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Spirit; and thereby made us, of enemies, sons and heirs, coheirs with Christ of thine eternal and most glorious kingdom of heaven; yea, hast incorporated us into thyself, and made us one spirit with thee our God; Lord, what room can there be possibly, in these strait and narrow hearts of ours, for a due admiration of thy transcendent love and mercy?

I am swallowed up, O God, I am willingly swallowed up, in this bottomless abyss of thine infinite love: and there let me dwell, in a perpetual ravishment of spirit; till, being freed from this clog of earth and filled with the fulness of Christ, I shall be admitted to enjoy that, which I cannot now reach to wonder at, thine incomprehensible bliss and glory which thou hast laid up in the highest heavens for them that love thee, in the blessed communion of all thy Saints and Angels, thy Cherubim and Seraphim, Thrones, Dominions, and Principalities, and Powers; in the beatifical presence of thee, the Ever-Living God, the Eternal Father of Spirits, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, One Infinite Deity in Three, co-essentially, co-eternally, co-equally glorious Persons: To whom be blessing, honour, glory, and power, for ever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah.

SELECT THOUGHTS:

OR

CHOICE HELPS FOR A PIOUS SPIRIT,

A CENTURY OF DIVINE BREATHINGS FOR A RAVISHED SOUL, BEHOLDING THE EXCELLENCIES OF HER

LORD JESUS.

BY JOSEPH, BISHOP OF NORWICH.

TO THE CHRISTIAN READER

GRACE AND PEACE.

It pleased the All-wise and Holy God, who orders all events to his own glory, to make use of my late Secession for the production of divers, not I hope unprofitable Tractates: wherein I much rejoice, that my declined age, even in that retiredness, might be in any measure serviceable to his Church. Now I send these Select Notions after their fellows; of which, I wish you may find cause to say, with the wedding-guests at Cana, Thou hast reserved the best wine till now.

The intent of this labour is, to put some good thoughts, Reader, into thy mind; which would not otherwise, perhaps, have tendered themselves to thee: such, as I hope may not a little further thee on thy journey to heaven. And if, in my labouring thitherward, I shall, through God's mercy, be a means of forwarding any soul, but some steps up that steep way, how happy am I!

To which purpose, I know no means more effectual, than those Meditations, which conduce to the animation and vigour of Christian practice: such I have propounded to myself as most behoveful and necessary; especially for this age, into which we are fallen: an age of more brain than heart; and that hath almost lost piety, in the chase of some litigious truths. And, surely, had I known how better to have placed my hours, I should gladly have changed my task: but I must needs say, I have found this employment so useful and proper, as that I have looked upon those Polemical Discourses which have been forced from me, as no better than mere excursions. I wist, it will be long enough, ere we shall wrangle ourselves into heaven: it must be true contrition, pure consciences, holy affections, heavenly dispositions, hearty devotions, sound regeneration, faith working by love, an humble walking with God, that shall help us thither; and, whatsoever may tend to the advancing of any of these gracious works in us, is worthy to be dear and precious.

Such passages, Reader, if thou shalt, according to my hopes, meet with here, bless God with me; and improve them to the best advantage of thy soul. Thus shall our gain be mutual; and our account happy, in the day of the Lord Jesus: in whom, farewell.

From Higham, near Norwich,

Feb. 7, 1647.

SELECT THOUGHTS.

I.

IF miracles be ceased, yet marvels will never cease. There is no creature in the world, wherein we may not see enough to wonder at: for there is no worm of the earth, no spire of grass, no leaf, no twig, wherein we may not see the footsteps of a Deity. The best visible creature is Man: now, what man is he, that can make but a hair, or a straw, much less any sensitive creature? So as no less than an infinite power is seen, in every object that presents itself to our eyes. If, therefore, we look only upon the outsides of these bodily substances, and do not see God in every thing, we are no better than brutish; making use merely of our sense, without the least improvement of our faith, or our reason. Contrary then to the opinion of those men, who hold that a wise man should admire nothing, I say, that a man truly wise and good should admire every thing; or rather, that infiniteness of wisdom and omnipotence, which shews itself in every visible object. Lord, what a beast am I, that I have suffered mine eyes to be taken up with shapes, and colours, and quantities; and have not looked deeper at thee, with awful adoration and wonder, in every parcel of thy great creation! Henceforth, let me see nothing, but thee; and look at all visible things, but as the mere shadows of a glorious omnipotence.

II.

Our affections are then only safe and right, when they are deduced from God, and have their rise from heaven. Then only can I take comfort of my love, when I can love my wife, my child, my friend, myself, my pleasures, and whatsoever contentments in God. Thus I may be sure not to offend, either in the object, or measure. No man can, in God, love whom he should not; nor immoderately love whom he should: this holy respect doth both direct and limit him; and shuts up his delights in the conscience of a lawful fruition. The like must be said of our joy, and fear, and grief, and whatever other af fection: for we cannot derive our joy from God, if we place it upon any sinful thing, or if we exceed in the measure of things allowed; we cannot fetch our fear from heaven, if it be cow

ardly and desperate; nor our grief, if it be merely wordly and heartless. And, if our affections do begin from above, they will surely end there; closing up in that God, who is the author and orderer of them. And, such as our affections are, such will be the whole disposition of the soul, and the whole carriage of our actions: these are the feet of the soul; and, which way the feet walk, the whole man goes. Happy is the man, that can be so far the master of himself, as to entertain no affections but such, as he takes upon the rebound from heaven.

III.

Whence is this delicate scent in the rose and violet? It is not from the root; that, smells of nothing: not from the stalk; that, is as senseless as the root: not from the earth whence it grows, which contributes no more to these flowers, than to the grass that grows by them: not from the leaf: not from the bud, before it be disclosed, which yields no more fragrance than the leaf, or stalk, or root: yet here I now find it: neither is it here, by any miraculous way; but in an ordinary course of nature, for all violets and roses of this kind yield the same redolence: it cannot be, but that it was potentially in that root and stem, from which the flowers proceed; and there placed, and thence drawn, by that Almighty power, which hath given these admirable virtues to several plants, and educes them in his due seasons to these excellent perfections. It is the same hand, that works spiritually in his elect: out of the soil of the renewed heart, watered with the dew of heaven and warmed with the beams of his Spirit, God can and in his own season doth bring forth those sweet odours of grace and holy dispositions, which are most pleasing to himself; and, if those excellencies be so closely lodged in their bosoms, that they do not discover themselves at all times, it should be no more strange to us, than that this rose and violet are not to be found, but in their own months it is enough, that the same virtue is still in the root, though the flower be vanished.

IV.

A man, that looks at all things through the consideration of eternity, makes no more of a man, than of a flower: that lasts some days; he lasts some years: at their period, both fade. Now, what difference is there to be made, betwixt days and years, in the thoughts of an eternal duration? Herein, therefore, I have a great advantage of a carnal heart. Such a one, bounding his narrow conceits with the present condition is ready to admire himself and others, for what they have or are; and is therefore dejected, upon every miscarriage: whereas I behold myself, or that man in all his glory, as vanishing; only

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