THE SECOND CENTURY

1

THE SERVICES WHICH THE WORLD doth you, are transcendent to all imagination. Did it only sustain your body and preserve your life and comfort your senses, you were bound to value it as much as those services were worth: but it discovers the being of God unto you, it opens His nature, and shews you His wisdom, goodness and power, it magnifies His love unto you, it serves Angels and men for you, it entertains you with many lovely and glorious objects, it feeds you with joys, and becomes a theme that furnishes you with perpetual praises and thanksgivings, it enflameth you with the love of God, and in the link of your union and communion with Him. It is the temple wherein you are exalted to glory and honour, and the visible porch or gate of Eternity: a sure pledge of Eternal joys, to all them that walk before God and are perfect in it.

2

If you desire directions how to enjoy it, place yourself in it as if no one were created besides yourself, and consider all the services it doth even to you alone. Prize those services with a joy answerable to the value of them, be truly thankful, and as grateful for them, as their merit deserves. And remember always how great soever the world is, it is the beginning of Gifts, the first thing which God bestows to every infant, by the very right of his nativity. Which because men are blind, they cannot see, and therefore know not that God is bountiful. From that first error they proceed and multiply their mistaking all along. They know not themselves or their own glory, they understand not His commandments, they see not the sublimity of righteous actions, they know not the beauty of Truth, nor are acquainted with the glory of the Holy Scriptures.

3

Till you see that the world is yours, you cannot weigh the greatness of sin, nor the misery of your fall, nor prize your redeemer’s love. One would think these should be motives sufficient to stir us up to the contemplation of God’s works, wherein all the riches of His Kingdom will appear. For the greatness of sin proceedeth from the greatness of His love whom we have offended, from the greatness of those obligations which were laid upon us, from the great blessedness and glory of the estate wherein we were placed, none of which can be seen, till Truth is seen, a great part of which is, that the World is ours. So that indeed the knowledge of this is the very real light, wherein all mysteries are evidenced to us.

4

The misery of your fall ariseth naturally from the greatness of your sin. For to sin against infinite love; is to make oneself infinitely deformed: to be infinitely deformed, is to be infinitely odious in His eyes who once loved us with infinite love: to have sinned against all obligations, and to have fallen from infinite glory and blessedness is infinite misery: but cannot be seen, till the glory of the estate from which we are fallen is discerned. To be infinitely odious in His eyes who infinitely loved us, maketh us unavoidably miserable: because it bereaveth us of the end for which we were created, which was to enjoy His love: and of the end also of all the creatures which were made only to manifest the same. For when we are bereaved of these, we live to no purpose; and having lost the end to which we were created, our life is cumbersome and irksome to us.

5

The counsel which our Saviour giveth in the Revelation to the Church of Ephesus, is by all churches, and by every Soul diligently to be observed: Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent. Which intimates our duty of remembering our happiness in the estate o! innocence. For without this we can never prize our Redeemer’s love: He that knows not to what he is redeemed cannot prize the work of redemption. The means cannot there be valued, where the end is despised. Since therefore by the Second Adam, we are restored to that we lost in the first: unless we value that we lost in the first, we cannot truly rejoice in the second. But when we do, then all things receive an infinite esteem, and an augmentation infinitely infinite, that follows after. Our Saviour’s love, His incarnation, His life and death, His resurrection, His ascension into Heaven, His intercession for us being then seen, and infinitely prized, in a glorious light: as also our deliverance from Hell, and our reconciliation unto God.

6

The consideration also of this truth, that the world is mine, confirmeth my faith. God having placed the evidences of Religion in the greatest and highest joys. For as long as I am ignorant that the World is mine, the love of God is defective to me. How can I believe that He gave His Son to die for me, who having power to do otherwise gave me nothing but rags and cottages? But when I see once that He gave Heaven and Earth to me, and made me in His image to enjoy them in His similitude, I can easily believe that He gave His Son also for me. Especially since He commanded all. Angels and Men to love me as Himself: and so highly honoreth me, that whatsoever is done unto me, He accounteth done unto Him.

7

Place yourself therefore in the midst of the world, as if you were alone, and meditate upon all the services which it doth unto you. Suppose the Sun were absent; and conceive the world to be a dungeon of darkness and death about you: you will then find his beams more delightful than the approach of Angels: and loath the abomination of that sinful blindness, whereby you see not the glory of so great and bright a creature, because the air is filled with its beams. Then you will think that all its light shineth for you, and confess that God hath manifested Himself indeed, in the preparation of so divine a creature. You will abhor the madness of those who esteem a purse of gold more than it. Alas, what could a man do with a purse of gold in an everlasting dungeon? And shall we prize the sun less than it, which is the light and fountain of all our pleasures? You will then abhor the preposterous method of those, who in an evil sense are blinded with its beams, and to whom the presence of the light is the greatest darkness. For they who would repine at God without the sun, are unthankful, having it: and therefore only despise it, because it is created.

8

It raiseth corn to supply you with food, it melteth waters to quench your thirst, it infuseth sense into all your members, it illuminates the world to entertain you with prospects, it surroundeth you with the beauty of hills and valleys. It moveth and laboureth night and day for your comfort and service; it sprinkleth flowers upon the ground for your pleasure; and in all these things sheweth you the goodness and wisdom of a God that can make one thing so beautiful, delightful and serviceable, having ordained the same to innumerable ends. It concocteth minerals, raiseth exhalations, begetteth clouds, sendeth down the dew and rain and snow, that refresheth and repaireth all the earth. And is far more glorious in its diurnal motion, than if there were two suns to make on either side a perpetual day: the swiftness whereby it moves in twenty-four hours about so vast an universe manifesteth the power and care of a Creator, more than any station or quiet could do. And producing innumerable effects it is more glorious, than if millions of Angels diversly did do them.

9

Did the Sun stand still that you might have perpetual day, you would not know the sweetness of repose: the delightful vicissitudes of night and day, the early sweetness and spring of the morning, the perfume and beauty in the cool of the evening, would all be swallowed up in meridian splendour: all which now entertain you with delights. The antipodes would be empty, perpetual darkness and horror there, and the Works of God on the other side of the world in vain.

10

Were there two suns, that day might be alike in both places, standing still, there would be nothing but meridian splendour under them, and nothing but continual morning in other places; they would absume and dry up all the moisture of the earth, which now is repaired as fast as it decayeth: and perhaps when the nature of the sun is known, it is impossible there should be two: At least it is impossible they should be more excellent than this one; that we might magnify the Deity and rest satisfied in Him, for making the best of all possible works for our enjoyment.

11

Had the Sun been made one infinite flame it had been worse than it is, for there had been no living; it had filled all space, and devoured all other things. So that it is far better being finite, than if it were infinite.

Even as the sea within a finite shore

Is far the better ‘cause it is no more.

Whence we may easily perceive the Divine Wisdom hath achieved things more than infinite in goodness and beauty, as a sure token of their perfect excellency.

12

Entering thus far into the nature of the sun, we may see a little Heaven in the creatures. And yet we shall say less of the rest in particular: tho’ every one in its place be as excellent as it: and this without these cannot be sustained. Were all the earth filthy mires, or devouring quicksands, firm land would be an unspeakable treasure. Were it all beaten gold it would be of no value. It is a treasure therefore of far greater value to a noble spirit than if the globe of the earth were all gold. A noble spirit being only that which can survey it all, and comprehend its uses. The air is better being a living miracle as it now is than if it were crammed and filled with crowns and sceptres. The mountains are better than solid...