, power, and Spirit.

\ And yet, besides this, I conceive there is a more theological account to be given of these joys and pleasures which the renewed soul doth so plentifully reap upon her return to God, from whom she had SO long straggled by sin and wickedness. For the “ God of hope filleth the pious soul with all peace and joy in believing.’’ Christ doth on purpose speak words to the hearts of his disciples, that “ their joy may be full.’ But whether the most benign and gracious Father of spirits doth immediately from himself inspire the holy soul with divine joys and pleasures, kindled, as I may say, with nothing but his own breath; or whether he bring them to his holy mountain, and into his house of prayer, and by that, or any other like means, make them joyful, and of glad heart, as in the day of a solemn festival, as he hath promised to do, Isaiah 16:7, and Isaiah 25:6, however it be, I say, sure it is that he frequently puts a gladness into their hearts beyond that of the harvest or the vintage, and makes them to rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”“

Having now unfolded the meaning of the gracious gouFs not thirsting any more, I should pass to the last thing contained in the text; but finding myself oppressed in my spirit by the consideration of this necessary consequence of true religion, when I compare the temper of Christians with it, I must crave leave to stay a little and breathe. And what shall I breathe but a sad and bitter complaint over that low, earthly, selfish, greedy spirit which actuateth the world at this day, yea, and the generality of professors of that sacred religion which we call Christianity. Alas! what a company of thieves and murderers, I mean, base and sensual loves and lusts, lodge in those very souls who would be taken for temples consecrated to the name, and honour, and inhabitation of the eternal God, the Spirit of truth and holiness. O what pity is it that the precious souls of men, yea, and of Christians, the best of men, that are all capable of so glorious liberty, so high and honourable a happiness, should be bound down under such vile and sordid lusts, feeding upon dust and gravel, to whom the hidden manna is freely offered, and God himself is ready to become a banquet! And O what a shame is it for those who profess themselves to be children of God, disciples of the most holy Jesus, and heirs of his pure and undefiled kingdom of heaven; for these, I say, willingly and greedily to roll themselves in filthy and brutish sensualities, to set up that on high in their souls, which was made to be under their bodies, and so to love and live as if they studied to have no affinity at all, but would be as unlike as they could, to that God, and Redeemer, and unfit for that inheritance! How often shall it be protested to the Christian world, by men of the greatest devotion and seriousness, that it is utterly mad, and perfectly vain, to dream of entering into the kingdom of heaven hereafter, except the kingdom of heaven enter into our souls during their union with these bodies? How long shall the Son of God, who came into the world on purpose to be the most glorious example of true and divine purity, exact and perfect self-denial and mortification, how long shall he lie by in his word as an antiquated pattern only cut out for the apostolical ages of the world, and only suited to some few morose and melancholy men? Is it not a monstrous spectacle, and to be hissed out of the world with the greatest indignation, a covetous, voluptuous, ambitious, sensual saint? With what face can we pretend to true religion, or a feeling acquaintance with God, and the things of his personal service and kingdom, whilst the continual bleatings and lowings of our souls after created good do bewray us so manifestly, and proclaim before all the world that the beast, the brutish life, is still powerful in us? “If ye seek me,’*’ saith Christ to his followers, as well as he did once to his persecutors, “then let these go;” let go the hold of these earthly objects, let vanish these worldly joys and toys; “ withhold your throat from thirst, and your feet from being unshod,*” and come follow me only, and ye shall have treasure in heaven; for he that will not deny all for me, is not worthy of me. Ah sad and dreadful fall, that hath so miserably cramped this royal offspring, and made the king’s son to be a lame Mephibosheth! Ah doleful apostacy! How are the sons of the morning become children of darkness, and the heirs of heaven vassals and drudges to earth! How is the King’s daughter unequally yoked with a churlish Nabal, that continually checketh her more divine and generous motions! “How unhappily art thou matched, my soul! ’’ And yet, alas! I see it is too properly a marriage; for thou hast clean forgotten “thine own people, and thy Father’s house.”

Take up, oh take up a lamentation, thou virgin daughter of the God of Zion: formerly indeed a vjrgin, but now, alas! no longer a virgin, but miserSiiy married to an unworthy mate, that can never be able to match thy faculties, nor maintain thee according to the grandeur of thy birth, or the necessary pomp of thy expenses, and way of living; nay, thou art become not only a miserable wife, but, in so being, thou art also a wicked adulteress, prostituting thyself to the very vilest of thy lawful husband’s servants; if thou be not incestuous, it is no thank to thee, there being nothing in this world so near of kin to thee, as to make way for incest.

“ Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return; put away thine adulteries from between thy breasts, and so shall the King yet again greatly desire thy beauty;” for so he hath promised, Jeremiah 3:21, that when there shall be a voice heard upon the high places, weeping, and supplications of the children of Israel, because they have perverted their way, and forgotten the Lord their God, and the backsliding children shall return, and then he “ will heal their backslidings.’“