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, 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 affection: 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 measuring every man's felicity, by the hopes and interest which he hath in a blessed eternity. V. When I am dead and forgotten, the world will be as it is; the same successions and varieties of seasons; the same revolutions of heaven; the same changes of earth and sea; the like occurrents of natural events and human affairs. It is not in my power to alter the course of things, or to prevent what must be. What should I do: but quietly take my part of the present; and humbly leave the care of the future to that allwise providence, which ordereth all things, even the most cross events, according to his most holy and just purposes? VI. The Scripture is the sun: the Church is the clock, whose hand points us to, and whose sound tell us, the hours of the day. The sun we know to be sure, and regularly constant in his motion: the clock, as it may fall out, may go too fast or too slow. We are wont to look at, and listen to the clock, to know the time of the day; but, where we find the variation sensible, to believe the sun against the clock, not the clock against the sun. As, then, we would condemn him of much folly, that should profess to trust the clock rather than the sun; so we cannot but justly tax the miscredulity of those, who will rather trust to the Church than to the Scripture. VII. What marvellous high respects, hath God given to man, above all his other visible creatures! What a house hath he put him into? how gorgeously arched; how richly pavemented! Wherefore serves all the furniture of heaven and earth, but for his use? What delicate provision hath that bountiful hand made for his palate, both of meats and liquors, by land and sea! What rich ornaments hath he laid up for him, in his wardrobe of earth and waters! And wherefore serves the various music of birds, but to please his ear? For, as for the brute creatures, all harmony to them is but a silence. Wherefore serves the excellent variety of flowers, surpassing Solomon in all his glory, but to please his eye? Mere grass is more acceptable to beasts. Yea, what creature, but he, is capable to survey God's wonders in the deep? to contemplate the great fabric of the heavens? to observe the glorious bodies, and regular motions of the sun, moon, stars? And, which exceeds all conceivable mercies, who, but he, is capable of that celestial glory, which is within that beautiful contignation? to be a companion of the blessed angels; yea, to be a limb of the mystical body of the Eternal Son of God, and to partake with him of his everlasting and incomprehensible glory? Lord, what is man, that thou art thus mindful of him? And, how utterly unworthy are we even of common mercies, if we return not to our God more advantage of glory, than those poor creatures that were made for us, and which cannot in nature be sensible of his favours! VIII. How plain is it, that all sensitive things are ordered by an instinct from their Maker! He, that gives them being, puts into them their several dispositions, inclinations faculties, operations. If we look to Birds; the mavis, the blackbird, the redbreast have throats tuneable to any note; as we daily see they may be taught strains utterly varying from their natural tones yet they all naturally have the same songs and accents, different from each other, and fully according to their own kind; so as every mavis hath the same ditty with his fellows. If we mark the building of their nests, each kind observes its own fashion and materials; some, clay; others, moss, hair, sticks: yea, if their very motions and restings, they are conformed to their own feather; different from others. If to Beasts, they all, untaught, observe the fashions of their several kinds. Galen observes, that, when he was dissecting a shegoat big with young, a kid, then ready to be yeaned, starts out, and walks up and down the room: and, there being in the same place set several vessels of oil, honey, water, milk, the new fallen kid smells at them all; and, refusing the rest, falls to lapping of the milk: whereupon he justly infers, that nature stays not for a teacher. Neither is it other in Flies, and all sorts of the meanest Vermin. All bees build alike; and order the commonwealth of their hive, in one manner: all ants keep their own way, in their housing, journeys, provisions: all spiders do as perfectly and uniformly weave their web, as if they had been apprentices to the trade. The same instincts are seen also in the Rational creatures; although, in most cases, overruled by their higher faculties. What an Infinite Providence then is this we live under, that hath distributed to every creature, as a several form, so several inclinations, qualities, motions, proper to their own kind, and different from other; and keeps them in this constant uniformity and variety, for the delight and contentment of man! O God, that I could be capable of enough wondering at thy great works! that I could be enough humbled, under the sense of my own incapacity! that I could give thee so much more glory, as I find more vileness in myself! ; |