The Christian Life, Chapter 2
CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which this Great End of the Christian Life is to be attained.
IT is to be considered that the great Design of Christianity being to advance our Natures to such a sublime Degree of Purity and Perfection as is requisite to capacitate us for the Enjoyment of a Heavenly Bliss; it was necessitated in order hereunto, to strain our Duty to a greater Height than any preceding Law had done before it. For the End of all Gods Laws is the Happiness of his Subjects; and therefore that they may be effectual Means to promote this End, it's necessary that the Duties they enjoyn should be such as the Nature of our Happiness requires. Now in the first state of our Nature, which was that of Innocence, we seem to have been design'd only for a Terrestrial Paradise, that is, to enjoy a Sensual, Animal Happiness in a state of Earthly Immortality. And to serve and promote this end, God gave us the Law of Nature, which seems to have been nothing else but only Right Reason dictating to us what is necessary to be done in order to an Earthly Happiness. And accordingly the Duties of this Law were of a much lower strain than the Duties of Christianity; they being intended for the Means and Instruments of a much lower Happiness. For in this our Earthly and Animal State, Right Reason could require nothing of us but what was subservient to our Earthly and Animal Felicity; and nothing could be good for us but what tended thereunto, nothing evil but what did obstruct and oppose it. But now that our Happiness is placed in another World, and in such vastly different Enjoyments from those of a Terrestrial Paradise, we must proceed upon other Principles. For now every Action is Good or Bad, Wise or Foolish, as it serves or hinders our Happiness in the World to come. And therefore it is highly reasonable that now we should live at a different rate, than what we were obliged to in that Animal state wherein we were first Created; that we should submit our earthly to our heavenly Interest, and renounce the Joyes and Pleasures of this Life, whensoever they stand in competition with the spiritual Felicities of the Life to come▪ Now we are no longer to look upon this World as our Native Countrey, but as a Foreign Land; and so we are to reckon our selves Strangers and Pilgrims upon Earth; and accordingly to use the conveniencies of this Life as strangers do their Inns, not to abide or take up our habitation in them, but only to bait and away, and refresh our selves that so we may be the better enabled to perform our Journey to the Eternal World. For the scene of our Happiness being shifted from an Earthly Immortality, to an Heavenly; and consequently the Happiness it self being now much more sublime and pure and spiritual than it would have been, had it continued Earthly; it's necessary that our Nature should be exalted with it, and that we should be raised as high above the condion of mere Earthly Creatures, as that is above the rank and quality of an Earthly Happiness; otherwise it will be impossible for us to relish and enjoy it.
NOW every Agent hath need of more or fewer Means proportionably as he is farther off, or nearer to the End he drives at. As for instance, the Husbandman that hath a fat and fruitful Soil to sow his Seed in, is nearer to the attaining of a good Harvest, than he that hath a barren or stony Ground to work upon; and therefore hath much less to do. For whereas the latter, before he can plough and sow, must manure his Ground and gather out the stones of it; the former needs only plough up the fertile Earth, and cast his Seed into it. Or to come closer to the case in hand; a man that is meerly ignorant is in a much nearer capacity of true Knowledge, than he whose mind is altogether prejudiced with erroneous Principles; and therefore needs much fewer Helps and Means to attain it. For his mind being perfectly disengaged, is like a fair Paper, on which as there is nothing writ, so there is nothing to be blotted out; So that all that he hath to do, is to inquire after and receive the Truth when it is fairly proposed to him. But as for the Prejudiced man, he hath a great deal to unlearn before he can be capable of Learning; a great many false Principles to be expunged, before ever the true Notions of Things can be imprinted on his Understanding.
IF therfore we would take a true account of all those Means that are necessary to our attaining of Heaven, we must consider what a vast distance we are from it in this corrupt and degenerate state of our Nature. If we were in a state of Indifference between Virtue and Vice we should be much nearer Heaven than we are; For then, as we should be without those Heavenly virtues in the free Exercise whereof the state of Heaven consists; so we should be without all that Repugnance and Aversation to them which renders them so difficultly attainable; and our Nature being already in an Aequilibrium would by the least over-weight of Motive be presently inclined to Virtue and Goodness. But, alas! in this corrupt state whereinto we are sunk, our Nature runs Evil-wards with a very strong and prevailing Biass; and is not only void of virtue, but averse to it. And this sets us at a far greater distance from the blessed End of our Religion than otherwise we should be. For every Degree of vicious Inclination that is in us, is a Remove from Heaven, a Descent from that Perfection of virtue wherein the Heavenly Blessedness consists. And if so, how remote from Heaven are the Generality of men in the Beginning of their Progress thither; when to their natural Corruption they have superadded by their sinful Courses so many inordinate Inclinations and inveterate sinful Habits; when by a long series of wicked Actions, they have raised and blown up their Concupiscence into such raging flames of Lust as generally they do! And being thus far gone back from our End, there are sundry Means, which otherwise would have been perfectly needless and superfluous, that are now become absolutely necessary thereunto. For had we begun our Progress towards Heaven from a state of Indifferency between virtue and vice, we had had no more to do but to practise those several virtues of Religion of which the Heavenly Life and state consists; to love, and to contemplate, to adore, and to obey God, and behave our selves justly and charitably towards one another; all which would have been so easie, that we should have had no occasion of any Instrumental Duties to facilitate them to us. Whereas now starting Heaven-wards, as we generally do, from a most corrupt and degenerate State, there are sundry other Means which we must use as Instruments that are necessary to our acquiring and persevering in the virtues of the Heavenly Life; to our conquering the Difficulties of, and killing the vicious Aversations of our Natures against them: All which would have been needless, at least in a great measure, had not our Nature been so depraved and corrupt as it is.
SO that as the case now stands with us, there are Two sorts of Means that are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven; The first is the Practice of those Heavenly virtues, in the Perfection whereof consists the state of Heaven; the Second is the Practice of certain Instrumental Duties, which are necessary to our acquiring those Heavenly virtues, and overcoming the Difficulties of them. The first sort of these are the proximate Means, those which directly and immediatly respect the Great and Ultimate End; The second the more remote Means, which immediatly respect those Means that immediatly respect the End. The first is like the Art of the Builder which immediatly respects the House; The second like the Art of the Smith which immediately respects the Means and Instruments of Building.
I. ONE sort of Means necessary to the obtaining of Heaven, and that which more directly and immediately respects it, is the Practice of those Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Heavenly Life consists. For we find by experience that all Heavenly Virtues are to be acquired and perfected only by Practice; That as all bad Dispositions are acquired and improved into Habits by bad Practices and Customs, so are all the contrary virtuous ones by the contrary Practices. For Religion proceeds in the methods of Nature, and carries us on from the Acts to the Dispositions, and from the Dispositions to the Habits of Virtue. And by the same method the Divine Grace which accompanies Religion, does ordinarily work its Effects upon the spirits of men, not by an instantaneous Infusion of virtuous Habits into the Will, but by persuading them to the Practice of those Virtues that are contrary to their vicious Habits, and to persist in the practice of them till they have mortified those Habits, and throughly habituated and inured them selves to these. So that the Grace of God is like a Graff, which though it is put into a Stock which is quite of another kind, doth yet make use of the Faculties and Juices of the Stock, and so by cooperating with them, converts it by degrees into its own Nature. And this is exactly agreeable to the common experience of men, who in the beginning of their Reformation are so far from acting vertuously from Habit and Inclination, that it goes against the very Grain of their Nature, and they would much rather return to their vicious courses, if they were not chased and pursued by the Terrours of an awakened Conscience; and when afterwards they come to act upon a more ingenuous Principle, yet still they find in themselves a great Averseness and Reluctancy to it, and 'tis a great while usually ere they arrive to a Habit or Facility of acting virtuously. But then by perseverance in the practice of Virtue they are more and more inclined and disposed to it, and so by degrees it becomes easie and natural to them. If therefore we would ever arrive to that Perfection of Virtue which the Heavenly State implies, it must be by the Practice of Virtue, by a continual training and exercising our selves in all the parts of the Heavenly Life, which by degrees will wear off the Difficulty of it, and adapt and familiarize our Nature to it. foreign· Those things which they that learn ought to do, they learn by doing them. Thus we learn Devotion by Prayer, Submission to God by Denying our selves, Charity by giving Alms, and Meekness by Forgiving Injuries. And we may as reasonably expect to commence learned without study, as virtuous without the Practice of Virtue. Since therefore the Formal Happiness of our reasonable Natures consists in the Perfection of all the Heavenly virtues, and 'tis by these alone that we can rellish and enjoy the blissful Objects of Heaven; it hence follows, that the Practice of those virtues is the most direct and immediate Means to obtain the Blessed End of our Religion. But then,
II. ANOTHER sort of Means necessary to our obtaining of Heaven consists of certain Instrumental Duties by which we are to acquire, improve, and perfect these Heavenly Virtues. What these Means are will be hereafter largely shown: All that I shall say of them at present is, That they are such as are no farther good and useful, than as they are the Means of Heavenly Virtue, and do tend towards the acquiring, improving, and perfecting it. For the whole Duty of Man may be distributed into these Two Generals, viz. The Religion of the End, and Religion of the Means. The Religion of the End contains all that Heavenly Virtue wherein the Perfection and Happiness of Humane Nature consists; and this the Apostle distributes into three particulars, viz. Sobriety, Righteousness, and Godliness. The Religion of the Means comprehends all that Duty which does either naturally, or by Institution, respect and drive at this Religion of the End; and that all other Duty, that is not it self a Natural Branch and Part of it, doth respect and drive at it, the Apostle assures us, when he tells us that the Gospel, or Grace of God, was revealed from Heaven for this very purpose, to teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, and righteously and godly in this present world. And if we do not use the Religion of the Means to this purpose, it is altogether useless and insignificant. For the purpose of all Religious Duties is either,
1. To reconcile men to God, and God to them; or,
2. To perfect the Humane Nature; or,
3. To intitle men to Heaven; or,
4. To qualifie and dispose them for the Heavenly Life. To neither of which the Religion of the Means is any farther useful than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End. For,
I. IT is no further useful towards the reconciling Us to God, and God to Us. For there can be no hearty Reconciliation between adverse Parties without there be a mutual Likeness, and Agreement of Natures. Now the Carnal Mind, (which includes all that is repugnant to the Heavenly Virtues) the Apostle tells us, is Enmity against God, Rom. vii.17. that is, hath a natural Antipathy to the Purity and Goodness of the Divine Nature. And this Antipathy the same Apostle tells us, is founded in our wicked works, Coloss. i.21. So that though we should practise never so diligently all that is contained in the Religion of the Means, though we should pray, and hear and receive Sacraments, &c. with never so much Zeal and Constancy, yet all this will be insignificant, as to the reconciling our Natures to God, unless it destroy in us that Carnal Mind and those wicked Works which render us so averse to his Goodness. And though God bears a hearty good Will to all that are capable of Good, and embraces his whole Creation with the out-stretched Arms of his Benevolence, yet he cannot be supposed to be pleased with, or delighted in any but such as resemble Him in those amiable Graces of Purity and Goodness for which he loves Himself. For he loves not Himself meerly because he is Himself, (which would be a blind Instinct, rather than a Reasonable Love) but because He is Good; and he loves Himself above all other things, because he knows Himself to be the Highest and most Perfect Good: and consequently He loves all other things proportionably as they approach and resemble Him in Goodness. And indeed if He loved VsUs for any other Reason besides that for which he loves Himself, he would not have infinite Reason to love Himself; because he would not have that Reason to love Himself for which he loves and takes delight in VsUs. Since therefore there is nothing but our Resemblance of God can reconcile Him to Us, and since our Resemblance of Him consists in Virtue and true Goodness, it hence follows that all the Religion of the Means is insignificant to our Reconciliation with God, if it doth not render us truly virtuous. So that till this is effected there is so vast a Gulph between God and Us, that neither We can go to Him nor He come to VsUs; and unless he alter his Nature by becoming impure as we are impure, or we alter ours by becoming pure as He is pure, there will be so immense a Distance between Him and Us as that it is impossible we should ever meet and agree. So that what the Prophet saith of Sacrifice may be truly affirmed of all Religion of the Means, Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl? will He be reconciled upon our bare believing, praying or receiving Sacraments, &c. No, no; He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Mich. vi.7, 8.
II. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use as to the perfecting our Natures, than as it is instrumental to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End. For doubtless to be a Perfect Man is to live up to the Highest Principle of Humane Nature, which is Reason; and till we are once released from the slavery of Sense and Passion, and all our Powers of Action are so subdued to this superiour Principle as to be wholly regulated by it, and we chuse and refuse, and love and hate, and hope and fear, and desire and delight, according as right Reason directs, we are in a maimed and imperfect Condition. Now what else is Virtue but a Habit of Living according to the Laws of Reason, or of demeaning our selves towards God, our selves, and all the World, as best becomes Rational Beings placed in our Condition and Circumstances? And till we are in some measure, arrived to this, our Nature is so far from being perfect, that it is the most wretched and confused thing in the whole world; A more undistinguished Chaos, where Frigida cum Calidis, Sense and Reason, Brute and Man, are shuffled together without any order, like a confounded Heap of Ruines. And therefore as for this Religion of the Means, it will be altogether insignificant to the Perfection of our Natures, unless by the Practice of it we do acquire a Habit of acting according to the Law of our Reason, which Habit includes all Heavenly Virtue. For constantly to know and do what is best and most reasonable, is the very Crown and Perfection of every reasonable Nature; and therefore so far as our Faith and Consideration, our Sorrow for Sin and the other Instrumentals of Religion, promote this Heavenly Habit in us, so far are they perfective of our Nature, and no farther.
III. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use to Us as to the Entitling us to Heaven, than as it is productive of those Heavenly Virtues which the Religion of the End implies. For our Title to Heaven depending wholly upon Gods Promise, must immediately result from our performance of those Conditions upon which he hath promised it; which till we have done, we can have no more Claim or Title to it than if he had never promised it at all. But the sole Condition upon which he hath promised it, is Universal Righteousness and Goodness; for so, without Holiness, we are assured that no man shall see God; and Mat. v. our Saviour intails all the Beatitudes of Heaven upon those Heavenly Virtues of Purity of Heart, Benignity of Temper, &c. So also Rom. ii.7. the Promise of Eternal Life is limited to our Patient Continuance in well doing. And that we may know before hand what to trust to, our Saviour plainly tells us, that not every one that cries Lord, Lord, that makes solemn Prayers and Addresses to me, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven; And this is the will of God, saith the Apostle, even our Sanctification; that is, our being purged from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit, and inspired with all Heavenly Virtues. And the Apostle expresly enumerates those Virtues upon which our Entrance into Eternal Life is promised, 2 Pet. i.5, 6, 7, 8. Add to your Faith Virtue, and to Virtue Knowledge, and to Knowledge Temperance, and to Temperance Patience, and to Patience Godliness, and to Godliness Brotherly Kindness, and to Brotherly Kindness Charity; For if these things be in you, and abound, saith he, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, That you shall receive the proper Fruit of that Knowledge, which is Eternal Life; for thus v. xi. he goes on, For so, or upon this Condition, an Entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So that unless our Faith purifies our Hearts, and works by Love; unless our sorrow for Sin works in us Repentance, or a Change of Mind; unless our Prayers raise in us Divine and Heavenly Affections, that is, unless we so practise the Duties of the Religion of the Means as thereby to acquire the Virtues of the Religion of the End, it will be all as insignificant to our Title to Heaven, as the most indifferent Actions in the World.
IV. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use to the disposing and qualifying us for Heaven, than as it is an effectual means of the Religion of the End. Which is a perfectly distinct Consideration from the former; For it would be no advantage to us to have a Right to Heaven, unless we were antecedently qualified and disposed for it. Because Pleasure which is a Relative thing, implies a Correspondence and Agreement between the Object and the Faculty that tasts and enjoys it. But in the Temper of every wicked Mind there is a strong Antipathy to the Pleasures of Heaven; which being all chast, and pure, and spiritual, can never agree with the vitiated Palat of a base and degenerate Soul. For what concord can there be between a spiteful and devilish Spirit and the Fountain of all Love and Goodness; between a sensual and carnalized one, that understands no other Pleasures but only those of the Flesh, and those Pure and Virgin Spirits that neither eat nor drink, but live for ever upon Wisdom and Holiness, and Love, and Contemplation? Certainly till our Mind is contempered to the Heavenly State, and we are of the same disposition with God, and Angels, and Saints, there is no Pleasure in Heaven that can be agreeable to us. For, as for the main, we shall be of the same Temper and Disposition when we come into the other World, as we are when we leave this; it being unimaginable how a Total Change should be wrought in us meerly by passing out of one world into another: And therefore as in this world it is Likeness that does congregate and associate Beings together, so doubtless it is in the other too. So that if we carry with us thither our wicked and devillish dispositions (as we shall doubtless do, unless we subdue and mortifie them here) there will be no Company fit for us to associate with, but only the devillish and damned Ghosts of wicked men, with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined, by a likeness of Nature, will mingle themselves, as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the society of Mortals. For whither should they flock, but to the Birds of their own Feather; with whom should they associate, but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are already joined by a Community of Nature? So that supposing that when they land in Eternity, it were left to their own Liberty to go to Heaven or Hell, into the society of the Blessed or the Damned; it is plain that Heaven would be no Place for them, that the Air of that bright Region of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures. For, alas! what should they do among those Blessed Beings that inhabit it, to whose God-like Natures, Divine Contemplations, and Heavenly Employments, they have so great a Repugnancy and Aversation? So that besides the having a Right to Heaven, it is necessary to our enjoying it that we shoule be antecedently disposed and qualified for it. And it being thus, God hath been graciously pleased to to make those very Virtues the Conditions of our Right to Heaven which are the proper Dispositions and Qualifications of our Spirits for it; that so with one and the same Labour we might entitle our selves to, and qualifie our selves to enjoy it.
NOW (as we shewed you before) the Condition of our Right to Heaven, is our practising those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End; and as the Religion of the Means no further entitles us to Heaven than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues, so it no further qualifies us for it. For when the Soul goes into Eternity, it leaves the Religion of the Means behind it, and carries nothing with it but only those Heavenly Virtues and Dispositions which it here acquired by those Means. For as for Faith and Consideration, Hearing of Gods Word, and Receiving of Sacraments, &c. they are all but Scaffolds to that Heavenly Building of inward Purity and Goodness; and when this is once finished for Eternity, then must those Scaffolds all go down, as things of no further Use or Necessity. But as for the Graces of the Mind, they are to stand for ever, to be the Receptacles and Habitations of all Heavenly Pleasure. And hence the Apostle tells us, that of those three Christian Graces, Faith, Hope and Charity, Charity (which in the largest sense of it comprehends all Heavenly Virtue) is the greatest; because the Two former, being but Means of Charity, shall cease in Heaven, and be swallowed up for ever in Vision and Enjoyment; but Charity, saith he, never faileth, 1 Cor. xii.13.
BY all which it is apparent that the Religion of the Means is no further useful to us, than as it is apt to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues, the practice of which is the most direct and immediate Means to the ultimate End of a Christian. Wherefore as a man may knock and file, and yet be no Mechanick, though the Hammer and File with which he does it are very useful Tools to the making of any curious Machine; so a man may pray, and hear, and receive Sacraments, &c. and yet be a very Bungler in the blessed Trade of a Heavenly Life. For though it is true, these are excellent Means of Heavenly Living, yet as the Art of the Mechanick consists not barely in using his Tools but in using them in such a manner, as is necessary to the perfecting and accomplishing his Work; So the Art of one that pretends to the Heavenly Life, consists not barely in praying and hearing, &c. but in using these Means with that Religious Skill and Artifice which is necessary to render them effectually subservient to the Ends of Piety and Virtue.
AND thus I have given a general Account of the Means which are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven, and which, as I have shewed, are either such as tend more directly and immediately to it, or such as more remotely respect it. The first is the Practice of those Heavenly Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Happiness of Heaven consists; the second is the Practising of those Duties which are necessary to our acquiring and perfecting those Heavenly Virtues. And of these two Parts consists the whole Christian Life; which takes in not only all those Virtues that are to be practised by us in Heaven, but also all those Duties, by which we are to overcome the Difficulty of those Virtues, and to acquire and perfect them. The first of these, for Distinction sake, we will call the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life, it being that part of it which we shall lead in Heaven, after we have learnt it here upon Earth; The second I shall call the Warfaring or Militant Part of the Christian Life, which is peculiar to our Earthly State, wherein we are to contend and strive with the manifold Difficulties which attend us in the Exercise of those Heavenly Virtues. Both which, I conceive, are implied in those words of the Apostle, Phil. i.27. Only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel; where the Greek word foreign, which we render, Let your Conversation be, strictly signifies, behaving our selves as Citizens; or which, if we may have leave to coin a word, may be fitly rendered, Citizen it as becomes the Gospel. For the word implies that those of whom he speaks, were Denizens of some Free City; for so the word foreign, which Phil. iii.20. is rendered Conversation, strictly denotes a Citizenship, from foreign Citizens; and is of the same Import with foreign, which, Acts xxii.28. is translatee a Freedom, i. e. of the City of Rome; which denotes the State and Condition of those, who, though they dwelt out of that City, and sometimes remote from it, had yet the Jus Civitatis Romanae, the Privileges of it belonging to them. For thus Cicero describes it, Omnibus Municipibus duas esse Tatrias, unam Naturae, alteram Juris, Catonis Exemplo, qui Tusculi natus, in Populi Romani Societaem susceptus est: i. e. All such as are made free of the City have two Countries, one of Nature, the other of Law; As Cato, for instance, who was born at Tusculum, and afterwards admitted a Citizen of Rome. Which exactly agrees with the Nature of this Heavenly foreign, or Citizenship, which the Apostle here attributes to Christians, who though they belong at present to another Country, and live a great way off from the Heavenly City; have as yet no Domicilium in Vrbe, no actual Possession of any of its blessed Mansions; are notwithstanding Free Denizens of it, and have by Covenant a Right to all those blessed Priveledges which its Inhabitants do actually enjoy. From whence it is evident, that the foreign in that Text, referrs to their being Citizens of Heaven, and as such, it earnestly exhorts them to behave themselves; to live as those who being now in a remote Country are yet foreign, as the Apostle expresses it, Ephes. ii.19. i. e. Fellow-Citizens with the Saints above; that are connaturalized with them into that Heavenly Commonwealth. And being thus understood, the Apostles Advice will comprehend in it both those kind of Means which I have before described. For, to live as Cittizens of Heaven, is, First to live like those who are the Inhabitants of Heaven, to imitate their blessed Manners and Behaviour, in doing the Will of God upon Earth, as it is done by them in Heaven; and this takes in the Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues of which the Religion of the End consists: Secondly, To live like those that have a foreign or Citizenship in Heaven, that are entitled by Covenant to the Priviledges and Immunities of it, but are as yet to win its Possession by a continual Warfare and Contention with those manifold Difficulties and Oppositions which lie in our way to it; and this takes in the Practice of all those Duties in which the Religion of the Means consists. So that to live like Christians or as becomes the Gospel, is to live in the continual Use of both kinds of the Means of Happiness. So that the Christian Conversation consisting of these Two, is the only full and adequate Means by which Heaven can be obtained.
BUT that I may make this more fully appear, I shall consider these two parts of it distinctly, and indeavour to shew how effectually each of them doth contribute in its kind, to our obtaining the Happiness of Heaven. And First, I shall begin with the Proximate Means, viz. The Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues, which are implied in the Religion of the End, and do make the Heavenly Part of the CHRISTIAN LIFE.