3. The following Propositions I shall speak of together. That God only is our happiness and Chief Good, I need not prove to any that indeed believeth him to be God. That salvation consisteth in the fruition of this Happiness is past doubt. And as sure is it that God is not fully enjoyed in this world; much less in the creature, when it is loved for it self and not esteemed as a Means to him. All that believe a life after this, do sure believe that there is our felicity. And lastly, that the soul doth enjoy its own felicity, by Knowing, and Loving, and Delighting in its object, is also past doubt. So that you may see that a worldly state of mind, is in it self inconsistent with a state of salvation. ⟨p. 66⟩To be saved is to have the blessed vision of God, and to Love him and Delight in him perfectly to everlasting. And can you do this, when you love and delight in the world above him, or in opposition to him? Would you have God to save you, and yet not to take off your affections from the world to himself? That were to save you, and not to save you; to feed you by that which is not food; to comfort you by that which cannot comfort; If a worldling would be saved, and not be mortified, either he speaks he knows not what, but plain non-sense or contradiction, or else he meaneth one of these two things: Either that he would have an Heaven of worldly Riches, or Honours, or fleshly Pleasures; (there is no such to be had.) Or else, that he would have the world as long as he can, and have heaven when he can keep the world no longer, and so would have the world Crucified to him, when there is no such world, or when he is taken from it. But, as, 1. No man can truly desire future Grace and Holiness, that doth not desire it at the present, this being rather an unwilling submission to it as a tolerable Evil, then a true desire of it as a certain Good. So 2. God hath determined that this life only shall be the Way, and that the End: Here only must we use the means; and there must we partake of the success of our Endeavours. You may better expect that God should give you a Crop at harvest, who refused to plough and •ow your Land, or that your children should be men, before they are born, then that he should be your Happiness in the life to come, if you finally reject him in this life, and choose to your selves a secular happiness.
3. The following Propositions I shall speak of together. That God only is our happiness and Chief Good, I need not prove to any that indeed believeth him to be God. That salvation consilleth in the •ruition of this Happiness is past doubt. And as sure is it that God is not fully enjoyed in this world; much less in the creature, when it is loved for it self and not esteemed as a Means to him. All that believe a life after this, do sure believe that there is our felicity. And lastly, that the soul doth enjoy its own felicity, by Knowing, and Loving, and Delighting in its object, is also past doubt. So that you may see that a worldly state of mind, is in it self inconsistent with a state of salvation. ⟨p. 66⟩To be saved is to have the blessed vision of God, and to Love him and Delight in him perfectly to everlasting. And can you do this, when you love and delight in the world above him, or in opposition to him? Would you have God to save you, and yet not to take off your affections from the world to himself? That were to save you, and not to save you; to feed you by that which is not food; to comfort you by that which cannot comfort; If a worldling would be saved, and not be mortified, either he speaks he knows not what, but plain non-sense or contradiction, or else he meaneth one of these two things: Either that he would have an Heaven of worldly Riches, or Honours, or fleshly Pleasures; (there is no such to be had.) Or else, that he would have the world as long as he can, and have heaven when he can keep the world no longer, and so would have the world Crucified to him, when there is no such world, or when he is taken from it. But, as, 1. No man can truly desire future Grace and Holiness, that doth not desire it at the present, this being rather an unwilling submission to it as a tolerable Evil, then a true desire of it as a certain Good. So 2. God hath determined that this life only shall be the Way, and that the End: Here only must we use the means; and there must we partake of the success of our Endeavours. You may better expect that God should give you a Crop at harvest, who refused to plow and •ow your Land, or that your children should be men, before they are born, then that he should be your Happiness in the life to come, if you finally reject him in this life, and choose to your selves a secular happiness.
