THE REMEDY OF PROFANENESS.  
OR, OF The true sight and fear of the ALMIGHTY.  
A needful Tractate.  
In two Books.  
BY IOS. EXON.  
LONDON, Printed by Thomas Harper, for Nathanael Butter, and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the pied-bull, at S. Augustine's Gate, 1637.   

Imprimatur.  
SA. BAKER. Octob. 11. 1637.   

The Contents.  
THe Remedy of Profaneness. A Sermon Preached in the City of Excester, at the consecration of a new Buriall-place there, Gen. 23.19.20.   

Reader,  
I Had meant to take leave of the Press, as one that repented to be guilty of this common surfeit. Yet once again my zeal urges me to break silence. I find so little fear of God in this world which I am shortly leaving, that I could not forbear, after my tears, to bestow some ink upon it. Every man can bewail it, I have studied to redress it. We may endeavour that which GOD only can effect. I humbly leave this to the work of no less than an omnipotent grace. In the mean time it is both holy and laudable to project the remedies; and it shall be the no-small comfort of my deathbed, that I have left behind me this seasonable advice of better thoughts; which, when I am gone, may survive to the benefit of many: Know withal that this Treatise entered the Press under the honoured name of my dear Lord, the Earl of Norwich, whose death preventing the publication, hath sent it forth Patron-lesse; Me thought I should not endure that what was once his, in my destination, should ever be any others; Let this blank be as my last memorial of the honour that I justly bear to that incomparable friend, both alive and dead, serve to profess unto the world, that these papers yield themselves not unwilling Orphans upon his loss: But why do I so mis-name his glory? That blessed soul not staying the leisure of my present directions, hasted up to the free view of the face of his God, which I could only show dimly, and aloof. There will be more use of the imitation of his practice, then of the honour of his protection; Let us go cheerfully on in the steps of true piety, and conscionable obedience, until our faith likewise shall shut up in an happy fruition.   

The Contents of the several Sections.  

BOOK I.  
Proem. THe occasion, need and use of the Treatise ensuing.  
Sect. 1. No one word can express that grace which we treat of; what it includes and intimates. Fear is no fit term for it: Affections well employed, turn virtues. Wherein holy fear consists: What is required to the attaining of it: 

The sight of God.  
The sight of ourselves.    
Sect. 2. Of the sight of the Invisible: Moses a fit pattern for it. Two ways wherein he saw the Invisible. Our felicity consists in the sight of God: the degrees of our spiritual sight: how sight and invisibility may consist together.  
Sect. 3. How we may not think to see God: Not by any feigned representation; Not by the work of improved reason; Not in a full comprehention; Not here in his divine essence, or height of resplendence. How Moses desired to see the face of God.  
Sect. 4. How we must endeavour to s●e the Invisible: 

1. That our eyes must be cleared from all hindrances of sight.  
2. That blessed object must be set before our eyes.    
Sect. 5. 

3. There must be an exaltation, and fortification of our sight.  
4. There must be a trajection of the visual beams of the soul thorough all earthly occurrences.  
5. A divine irradiation of the mind must follow: what light we must conceive.    
Sect. 6. 


6. The eye must be fixed upon this blessed object unremovably.  
How this may be effected, and how far.  
Three ways of our apprehension of God.     
Sect. 7. 

7. There will follow a delight and complacency in that God whom we see. Reprobates do rather see God's anger, than himself.    
Sect. 8. Motives to stir us up to strive to this happy sight: The act is reward enough to itself: 

1. This sight frees us from being transported with earthly vanities.    
Sect. 9 

2. It is a prevalent means to restrain us from sinning.  
3. It upholds us in the constant suffering of evil.    
Sect. 10. 

4. It enters us into our heaven. This vision is not without a fruition: not so in other objects.    
Sect. 11. Of the casting down our eyes to see our own wretchedness. How frail we are; how sinful; in how woeful condition by our sin.   

BOOK II.  
Sect. 1. WHat the fear of God is. A double stamp or signature in this impression of fear. 

1. An inward adoration of God.  
2. A filial care of being approved to God.    
Sect. 2. What inward adoration is; wherein it consists, and how to be wrought. Of God's infinite greatness, shown in the Creation of the world, and the government thereof, in the frame of the heaven, earth, sea, man himself.  
Sect. 3. Of God's infinite mercy shown in the redemption of mankind.  
Sect. 4. Of the holy mixture of this fear: Of the continuation and perpetuily of it.  
Sect. 5. Religious adoration diffused through our whole outward carriage, in our respects. 

1. To the holy name of God. The jews scruples; our carelessness.    
Sect. 6. 

2. To the word of God.    
Sect. 7. 

3. To the services of God, Prayer, Preaching, Administration of Sacraments.    
Sect. 8. 

4. To the house of God.    
Sect. 9 

5. To the messengers of God.    
Sect. 10. Of the humble subjection of ourselves to the hand of God. 

1. In suffering from him meekly, and patiently: The good examples thereof.  
2. In all changes of estates.    
Sect. 11. Of our child-lik care of a secret approving ourselves to God, and avoiding his displeasure: How we are affected after we have been miscarried. The holy jealousy and suspicion of God's children: This fear a retentive from sin. rifeness of sin, an argument of the want of this fear. Wicked hearts must have terrible remedies. The misplaced fear of profane men.  
Sect. 12. Of the filial endeavour of obedience; in particular callings, arising from this fear. The happy effects and issue of this fear.  
Sect. 13. Of the extremes of this fear, on both sides. 

1. Whereof the first is Security: whence it ariseth. Of the abuse of God's mercy, in giving and forgiving.  
2. Of the custom of sinning.    
Sect. 14. 
Of the remedies of Security.  
Means to keep the heart tender.  
Meditations of God's judgements, and of our own frailties.  
A resolution to repel the first motions of sin.  
Care of speedy recovery after our fall.  
Due heed not to check the conscience.  
A right estimation of worldy things.   
Sect. 15. Of Presumption, another opposite to fear. 

Presumption of the way.  
Presumption of the end.   

1. In matter of event.  
2. In matter of ability.    
Sect. 16. The remedies of Presumption, in the several kinds of it. 

1. In respect of outward events; of our due valuation of them.    
Sect. 17. 


2. In respect of abilities.  
An exact survey of our graces.  
The differences betwixt counterfeit virtues and true.     
Sect. 18. 
The remedy of our presumption of the end, which is salvation.  
Of our modest consideration of the ways and counsels of God.   
Sect. 19 The extremes on the other hand. 

1. Of the fear of horror; how to be remdyed.    
Sect. 20. 


2. Of the fear of distrust; with the remedy thereof.  
Conclusion.  
A recapitulation of the whole.       

OF THE SIGHT and FEAR of the ALMIGHTY. The First Book.  

The Proem.  
NOthing is more easy to observe, than that the mind of man (being ever prone to extremities) is no sooner fetched off from Superstition, than it is apt to fall upon Profaneness: finding no mean betwixt excess of devotion, and an irreligious neglect. No wise Christian, who hath so much as sojourned in the world, can choose but feel, and (with grief of heart) confess this truth: We are ready to think of God's matters, as no better than our own: And a saucy kind of familiarity, this way, hath bred a palpable contempt; so as we walk with the great God of Heaven, as with our fellow; and think of his sacred Ordinances, as either some common employment, or fashionable superfluity. Out of an earnest desire therefore to settle in myself, and others, right thoughts, and meet dispositions of heart, towards the glorious and infinite Majesty of our God, and his holy services (wherein we are all apt to be too defective) I have put my pen upon this seasonable task; beseeching that Almighty God, (whose work it is) to bless it both in my hand, and in the perufall of all Readers; whom I beseech to know, that I have written this, not for their eyes, but for their hearts; and therefore charge them as they tender the good of their own souls, not to rest in the bare speculation, but to work themselves to a serious, and sensible practice of these holy prescriptions, as without which, they shall never have either true hold of God, or found peace, and comfort in their own souls. 
Psal. 34.11  Come then ye children, harken unto me, and I shall teach you the fear of the Lord; There cannot be a fitter lesson for me, in the improvement of my age, to read, nor for your spiritual advantage to take out: One glance of a thought, of this kind, is worth a volume of quarrelsome litigation.   

SECT. II.  
AS above we shall need no words; when we shall be all spirit, and our language shall be all thoughts, so, below, we cannot but want words, wherein to clothe the true notions of our hearts. I never yet could find a tongue, that yielded any one term to notify the awful disposition of the heart towards God; we are wont to call it Fear; but this appellation comes far too short; for this signifies an affection; whereas this, which we treat of, is no other than an excellent virtue, yea a grace rather; yea rather a precious composition of many divine graces, and virtues.  

Gen. 42.18 Deu 6.13. Psa. 25.12. Eccl. 12.13 Psal. 128.1.  It is no marvel therefore, if the Spirit of God have wont under this one word, to comprehend all that belongs either to the apprehension, or adoration of a God; For this alone includes all the humble constitution of an holy soul, and all the answerable demeanour of a mortified creature: neither is there any thing so well becoming an heart sensible of infiniteness, as this which we are fain to mis-name Fear.  
To speak properly, there is no fear but of evil, and that which we justly call servile: which is a doubtful expectation of something that may be hurtful to us: and this, when it prevails, is horror, and dreadful confusion; an affection (or perturbation rather) fit for the galleys, or hell itself; Love casts it out, as that which is ever accompanied with a kind of hate; and so will we; we are meditating of such a temper of the heart, 
Psa. 103.17 128.4 Eccl. 8.11.  as in the continuance of it is attended with blessedness; as in the exercise of it, is fixed upon infinite greatness, and infinite goodness, and in the mean time is accompanied with unspeakable peace, and contentment in the Soul.  
And yet, who so had a desire to retain the word (if our Ethick Doctors would give him leave) might say, that affections well employed upon excellent objects, turn virtues; so love though commonly marshelled in those lower ranks of the soul, yet when it is elevated to the All-glorious God, is justly styled the highest of Theological virtues, yea, when it rises but to the level of our brethren, it is Christian charity; so, grief for sin, is holy penitence; and what more heavenly grace can be incident into the soul, than joy in the holy Ghost? Neither is it otherwise with Fear, when it is taken up with worldly occurrents of pain, loss, shame, it is no better than a troublesome passion, but when we speak of the fear of God, the case and style is so altered, that the breast of a Christian is not capable of a more divine grace. But not to dwell in syllables, nor to examine curious points of morality: That which we speak of, is no other than a reverential awe of the holy and infinite majesty of God, constantly and unremovably settled in the soul; A disposition so requisite, that he who hath it, cannot but be a Saint, and he that hath it not, is in a sort without God in the world. To the producing whereof there is need of a double apprehension; The one of an incomprehensible excellence, and inseparable presence of God; The other of a most miserable vileness, and, as it were, nothingness of ourselves. The former is that which the spirit of God calls the sight of the Invisible: For sight is a sense of the quickest, and surest perception; so as in seeing of God, we apprehend him infinitely glorious in all that he is, in all that he hath, in all that he doth; and intimately present to us, with us, in us.   

SECT. II.  
LEt us then first see what that Sight is; wherein we cannot have a more meet pattern than Moses; that exposed infant, who in his cradle of Bulrushes was drawn out of the flags of Nilus, is a true emblem of a regenerate soul, taken up out of the mercy of a dangerous world, in whose waves he is naturally sinking: He that was saved from the waters saw God in fire; and in an holy curiosity hasted to see the Bush that burned, and consumed not; Let our godly zeal carry us as fast to see what he saw; and make us eagerly ambitious of his eyes, of his Art. Surely Moses, as St. Stephen tells us, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; He was not a greater Courtier, than a Scholar: But, Moses his Opricks were more worth than all the rest of his skill. All Egypt, and Chaldea to boot, though they were famous of old for Mathematic Sciences, could not teach him this Art of seeing the Invisible: As only the Sun gives us light to see itself, so only the Invisible God gives a man power to see himself that is Invisible.  
There is a threefold world objected to humane apprehension; A sensible world, an intelligible, a spiritual or divine; and accordingly man hath three sorts of eyes, exercised about them; The eye of sense, for this outward and material world; of reason, for the intelligible; of faith, for the spiritual: Moses had all these; By the eye of sense he saw Pharaohs Court, and Israel's servitude; By the eye of reason he saw the mysteries of Egyptian learning; By the eye of faith he saw him that is invisible. In the eye of sense, even brute creatures partake with him, In the eye of reason men, In the faculty of discerning spiritual and divine things only Saints and Angels. Doubtless Moses was herein privileged above other men, Two ways therefore did he see the Invisible, First, By viewing the visible signs, and sensible representations of God's presence; as in the Bush of Horeb (the hill of visions:) in the Fire and Cloud in the Mount of Sinai; Secondly, By his own spiritual apprehension: That first was proper to Moses, as an eminent favourite of God: This other must be common to us with him. That we may then attain to the true fear and fruition of God, we must see him that is invisible, as travellers here, as comprehensors hereafter; How we shall see him in his, and our glorious home, we cannot yet hope to comprehend; When we come there ●o see him, we shall see and know how, and how much we see him; and not till then. In the mean time it must be our main care to bless our eyes with Moses object, and even upon earth to aspire to the sight of the Invisible. This is an act wherein indeed our chief felicity consists. It is a curiously witty disquisition of the Schools, since all beatitude consists in the fruition of God, Whether we more essentially, primarily, and directly enjoy God in the act of understanding, (which is by seeing him,) than in the act of will, which is by loving him; and the greatest Masters (for aught I see) pitch upon the understanding in the full sight of God; as whose act is more noble, and absolute, and the union wrought by it more perfect. If any man desire to spend thoughts upon this divine curiosity, 
johan. de Neapoli. qu. 14.  I refer him to the ten reasons which the Doctor Solennis gives and rests in, for the decision of this point. Surely these two go so close together, in the separated soul, that it is hard, even in thought, to distinguish them. If I may not rather say, that as there is no imaginable composition in that spiritual essence; so its fruition of God is made up of one simple act alone, which here results out of two distinct faculties. It is enough for us to know, that if all perfection of happiness and full union with God consist in the seeing of him, in his glory, than it is, and must be our begun happiness, to see him (as we may) here below: he can never be other than he is; our apprehension of him varies: Here we can only see him darkly, as in a glass, there clearly, and as he is. Even here below there are degrees, as of bodily, so of spiritual, sight: The newly recovered blind man saw men like trees, the eyes of true sense see men like men; The illuminated eyes of Elisha, and his servant, saw Angels, environing them; 
Act. 7.56.  Saint Stephen's eyes saw heaven opened, and jesus standing at the right hand of God: The clear eyes of Moses see the God of Angels: Saint Paul's eyes saw the unutterable glories of the third heaven: still, the better eyes the brighter vision.  
But what a contradiction is here, in seeing the Invisible? If invisible, how seen? and if seen, how invisible? Surely God is a most purely and simply spiritual essence. Here is no place for that, not so much heresy, as stupid conceit, of Anthropomorphisme: A bodily eye can only see bodies like itself; the eye must answer the object: A spiritual object therefore (as God is) must be seen by a spiritual eye: Moses his soul was a spirit, and that saw the God of spirits: so he that is in himself invisible, was seen by an invisible eye: and so must be. If we have no eyes but those that are seen, we are as very beasts as those that we see; but if we have invisible and spiritual eyes, we must improve them to the sight of him that is invisible.   

SECT. III.  
LEt us then, to the unspeakable comfort of our souls, inquire, and learn how we may here upon earth, see the invisible God.  
And surely, as it was wisely said of him of old, that it is more easy to know what God is not, than what he is, so it may be justly said also, of the vision of God, it is more obvious to say how God is not seen, than how he is; Let us (if you please) begin with the negative, we may not therefore think to see God by any fancied representation; he will admit of no image of himself; no not in thought; All possibly conceivable Ideas, and similitudes, as they are infinitely too low, so they are clean contrary to his spiritual nature, and his express charge; and the very entertainment of any of them is no other than a mental idolatry. In the very holy of holyes, where he would most manifest his presence, there was nothing to be seen but a cloud of smoke, 
Nil preter nubes. juu.  as the Poet scoffingly; and as that great King professed to see there; 
Alex. Mag.  to teach his people that he would not be conceived any way, but in an absolute immunity from all forms.  
Secondly, we may not hope to see God by the working of our improved reason; for as intelligible things are above the apprehension of sense, so divine matters are no less above the capacity of understanding. justly is Durand exploded here, who held that a created understanding was of itself, sufficient for the vision of God, without supernatural aid; for what ever our soul understands here, it doth it by the way of those phantasms which are represented unto it; by which it is not possible there should be any comprehension of this infinite essence: every power works within the compass of his own sphere; even from the lowest of sense, to the highest of faith: If the eye should encroach upon the ear, in affecting to discern the delicate air of pleasant sounds; and the ear should usurp upon the eye, in professing to judge of a curious picture, or pleasant prospect; it were an absurd ambition of both. It is all one for a beast to take upon him to judge of matter of discourse; and for a Philosopher to determine of matters of faith: Reason was not given to man for nought, even that can impart unto us something concerning God, but not enough. I remember Gerson, 
Io. Gers: de distinctione verarum visionum à falsis.  a great Master of Contemplation, professes that he knew one, (which is, in Saint Paul's phrase, himself) who after many temptations of doubt, concerning a main article of faith, was suddenly brought into so clear a light of truth, and certitude; that there remained no relics at all of dubitation; nothing but confidence, and serenity, which (saith he) was wrought by an hearty humiliation, and captivation of the understanding to the obedience of faith; neither could any reason be given of that quiet, and firm peace in believing, but his own feeling and experience: And surely, so it is in this great business of seeing God; the less we search, and the more we believe, the clearer vision do we attain of him that is invisible.  
Neither, thirdly, may we hope here to aspire to a perfect sight, or a full comprehension of this blessed object; the best of all earthly eyes doth but look through a scarf at this glorious Sight, and complains of its own weakness and obscurity; and what hope can we have to compass this infinite prospect? The clearest eye cannot, at once, see any round body, if it be but of a small bullet, or ring; And when we say, we see a man, we mean, that we see but his outside; for surely, his heart, or lungs, or brain, are out of our sight; much less can we see his soul, by which he is: What speak I of the poor narrow conceit of us mortals? I need not fear to say, that the glorified Saints and glorious Angels of Heaven, being but of a finite (though spiritual) nature, hold it no disparagement to disclaim the capacity of this infinite object; much less may we think to drain this Ocean with our egg shell.  
Lastly, we may not make account here to see the face of God in his divine essence, or in the height of the resplendence of his glory: This, even Moses himself did not; he desired it indeed, but it might not be yielded, (Exodus 33) and God tells him, this was no object for mortal eyes; A man must die to see it, as Austen well. Indeed it is said, Moses spoke to God, face to face; the word in the original is (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) faces to faces:) but ye never read that he saw God face to face; he still conferred with that Oracle which was ever invisible. It is a poor conceit of Cornelius à Lapide, that Moses longed so much to see the face of God in some assumed form; for then that face should not have been his: And if God should have been pleased to assume such a form, it had been no less easy for him, to have made the face aspectable, as the back; In this sense, 
Gen 32.30  old Jacob calls his Altar Penu-el, the face of God, and professes to have seen God, face to face; his face saw that face which God had for the present assumed, without a present death: Doubtless Moses, having seen diverse veils of God's presence, (that is, sensible testimonies of his being there) desires now to see that glorious Majesty of God open-faced, without those masks of outward representation, (so he interprets himself whiles he expresses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers. 19 
Thy face, by thy glory. Exo. 33.18 ) the desire was zealously ambitious; too high, even for him, that had been twice blessed with forty days conference with the God whom he longed to see; much less may we think of aspiring to this Sight, who must know our distance, even from the foot of the Mount. It is abundantly enough, for us, if out of some small loop hole of the rock, we may be allowed, in his passage, to see some after-glimpses of that incomprehensible Majesty; to see him, both as we can be capable, and as he will be visible; that is, as he hath revealed himself to us in his word, in his works, in his wonderful attributes. In his word as a most glorious spiritual substance, in three equally glorious subsistences. In his works, as the most mighty Creator, and munificent Preserver, as the most merciful Redeemer of the world, as the most gracious Comforter, and Sanctifier of the world of his Elect. In his attributes, as the God of spirits, whose infinite power, wisdom, mercy, justice, truth, goodness is essential; so as he is all these abstractedly, uncompoundedly, really, infinitely. Shortly therefore, we may not look here to see him by the eye of fancy, or by the eye of reason, or in a full view, or in the height of his glory.  
Let us then in the next place see how we may and must see him.   

SECT. FOUR  
WOuld we therefore see him that is invisible? In the first place we must have our eyes cleared from the natural indisposition, to which they are subject; we have all, in nature, many both inward, and ambient hindrances of this sight; there is a kind of earthliness in the best eye; whereby it is gouled up, that it cannot so much as open itself, to see spiritual things; these are our carnal affections: There is a dimness and duskiness in the body of the eye, when it is opened; which is our natural ignorance of heavenly things: There is, besides these, a film, which is apt to grow over our eye, of natural infidelity; which makes it incapable of this divine vision; and after all these, (when it is at the clearest) the moats and dust of worldly thoughts, are apt to trouble our sight: Lastly, every known sin, wherein a man willingly continues, is a beam in the eye, that bars all sight of God: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisd. 1.4. Wickedness blinds the understanding.  In malevolam animam, etc. Wisdom enters not into an ill-doing soul, and Malitia occaecat intellectum, as the wise man of old; There must be a removal and remedy of all these, ere we can attain to a comfortable vision of the Invisible. The goule of our eyes must be washed off; and if we cannot by our utmost endeavours, lift up our eyelids, as we ought, we must sue to him that can do it, (Aperioculos:) Open thou mine eyes that I may see the wonderful things of thy Law. The dimness and duskiness of our eyes must be cleared, by that eyesalve of the Spirit. (Revel. 3.) The film of our infidelity must be scoured off by the cleansing waters of Siloam, the fountain of divine truth, welling out of the holy Scriptures; The moats and dust of worldly cares must be wiped out, by a contemptuous, and holy resolution; The beam of sin, lastly, must be pulled out by a serious repentance. So then, if there be any of us that makes account to see God, whiles he is taken up with sensual affections, whiles he is blinded with his natural ignorance, and infidelity, whiles he is seized upon by worldly cares, and distractions, whiles he harbours any known sin in his bosom, he doth but deceive his own soul; away with all these impediments, that we may be capable of the vision of God.  
In the second place, we must set this blessed object before our eyes; resolving of the certainty of his presence, with us; Or, rather, we must set ourselves before him, who is ever unremovably before us, with us, in us; acknowledging him with no less assurance of our faith, than we acknowledge the presence of our own bodies, by the assurance of sense: For, how shall we suppose we can see him that is absent from us? No man will say, he sees the Sun, when it is out of our Hemisphere: That infinite God therefore, who cannot but be every where, must be acknowledged to be ever, in a glorious manner, present with us; manifesting his presence most eminently, in the high heavens, and yet filling both heaven and earth with the Majesty of his glory: In him it is that we live, and move, and have our being: he comprehends the whole world, himself being only incomprehensible; secluded from no place, included in no place; nearer to us than our own souls: when we die, we part from them; from him we cannot part; with whom remoteness of place can make no difference, time no change: when the heart is thus throughly assured, it is in a fair way to see the Invisible; for now, after all the former impediments, the hindrance of distance is taken away; and nothing remaineth, but that the eye be so affected, and employed hereabouts, as it ought.   

SECT. V.  
TO which purpose, in the third place, there must be an exaltation, and a fortification of our sight; An exaltation rasing it above our wont pitch, for our heart is so enured, and confined to bodily objects, that, except it be somewhat raised above itself, it is not capable of spiritual things. A fortification of our sight, so raised; for our visive beams are (at our best) so weak, that they are not able to look upon a sight so spiritually glorious; alas, we cannot so much as look upon the Sunbeams, but we are dazzled, and blinded, with that, which gives us opportunity of sight: how shall we be able to behold the infinite resplendence of him that made it? St. Stephen was a true Eagle; that blessed protomartyrs cleared, exalted, fortified sight pierced the heavens, and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God▪ Whence was this vigour, and perspicacity? He was full of the holy Ghost, that Spirit of God, that was within him, gave both clearness, and strength (in such miraculous manner) to the eyes of him, who should straightway see, as he was seen; who should instantly by the eye of his glorified soul, no less see the incomprehensible Majesty of God the Father, than now by his bodily eye, he saw the glorified body of the Son of God: It must be the only work of the same Spirit of God within us, that must enable us, both to the faculty, and exercise of seeing the Invisible; for the performance whereof, there must be, in the fourth place, a trajection of the visual beams of the soul, thorough all earthly occurrences, terminating them only in God; as now, we look thorough the air, at any object, but our sight passes thorough it, and rests not in it: whiles we are here, we cannot but see the world; even the holiest eye cannot look off it; but it is to us, as the vast air is betwixt us and the Starry heaven, only for passage; all is translucid, till the sight arrive there; there it meets with that solid object of perfect contentment, and happiness, wherewith it is throughly bounded. When it hath therefore attained thither, there must be, in the fifth place, a certain divine irradiation of the mind, which is now filled, and taken up with a lightsome apprehension of an infinite Majesty, of a glory incomprehensible, and boundless; attended and adored by millions of heavenly Angels, and glorified Spirits; whereto way must be made by the conceit of a transcendent light; wherein God dwelleth; as far above this outward light which we see, as that is above darkness: For though we may not in our thoughts liken God to any created brightness, (be it never so glorious;) yet nothing forbids us to think of the place of his eternal habitation, as infinitely resplendent, above the comparison of those beams which any creature can cast forth. He is clothed (saith the Psalmist) with light as with a garment. Lo, when we cannot see a man's soul, yet we may see his body; and when we cannot see the body, yet we may see the clothes: Even so, though we may not think to see the essence of God, yet we may see, and conceive of this his resplendent garment of light. far be it therefore from us, when we would look up to a Deity, to have our eyesight terminated in a gloomy opacity, and sad darksomnesse, which hath no affinity with any appendance of that divine Majesty, who hath thought good to describe itself by light: Let our hearts adore such an infinite spirit, as that the light wherein he dwells, is inaccessible, the light which he hath, and is, is inconceiveable, and rather rest themselves in an humble and devout adoration of what they cannot know, than weary themselves with a curious search of what they cannot comprehend. A simple and meek kind of astonishment, and admiration, beseems us here better, than a bold and busy disquisition. But, if this outward light (which of all visible creatures comes nearest the nature of a spirit) shall seem too material, to express the glory of that blessed habitation, of the Highest: Let the mind labour to apprehend an intellectual light, which may be so to our understanding, as this bodily light is to our sense, purely spiritual, and transcendently glorious; and let it desire to wonder at that which it can never conceive; How should this light be inaccessible, if it were such as our either sense, or reason could attain unto?   

SECT. VI  
WHen we have attained to this comfortable and heavenly illumination, there must be, in the sixth place, a fixing of the eye upon this beatifical object, so, as it may be free from distraction, and wand'ring. Certainly there is nothing more apt to be miscarried, than the eye; every new sight wins it away from that which last alured it. It is not hard, or unusual to have some sudden short glympses of this happy vision; which yet the next toy fetches off, and makes us to forget: like as the last wave washeth off the impression of the former: what are we the better for this, than that patient, who having the film too early raised from his eye, sees the light for the present, but shall never see any more. Would we see God to purpose? when we have once set eye upon him, we may not suffer ourselves, by any means to lose the sight of him again; but must follow it still with a constant and eager intention: Like as the Disciples of Christ, when they had fixed their eyes upon their ascending Saviour, could not be taken off, with the presence of Angels; but sent their eye-beams after him into heaven, so earnestly, that the reproof of those glorious spirits could hardly pull them off. You are now ready to tell me, this is a fit task for us, when we are in our heaven; and to plead the difficulty of such our settlement, in this region of change; where our eyes cannot but be forced aside, with the necessity of our worldly occasions; and to question the possibility of viewing two objects at once; God, and the world; not considering, that herein lies the improvement of the Christians skill, in these divine Optics: The carnal eye looks through God, at the world; The spiritual eye looks through the world, at God; the one of those he seeth mediately, the other terminatively; neither is it in nature hard to conceive, how we may see two such objects, as whereof one is in the way to the other, as thorough a prospective glass, we can see a remote mark; or thorough a thin cloud we can see heaven. Those glorious Angels of heaven are never without the vision of God, yet being ministering spirits for the good of his Elect, here below, they must needs take notice of these earthly occurrents: the variety of these sublunary objects cannot divert their thoughts from their Maker: Although also (to speak distinctly) the eye thus employed is not the same: nothing hinders but that whiles the bodily sees a body, the spiritual eye may see a spirit: As when a loadstone is presented to my view, the eye of my sense sees the body, and fashion of the stone, my eye of reason sees the hidden virtue which is in it; both these kinds of eyes may be thus fixed upon their several objects without any intersection of the visual lines of each other. But, that no man may think God hath so little respect to our infirmities as to impose upon us impossible tasks, we must know, that since the soul of man in this state of frail mortality, is not capable of a perpetual act of such an intuition of God, here is necessary use of a just distinction: As the School therefore is wont to distinguish of intentions, so must we here of the apprehension of God, which is either actual, or habitual, or virtual. Actual, when our cogitations are taken up, and directly employed in the meet consideration of the blessed Deity, and the things thereto appertaining: Habitual, when we have a settled kind of holy disposition, and aptitude inclining us ever to these divine thoughts, ready still to bring them forth into act, upon every least motion: Virtual, betwixt both these, being neither so quick and agile, as the actual; nor yet so dull and flagging as the habitual, (which may be incident to a man whether sleeping, or otherwise busied) when by the power of an heavenly disposition, wrought in the mind, we are so affected, as that divine thoughts are become the constant (though insensible) guests of the soul; whiles the virtue of that original illumination sticks still by us, and is, in a sort, derived into all our subsequent cogitations; leaving in them perpetual remainders of the holy effects of the deeply-wrought, and well grounded apprehension of God: As in a pilgrim towards the holy Land, there are not always actual thoughts concerning his way, or end; yet there is still, an habitual resolution, to begin and compass that journey; and a secret power of his continued will, to put forward his steps to that purpose; there being a certain impression remaining in the motive faculty, which still insensibly stirs him towards the place desired: Neither is it unusual, (even in nature) to see many effects continuing, when the motion of the cause, by which they were wrought, ceaseth; As when some deep Bell is rung to the height, the noise continues some time in the air, after the clapper is silent: Or when a stone is cast into the water, the circles that are caused by it are enlarged, and multiplied, after the stone lies still in the bottom.  
How ever therefore we cannot hope in this life (through our manifold weaknesses, and distractions) to attain unto the steady continuance of the actual view of him that is invisible, yet, to the habitual, and virtual power of apprehending him, we may, (through the goodness of him, whom we strive to see) happily aspire.  
Neither may we be wanting to ourselves in taking all occasions of renewing these our actual visions of God; both set, and casual: there is nothing that we can see, which doth not put us in mind of God; what creature is there, wherein we do not espy some footsteps of a Deity? every herb, flower, leaf, in our garden; every Bird, and Fly in the air; every Ant and Worm in the ground; every Spider in our window, speaks the omnipotence, and infinite wisdom of their Creator: None of these may pass us without some fruitful monition of acknowledging a divine hand. But besides these, it will be requisite for us, every morning to season our thoughts with a serious renovation of our awful apprehensions of God; and not to take off our hand, till we have wrought our hearts to some good competency of right, and holy conceits of that glorious Majesty; the efficacy whereof may dilate itself to the whole following day; which may be often revived by our frequent ejaculations: But above all other, when we have to do with God, in the set immediate exercises of his services, and our heavenly devotions, we must endeavour (to our utmost) to sharpen our eyes, to a spiritual perspicacity; striving to see him, whom we speak unto, and who speaks unto us, as he hath pleased to reveal himself. But, over and beside all these, even when we have no provocations from any particular occasion, it must be our continual care, to labour with our God, that it would please him to work us to such an holy, and heavenly disposition, as that what ever our employments may be, we may never want the comfort of a virtual and habitual enjoying the sight of God; so as the power and efficacy of our first, well-taken apprehension may run on, thorough all the following actions, and events both of our life, and death.   

SECT. VII.  
Upon this constant fixedness of our thoughts, on God, there cannot but follow (in the seventh place) a marvellous delight, and complacency of the soul, in so blessed an object; neither is it easy to determine whether of these do more justly challenge a precedency in the heart, whether the eye be so fixed, because it is well pleased with the sight; or whether it be so pleased and ravished, with that happy sight, because it is so fixed: whatsoever these two are in the order of nature, I am sure in time, they are inseparable, neither is it possible for any man to see God as interessed in him, and not to love him, and take pleasure in him: As a stranger, as an enemy, or avenger, even devils and reprobate souls behold him, to their regret, and torment; if I may not say, they rather see his anger, and judgement, than himself; but never eye can see him as his God, and not be taken with infinite delight: for that absolute goodness (out of which no man can contemplate God) can be no other, than infinitely amiable. And if in the seeing of God, we be (as the School hath taught us to speak) unitively carried into him, how can we choose but in this act, be affected with joy unspeakable and glorious? In thy presence, saith the Psalmist, is the fullness of joy: and at thy right hand, are pleasures for evermore. In sum therefore; if when our eyes being freed from all natural indispositions, and both inward, and outward impediments; we have so this blessed object presented before us, as that, there is an exaltation and fortification of our sight; and thereupon a trajection of the visual beams thorough all earthly occurrents, and a divine irradiation of the understanding, and a steadfast fixing of the eye upon this happy object, without wand'ring and distraction; not without a wonderful delight, and joy in the God of all comfort, whom we apprehend; we do now effectually borrow Moses his eyes, and, as he did, see the Invisible.   

SECT. VIII.  
But as all good things are difficult, and all difficulties full of discouragement, unless they be matched with a countervaileable benefit, (in which cases they do rather whet, than turn the edge of our desires) let us see what considerations of profit, arising from this noble act, may stir up our languishing hearts to the endeavour, and performance thereof: There are actions, which carrying nothing but danger and trouble in the mouth of them, had need to be drawn on with the promise of an external reward; there are those, which carry in them their own recompense; such is this we have in hand: What can there be out of itself, so good as it? When we take pains to put ourselves into some Theatre, or Court, or some pompous triumph, we have no other end but to see; and yet how poor, and unsatisfying is that spectacle; and such, as wherein our frivolous curiosity shuts up in emptiness, and discontentment? how justly then are we ambitious of this prospect, wherein, to but see, is to be blessed. It is no news to see wantoness transported from themselves, with the sight of a beautiful face, though such, perhaps, as wherein they can never hope to have any interest; and some curious eyes no less taken with an exquisite picture, which yet shall never be theirs: how can we be other than ravished with an heavenly delight, and pleasure, in so seeing the infinite beauty of the God of Spirits, as that our sight cannot be severed from fruition? the act itself is an abundant remuneration, yet doth it not want many sweet, and beneficial consequences, which do justly quicken our desires to attain unto the practice of it. Whereof it is not the meanest, that whoever hath happily aspired thereunto, cannot be carried away with earthly vanities; what poor things are these, in comparison of those invisible glories? Alas, what was the pleasure and riches of the Court of Egypt, in the eyes of Moses, when he had once seen his God? It is a true word, 
Gustato spiritu desipit omnis caro. Gers. de. 4. domibus.  that of the Chancellor of Paris, when a man hath tasted once of the spirit, all flesh is savourlesse: Surely, when once the chosen vessel had been rapt into the third heaven, and seen those unutterable magnificencies of the divine Majesty, who can wonder, if he looked, ever after, with scorn, and pity upon all the glittering poverty of this inferior world? Go then ye poorely-great ones of the world, and admire the piles of your treasures, the stateliness of your structures, the sound of your titles, the extent of your territoryes; but know, that he who hath seen the least glimpse of the Invisible, knows how to commiserate your felicity, and wonders what ye can see in all these, worth your admiration, and pursuit: What joy and triumph was among the jews when they saw the foundation of the second Temple laid? yet those ancient Priests and Levites, whose eyes had seen the glory of the former Temple, wept, and cried as loud, as the rest shouted: Those that know no better, may rejoice and exult in these worldly contentments; but those, who have had but a blink of the beauty of heaven, can look upon them no otherwise, than with an overly contemptuousness. I wonder not if good old Simeon were content to have his eyes clozed for ever, when he had once seen the Son of God: what ever he should see afterwards, would but abase those eyes, that had been blessed with the face of his Saviour. It was no ill conceit of the wise Orator, that he who had once known and considered the magnitude of the world, could never after admire any thing; Surely we may more justly say, that he who hath duly taken into his thoughts the consideration of the infinite power, wisdom, goodness, of the great God of the world, cannot think the world itself, worthy of his wonder. As some great Peer therefore, that hath been used to stately shows, and courtly magnificence, doth not vouchsafe so much as to cast his eye towards the mean worthless gewgaws of a Pedlar's Stall, (which yet silly children behold with great pleasure and admiration: so the soul that hath been enured to the sight of the divine Majesty, scorns to suffer itself to be transported with the trash and toys of this vain and transitory world.   

SECT. IX.  
NO whit inferior to this benefit, is the second; that this sight of the Invisible is a notable and prevalent means to restrain us from sinning, for how dares he sin, that sees God ever before him? whom he knows of so pure eyes, that he detests the least motion to evil; of so almighty power, as to revenge it everlastingly. It was a poor thought of him (who yet could know no better) that he who would dissuade himself from a secret wickedness, should suppose a grave Cato, or some other such austere frowning Censor, to be by him, looking upon his actions; as if the shame or fear of such a witness were a sufficient coercion from evil: he that hath no eyes to see a God, may scare himself with the imagined sight of a man, somewhat better than himself; but he who hath the grace to see the Invisible, finds a stronger restraint in that presence, than if he were looked on by millions of Witnesses, judges, Executioners: Yet as this sight is mutual, (ours of God, and Gods of us,) the good heart finds a more powerful restriction in his seeing of God, than in Gods seeing of him: if there be more fear in this, there is more love in the other; for, since this holy vision of God is ever joined with some warmth of good affection to that prime, and infinite goodness, the very apprehension of that unspeakable loveliness, which is in him, more effectually curbeth all evil desires, in us, than the expectation of any danger, that can threaten us: How can I do this great evil, and sin against God, 
Gen. 39 9  saith good joseph: the sin affrights him more than the suffering, and the offence of a God, more than his own danger.  
The Spirit of God hath thought fit to specify the third benefit, upon occasion of the mention of Moses his vision of God; he endured, as seeing him who is invisible: As this sight therefore hath power to withhold us from doing evil; so also to uphold us in the suffering of evil; What but cheerfulness, and ease, could holy Stephen find in the stones of his enraged murderers, when, through that hail storm he could see his jesus, standing at the right hand of God, ready to revenge, and crown him? What a pleasing walk did the three children find in Nebuchadnezzars' Furnace, whiles the Son of God made up the fourth? What Bath was so suppling, and delightful, as the rack of Theodorus the Martyr, whiles God's Angel wiped, and refreshed his distended joints? With what confidence and resolution, did the Father of the faithful break thorough all troubles, and tentations, when he heard God say, Fear not, 
Gen. 15.1.  Abraham, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. Certainly, all fear and discouragement arises from a conceit of our own weakness, and an adversaries power, and advantage; take away these two, and the mind of man remains undaunted: and both these vanish at the sight of the Invisible; For, what weakness can we apprehend, when God is our strength, or what adversary can we fear, when the Almighty is with us? Good Ezekiah was never so much scared with all the brave of Rabshakeh, as when he said, Am I come up hither without the Lord? Had God taken part against his degenerated people, what could the arm of flesh have availed, for their defence? As contrarily, when he strikes in, what can the gates of hell do? Is it multitude that can give us courage? as Elisha's servant said; there are more with us than against us: It is strength? behold, the weakness of God is stronger than men; than devils: How justly do we contemn all visible powers, when we see the Invisible? when we see him, not empty handed, but standing ready, with a crown of glory, 
Revel. 2, 7. To him that overcomes it shall be given.  to reward our conquest; Vincenti dabitur: Are we therefore persecuted, for professing the truth of the Gospel, and cast into a dark, and desolate dungeon, where no glimmering of light is allowed to look in upon us; where we are so far from being suffered to see our friends, that we cannot see so much as the face of our Keeper? Lo even there, and thence, we may yet see the Invisible, and (in spite of malice) in his light we can see light. Do we lie groaning upon the painful bed of our sickness, closing our curtains about us to keep out the light, which now grows offensive to our sight; yea, doth death begin to seize upon our eyes, and to dim and thicken our sight, so as now we cannot discern our dearest friends, that stand ready to close them for us; yet, even than may we most clearly see the Invisible; and that sight is able to cheer us up, against all the pangs, and terrors of death, and to make us triumph even in dying.   

SECT. X.  
LAstly, what other doth this vision of God but enter us into our heaven? Blessed are the pure in heart, (saith our Saviour upon the Mount) for they shall see God; Lo, he that only can give blessedness, hath promised it to the pure; and he that best knows wherein blessedness consists, tells us, it is in the seeing of God; The blessed Spirits above, both Angels and souls of the departed Saints, see him clearly, without any veil drawn over their glorified eyes; we, wretched Pilgrims here on earth, must see him as we may; there is too much clay in our eyes, and too many, and to gross vapours of ignorance and infidelity betwixt us and him, for a full and perfect vision: Yet even here, we see him truly, though not clearly; and the stronger our faith is, the clearer is our sight; and the clearer our sight is, the greater is our measure of blessedness: Neither is it a mere presence, or a bare simple vision, which doth either inchoate, or perfect our happiness: we find there was a day, when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, 
job 1.6.  and Satan came also among them; 
Zach. 12.10  and the wickeds eyes shall see him whom they have pierced; we see so much of God, (in the way of our bliss) as we enjoy. I know not how the eye in these spiritual objects, (betwixt which and us there is a gracious relation) hath a certain kind of applicatory faculty, which in these material things it wanteth: O taste, and see (saith the Psalmist) how sweet the Lord is; as if our sight were more inwardly apprehensive of heavenly pleasures, than our most sensible gustation: In these bodily objects, either there is no operation upon the sense, or, to no purpose; The eye is never the warmer for seeing a fire a far off, nor the colder for beholding ice: we are no whit the richer for seeing heaps of treasure, nor the fairer for viewing another's beauty; But such a powerful, and glorious influence there is of God into our spiritual senses, that we cannot see him by the eye of our faith here, and not be the happier; we cannot see him above by the eye of our separated souls, and not be perfectly glorious; and the one of these doth necessarily make way for the other: for, what is grace here but glory begun? and what is glory above, but grace perfected? Whosoever therefore here, hath pitched the eye of his faith upon the Invisible, doth but continue his prospect, when he comes to heaven: the place is changed, the object is the same; the act more complete: As then, we do ever look to have our eyes blessed with the perpetual vision of God, in the highest heavens; let us acquaint them before hand, with the constant and continual sight of him, in this vale of mortality.   

SECT. XI.  
NO sooner have our eyes been thus lifted up above the hills, to the sight of the Invisible, than they must be instantly cast down, and turned inwards to see our own wretchedness; how weak and poor we are, how frail, how vain and momentany, how destitute of all good, how obnoxious to all sin, and misery: Contrarieties make all things better discerned; And surely however it be commonly seen, that the nearness of the object, is an hindrance to the sight, yet here, the more closely we behold our own condition, the more clearly we shall discern, and the more fully shall we be convinced of this unpleasing truth: It is not for us to look back (like the heirs of some decayed house) at what we were; whoever was the better for a past happiness? Alas, what are we now? miserable dust and ashes; earth at the best, at the worst, hell; Our being is vanity, our substance corruption; our life is but a blast, our flesh wormsmeat, our beginning impotent, above all creatures, (even worms can crawl forward, so soon as they are, so cannot we) our continuance short, and troublesome; our end grievous; who can assure himself of one minute of time, of one dram of contentment? But, woe is me, other creatures are frail too, none but man is sinful; our soul is not more excellent, than this tainture of it, is odious, and deadly; our composition lays us open to mortality, but our sin exposes us to the eternal wrath of God, and the issue of it, eternal damnation: The grave waits for us, as men; hell, as sinners: Beasts compare with us in our being; in our sinning, Devils insult over us. And now, since the spring is foul, how can the streams be clear? Alas, what act of ours is free from this woeful pollution? who eats, or drinks, or sleeps, or moves, or talks, or thinks, or hears, or prays without it? Even he that was blessed with the sight of the third heaven, as tired with this clog, could say, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Blessed Apostle, if thou wert so sensible of thy indwelling corruptions, who knewest nothing by thyself, how must our hearts needs rend with shame, and sorrow, who are guilty of so many thousand transgressions, which our impotence can neither avoid, nor expiate? how justly do we fear God, since we have deserved to be under so deep a condemnation.    

OF THE SIGHT and FEAR of the ALMIGHTY. The Second Book.  

SECT. I.  
THus therefore when a man shall have steadfastly fixed his eyes upon the dread Majesty of an ever-present God, and upon the deplored wretchedness of his own condition, he shall be in a meet capacity to receive this holy Fear, whereof we treat: Neither indeed is it possible for him to see that all-glorious presence, and not presently thereupon find himself affected with a trembling kind of awfulness. Neither can he look upon his own vileness, without an humble and bashful dejection of soul; But when he shall see both these at once, and compare his own shameful estate, with the dreadful, incomprehensible Majesty of the great God; his own impotence, with that almighty power; his own sinfulness, with that infinite purity, and justice; his own misery with the glory of that immense mercy, how can he choose but be wholly possessed with a devout shivering, and religious astonishment. The heart then thus tempered with the high thoughts of a God, and the humble conceits of ourselves, is fit for the impression of this Fear, which is no other, than an awful disposition of the soul to God: wherein there is a double stamp, or signature; the one, is an inward adoration of the Majesty seen and acknowledged; the other, a tender and filial care of being secretly approved of God; and of avoiding the displeasure, and offence of that God whom we so adore. The first, is a continual bowing the knees of our hearts to that great, and holy God; both inwardly blessing, and praising him in all his divine attributes; in his infinite power, wisdom, justice, mercy, and truth; and humbly submitting and resigning ourselves wholly to his divine pleasure in all things; whether for his disposing, or chastising.   

SECT. II.  
ALL true adoration begins from within; even the soul hath the same parts, and postures with the body: as therefore it hath eyes to see, so it hath a tongue to speak unto, and a knee to bend unto the Majesty of the Almighty: Shortly then; we shall inwardly adore the God of heaven, when our hearts are wrought to be awfully affected to the acknowledgement, chiefly of his infinite Greatness, and infinite Goodness; And this shall be best done, by the consideration of the effects of both: Even in meaner matters, we cannot attain to the knowledge of things by their causes; but are glad to take up with this secondary information: how much more in the highest of all causes, in whom there is nothing but transcendency, and infiniteness? We shall therefore most feelingly adore the infinite greatness of God, upon representing unto ourselves, the wonderful work of his creation, and his infinite goodness, in the no less wonderful work of our redemption: 
Rom. 1.20.  For (as the great Doctor of the Gentiles most divinely) the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power, and Godhead. Even so, O God, if we cannot see thee, we cannot but see the world, that thou hast made: and in that, we see some glympses of thee: When we behold some goodly pile of building, or some admirable picture, or some rarely-artificiall engine, our first question uses to be, who made it? and we judge of, and admire the skill of the workman, by the excellent contrivance of the work; how can we do otherwise in this mighty and goodly frame of thy universe? Lord what a world is this of thine, which we see? What a vast, what a beautiful fabric is this, above and about us? Lo thou, that madest such an heaven, canst thou be other than infinitely glorious? O the power and wisdom of such a Creator! Every Star is a world alone, the least of those globes of light, are far greater than this our whole inferior world, of earth and waters (which we think scarce measurable,) and what a world of these lightsome world's hast thou marshaled together in that one firmament? and yet what room hast thou left in that large contignation, for more? so as the vacant space betwixt one Star, and another, is more in extent than that which is filled: In how exact a regularity do these celestial bodies move, ever since their first setting forth, without all variation of the time or place of their rising, or setting; without all change of their influences? In what point and minute Adam's new created eyes saw them begin, and shut up their diurnal motions, we, his late posterity, upon that same day and in the same Climate find them still; How have they looked upon their spectators, in millions of changed generations, and are still where they were, looking still for more? But, above the rest, who can but be astonished at that constant miracle of nature, the glorious Sun, by whose beams, all the higher and lower world is illuminated; and by whose sole benefit, we have use of our eyes? O God, what were the world without it, but a vast, and sullen dungeon of confusion, and horror; and, with it, what a Theatre of beauty and wonders? what a sad season is our midnight, by reason of his farthest absence; and yet, even then, some glympses of emanations, and remainders of that hidden light, diffuse themselves thorough the air, and forbid the darkness to be absolute. Oh what an hell were utter darkness; what a reviving and glorious spectacle it is, when the morning opens the curtains of heaven, and shows the rising Majesty of that great Ruler of the day, which too many eyes have seen with adoration; never any saw, without wonder, and benediction: And if thy creature be such, what, oh, what art thou that hast made it? As for that other faithful witness in heaven, what a clear and lasting testimony doth it give to all beholders, of thine omnipotence? Always, and yet never changing? still uniform in her constant variations, still regular in the multiplicity of her move; and O God, what a train doth that great Queen of Heaven (by thine appointment) draw after her? no less than this vast element of waters, so many thousand miles distant from her sphere? She moves in heaven, the sea follows her, in this inferior orb, and measures his paces by hers: How deep, how spacious, how restlessly turbulent is that liquid body? and how tamed and confined by thine Almightiness? How justly didst thou expostulate with thy people of old, by thy Prophet jeremy, Fear ye not me, 
jer. 5.22.  saith the Lord, will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand, for the bounds of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? And what a stupendious work of omnipotence is it, that thou, O God, hast hanged up this huge globe of water and earth, in the midst of a yielding air, without any stay, or foundation, save thine own eternal decree? How wonderful art thou in thy mighty winds; which, whence they come, and whither they go, thou only knowest; in thy dreadful thunders, and lightnings; in thy threatening Comets, and other fiery exhalations? With what marvellous variety of creatures hast thou peopled all these thy roomy elements; all of several kinds, fashions, natures, dispositions, uses; and yet all their innumerable motions, actions, events, are predetermined and overruled by thine alwise, and almighty providence! What man can but open his eyes, and see round about him these demonstrations of thy divine power, and wisdom, and not inwardly praise thee in thine excellent greatness? For my own practice, I cannot find a better notion, whereby to work my heart to an inward adoration of God, than this; Thou that hast made all this great world, and guidest, and governest it, and fillest and comprehendest it, being thyself infinite and incomprehensible: And I am sure there can be no higher representation of the divine greatness unto ourselves. Although withal, we may find enough at home: for what man that looks no further than himself, and sees the goodly frame of his body, erected and employed for the harbour of a spiritual, and immortal soul, can choose but say, I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, and wonderfully made.   

SECT. III.  
surely, could we forget all the rest of the world, it is enough to fetch us upon our knees, and to strike an holy awe into us, to think that in him we live, and move, and have our being: For, in these our particular obligations, there is a mixed sense both of the greatness, and goodness of our God; which, as it manifestly shows itself in the wondrous work of our excellent creation, so most of all magnifies itself, in the exceedingly gracious work of our redemption: Great is thy mercy that thou mayst be feared, saith the sweet Singer of Israel; Lo, power doth not more command this holy fear, than mercy doth; though both here, meet together; for as there was infinite mercy mixed with power, in thus creating us; so also, there is a no less mighty power mixed with infinite mercy, in our redemption: What heart can but awfully adore thy sovereign mercy, O blessed God, the Father of our Lord jesus Christ, in sending thine only, and coequal Son, the Son of thy love, the Son of thine eternal essence, out of thy bosom, down from the height of celestial glory, into this vale of tears and death, to abase himself, in the susception of our nature, to cloth himself with the rags of our humanity, to endure temptation, shame, death, for us? O blessed jesus, the redeemer of mankind, what soul can be capable of a sufficient adoration of thine inconceive able mercy, in thy mean and despicable incarnation, in thy miserable, and toilsome life, in thy bloody agony, in thine ignominious and tormenting passion, in thy woeful sense of thy father's wrath in our stead, and lastly, in thy bitter and painful death? thou that knewest no sin, wert made sin for us, thou that art omnipotent, wouldst die; and by thy death, hast victoriously triumphed over death, and hell. It is enough, O Saviour, it is more than enough, to ravish our hearts with love, and to bruise them with a loving fear. O blessed Spirit, the God of comfort, who but thou only can make our souls sensible of thy unspeakable mercy, in applying to us the wonderful benefit of this our dear redemption, in the great work of our inchoate regeneration, in the mortifying of our evil and corrupt affections, in raising us to the life of grace, and preparing us for the life of glory? O God, if mercy be proper to attract fear, how must our hearts, in all these respects, needs be filled with all awful regard unto thy divine bounty? 
Psal. 31.20.  Oh how great is the goodness that thou hast laid up for those that fear thee, even before the sons of men!   

SECT. IV.  
NOw we may not think this inward adoration of the greatness, & goodness of God to be one simple act, but that, which is sweetly compounded of the improvement of many holy affections: for there cannot but be love mixed with this fear; 
Eccl. 25.5.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of love; and this fear must be mixed with joy: 
Psal. 2.11.  Rejoice in him with trembling: and this fear and joy, is still mixed with hope: 
Pro. ●1. 2●.  For in the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, 
Psal. 33. 1●.  upon them that hope in his mercy: As therefore, we are wont to say that our bodies are not, neither can be nourished with any simple ingredient; so may we truly say of our souls, that they neither receive any comfort, or establishment, nor execute any powers of theirs, by any sole single affection; but require a gracious mixture for both. As that father said of obedience, we may truly say of grace, that it is all copulative. Neither may we think, that one only impression of this holy fear, and inward adoration will serve the turn, to season all our following disposition, and carriage; but, there must be a virtual continuation thereof, in all the progress of our lives; Our Schools do here seasonably distinguish of perpetuity, of, whether the second act, when all our several motions and actions are so held on, as that there is no cessation, or intermission of their performance: (which we cannot here expect) Or, of the first act, when there is an habit of this inward adoration, settled upon the heart so constantly, that it is never put off, by what ever occurrences; so as whatsoever we do, whatsoever we endeavour, hath a secret relation hereunto. And this second way; we must attain unto, if ever we will aspire to any comfort in the fruition of God's presence here, upon earth, and our meet disposition towards him. I have often thought of that deep, and serious question of the late judicious, and honourable, 
Mr. Samuel Burton Archdeacon of Gloucester.  Sir Fulke Grevil, Lord Brook, (a man worthy of a fairer death, and everlasting memory) moved to a learned kinsman of mine, (much interessed in that Noble man) who when he was discoursing of an incident matter, very considerable, was taken off with this quick interrogation, of that wise and noble person; What is that to the Infinite? as secretly implying, that all our thoughts and discourse must be reduced thither; and that they fail of their ends, if they be any other where terminated▪ It was a word well becoming the profound judgement, and quintessential notions of that rare, memorable Peer. And certainly so it is, if the cogitations and affections of our hearts be not directed to the glory of that infinite God, both they are lost, and we in them.   

SECT. V.  
REligious adoration begins in the heart, but rests not there; diffusing itself through the whole man, and commanding all the powers of the soul, and all the parts of the body to comply in a reverend devotion: so that, as we fear the Lord whom we serve, so we serve the Lord with fear.  
Where the heart stoops, it cannot be, but the knees must bend, the eyes and hands must be lift up; and the whole body will strive to testify the inward veneration; as upon all occasions, so especially, when we have to deal with the sacred affairs of God, and offer to present ourselves to any of his immediate services: Our fear cannot be smothered in our bosoms; Every thing that pertains to that infinite Majesty must carry from us due testifications of our awe; his Name, his Word, his Services, his House, his Messengers: I cannot allow the superstitious niceties of the jews, in the matters of God; yet I find in their practice, many things worthily imitable; such as favour of the fear of their father Isaac, and such as justly shame our profane carelessness.  
There is no wise man but must needs mislike their curious scruples, concerning that ineffable name, the letters and syllables whereof, they held in such dreadful respect, that they deemed it worthy of death, for any but sacred lips, and that, but in set times and places, to express it; as if the mention of it pierced the side of God, together with their own heart; 
Schichard de jure regio Hebr.  And, if the name of God were written upon their flesh, that part might not be touched either with water, or ointment. But well may we learn this point of wit, and grace from this first, (and, then, the only) people of God; not rashly, slightly, regardlessly, to take the awful name of God into our mouths, but to hear and speak it (when occasion is given) with all holiness, and due veneration.  
There are those that stumble at their adoration at the blessed name of jesus, prescribed and practised by our Church; as unjustly conceiving, that we put a superstitious holiness in the very sound, and syllabicall enunciation of the word; whereas, it is the person of that blessed Saviour, to whom, upon this occasion, our knees are bended: A gesture so far out of the just reach of blame, that if it seemed good to the wisdom of the Church, to allot this reverend respect to all▪ whatsoever the names, whereby the Majesty of God, in the whole sacred Trinity, is signified, and expressed to men, it were most meet to be accordingly exhibited unto them: And now, since it hath (without inhibition of the like regard to the rest) pitched upon that name, which intimating and comprising in it the whole gracious work, and immediate author of our dear redemption, hath been exposed to the reproach and opposition of the gainsaying world; We cannot (if we be not wanting to our filial obedience) detract our observance of so ancient, and pious an institution. Never any contempt was dared to be cast upon the glorious name of the Almighty, and absolute Deity, only the state of exinanition, subjected the Son of God to the scorn, and undervaluation of the world; justly therefore hath our holy and gracious Mother thought fit, and ordained, upon that person and name, which seemed less honourable, and lay more open to affront, to bestow the more abundant honour: In the mean time, as she is a professed incourager and an indulgent lover of all true devotion, she cannot but be well pleased, with what soever expressions of reverence, we give to the divine Majesty, under whatsoever terms, uttered by our well advised, and well instructed tongues.  
I have known, and honoured, as most worthy a constant imitation, some devout persons, that never durst mention the name of God, in their ordinary communication, without uncovering of their heads, or elevation of their hands, or some such other testimony of reverence.  
And certainly, if the heart be so throughly possessed with a sad awe of that infinite Majesty, as it ought; the tongue dares not presume in a sudden unmannerliness to blurt out the dreadful name of God; but shall both make way for it, by a premised deliberation, and attend it with a reverend elocution. I am ashamed to think how far we are surpassed by heathenish piety; The ancient Grecians and amongst the rest, Plato, (as Suidas well observes,) when they would swear by their jupiter, out of the mere dread, and reverence of his name, forbore to mention him: breaking off their oath, with a, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as those that only dare to owe the rest to their thoughts; And Climas the Pythagorean, out of this regard, would rather undergo a mulct of three talents, than swear. Whiles the profane mouths of many Christians, make no difference in their appellation, between their God, and their servant.   

SECT. VI  
AS the name, so the word of our maker challengeth an awful regard from us, as a reflection of that fear we owe to the omnipotent author of it. What worlds of nice caution have the masters of the Synagogue prescribed to their disciples, for their demeanour towards the book of the Law, of their God? No letter of it might be writ without a copy; no line of it without a rule; and the rule must be upon the back of the parchment; no parchment might be employed to this service, but that which is made of the skin of a clean beast; no word might be written in a different colour; insomuch as when in the Pentateuch of Alexander the Great, 
Idem Schicardus de jure regio Heb●aeorum.  the name of jehovah, was (in pretence of honour) written in golden Characters, their great Rabbins condemned the whole volume to be obliterated, and defaced: No man might touch it, but with the right hand, and without a kiss of reverence: No man might sit in the presence of it; No man might so much as spit before it; No man might carry it behind him; but lay it next to his heart, in his travel; No man might offer to read it, but in a clean place; no man might sell it, though the copy were moth-eat, and himself half famished: And is the word of the everlasting God of less worth and authority, now, than it hath been? Or is there less cause of our reverence of those divine Oracles, than theirs? Certainly, if they were superstitiously scrupulous, it is not for us to be carelessly slovenly, and neglective of that sacred Book, out of which we shall once be judged: Even that impure Alcoran of the Turks is forbidden to be touched by any but pure hands. It was not the least praise of Carlo Boromeo, 
Ogier. Apolog. Balsac●, etc.  the late Saint of Milan, that he would never read the divine Scripture, but upon his knees; and if we profess to bear no less inward honour to that sacred volume; why should we, how can we think it free for us to entertain it with an unmannerly neglect?   

SECT. VII.  
AS to the name and word, so to the services of God must the efficacy of our holy fear be diffused; and these, whether private or public: If we pray, our awe will call us, either to a standing on our feet, as servants; or a bowing of our knees, as suppliants; or, a prostration on our faces, as dejected penitents; Neither when the heart is a Camel, can the body be an Elephant: What Prince would not scorn the rudeness of a sitting petitioner? It was a just distinction of Socrates of old, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plat. Apol.  that, to sacrifice, is to give to God; to pray, is to beg of God: And who is so liberal, as to cast away his alms upon a stout, and unreverent beggar? If we attend God's message in the mouth of his holy servants, whether read or preached, our fear will frame us to a reverend carriage of our bodies; so as our very outward deportment may really seem to speak the words of the good Centurion; 
Acts 10.33  Now we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God; we shall need no law to veil our bonnets, save that in our own breast. It was a great word that Simeon the son of Satach, 
Talm.  said to the jewish Prince, and Priest, convented before their Sanhedrin; Thou standest not before us, but before him that said, Let the world be made, and it was made: did we think so, how dared we sit in a bold sauciness (whiles that great Embassy is delivered) with our hats on our heads; as if we acknowledged no presence but of our inferiors; yea, (that which is a shame to say) those very apprentices, who dare not cover their heads at home, where their Master is alone; yet, in God's house, where they see him in a throng of his betters, waiting upon the ordinances of the God of heaven, think it free for them, equally, to put on, and to be no less fellows with their Master, than he is with his Maker: as if the place and service gave a public privilege to all comers, of a profane lawlessness: Surely, the same ground whereon the Apostle built his charge for the covering of the heads of the women, serves equally for the uncovering the heads of the men, Because of the Angels; yea more, because of the God of the Angels; 
1 Cor. 11.10.  who by these visible Angels of his Church, speaks to us, and solicits our salvation. If we address ourselves to the dreadful mysteries of the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord jesus, our fear will bend our knees in a meet reverence to that great and gracious Saviour, who is there lively represented, offered, given, sealed up to our souls; who at that heavenly Table, is, (as Saint Jerome truly) both the guest, 
Ipse conviva & convivium. Ad Hedibiam  and the banquet: Neither can the heart that is seasoned with true piety, be afraid of too lowly a participation of the Lord of glory; but rather resolves, that he is not worthy of knees, who will not here bow them; for, who should command them, if not their Maker, if not their Redeemer? Away with the monsters of opinion, and practise, concerning this Sacrament: Christ jesus is here really tendered unto us; and who can, who dares take him but on his knees? What posture can we use with our fellows, if we sit with our God and Saviour? At our best, well may we say with the humble Centurion; Lord we are not worthy thou shouldest come under our roof: but, if we prepare not both souls, and bodies, to receive him reverently, our sinful rudeness shall make us utterly uncapable of so blessed a presence.   

SECT. VIII.  
NEither doth our awful regard reach only to the actions of God's service, but extends itself even to the very house, which is called by his name: the place where his honour dwelleth. For, as the presence of God gives an holiness to what place soever he is pleased to show himself in; (as the Sun carries an inseparable light wheresoever it goes) so that holiness calls for a meet veneration from us: It was a fit word for that good Patriarch, who swore by his father's fear; which he spoke of his Bethel; 
Gen. 31.53  How dreadful is this place, 
Gen. 28.17  this is none other, but the house of God: this is the gate of Heaven. The several distances, and distinctions that were observed in the Temple of God, at Jerusalem, are famously known: None might sit within the verge thereof, but the King; all others, either stood, or kneeled. I have read of some sects of men so curiously scrupulous, that their Priests were not allowed to breathe in their Temple, 
Rugianorum sacerdos non intra aedem Dei sui halitum emittebatne, etc. Hospinian de orgi. Festor. Mabumetan.  but were commanded (whiles they went in to sweep the floor) to hold their wind, (like those that dive for sponges at Samos) to the utmost length of time; and when they would vent their suppressed air, and change it for new, to go forth of the doors, and return with a fresh supply. But, 
Zago Zabaes' relation.  we are sure the Ethiopian Christians are so holily mannerly, that they do not allow any man so much as to spit in their Churches; and if such a defilement happen, they cause it to be speedily cleansed: What shall we then say of the common profaneness of those careless Christians, that make no distinction, betwixt their Church, and their barn; that care not to look unto their foul feet, when they come under this sacred roof; that with equal irreverence stumble into God's house, and their tavern; that can find no fitter place for their ambulatory, their burse, their counting house; their sepulchre? It is recorded of Saint Swithine, 
Matth. Westmonast. 862.  the (no less famous than humble) Bishop of Winchester, that when he died, he gave charge that his body should not in any case be buried, within the Church; but be laid where his grave might be wet with rain, and open to weather & passengers; I suppose, as conceiving that sacred place too good for the repository of the best carcases.  
Surely, we cannot easily entertain too venerable an opinion of the habitation of the Almighty: If our hearts have the honour to be the spiritual Temples of God, we shall gladly give all due honour to his material Temples: and doubtless in all experience, we shall so respect the house, as we are affected to the owner. It was the discipline and practice of the Hetruscians, from whom old Rome learned much of her skill in Auguries, and many mysteries of religion, that those deities whom they desired to harbour in their own breasts, as Virtue, Peace, Modesty, should have Temples erected within their walls; but those, which were the Precedents of wars and combustions, or pleasures, and sensuality, (as Mars, Venus, Vulcan,) should take up with Temples without their walls: And even so it is, and will be ever with us; if we have an holy regard to the God of heaven, and adore him, as inhabiting our bosoms, we cannot but give all fair and venerable respects to those houses, which he hath taken up for his own worship, and presence.   

SECT. IX.  
NEither, lastly, can Gods very Messengers (though partners of our own infirmities) escape some sensible reflections of our fear: It was the rule of the jews, that the very Prince of the people, 
Vide Schicardum de jure regio Hebr.  if he would consult God's Oracle, out of reverence to that divine pectoral, must reverently stand before that Priest, who, at other times was bound to give lowly obedience to his Sovereign Lord. What Great Alexander did to the jewish high Priest, who knows not? Neither hath the practices of the godly Emperors in the Christian Church, through all successions of Ages, savored of less regard: Even the late Caesar Ferdinand in the sight of our English, not long before his end, together with his Empress, received an Episcopal benediction publicly, upon their knees. Away with that insolent pomp of kissing of toes, 
Lipsius, electorum lib. 2. turpem & servilem.  (which justus Lipsius justly called once, foul and servile) fit for a Caligula, or Maximinus the younger, or a Dioclesian; Away with the proud horsing on shoulders, or treading on necks, or the lackeying of Princes; It was a moderate word of Cardinal Zabarell, concerning his great Master; 
Tract. de Schism: Innocentii septimi & Benedicti.  So is he to be honoured, that he be not adored. Surely when religion was at the best, great Peers thought it no scorn to kiss the venerable hands of their spiritual fathers; 
Paulin. in vita Sancti Ambrosii.  and did not grudge them eminent titles of honour. It was but a simple port that Elijah carried in the world, who after that astonishing wonder of fetching down fire and water from heaven, thought it no abasement to be ahab's lackey from Carmel to jezreel; 
1 Kings 18.46.  yet Obadiah, who was high Steward to the King of Israel, even that day, could fall on his face to him, and say, Art thou that my Lord Elijah? Not much greater was the state of those Christian Bishops, who began, now to breathe from the bloody persecutions of the heathen Emperors; yet, with what dearness did that gracious Constantine (in whom this Island is proud to challenge no small share) kiss those scars, which they had received for the name of Christ? with what titles did he dignify them? as one that saw Christ in their faces; and meant in their persons to honour his Saviour: And indeed, there is so close, and indissoluble a relation betwixt Christ and his Messengers, that their mutual interest can never be severed. What Prince doth not hold himself concerned in the honours, or affronts that are done to his Ambassadors? Those keys which God hath committed to our hands, lock us so fast to him, that no power in earth, or hell, can separate us; but still that word must stand fast, in heaven: He that despiseth you, despiseth me: In vain shall they therefore pretend to fear God, that contemn and disgrace their spiritual governor's. There is a certain plant, 
Gerard pag. 642.  which our Herbalists call (herbam impiam) or wicked Cudweed, whose younger branches still yield flowers to overtop the elder; Such weeds grow too rife abroad; It is an ill soil that produceth them: I am sure, that where the heart is manured, and seasoned with a true fear of the Almighty, there cannot be but an awful regard to our spiritual Pastors; well are those two charges conjoined, 
Eccl. 7.33.  Fear God, and honour his Priests.   

SECT. X.  
HItherto having considered that part of holy Fear, which (consisting in an inward adoration of God) expresseth itself in the awful respects to his Name, Word, Services, House, Messengers; we descend to that other part, which consists in our humble subjection, and selfe-resignatito his good pleasure, in all things; whether to order, or correct: The suffering part is the harder. It was a gracious resolution of old Eli; 
1 Sam. 3.18  It is the Lord, let him do whatsoever he will; Surely, that man, though he were but an ill Father, to his worse sons, yet he was a good son to his Father in heaven: for nothing but a true filial awe could make the heart thus pliant; that represents ourselves to us, as the clay, and our God to us, as the potter; and therefore shows us how unjustly we should repine at any form, or use, that is by his hand put upon us: I could envy that word which is said to have fall'n from the mouth of Francis of Assisse, in his great extremity; I thank thee, 
Lib. 1. Conform●●uct. 12.  O Lord God, for all my pain; and I beseech thee (if thou think good) to add unto it, an hundred fold more. Neither was it much different from that, which I have read, as reported of Pope Adrian, 
Binius, etc.  but I am sure was spoken by a worthy divine, within my time and knowledge, of the University of Cambridge. (whose labours are of much note, and use in the Church of God) Master Perkins; who, when he lay in his last, and kill torment of the stone, hearing the bystanders to pray for a mitigation of his pain, willed them, not to pray for an ease of his complaint, but for an increase of his patience; These speeches cannot proceed but from subdued, and meek, and mortified souls; more intentive upon the glory of their Maker, than their own peace and relaxation: And certainly, the heart thus seasoned, cannot but be equally tempered to all conditions, as humbly acknowledging the same hand, both in good, & evil: And therefore, even frying in Phalaris his Bull (as the Philosopher said of a wise man) will be able to say, 
How pleasant?  quam suave? Was it true of that heathen Martyr, Socrates, that, as in his life-time he was not wont to change his countenance upon any alteration of events, so when he should come to drink his Hemlock, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plat. Apol. etc.  as Plato reports it, no difference could be descried, either in his hand or face; no paleness in his face, no trembling in his hand, but a steadfast and fearless taking of that fatal cup, as if it differed not from the wine of his meals? Even this resolution was no other, than an effect of the acknowledgement of that one God for which he suffered; If so, I cannot less magnify that man for his temper, than the Oracle did for his wisdom: but I can do no less than bless, and admire the known courage, and patience of those Christian Martyrs, who out of a loving fear of him, that only can save, and cast both bodies and souls in hell, despised shame, pain, death, and manfully insulted upon their persecutors? Blessed Ignatius could profess to challenge and provoke the furious Lions, to his dilaniation. Blessed Cyprian could pray that the Tyrant would not repent of the purpose of dooming him to death; and that other holy Bishop, when his hand was threatened to be cut off, could say, Seca ambas, Cut of both: It is not for me to transcribe volumes of Martyrologies. All that holy army of conquering Saints began their victories in an humble awe of him, whose they were; and cheerfully triumphed over irons, and racks, and gibbets, and wheels, and fires, out of a meek and obedient submission to the will and call of their ever-blessed God, and most dear Redeemer; In so much as Saint Chrysostome professes to find patterns and parallels, for himself in all varieties of tormenrs, and whatsoever several forms of execution: And the blessed Apostle hath left us a red Calendar of these constant witnesses of God; whose memory is still on earth, 
Heb. 11.36, 37, 38.  their Crown in heaven.  
Neither is it thus only in the undaunted sufferings for the causes of God; but our awe subjects us also to the good will of God, in all whatsoever changes of estate. Do I smart with afflictions? I will bear the indignation of the Lord, 
Mich. 7.9.  because I have sinned against him. I held my peace because thou Lord hast done it. Do I abound in blessings? Who am I, O Lord God, 
2 Sam. 7.18  and what is my father's house, that thou hast brought me hitherto: 
Philip. 4.11.  In both; I have learned in what condition soever I am, to be there with content.   

SECT. XI.  
THus do we bow the knee● of our hearts to God, in our adoration of his Majesty, both in duly magnifying his greatness and goodness; and in our humble submission to his holy, and gracious pleasure▪ there remains that other signature of our awful disposition, which consists in a tender and childlike care, both of his secret approbation of us, and of our avoidance of his displeasure, and our offence towards him; these two part not asunder, for, he that desires to be approved, would be loath to displease.  
The heart that is rightly affected to God, is ambitious, above all things, under heaven, of the secret allowance of the Almighty; and therefore is careful to pass a continual, and exact inquisition upon all his thoughts, much more upon his actions, what acceptation, or censure they find above; like as some timorous child upon every stitch, that she takes in her first Sampler, looks tremblingly in the face of her Mistress, to see how she likes it; 
Error Tho. Aqui. Quodlib. art. 20. Hospin. in notis ad regul Benedicti.  as well knowing that the Law of God was not given us (as some have said of benedict's rule) only to profess, but to peforme; and that accordingly the conscience shall find either peace or tumult. As we are wont therefore, to say of the Dove, that at the picking up of every grain, she casts her eyes up to heaven, so will our godly fear teach us to do, after all our speeches and actions: For which cause it will be necessary to exercise our hearts with very frequent (if not continual) ejaculations; 
Io. Capgrave.  I remember the story tells us of that famous Irish Saint (of whom there are many monuments in these western parts) that he was wont to sign himself, 
Patricius.  no less than an hundred times in an hour: Away with all superstition; although Cardinal Bellarmine tells us (not improbably) that in the practice of those ancient Christians, 
In one of his prefaces to his controversy.  their crossing was no other than a silent kind of invocation of that Saviour, who was crucified for us; Surely I should envy any man that hath the leisure, and grace, to lift up his heart thus often, to his God; let the glance be never so short: neither can such a one choose, but be full of religious fear: I like not the fashion of the Euchites, that were all prayer, and no practice, but the mixture of these holy elevations of the soul, with all out actions, with all recreations, is so good and laudable, tha● whosoever is most frequent i● it, shall pass with me for mos● devout, and most conversant it heaven.  
But the most proper an● pregnant proof of this Fear● of God, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plat. Euthy phr.  is the fear of offending God; in which regard i● is perfectly filial; The goo● child is afraid of displeasing his father, though he were su●● not to be beaten; whereas, th● slave is only afraid of stripes not of displeasure: Out of this dear awe to his father in heaven, the truly regenerate trembles to be but tempted; and yet resolves not to yield to any assault; whether proffers of favour, or violence of battery, all is one: The obfirmed soul will hold out, and scorns so much as to look of what colour the flag is; as having learned to be no less afraid of sin, than of hell: and if the option were given him, whether he would rather sin without punishment; or be punished without sin, the choice would not be difficult; any torment were more easy than the conscience of a divine displeasure. It was good Joseph's just question. 
Gen. 39.9.  How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Lo it is the sin that he sticks at, not the judgement; as one that would have feared the offence, if there had been no hell: But, if it fall out that the renewed person (as it is incident to the most dutiful children of God) be, through a violent tentation, and his own infirmity, miscarried into a known sin, how much warm water doth it cost him, ere he can recover his wont state? what anxiety, what strife, what torture, what selfe-revenge, what ejaculations and complaints, what unrepining subjection to the rod? I have sinned, 
job 7.20.  what shall I do to thee, O thou preserver of men; So I have seen a good natured child, that even after a sharp whipping, could not be quieted till he had obtained the pardon, and evened the brows of a frowning parent.  
And now, (as it is with little ones, that have taken a knock with a late fall) the good man walks hereafter with so much the more wary foot; and is the more fearfully jealous of his own infirmity, and finding in himself but the very inclinations towards the first motions of evil, he is careful, according to that wholesome rule of a strict Votary, 
Benedict. reg. cap. 4.  (Cogitationes malas mox ad Christum allidere,) instantly to dash his new borne evil thoughts against the rock Christ. And henceforth, out of a suspicion of the danger of excess, he dares not go to the further end of his tether, but in a wise and safe rigour, abridges himself of some part of that scope, which he might be allowed to take, and will stint himself rather than lash out; indeed, right reason teacheth us to keep aloof from offending that power which we adore: 
Marr. Dorza. Sab. post dominic. 4 Quadrag  The ancient Almains holding their rivers for gods, durst not wash their faces with those waters, lest they should violate those deities: And the jews were taught not to dare to come near an Idolatrous grove, though the way were never so direct and commodious. No wise man however he might have firm footing upon the edge of some high rocky promontory, will venture to walk within some paces of that downfall; but much more will his sense and judgement teach him to refrain from casting himself headlong (like that desperate Barbarian in Xenophon) from that steep precipice; 
Xenoph. de exped. Cyri.  The fear of God therefore is a strong retentive from sin; neither can possibly consist (in whatsoever soul) with a resolution to offend; As then the father of the faithful when he came into Gerar, a Philistim City, could strongly argue that those heathens would refrain from no wickedness, because the fear of God was not in that place; 
Gen. 20.11  so, we may no less irrefragably infer, where we see a trade of prevalent wickedness, there can be no fear of God: Woe is me, what shall I say of this last age, but the same that I must say of mine own? As this decrepit body, therefore, by reason of the unequal temper of humours, and the defect of radical moisture and heat, cannot but be a sewer of all diseases; So it is, so it will be with the decayed old age of this great body of the world, through want of the fear of the everliving God; 
Psal 119.136.  Rivers of waters O God shall run down mine eyes because men keep not thy law. But what do I suggest to the obdured hearts of wilful sinners, the sweet and gracious remedies of a loving fear? This preservative is for children; sturdy rebels must expect other receipts: A frown is an heavy punishment to a dutiful son, scourges and scorpions are but enough for a rebellious vassal. I must lay before such, an hell of vengeance; and show them the horrible Topheth prepared of old, even that bottomless pit of perdition; and tell them of rivers of brimstone, of a worm ever gnawing, of everlasting burnings, of weeping, wailing, 
2 Thes 1.8  and gnashing, when the terrible judge of the world shall come in flaming fire rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and obey him not; And certainly, if the sinner had not an Infidel in his bosom, the expectation of so direful a condition, to be inflicted and continued upon him, unto all eternity, without possibility of any intermission, or of any remission▪ were enough to make him run made with fear; only unbelief keeps him from a frantic despair, and a sudden leap into his hell. And if the custom and deceit of sin have wrought an utter senselessness in those brawny hearts, I must leave them over to the woeful sense of what they will not fear, yea to the too late fear of what they shall not be able either to bear, or avoid. Certainly the time will come, when they shall be swallowed up with a dreadful confusion, and shall no more be able not to fear, than not to be; Oftentimes even in the midst of all their secure jollity, God writes bitter things against them, such as make their knees to knock together, their lips to tremble, their teeth to chatter, their hands to shake, their hearts to fail within them, for the anguish of their souls; Were they as insensate as the earth itself, 
Habac. 3.10.  Touch the mountains and they shall smoke, saith the Psalmist; The mountains saw thee, and they trembled, saith Habbacuc: But if their fear be respited, it is little for their ease; it doth but forbear a little that it may overwhelm them at once for ever; Woe is me for them; In how heavy and deplorable case are they and feel it not? They lie under the fierce wrath of the Almighty, and complain of nothing but ease. The mountains quake at him, 
Nahum. 1.56.  and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence; Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him, saith the Prophet Nahum. Yet, oh, what a grief it is to see, that so dreadful a power should carry away no more fear from us wretched men; yea even from those that are ready to fear where no fear is? Pains of body, frowns of the great, restraint of liberty, loss of goods, who is it that fears not? But, alas, to avoid these, men fear not to venture upon the displeasure of him whose anger is death, and who is able to cast body and soul into hell fire: So we have seen fond children, that to avoid a bugbear have run into fire, or water: So we have seen a starting jade, that suddenly flying from a shadow, hath cast himself into a ditch; We can but mourn in secret for those that have no tears to spend upon themselves, and tremble for them that will needs gnash. If those that are filthy, will be filthy still; If secure men will set up a trade of sinning; every good heart will take up Nehemiahs' resolution: 
Neh. 5.15  But so did not I, because of the fear of the Lord; and the practice of holy Habacuc; 
Hab. 3.16.  I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: It is wise Solomon's good experiment, (which he loved to repeat; 
Prov. 16.6. Prov. 3.7. ) By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil: for they say one to another, (as the Tremelian version hath it, in Malachy) The Lord hearkeneth and heareth; 
Mal. 3.16.  and how dare they, how can they do amiss in that presence? For as the Saints say, after the Song of Moses, and the Song of the Lamb; Great and marvellous are thy works, 
Revel. 15.3.4.  Lord God Almighty: Just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints; who shall not fear thee, and glorify thy Name? for thou only art holy.   

SECT. XII.  
SHortly then, that we may put these two together, (which are not willing to be severed:) Whosoever is duly affected with a true filial fear of the Almighty, cannot by allurements be drawn to do that which may offend so sweet a mercy: cannot by any difficulties be discouraged from doing that which may be pleasing to so gracious a majesty: The Magistrate that fears God, dares not, cannot be partial to any wickedness; dares not, cannot be harsh to innocence; managing that sword wherewith he is entrusted, so as God himself, if he were upon earth, would do it, for the glory of his own just mercy: The Messenger of God that fears him on whose errand he goes, dares not, cannot either smother his message, or exceed it: he will, he must lift up his voice like a trumpet, and tell Israel of her sins, and judah of her transgressions; not fearing faces, not sparing offences. The ordinary Christian that fears God, dares not cannot, but make conscience, of all his ways; he dares not defraud or lie for an advantage, he dares not swear falsely for a world, he dares not prostitute his body to whatsoever filthiness, he dares not oppress his inferiors, he dares not turn away his own face from the poor, much less dares he grind theirs; in one word, he dares rather die than sin; And contrarily; what blocks soever nature lays in his way, (since his God calls him forth to this combat) he cannot but bid battle to his own rebellious corruptions, and offer a deadly violence to his evil and corrupt affections; and enter the lists with all the powers of darkness, resisting unto blood, and willingly bleeding, that he may overcome: Who now would not be in love with this fear? 
Psal. 34.9.  O fear the Lord ye his Saints, he that fears him shall lack nothing; 
Mal. 4.2.  The Sun of righteousness shall arise unto him with healing in his wings; In the mean time, 
Psal. 25 ●  the secret of the Lord is with him; The Angels of the Lord are ever about him; 
P●al. ●●  
Psal. 2●. 23  His soul shall dwell at ease here below; and above salvation is near unto him; yea, 
Psal. 85.10  he is already feoffed of life and glory. 
Pro. 19.25    

SECT. XIII.  
NOw, as some careful Pilot, that takes upon him to direct a difficult sea-passage, which his long and wary observation hath discovered, doth not content himself to steer a right course, in his own vessel, and to show the eminent sea-marks a far off, but tells withal, what rocks, or shelves lie on either side of the channel, which, upon the least deviation, may endanger the passengers; So must we do, here; Having therefore sufficiently declared wherein this fear of God consisteth, what it requireth of us, and how it is acted, and expressed by us; it remaineth, that we touch at those extremes, which on both sides must be carefully avoided; These are, Security, and Presumption on the one hand; on the other, Vicious fear. It was the word of the wise man, yea, 
Prov. 28.14.  rather of God, by him, Happy is the man that feareth always; but he that hardeneth his heart, shall fall into mischief; Lo an obdured security is proposed to fear, both in the nature and issue of it: Fear intenerates the heart, making it fit for all gracious impressions; security hardens it, and renders it uncapable of good: fear ends in happiness, security in an evitable mischief; And these two (though contraries, yet) arise from the same cause contrarily applied: Like as the same Sun hardens the clay, and softens the wax; it is heat that doth both; causing dryness in the one, and a dissolution in the other: Even so the same beams of divine mercy melt the good heart into an holy fear, (Great is thy mercy that thou mayst be feared) and harden the wicked heart in a state of security; For, upon the goodness of God to men, both in giving and forgiving, do men grow securely evil, and rebellious to their God; as being apt to say; I have sinned, and what harm hath happened unto me? 
Ecclus. 5.4.  saith Siracides: Lo even forbearance obdureth, 
Eccles. 8.11.  Because sentence against an evil work, is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil: How much more do the riches of God's goodness which are the hottest beams of that Sun, 
Rom. 2.4.  when they beat directly upon our heads? 
Prov. 1.32.  The ease of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them, saith Solomon; Our philosophy tells us, 
Nemo potest amplecti Dei gratiam simul & seculi. Ambros, lib. 4. Epist. 29.  that an extreme heat shuts up those pores, which a moderate openeth; It was a sore word of Saint Ambrose; that no man can at once embrace God's favour, 
Aegidius. lib. Conform. & c conform. 8  and the world: Neither can I disallow that observation of a rigorous Votary; that the Devils of consolation (as he calls them) are more subtle, and more pernicious, than those of tribulation; Not so much perhaps in their own nature, as for the party they find in our own breasts: The wise man could say; 
Prov. 30.9.  Lest I be full and deny thee, and ask, who is the Lord? Even very heathens have been thus jealously conscious of their own disposition; 
Tit. Livius.  So as Camillus when upon ten years' siege he had taken the wealthy city Veies, could pray forsome mishap to befall himself, and Rome, to temper so great an happiness. This is that which Gregory the great, upon his exaltation to that papal honour, 
Torpet ignava mens, & circumla▪ trantibus curis temporalibus cum pene ad stuporem deducta etc. Greg. Epist. l. 7.127.  doth so much complain of, in himself: that his inward fall was no less than his outward raising; and that his dull heart was almost grown stupid, with those temporal occasions: And surely, so it will be, if there be not a strong grace within us, 
Trifarius rerum cursus, Abun dantiae, Indigentiae, Temperantiae; ex abundantia animoptatas etc. Fascic. temp. in An. 1404.  to season our prosperity.  
That which the Historian observed in the course of the world, that abundance begets delicacy and animosity; that again, quarrels and vastation of war; and from thence grows poverty; is no less true in the particular state of the soul; If we be rich and high fed, we grow wanton, and stomachful, and apt to make war with heaven, till we be taken down again with affliction: Thereupon, it is that the wise and holy God, hath found it still needful to sauce our contentments with some mixtures of sorrow; and to proclaim the jubilee of our mirth and freedom, upon the sad day of expiation: The man after Gods own heart could say, In my prosperity I said, 
Psal. 6.7.  I shall never be moved; but the next ye hear is, Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled; and this trouble he professes to have been for his good; without these meet temperaments, worldly hearts run wild, and can say with the scornful men, that rule in jerusalem; 
Esay. 28 15.  We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass thorough, it shall not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: yea in a stout insolence, as the Prophet jeremy expresses it; 
jer. 5.12.  They belie the Lord, and say, it is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword, or famine. Neither yet is it only the abuse of Gods long suffering and bounty that produceth this ill habit of security, and hardheartedness; but especially, a custom of sinning: Oft treading hardens the path; the hand that was at the first soft, and tender, after it hath been enured to work, grows brawned, and impenetrable. We have heard of Virgins, which at the first, seemed modest; blushing at the motions of an honest love; who being once corrupt, and debauched, have grown flexible to easy entreaties unto unchastity, and from thence, boldly lascivious, so as to solicit others, so as to prostitute themselves to all comers, yea (as our Casuists complain of some Spanish Stews) to an unnatural filthiness. 
Martin. Vivaldus in Candelabro. in Cap. de Confessi.  That which our Canonists say, in an other kind, is too true here, 
Vivald. 4. part in 30.  Custom can give a jurisdiction; neither is there any stronger law than it: The continued use then of any known sin, be it never so small, giveth (as Gersons phrase is) a strong habituation; and, though it be a true rule, 
Habitus inclinant, non cogunt.  that habits do only incline, not compel; yet the inclination that is wrought by them, is so forceable, that it differs little from violent: Surely so powerful is the habit of sin, bred by ordinary practice, as that it takes away the very sense of sinning; so as the offender now knows not that he doth the very act of some evil; much less that he sins, and offends in doing it; and now the heart is all turned dead flesh, whether too good, or ill: there is not then a more dangerous condition incident into the soul of man, than this of security; it bars us of the capacity of any good, that may be wrought upon us, it exposes us to the success of all tentations, it draws down the heaviest of God's judgements upon our heads; it defies justice, it rejects mercy, it makes the heart God's Anvil, (which the harder it is struck, the more rebounds the blow) but the devil's featherbed, wherein he sinks, and lies soft, at free ease; neither would that evil spirit wish for any more pleasing repose; it flatters the soul with an impossible impunity, it shifts off necessary vengeance: Lastly, whiles other dispositions do but yield to an hell, this invites it. By how much more woeful it is, by so mu●h more careful must we be to avoid it.   

SECT. XIV.  
IF we care for our souls then, we shall zealously apply ourselves to prevent this hellish evil; which shall be done, if we shall constantly use all means to keep the heart tender; whereof the first is, Frequent meditation upon the judgements of God, attending sinners: it is the Apostles own prescript; Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, 
Heb. 12.28, 29.  with reverence and godly fear; For our God is a consuming fire. Could we but stoop down a little, and look into hell, we should never come thither; the apprehension of those torments would be sure to keep us from sinning, and and impenitence; It is a true observation of Cyrill, that the want of belief is guilty of all our obduredness; for should it be told thee, 
Cyr. in Leu. lib. 9  (saith that Father) that a secular judge intends to doom thee to be burned alive to morrow, how busily wouldst thou employ the remaining time to prevent the judgement? how eagerly wouldst thou run about, how submissively and importunately wouldst thou sue, and beg for pardon, how readily wouldst thou pour out thy money to those friends, that should purchase it? and why wouldst thou do all this, but because thou doubtest not of the truth of the report? Were our hearts no less convinced of the designation of an everlasting burning to the rebellious and impenitent, could we less bestir ourselves? To this purpose also it will much conduce that we meditate often of our own frailty and momentanynesse; no evil can fasten upon the soul of that man, that hath death ever before his eyes; That father said well, he easily contemns all things that thinks to die every day; The servant that said, my master defers his coming, was he that reveled in the house, and beat his fellows; he durst not have done it, if he had seen his master at the door: No whit less prevalent a remedy of security is a firm resolution of the soul to repel the first motions to what soever sin, whose nature (as experience tells us) is to gather strength by continuance; commonly all onsets are weakest in their beginnings, and are then most easily, and safely resisted: Custom can never grow where no action will be admitted to make a precedent: It is well observed by that learned Chancellor of Paris, that some filthy and blasphemous cogitations are better overcome by contemning them, 
Cogitationes fo●dae, blasphemae, noxiae, potius vincuntur contemnendo, quam respondendo. Gers. de precept. Theolog.  than by answering them; If either way they be repulsed, the heart is safe from security: But, thirdly, if we have been so far overtaken as to give way to the perpetration of evil, our care must be to work our hearts to a speedy renovation by repentance; If sin have seized upon the soul, it may not settle there; this is that which will else work a palpable indisposition: Let a knife be wet with the strongest aqua fortis, and presently wiped dry again, the mettle is yet smooth, and bewrayeth no change; but, if that moist fire be suffered to rest upon it a while, it eats into the blade, and leaves behind, some deep notes of corrosion; It is delay in these cases that breeds the utmost danger; Let a candle that is casually put out, be speedily rekindled at the next flame, neither is the scent offended, nor the wick unapt to be straightway re-inlightned; stay but a while, the whole room complains of the noisome smell, and it will cost perhaps much puffing, and dipping in ashes, ere it can recover the lost light. That which Solomon advises in matter of suretyship, we must do in the case of our sin; speedily extricate ourselves, 
Prov. 6.4.  and give no sleep to our eyes till we be freed from so dangerous an engagement. Moreover, unto these, it must be our main care, not to give any check to the conscience, upon whatsoever occasions: That power hath as a keen so a tender edge, and easy to be rebated; when that dictates to a man some duty, or the refraining of some doubtful action, he that disobeyes it, makes way for an induration; for when that faculty hath once received a discouragement, it will not be apt to control us in evil; but grows into a careless neglect of what we do, or omit; and so declines to an utter senselessness; As therefore we must be careful to have our consciences duly regulated by the infallible word of God, so must we be no less careful still, to follow the guidance of our conscience, in all our ways: And that all these things may be performed with effect, we must be sure that we do constantly observe all our set exercises of piety, hearing, reading, receiving the blessed Sacrament, prayer, and especially, strict self examination, whereby we may come to espy our first failings, and correct our very propensions to evil: One said well, that nature doth not more abhor vacuity than grace doth idleness: 
Gers. ser. de Domin. Evangel. Plus abhorret gratia otium, quam natura vacuum.  now all these, if they seem harsh and tedious to corrupt nature; yet to the renewed heart (familiarly conversant in them) nothing is more pleasing, and cordial. The Philosopher could say, and find, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Arist. Eth. lib. 1.  that virtuous actions are delightful to well disposed minds; in so much as it is defined for the surest argument of a good habit fully acquired, that we find contentment and delectation in good performances.  
Lastly, because ill used prosperity is apt to obdure the heart, we must be sure to settle in ourselves a right estimation of all these worldly things; which indeed, are, as they are taken: I may well say of riches, as the jewish Rabbins had wont to say of their Cabala; with a good heart, they are good; otherwise they are no better than the Mammon of iniquity: and indeed, worse than want; but at their best, they are such, as are utterly unable to yield true contentment to the soul; they are good for use, ill for fruition; they are for the hand to employ, not for the heart to set up his rest in: hereupon it is, that the holiest men have still both inclined and persuaded to their contempt: 
Bene habet quod molestant te omnia quae cernis, utique temporali: & mortalia, etc. Gers. epist. ad Card. Cameracens.  That great master of meditation applauded it in his friend, the Cardinal of Cambray, as the happiest condition; that all these earthly and temporal things which his eye beheld, were tedious unto him; And Saint Bernard magnifies in this name his dear acquaintance, 
Ep. 24. ad Gilbertum Londini.  Gilbert, Bishop of London, that even in that state, he would live poor; and the same Father would have his Monk to take most joy, 
Ber. Specul. Monachorum.  and think himself then welcomest, when the coursest far was set before him; 
Lib. Conformirat: Conform. 8.  answerable whereunto (but beyond it was the diet of Valentine a rigorous Votary, who for ten years together, would eat nothing but bread dipped in water, wherein wormwood was steeped; And of that other his fellow, who steeped his bread in lie, that he might eat ashes with the Prophet.  
Not to run into extremities, it is sure and necessary counsel which the Psalmist gives us to resolve; 
Psal. 62.10.  If riches increase, not to set our hearts upon them; to account them no other than as good helps, and needful impediments; and all worldly contentments such, as are not worthy to take us up: It was a question moved to the founder of some strict devotionists, whether they might laugh with all their heart, 
Si ex toto corde ridere non licet? R●sp. negatiuè Reg. Benedic●i. c. 32.  and it is answered negatively; Non licet: And the devout Governor of the votaries of Clareval, could give charge to his religious; Non debet totus manducare: and it is reported by the writer of his life, if he heard any of his Dorter snorting in his sleep, he would chide that man, as sleeping carnally, and secularly. Surely the world is, and should be the same to them and us, who have no less engaged ourselves to a professed hostility unto all the vanities thereof; and have no more hearty share in the pomps, and pleasures of it, than the most reclused Anachorets': At the best, this earth can be no other than our valley of tears, and region of our pilgrimage. 
Girald. Cambr. prefat. ad tract. de mirac.  Our Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that his Saint Brendan, upon long and wearisome travel, at last went so far, as to come to the sight of the earthly Paradise: They may, that list, believe it, 
Abrah. Ortel. In the Geograph. Ego vero paradisum ubique fuisse puto, nempe ante Adami lapsum, & non locum significare, sed loci naturam & qualitatem.  but sure I am; Never any mortal eye (since the Angel brandished his sword there) could find aught worthy the name of a Paradise, in this inferior world; here is Purgatory enough, and perhaps, some hell above ground: But if, as Ortelius of late held, that all the whole earth was, at the first, Paradise, any man shall now think that any part of it is so still, I shall pity him; and think him worthy the pleasure of these earthly torments: For us, if we would have our souls safe, we must learn with the blessed Apostle, so to use the world, 
S. Martin. Cujus faciem non fusca vit moeror, nec l●vigavit risus. Ber. spec. monach.  as if we used it not, and strive to attain to the equable temper of that holy man, whose face was neither darkened with sorrow nor smoothed with laughter, as well knowing, 
Quantò in●erius delectamur, tan tò a superno amore disju●gimur. Her. de interiore domo.  that what affection soever the world wins of us, is lost unto God. Thus, if we shall keep ourselves carefully from the trade of sin, and from the fascination of the world, we shall be sure that our hearts shall not thus be deadened with security.   

SECT. XV.  
THe no less direct, but more active opposite to holy fear, is Presumption. We presume when, out of an unjust self-love, we entertain an higher opinion of our spiritual estate, than there is cause; whether in respect of the way, or of the end; God's favour as the way, Salvation as the end: We are apt to overween our interest in God's favour & our assured safety thereby; commonly upon a double ground, either matter of event, or matter of ability: For, either we misinterpret fair events, as pledges of happiness, and safety; or, we mistake those qualities, for true graces, which are either mere appearances, or perhaps, no better than very enormities; Millions of men miscarry both ways; and are therefore so far from fear, as that they go dancing towards their hell. It was the strong Bulwark which the Egyptian jews set up against all Ieremy's menaces, 
jer. 44.17.  We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and pour out drink-offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our Kings and our Princes, in the Cities of Judah, and in the streets of jerusalem: For then, we had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. Had their belly been their God, the argument had held well; that deity is best pleased with store of cares, but the true God, many times, even with Quailes sends leanness: Carnal hearts know not how to measure felicity, but by the affluence of what most pleases them; and that please them most, which gives most contentment to their sense, and appetite; wherein, if their desires be answered, they are soon transported from themselves; and now, can be no other than the great favourites of heaven. 
2 Chron. 26.15.  If Vzziah once feel himself grown strong, his heart is lifted up; why should not a Censer fit him no less than a Sceptre? The great Dragon of Egypt, 
Ezec. 29, 2.  when he hath lain at ease a while, in the swollen waters of his Nilus, can say, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself: and, who is there that hath fished successfully in this sea of the world, but is ready to sacrifice unto his own nets; and says within himself, Had I not been so good, I had not sped so well: Our naturalists truly observe, that the most poisonous flies are bred in the sweetest fruit-trees; So are these most dangerous presumptions in an outward happiness of condition: Let an Amalekitish Agag be but a little made of, 
1 Sam. 15. 3●.  he comes in delicately and says; Surely the bitterness of death is overpast; when a King hath been indulgent, a Prophet will not be bloody: all is safe; there may be hope of my crown; there can be no danger of my head. Hereupon it is, that (as those whose heads are laid upon down pillows, are not apt to hear noise) the over-prosperous have their ears precluded against all threats of peril, all counsels of reformation; as thinking they neither need to wish themselves better, nor to fear being worse. And whiles they applaud themselves (as the only darlings, they look overly and scornfully upon the meaner estate of others, and pass deep censures upon the adversities of their miserable neighbours; as if they could not far ill, if they were not so: job cannot be afflicted if he were not an hypocrite; Doth the Tower of Siloe, like some dreadful pitfall, 
Luk. 13 4.  overwhelm eighteen Citizens of Jerusalem? they were more heinous sinners than their fellows. Doth a Viper seize upon Saint Paul's hand? 
Acts 28.4.  Doubtless, this man is a murderer, whom vengeance would not suffer to live: Thus the vain hearts of sensual men are carried with those outward events, which God never meant for the distinction of either love, or hatred; Those that are rich in these proud conceits, make their imaginary wealth their strong City; which they please themselves in thinking impregnable; and as foolish Micah argued a necessity of God's future beneficence to him, by the good that he had done, 
judg. 17. 1●.  in procuring a Levite to his Priest; So these flatter themselves with an assurance of God's present favour, by the benefits which God hath showered down upon them; wherein it falls out oft, as it did with the riflers of Semiramis his tomb; who, where they expected to find the richest treasure, met with a deadly poison. Neither is it easy to know whether that other presumption of abilities be not at least equally frequent and dangerous; The proud Angel of the Church of Laodicea could say, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; not knowing that he was wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked: How many have we heard to boast of those graces, whereto they been perfect strangers? How have we known some that have pretended to no less illumination than Pisanus reports of john of Alverne, 
Lib. conformit.  who in a rapture was elavated above every creature, and his soul swallowed up in the abyss of the divinity; when it hath been, indeed, nothing but a fanatical illusion: How ordinarily do we find men challenging no mean share in a lively faith, spiritual joy, fervent zeal, true sanctity, when in the mean while, they have embraced nothing but the clouds of their own fancies, instead of these heavenly graces; and, by this means have stripped themselves of the possibility of those holy virtues, which they falsely soothed in themselves: for who can care to seek for that which he thinks he hath already? Men do not so much covet, as arrogate spiritual gifts, Every Zidkijah can say, 
1 King. 22.24.  which way went the spirit of God from me to speak unto thee? and like a spiritual Epicure, can clap himself on the breast, with Soul take thy ease, thou hast grace enough laid up for many years: from this opinion of satiety arises a necessary carelessness of better endeavours, and a contemptuous undervaluation of the poor stock of grace in others; It being commonly incident into these presuming souls, that was of old wont to be said of the Tartars, that they are better invaders of other men's possessions, than keepers of their own: those censures then, which they should spend upon their own secret corruptions, they are ready to cast upon the seeming enormities of their neighbours: And as if they would go contrary to the Apostles charge; Be not high minded, but fear; these men are highminded and fear not.  
The way leads to the end, the presumption of the way, to the presumption of the end: overweening and misprision of grace, to an over-reckoning of an undue salvation. Good God, with what confidence have I heard some, not over-conscionable men, talk of the assurance of their heaven; as if the way thither were so short, and so plain, that they could not miss it; as if that passage had neither danger nor difficulty; as if it were but a remove from the Lobby to the great Chamber, wherein they can neither err, nor fall: Here need no harsh exercises of mortification, here are no misdoubts of God's desertions, no selfe-conflicts, no flashes of troubled consciences, but all fair and smooth; Have they sinned, the score is crossed by their surety; have they forfeited their souls, their ransom is paid; is justice offended, mercy hath satisfied: Shortly, they have by Acesius his ladder climbed up into heaven, and stolen the sight of the Book of life, and found their name there; and who can obliterate it? I cannot forget a bold word, which many years ago, I heard fall from a man whom I conceived not to have had any extraordinary reason of confidence; If I should hear God say, there shall but one man be saved, I would straight say, That is I, Lord. Surely the man was in good favour with himself, in what terms soever he stood with the Almighty. Not that I condemn an holy and well-grounded resolution of our spiritual estate; I know who hath charged us, to give diligence to make our calling and election sure: Had it not been at all feisible, our wise and good God had not tasked our diligence with it; and, had it been easy, and obvious, it might even without diligence of study and endeavour, have been effected: Now, as one said of Evangelicall Counsels, I must say of this high pitch of Christianity; 
Non est omnium vo●are ad alta montana consiliorum. Gers.  It is not for every man to mount up this steep hill of assurance; every soul must breathe, and pant towards it, as he may; even as we would and must to perfection: he is as rare as happy, that attains it. Give me a man that hath worn out himself with a strict austerity, who by many secret bicker hath mastered his sturdy and rebellious corruptions, who in a trembling awfulness walks constantly with his God, keeping a severe watch over all his ways, assiduous and fervent in his devotions; Shorly, who hath spent his time in heaven beforehand: why should I not believe that God hath sealed up to such a soul, an assecurance of his future glory? Some transient acts of interposed doubting may, and will glance into the holiest heart; but, a form habit of doubt falls not into such an eminence of grace: This is not a lesson for every novice to take out; whose main care must ever be, to work out his salvation with fear and trembling. As for spiritual security, let him labour towards it, as that which he would most gladly compass, but not brag of it too soon, as that which he hath already compassed.   

SECT. XVI.  
AS there is no disease incident into the body, for which nature hath not provided a remedy, so neither is there any spiritual complaint incident into the soul, for which grace affords not a redress.  
The way of the general cure of presumption is, to take a just estimate of our privileges and abilities; and to work the heart to a true selfe-dejection, and humiliation, under the mighty hand of God; Particularly, he can never presume upon those outward commodities, that seriously considers how they are valued by the owner, and giver of them: Where are the most curious and rich Pearls laid up, but in the mud of the sea? And what is the earth, but marsupium Domini, (as Saint Malacby termed it of old;) God's purse wherein he puts his most precious jewels, and metals; And what base piece hath the world, than this repository? And, if it please him to lay them out; how doth he think them worthy to be bestowed; He fills the belly of the ungodly with his hidden treasure, 
job. 9.24.  saith the Psalmist; and, The earth is given into the hands of the wicked, saith holy job in his answer to Bildad; neither is it other that he observes in his reply to Zophar, 
job. 12.6.  The Tabernacles of the robbers prosper, and they that provoke God, are secure, into whose hands God bringeth abundantly; How then can we esteem those things as pledges of favour, which God makes choice to cast upon enemies? which mere natural men have contemned, as not worthy their affectation, or regard? with what scorn did those naked Brachmanni (the relation is fathered upon Saint Ambrose) repel the proffered gold? And if at any time it hath pleased him, whose the earth is, and the fullness thereof, to lad his dear ones with this thick clay, as himself styles it; and, to store them with abundance, he doth it not without a further blessing of sanctification; Some kinds of fishes there are that pass for delicate, with our great masters of the palate, which yet, must have the dangerous string in their backs pulled out, ere they can be safely fed upon. Such is worldly wealth and prosperity; The wise and holy God plucks out their venom, when he will have them served up for dainties to his children's table; Or if he find that the deceitfulness of riches will be apt to beguile good souls, he deals with them, as careful gardiner's are wont to do by those trees from which they expect fair fruit; abate the number of their blossoms, as more caring they should be good, than full: Lastly then, How can we account those arguments of favour, which the best have had least; Even the great Lord of all the world, for whom heaven itself was too straight, when he would come down and converse with men, could say, The Foxes have holes, and the fowls of heaven have nests, but the son of man hath not where to rest his head; And when the tribute money was demanded, is fain to send for it, to the next fish: Shortly, wore out his few days upon earth, in so penal a way, that his sorrows were read in his face; in so much as when he was but two and thirty years of age, the bystanders could say, Thou art not yet fifty; What proofs of divine favour then are these to presume upon, which the worst have, which the best want, which God ofttimes gives in judgement, denies in mercy.   

SECT. XVII.  
THere cannot be a more sure remedy for presumption of abilities, than to take an exact survey of our graces, both of their truth, and degrees. Satan is a great imposter, he that was once an Angel of light, knows how to seem so still; when he left to be an Angel, he began to be a Serpent; and his continual experience cannot but have added to his Art, so as he knows how to counterfeit graces, both in himself and his, in so exquisite a fashion, that it is not for every eye to discern them from true. We see to what perfection Mechanical imitation hath attained; what precious stone hath Nature yielded, which is not so artificially counterfeited, both in the colour and lustre, that only the skilful Lapidary can descry it; Pearls so resembled, that for whiteness, clearness, smoothness, they dare contend with the true; Gold so cunningly multiplied and tinctured, that neither the eye can distinguish it, nor the touch, scarce the crucible: So as Art would seem to be an Havilah, whose Gold is good; whiles Nature is an Ophir, whose Gold is exceeding good: What marvel is it then, if crafty Spirits can make so fair representations of spiritual excellencies, as may well deceive ordinary judgements? The Pythonesse's Samuel was so like the true, that Saul adored him for such; And jannes' and jambres made their wooden Serpent to crawl so nimbly, and hiss so fiercely, that till Moses his Serpent devoured theirs, the beholders knew not whether were more formidable; Some false things seem more probable than many truths; there must be therefore much serious and accurate disquisition, ere we can pass a true judgement, betwixt apparent and real graces; Neither would it ask less than a volume to state the differences whereby we may discriminate counterfeit virtues from true, in all their several specialties; they are faced alike, they are clad alike; the marks are inward, and scarce discernible by any but the owner's eyes. In a generality, we shall thus descry them in our own hearts. True grace is right-bred, of a divine original, and comes down from above, even from the father of lights; Gods spirit working with, and by his own ordinances, produceth it in the soul, and feeds it by the same holy means it is wrought: The counterfeit is earth-bred, arising from mere nature, out of the grounds of sensualialitie. True grace drives at no other end than the glory of the giver, and scorns to look lower than heaven: The counterfeit aims at nothing but vain applause, or carnal advantage, not caring to reach an inch above his own head.  
True grace is apt to cross the plausiblest inclinations of corrupt nature, and cheers up the heart to a delihgtfull performance of all good duties, as the best pastime. The counterfeit is a mere parasite of fleshly appetite, and finds no harshness, but in holy devotions. True grace is undantedly constant in all opposition; and like a well wrought vault, is so much the stronger by how much more weight it undergoes; This metal is purer for the fire, this Eagle can look upon the hottest Sun: The counterfeit shows most gloriously in prosperity; but when the evil day cometh, it looks like the skin of a dead Chameleon, nasty and deformed. Lastly, true grace is best alone: the counterfeit is all for witnesses. In brief, if in a holy jealousy of our own deceitfulness, we shall put daily interrogatories to our hearts, and pass them under severe examinations, we shall not be in danger to presume upon our mistaken graces; but the more we search, the more cause we shall find of our humiliation, and of an awful recognition of God's mercy, and our own unworthiness.   

SECT. XVIII.  
THe way not to presume upon salvation, is, in an humble modesty to content ourselves with the clearly revealed will of our Maker; not prying into his counsels, but attending his commands: It is a grave word wherein the vulgar translation expresses that place of Solomon, Scrutator majestatis, 
Pro. 25.27.  opprimetur à gloria; he that searcheth into majesty, shall be overwhelmed with glory; Amongst those sixteen places of the Bible, which in the Hebrew are marked with a special note of regard; that is one, 
Deut 29.29.  The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed, belong unto us and to our children for ever; that we may do all the words of this Law. Wherein our main care must be, both not to sever, in our conceit, the end from the means, and withal, to take the means along with us, in our way to the end: It is for the heavenly Angels to climb down the ladder from heaven to earth: It is for us only to climb up from earth to heaven: Bold men! what do we begin at God's eternal decree of our election, and thence descend to the effects of it in our effectual calling, in our lively and steadfast faith, in our sad and serious repentance, in our holy and unblameable obedience, in our unfaileable perseverance; This course is saucily preposterous; What have we to do to be rifling the hidden counsels of the Highest; Let us look to our own ways: We have his word for this; that if we do truly believe, repent, obey, persevere, we shall be saved; that if we do heartily desire, and effectually endeavour, in the careful use of his appointed means, to attain unto these saving dispositions of the soul, we shall be sure not to fail of the success: What need we to look any further, than conscionably and cheerfully to do what we are enjoined; and faithfully and comfortably to expect what he hath promised? Let it be our care, not to be wanting in the parts of our duty to God; we are sure he cannot be wanting in his gracious performances unto us: But if we in a groundless conceit of an election shall let loose the reins to our sinful desires, and vicious practices, thereupon growing idle or unprofitable; we make divine mercy a Pander to our uncleanness, and justly perish in our wicked presumption.   

SECT. XIX.  
THe other extreme follows: It may seem a harsh word, but it is a true one; that there may be an evil fear of a good God; A fear of horror, and a fear of distrust. That God, who is love itself, is terrible to a wicked heart; Even in the beginning, our first progenitor ran from the face of his late maker, and hid him in the thickets; For it is a true observation of Tertullian, no wickedness can be done without fear, because not without the conscience of doing it. Neither can any man flee from himself, as Bernard wittily: and this conscience reads the terrible things that God writes against the sinner; and holds the glass, wherein guilty eyes may see the kill frowns of the Almighty: Now offensive objects cause the spirits to retire, as Philosophy and experience teacheth us; whereupon follows a necessary trepidation in the whole frame of the body: And now the wicked heart could wish there were no God; or (which is all one) that this God had not power to avenge himself; and, finding that after all his impotent volitions, the Almighty will be still and ever himself; he is unspeakably affrighted with the expectation of that just hand, which he cannot avoid: This terror, if (through the improvement of God's mercy) at the last it drive the sinner to a true penitence, makes an happy amends for its own anguish; otherwise, it is but the first flash of that unquenchable fire, which is prepared for damned souls. In this case men do not so much fear God, as are afraid of him: and such a torturing fear is never but joined with heartburning, and hatred: wherein sinners demean themselves to God, as they say the Lampray doth to the fisher, by whose first blow that fish is said to be dulled, and astonished, but enraged with the next, and following: Wretched men! it is not God's fault that he is terribly just; no, it is his glory, that he is mercifully terrible. 
Lib. 7. de Repub Ecclesiast. cap. 10. nu. 121.  It is not for me to say as Spalatensis cities from Cyrill, that those who would not be saved, are no less beholden to the bounty of the good God, than those that are brought home to glory: I know and bless God▪ for the difference; But certainly, God is wonderfully gracious (as he is also infinitely just) even to those that will needs incur damnation; having tendered unto them many powerful helps to their repentance, which he hath, with much patience, and longanimity expected. That God therefore is just, it is his own praise, that he is terrible, we may thank ourselves; for were it not for our wickedness, there were nothing in God, not infinitely amiable: Seest thou then, O sinful man, nothing at all in God's face, but frowns, and fury; doth every beam of his angry eye dart vengeance into thy soul? so as thou wouldst feign run away from his presence, and wooest the rocks and mountains to fall upon thee and hide thee from the sight of that dreadful countenance; cleanse thy hands, purge thine heart, clear thine eyes with the tears of true contrition, and then look up, and tell me, whether thou dost not see an happy change of aspect, whether thou canst now discern aught in that face, but a glorious loveliness, fatherly indulgence, unconceivable mercy, such as shall ravish thy soul with a divine love, with a joy unspeakable and glorious.   

SECT. XX.  
Seldom ever is the fear of horror separated from a fear of distrust; which in the height of it, is that which we call despair: for when the soul apprehends a deep fear of God's dereliction, it cannot but be filled with horror. Now as the holy and well moderated fear gives glory to God, in all his attributes, so this extremity of it affronts and dishonours him in them all; but especially, in his mercy, and truth. In his truth, suggesting that God will not make good his promises; in his mercy, suggesting that he either cannot, or will not, forgive and save; It was a true observation of Saint Hilary, 
Non est minimum officium fidei metus. Hilar. in Ps. 66.  that it is not the least office and effect of faith to fear, for that it is said by the Prophet Esay, He shall fill them with the spirit of the fear of the Lord: and again, we are charged to work out our salvation with fear. But there cannot be an act more opposite to faith, then to fear distrustfully; to despair in fearing, none more injurious either to God, or our own souls: For surely, 
Non superat bonitatem de● malitia delictorum Cyril in Levit. l. 9  as Cyrill well, the wickedness of our offences to God, cannot exceed his goodness toward us; the praise whereof from his creature he affects and esteems so highly, as if he cared not, in any other notion, to be apprehended by us: proclaiming himself no otherwise in the mount, then, The Lord, 
Exod. 34.6.7.  the Lord God, merciful, and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgressions, and sin; adding only one word, (to prevent our too much presumption) That will by no means clear the guilty; which to do, were a mere contradiction to his justice: Of all other therefore GOD hates most to be robbed of this part of his glory. Neither is the wrong done to God more palpable, then that which is done herein unto ourselves; in barring the gates of heaven upon our souls; in breaking open the gates of hell to take them in, and in the mean time striving to make ourselves miserable, whether God will or no. And surely, as our experience tells us concerning the estate of our bodily indispositions, that there is more frequent sickness in summer, but more deadly in winter; so we find it here; other sins, and spiritual distempers are more common, but this distrustful fear, and despair of mercy (which chills the soul with a cold horror) is more mortal. For the remedy whereof, it is requisite that the heart should be throughly convinced of the super-abundant and ever ready mercy of the Almighty, of the infallible and unfaileable truth of all his gracious engagements; And in respect of both, be made to confess, that heaven can never be but open to the penitent. It is a sweet word and a true one of Saint Bernard, 
In libro tuo scribuntur omnes qui quod possunt faciunt, et si quod debent non possunt B●n. Apol ad Guli●lm. Ab●●t.  In thy Book O Lord, are written all that do what they can, though they cannot do what they ought; Neither doth God only admit, but he invites, but he entreats, but he importunes men to be saved; what could he do more, unless he would offer violence to the Will, which were no other than to destroy it, and so to undo the best piece of his own workmanship? It is the way of his decree, and proceedings to dispose of all things sweetly; Neither is it more against our nature, then his, to force his own ends; and when he sees that fair means will not prevail to win us from death, he is pleased feelingly to bemoan it, as his own loss: Why will ye dye, O house of Israel? As for the stable truth of his promises, it is so everlasting, that heaven and earth, in their vanishing, shall leave it standing fast: His title is, Amen, and faithful is he that hath promised, who will also do it: his very essence can no more fail, than his word: He that fears therefore that God will be less than his promise, let him fear that God will cease to be himself. It was the motto of that witty and learned Doctor Donne, the late Dean of Paul's, which I have seen, more than once, written in Spanish with his own hand, Blessed be God that he is God, divinely, like himself: as the being of God is the ground of all his blessed adscriptions, so of all our firmitude, safety, consolation: Since the veracity and truth of God (as his other holy attributes) are no other than his eternal essence: Fear not therefore, O thou weak soul, that the Almighty can be wanting to himself, in failing thee; He is jehovah, and his counsels shall stand; Fear and blame thine own wretched infirmities, but the more weak thou art in thyself, be so much the str●nger in thy GOD; by how much more thou art tempted to distrust, cling so much the closer to the Author and finisher of thy salvation.  
Thus if we shall hold an even course betwixt security on the one part, and horror and distrust on the other; If the fortified and exalted eyes of our souls, being cleared from all inward and ambient impediments, shall have constantly fixed themselves upon the ever-present Majesty of God; not without a spiritual lightsomness, and irradiation, and therewith, an awful complacency of soul in that glorious sight, and from thence shall be cast down upon our own vileness, throughly apprehending how much worse than nothing we are, in, and of ourselves, in the sight of God, we shall be put into a meet capacity of an holy and well mixed fear: And, if now, our hearts thus enlightened, shall be taken up with an inward adoration of the infinite power and greatness of GOD, manifested in the framing and ordering of this visible world, and of the infinite goodness and mercy of GOD, showed in the marvellous work of man's redemption, and shall be careful to express this inward worship in all due reverence, (upon all occasions) to the Name, the Word, the Services, the House, the Messengers of the Almighty; withal, if our humble souls shall meekly subject, and resign themselves over to the good pleasure of God, in all things, being ready to receive his fatherly corrections with patience, and his gracious directions with obedience. Lastly, if we shall have settled in our hearts a serious care of being always approved to God in whatsoever actions; and a childlike loathness, and dread to give any offence unto so dear and glorious a Majesty, we shall have attained unto this blessed fear, which we seek for, and be happily freed from that wicked indevotion, and profaneness, to which the world is so much, and so dangerously subject: which I beseech the God of heaven to work out in all readers, to his glory in their salvation, Amen.   
FINIS.