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TO THE READER.

I am not at all solicitous, that the world should know the history of the conception of this treatise. If there be any thing that shall recompense the pains of such as may think fit to give themselves the trouble of perusing it, in the work itself, I should yet think it too much an undervaluing of them, if I did reckon the minuter circumstances relating thereto, fit for their entertainment. Nor am I more concerned to have it known what were the inducements to the publication of it. Earnest protestations and remonstrations of our good intentions in such undertakings, as they leave men still at liberty to believe or doubt at their pleasure; so they gain us little if they be believed. It is no easy matter, to carry one even, constant tenor of spirit through a work of time. Nor is it more easy to pass a settled invariable judgment concerning so variable a subject; when a heart that may seem wholly framed and set for God this hour, shall look so quite like another thing the next, and change figures and postures almost as often as it doth thoughts. And if a man should be mistaken in judging himself, it would little mend the matter, to have deceived others also into the opinion of him. But if he can approve himself to God in the simplicity of an honest and undeceived heart, the peace that ensues, is a secret between God and him. They are theatre enough to one another, as he (Seneca) said to his friend. It is an inclosed pleasure a joy which the stranger cannot intermeddle with.

It is therefore any man's concernment herein rather to satisfy Amself than the world. And the world's rather to understand the design of the work than the author's; and whither it tends, rather than whereto he meant it. And it is obvious enough, to what good purposes discourses of this nature may serve. This is, in the design of it, wholly practical; hath little or nothing to do with disputation. If there be any whose business it is to promote a private, divided interest; or who place the sum of their religion in an inconsiderable and doubtful opinion; it doth not

TO THE READER.

unhallow their altars, nor offer any affront to their idol. It intends no quarrel to any contending, angry party but deals upon things in the substance whereof christians are at a professed agreement. And hath therefore the greater probability of doing good to some, without the offence of any. It is indeed equally matter of complaint and wonder, that men can find so much leisure to divert from such things, wherein there is so much both of importance and pleasure, unto (what one would think should have little of temptation or allurement in it) contentious jangling. It might rather be thought its visible fruits and tendencies should render it the most dreadful thing to every serious beholder. What tragedies hath it wrought in the Christian church! Into how weak and languishing a condition hath it brought the religion of professed Christians! Hence have risen the intemperate, preternatural heats and angers that have spent its strength and spirits, and make it look with so meagre and pale a face. We have had a greater mind to dispute than live; and to contend about what we know not, than to practice the sar greater things we know; and which more directly tend to nourish and maintain the divine life. The author of that ingenious sentence, pruritus disputandi scabies Ecclesia, the itch of disputing is the distemper of the church, (whoever he were) hath fitly expressed what is the noisome product of the itch of disputing. It hath begot the ulcerous tumors, which, besides their own offensive soreness, drain the body, and turn what should nourish that into nutriment to themselves. And its effects are not more grievous than the pleasures which it effects and pursues are uncouth and unnatural: ut ulcera quædam nocituras manus appetunt et tactu gaudent, et fædam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid exasperat: Non aliter dixerim his mentibus in quas voluptates, velut mala ulcera eruperunt, voluptati esse laborem, vexationemque: as ulcers of a rough kind invite and are pleased with the touch of a rough and injurious hand, and as that only gratifies which irritates a body covered over with a loathsome eruption, so to those minds which are afflicted with the noxious ulcer of forbidden pleasure, labor and vexation are the only delight. Sen de tranquillitate animi. That only pleases which exasperates, (as the moralist aptly expresses some like disaffection of diseased minds.) What to a sound spirit would be a pain, is to these a pleasure.

Which is, indeed, the triumph of the disease, that it adds unto torment, reproach and mockery, and imposes upon men by so ridiculous a delusion (while they are made to take pleasure in punishing themselves) that even the most sober can scarce look on in a fitter posture, than with a compassionate smile. All which were yet somewhat more tolerable, if that imagined, vanishing pleasure were not the whole of their gain; or if it were to be hoped, that so great a present real pain and smart, should

be recompensed with as real a consequent fruit and advantage. But we know, that generally by how much any thing is more disputable, the less it is necessary or conducible to the Christian life. God hath graciously provided that what we are to live by, should not cost us so dear. And possibly, as there is less occasion of disputing about the more momentous things of religion; so there may be somewhat more of modesty and awe in reference to what is so confessedly venerable and sacred, (though too many are over bold even here also) than so foolishly to trifle with such things. Therefore more commonly, where that humor prevails, men divert from those plainer things, with some slighter and superficial reverence to them, but more heartily esteeming them jejune, because they have less in them to gratify that appetite, and betake themselves to such things about which they may more plausibly contend; and then, what pitiful trifles oftentimes take up their time and thoughts; questions and problems of like weighty importance, very often, with those which, the abovenamed author (Sen. de Brev. vit.) tells us, this disease among the Greeks prompted them to trouble themselves about, as, "What number of rowers Ulysses had? which was written first, the Iliad or the Odysses, &c.? So that (as he saith) they spent their lives very operously doing nothing. Their conceits being such, that if they kept them to themselves, they could yield them no fruit; and if they publish them to others, they should not seem thereby the more learned, but the more troublesome":—to this purpose he truly speaks. And is it not to be resented, that men should sell away the solid strength and vital joy which a serious soul would find in substantial religion, for such toys! Yea, and not only famish themselves but trouble the world, and embroil the church with their impertinences! If a man be drawn forth to defend an important truth against an injurious assault, it were treacherous self-love to purchase his own peace by declining it. Or if he did sometimes turn his thoughts to some of our petty questions, that with many are so hotly agitated, for recreationsake, or to try his wit and exercise his reason, without stirring his passions to the disturbance of others or himself; it were an innocent divertisement, and the best purpose that things of that nature are capable of serving. But when contention becomes a man's element, and he cannot live out of that fire, strains his with and racks his invention to find matter of quarrel; is resolvou, nothing said or done by others shall please him, only because he means to please himself in dissenting; disputes only that he may dispute, and loves dissension for itself: this is the unnatural humor that hath so unspeakably troubled the church, and dispirited religion, and filled men's souls with wind and vanity; yea, with fire and fury. This hath made Christians gladiators, and the Christian world a clamorous theatre, while men have equally affected to contend, and to make ostentation of their ability so to do.

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And, surely, as it is highly pleasurable to retire oneself, so it is charitable to call aside others out of this noise and throng, to consider silently and feed upon the known and agreed things of our religion; which immediately lead to both the duties and delights of it. Among which there are none more evident and undoubted, none less entangled with controversy, none more profitable and pleasant than the future blessedness of the righteous, which this discourse treats of. The last end is a matter so little disputable, that it is commonly thought (which is elsewhere more distinctly spoken to) not to be the object of election, and so not of deliberation consequently, but of simple intention only, because men are supposed to be generally agreed as touching that. And the knowledge and intention of it is apparently the very soul of religion; animates, directs, enlivens, and sweetens the whole thereof. Without which, religion were the vainest, most unsavory thing in the world. For what were there left of it, but an empty unaccountable formality, a series of spiritless and merely scenical observances and actions without a design? For whereas all men's actions else, mediately tend to the last end, but that not being in view with the most, they pitch upon other intervenient ends; which, though abstracted from the last, should not be; yet they are actually to them the reason of their actions, and infuse a vigor and liveliness into them: religion aiming immediately at the last end, that being taken away, hath no rational end or design at all. And it cannot but be an heartless business, with great solemnity, in a constituted course, to do nothing but professedly trifle, or keep up a custom of certain solemn performances which have no imaginable scope or end. And because the more clearly this our last end is understood, the more powerfully and sweetly it attracts and moves the soul, this treatise endeavors to give as plain and positive a state and notion of it as the text insisted on, compared with other scriptures, would afford to so weak an eye.

And because men are so apt to abuse themselves with the vain and self-contracting hopes of attaining this end, without ever having their spirits framed for it, or walking in the way that leads thereto, as if they could come to heaven by chance, or without any design or care of theirs; the proportion is endeavored to be shewn, between that divine likeness, in the vision and participation whereof this blessedness consists, and the righteousness that disposes and leads to it. Which may monitory to the ungodly and profane, who hate and scorn the likeness of God wherever they behold it. And let me tell such from (better-instructed) pagans, Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfecte bonus, &c. that there is nothing more like or more acceptable to God, than a man that is in the temper of his soul truly good, who excels other men, as he is himself excelled (pardon his hyperbole) by the immortal God.

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Apul. de Deo Socratis. Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est, conciliante virtute-amicitiam dico? etiam necessitudo, et similitudo, &c. that between God and good men there is a friendship, by means of virtue; a friendship, yea, a kindred, a likeness ; in as much truly as the good man differs from God but in time (here sprinkle a grain or two) being his disciple, imitator and very off-spring. (Sen. de pro.) Nepéra yag & deos ÖTAV TIS LÉY? TOV Νεμέσα γὰρ θεὸς ὅταν τις ψέγῃ τὸν ἑαυτῷ ὅμοιον ἢ ἐπαίνῃ τὸν ἑαυτῷ ἐναντίως ἔχοντα, ἐςι δ' οὗτος ὁ ἀγαθός. πάντων ἱερότατόν ἐσιν ἄνθρωπος ἀγαθὸς, καὶ μιαρώτατον ὁ πονηρός: that God is full of indignation against such as reproach one that is like to him, or that praise one that is contrarily affected (or unlike); but such is the good man (that is, that he is one like God.) A good man (as it shortly after follows) is the holiest thing in the world, and a wicked man the most polluted thing.-Plat. in Minoe.

And let me warn such haters of holiness and holy men in the words of this author immediately subjoined; Τούτου δ' ἕνεκα φράσω, ἵνα μὴ ἄνθρωπος ὢν ἄνθρωπου, εἰς ἥρω Διὸς υἱον λογῷ ἐξαμαρτάνης: and this I say for this cause, that thou being but a man, the son of a man, no more offend in speaking against a hero, one who is a son of God.

Methinks men should be ashamed to profess the belief of a life to come, while they cannot behold without indignation, nor mention but with derision, that holiness without which it can never be attained, and which is indeed the seed and principle of the thing itself. But such are not likely much to trouble themselves with this discourse. There is little in it indeed of art and ornament to invite or gratify such as the subject itself invites not. And nothing at all but what was apprehended might be some way useful. The affectation of garnishing a margin with the names of authors, I have ever thought a vain pedantry; yet have not declined the occasional use of a few that occurred. He that writes to the world, must reckon himself debtor to the wise and unwise. If what is done shall be found with any to have promoted its proper end; his praises to God shall follow it (as his prayers do that it may) who professes himself,

A well-willer to the souls of men.

J. HOWE.

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