An essay of the true happines of man in two books / by Samuel Gott ...

VII. Of a Christian Life.

THe great work of the Spirit of God in our Harts is the new Creature, and the effect thereof new Life. Christian Life is the En∣joiment of all things, for enjoying Christ, who is Heir of all things, and

hath purchased all with his bloud, we enjoy all things by a new and better Title, and in a more excel∣lent and Spirituall manner, as the Fruits of his Redemption, and Gifts of his Love. It is generally affimed by Divines, that true Grace chiefly respects Gods Glory, and our own Happiness in a subsequent and in∣ferior manner, so that we should be willing to suffer even the pains of Hell it self for the Glory of God; which is a fine Notion and an high Expression: but if rightly consider∣ed, we shall find no such distinction in the Thing it self. Indeed if we take Happiness for a releaf from Pains, or a Paradise of Pleasure, or any other thing then the very en∣joiment of God and Christ, it is a true Sentence: but the highest Hap∣piness of the Soul being that very enjoiment, the one cannot be se∣parated nor really distinguished from the other. He who truly loves the Person of another, without any

collaterall respects, loves to love it, and this Love being most true and pure is also must lovely and delight∣full. Thus doth Divine Love pay it self, and as Virtue, so much more Grace, is its own Reward. This is that blessed Communion and Co∣partnership of profit and advan∣tage which God affordeth us with himself, which is no equalling of our selvs with him, but consists in the very subordination of our selvs to him. To glorify him is our highest Glory, to bless him our truest Bless∣edness: his Will and our Good do most perfectly and intirely concen∣ter. To divide these, is to cut in sunder the very intrinsecall bond of our Union with him: and the con∣trary apprehension is the greatest deceit and highest prejudice that can be against the service of God: for it keeps the Soul at a perpetuall distance, and frights it out of the way of Piety: whereas the right understanding hereof ingages it

most fully and freely, with the mu∣tuall embraces of Duty and Bene∣fit. As true Philosophy resolvs Ho∣nesty into Utility, so doth true Di∣vinity resolv▪ Grace into Glory. While the Soul remains corrupt and contrary to God, it cannot enjoy him nor any Happiness in him, but a new Nature begets new Principles and new Enjoiments: and it being the highest perfection of our Na∣ture to be conformable to God and united to him, is also our highest Happinness: for the perfection of every Nature affordeth the greatest and truest Pleasure. Now what can we rationally desire more then to be most Happy? why then should we not rather desire a right consti∣tution of Soul which produceth true Happiness, then the false Happiness of a corrupt Mind? Sin is as much against every mans generall and implicite Intention, which is to be Happy, as it is against Gods express Command, which is that we should

be Holy. Nor doth the Command of God and his absolute Sovereign∣ty over us diminish the freest Liber∣ty of a rectified Soul. Perfectum imperium cum perfecta libertate con∣sistit. God is Good, and doth Good, and commands nothing but Good: which is but like the Latine Com∣plement, Iubeo te valere, I bid you farewell. By Conversion the Un∣willing Will is made a Willing Will, and to such the Command of God sounds only thus, Do what you will. A wicked man saith, Quod libet licet, but a Godly man inverts it, Quod licet libet. Thus most con∣naturally and harmoniously hath the great Creator and Governor of the World subordinated all to him∣self without the least discord or of∣fence. It is sin which hath wrought all confusion and malignity in our Nature, and all the mischief in the VVorld. As our Being is founded in our dependance on God, so is our VVell-being in our subordina∣tion

to him, and it is impossible it should be otherwise. The perfecti∣on of his Nature is to be perfectly supreme, and the perfection of our Nature is to be perfectly subordi∣nate and subject to him, whose Ser∣vice is perfect Freedome. Thus we enjoy all things in him as they are eminently in himself, and as he giveth us all things richly to enjoy. As a VVoman married to a Rich man enjoieth him and all his estate, though she useth no more thereof then what is fit for her, which is the right enjoyment of all. God maketh all things work together for the best to them that love him, and so they enjoy the best of all; aswell of that which he giveth, as of that which he denieth. Adam should have enjoied the forbidden fruit by forbearing, and not by eating: as Sin is a Privation of Good, so the only enjoiment thereof is Privative, or Relative to Grace, which is the Contrary thereof: and as it is Duty

to omit things which are to be o∣mitted, so it a kind of Enjoiment not to use things which are not to be used. It is the great Error of Men, that they cannot understand this kind of Enjoiment aswell as the other, but are taken with every bait of Pleasure, and led captive by the Divell at his will: finding some sin∣full Delight in sinfull Pleasures, as a corrupt Stomach longeth for cor∣rupt Food, and abhorreth that which is better and more whole∣some. But unless the Divell could turn the Tables of the VVorld, and put God and his party to the loos∣ing side, it is most impossible that there should be any true Happiness in any other thing▪ or in any other way then as he hath appointed and prescribed. Nor can it be rea∣sonably imagined that God should suffer his friends to loose by him, or his Enemies to shark any thing from him who is Lord of all. If Intempe∣rance could afford more pleasure

then Temperance, Heliogabalus should have been more happy then Adam in Paradise: yea if there were the least reall delight in Sin there could be no perfect Hell, where men shall most perfectly Sin, and most perfectly be tormented with their Sins, which are the prepared fuell thereof, & though now they neither glow or burn, shall then consume them with unquenchable fire. Wick∣ed men, like Prodigals, live riotous∣ly and run in debt for it; but the time will come when they must re∣pay both Principall and Interest, and so shall gain nothing by all their Voluptuousness. Sardanapalus his Accompt was not rightly cast up. Haec habui quae edi—for he lost more by what he spent, then by what he left. We will now descend to the Particulars of this Universall Enjoiment of a Christian Life.