The devovt soul, or, Rules of heavenly devotion : also, The free prisoner, or, The comfort of restraint by Jos. H. B.N.

SECT. XII.

IT is fit the exercise of our Devotion should begin in an humble confession of our unword••••nesse. Now

for the effectual furtherance of this our self-dejection, it will be requisite to bend our eyes upon a threefold ob∣ject; To look inward into our selves, upward to hea∣ven, downwards to hell. First, to turne our eyes into our bosomes, and to take a view (not without a secret self-loathing) of that world of corruption that hath lien hidden there; & therupon to accuse, arraign, and condemn our selves before that awful Tribunall of the Judge of heaven and earth; both of that originall pollution, which we have drawn from the tainted loins of our first parents; and those innume∣rable actuall wickednesses derived there-from; which have stained our persons

and lives. How can we bee but throughly humbled, to see our souls utterly over∣spread with the odious and abominable leprosie of sin: We find that Uzziah bore up stoutly a while, against the Priests of the Lord, in the maintenance of his sa∣crilegious presumption, but when he saw himself turn'd Lazar, on the suddain, he is confounded in himselfe, and in a depth of shame hastens away from the presence of God to a sad, and penitenti∣all retirednes. We should need no other arguments to loath our selves, than the sight of our own faces, so miserably deformed with the nasty and hatefull scurse of our iniquity: Neither only must we be content to

shame, and grieve our eyes with the foule nature and condition of our sins, but we must represent them to our selves in all the circumstan∣ces that may aggravate their nainousnesse. Alas, Lord, any one sin is able to damne a soul; I have committed many, yea numberlesse: they have not possessed me single, but, as that evill spirit said, their name is Legion; neither have I committed these sins once, but often; Thine Angels (that were) sinned but once, and are damned for ever; I have frequently reiterated the same offences, where (then were it not for thy mercy) shall I appear? nei∣ther have I only done them in the time of my igno∣rance, but since I received

sufficient illumination from thee; It is not in the darke that I have stumbled, and faln, but in the midst of the clear light and sun-shine of thy Gospel, and in the very face of thee my God; neither have these been the slips of my weaknesse, but the bold miscarriages of my pre∣sumption; neither have I of∣fended out of inconsiderati∣on, and inadvertency, but af∣ter and against the checks of a remurmuring conscience; after so many gracious war∣nings, and fatherly admo∣nitions, after so many fear∣full examples of thy judge∣ments, after so infinite obli∣gations of thy favours.

And thus having look't inward into ourselves, and taken an impartiall view of

our own vilenesse, it will be requisite to cast our eyes upward unto heaven, and there to see against whom we have offended; even a∣gainst an infinite Majesty, & power, an infinite mercy, an infinite justice; That power and Majesty which hath spread out the heavens as a Curtain, and hath laid the foundations of the earth so sure that it cannot be mo∣ved; who hath shut up the sea with bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves; who doth whatsoever he will in hea∣ven and in earth; who com∣mandeth the Devils to their chains, able therfore to take infinite vengeance on sin∣ners.

That mercy of God the Father, who gave his own Son out of his bosome for our redemption; That mercy of God the Son, who, thinking it no robbery to be equall unto God, for our sakes made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant; and being found in fashi∣on as a man, humbled him∣self, and became obedient to the death, even the accursed death of the Crosse; That mercy of God the holy Ghost, who hath made that Christ mine, and hath sea∣led to my soule the benefit of that blessed Redemption; Lastly, that justice of God, which as it is infinitely dis∣pleased with every sin, so will be sure to take infinite

vengeance on every impe∣nitent sinner.

And from hence it will be fit and seasonable for the devout soul, to look down∣ward into that horrible pit of eternall confusion; and there to see the dreadful, un∣speakable, unimaginable torments of the damned; to represent unto it selfe the terrors of those everlasting burnings; the fire and brim∣stone of that infernall To∣phet; the mercilesse and un∣wearible tyranny of those hellish executioners; the shrieks, and howlings, and gnashings of the tormented; the unpitiable, intermin∣able, unmitigable tortures of those ever-dying, and yet never-dying souls. By all which, we shall justly af∣fright

our selves into a deep sense of the dangerous and wofull condition wherein we lie in the state of nature and impenitence, and shal be driven with an holy eager∣nesse to seek for Christ, the Son of the ever-living God, our blessed Mediator; in and by whom only, we can look for the remission of all these our sins, a reconcilement with this most powerfull, mercifull, just God, and a deliverance of our soules from the hand of the ne∣thermost hell.

Notes

• Job 38.
• Phil. 2. 6, 7, 8, &c.