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ON THE SIGHT AND FEAR

OF

THE ALMIGHTY.

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 has 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 perusal 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 sound peace and comfort in their own souls. "Come then, ye children, hearken unto me, and I will teach you

the fear of the Lord," Ps. xxxiv. 11. 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.

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.

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; Gen. xlii. 18. Deut. vi. 13. Ps. xxv. 12. Eccl. xii. 13. Ps. cxxviii. 1. For this alone includes all the humble constitution of a holy soul, and all the answerable demeanour of a mortified creature: neither is there any thing, so well becoming a 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 gallies, 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; 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; Ps. ciii. 17. cxxviii. 4. cxlvii. 11. Eccl. viii. 11.

And yet, whoso had a desire to retain the word, if our ethic doctors would give him leave, might say, that affections, well employed upon excellent objects, turn virtues. So love, though commonly marshalled 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 occurrences 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 on 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.

I. 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.

Wherein

1. Let us then, first, see what that sight is. 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 misery of a dangerous world, in whose waves he is naturally sinking. He, that was saved from the waters, saw God in fire; and, in a 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, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: he was not a greater courtier, than a scholar: but, Moses's optics were more worth, than all the rest of his skill. All Egypt, and Chaldea to boot, though they were famous of old for mathematic science, 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 human apprehension; a sensible world, an intelligible, a spiritual or divine and, accordingly, man has 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 Pharaoh's 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 to 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's 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 ought 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 on this divine curiosity, I refer him to the ten reasons, which that 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 consists in the seeing of him, in his glory; then 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.

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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: St. Stephen's eyes saw heaven opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; Acts vii. 56. The clear eyes of Moses see the God of angels: St. Paul's eyes saw the unutterable glories of the third heaStill, the better eyes the brighter vision.

ven.

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 anthropomorphism. 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's 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,

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