IS to be held and said of him in discourse, is not
to study or to know God, no more than to love
the language and phrase of holy writing is to
love God. To study God as one that is less
regardable and desirable than our sensual de-
lights, is but to blaspheme him. To study, seek,
and serve him as one that can promote or hinder
our sensual felicity, is but to abuse him as a
means to your sensuality. And for the virtues
of temperance, justice, or charity, they are but
analogically and secundum quid to be found in
any ungodly person : materially they may have
them in an eminent degree ; but not as they are
informed by the end which moralizeth them.
Jezabel's fast was not formally a virtue, but an
odious way of hypocrisy to oppress the innocent.
Walking %oith God. 135
He that doth works of justice or mercy, to evil
ends only, (as for applause, or to deceive, &c.)
and not from the true principles of justice and
mercy, doth not thereby exercise moral virtue,
but hypocrisy, and other vice. He that doth
works of justice and mercy, out of mere natural
compassion to others, and desire of their good,
without respect to God, as obhging, or rewarding,
or desiring it, doth perform such a natural good
work, as a lamb or a gentle beast doth to his
fellows, which hath not the true form of moral
virtue, but the matter only. He that in such
works hath some little by-respect to God, but
more to his carnal interest among men, doth that
which on the by participateth of moral good,
or is such secundum quid, but not simplidter,
•being to be denominated from the part predomi-
nant. He that doth works of justice or charity
principally to please God, and in true obedience
to his will, and a desire to be conformed thereto,
doth' that which is formally a moral good, and
holy, though there may be abhorred mixtures
of worse respects.
So that there are but two states of life here :
one of those that walk after the flesh, and the
other of those that walk after the spirit. How-
ever the flesh hath several materials and wavs
of pleasure : and even the rational actings that
have a carnal end, are carnal finally and morally^
though they are acts of reason; for they are
but the errors of reason, and defectiveness of
136 Walking with God.
true rationality ; and being but the acts of
erroneous reason as captivated by the flesh, and
subservient to the carnal interest, they are them-
selves to be denominated carnal : and so even
the reasonable soul, as biased by sensuality, and
captivated thereto, is included in the name of
" flesh" in scripture.
How much moral good is in that course of
piety or obedience to God, which proceedeth
only from the fear of God's judgments, without
any love to him, I shall not now discuss, because
I have too far digressed already.
All that I have la*t said, is to shew you the
reasonableness of living unto God, as being
indeed the proper and just employment of the
superior faculties of the soul, and their govern-
ment of the lower faculties. For if any other
called moralists do seem to subject the sensual
life to the rational, either they do but seem to
do so, (the sensual interest being indeed pre-
dominant, and their rational operations subjected
thereto); or at the best, it is but some poor and
erroneous employment of the rational faculties
which they exercise, or some weak approaches
towards that high and holy life, which is indeed
the life which the rational nature was created
for, and which is the right improvement of it.
4. Moreover, nothing is more beseeming the
nature of man, than to aspire after the highest
and noblest improvement of itself; and to live
the Tiiost excellent life that it is capable of. Fof
Walking tcith God. 137
every nature tendeth to its own perfection. But
it is most evident that to walk with God in
holiness, is a thing that human nature is capable
of, and that is the highest life that we are
capable of on earth; and therefore it is the
life most suitable to our natures.
5. And what can be more rational and
beseeming a created nature, than to live to
those ends, which our Creator intended in the
fabrication of our natures? It is his ends that
are principally to be served. But the very
composure of our faculties plainly prove, that
his end was that we should be fitted for his
service : he gave us no powers or capacity in
vain ; and therefore to serve him and walk with
him, is most suitable to our natures.
Object. That is natural which is first, and
born with us: but our enmity to holiness is first,
and not our holiness.
Answ. It may be called natural indeed,
because it is first, and born with us ; and in
that respect we confess that sin and not holiness
is natural to us. But holiness is called natural
to us, in a higher respect, because it was the
primitive natural constitution of man, and was
before sin, and is the perfection or health of
nature, and the right employment and improve-
ment of it, and tends to its happiness. An
hereditary leprosy may be called natural, as it
js first, and before health in that person: but
Jiealth and soundness is natural, as being the
138 Walkins: with God.
b
well-being of nature, when the leprosy is un-
natural, as being but its disease, and tending
to its destruction.
Object. But nature in its first constitution
was not holy, but innocent only, and it was by
a superadded gift of grace that it became holy
as some schoolmen think; and as others think,
Adam had no holiness till his restoration.
Answ. These are popish unproved fancies,
and contrary to nature and the word of God.
1. They are nowhere written, nor have no evi-
dence in nature, and therefore are the groundless
dreams of men.
2. The work of our recovery to God is called
in scripture a redemption, renovation, restora-
tion, which imply that nature was once in that
holy estate before the fall. And it is expressly
said, that the new man which we put on is
renewed in knowledge after the image of him
that created him. Col. iii. 10. And after God's
imag-e Adam was created.
3. If it belong to the soundness and integrity
of nature to be holy (that is, disposed and
addicted to live to God) then it is an abusive
temerity, for men out of their own imagination,
to feign, that God first made nature defective,
and then mended it by superadded grace. But
if it belong not to the soundness and integrity
of human nature to be holy, then why did God
pive him grace to make him so ? Nay, then it
would follow that when God sanctified Adam,
Walking with God. 139
or any since, he made him specifically another
thing, another creature, of another nature, and
did not only cure the diseases of his nature.
4. It is yet apparent in the very nature of
man's faculties, that their very usefulness and
tendency, is to live to God, and to enjoy him :
and that God should make a nature apt for such
a use, and give it no disposedness to its proper
use, is an unnatural conceit. We see to this
day that it is but an unreasonable abuse of
reason, when it is not used holily for God ; and
it is a very disease of nature to be otherwise
disposed. Therefore primitive nature had such
a holy inclination.
5. The contrary opinion tendeth to infidelity,
and to brutify human nature. For if no man
can believe that he must be holy and live to
God, and enjoy him hereafter in heaven, but he
that also believeth that primitive nature was
never disposed or qualified for such a life; and
that God must first make a man another creature
in specie, of another nature (and consequently
not a man), this is not only so improbable, but
so contrary to scripture and reason, that few
considerate persons would believe it: as if we
.must believe that God would turn brutes into
men. God healeth, elevateth, and perfecteth
nature, but doth not specifically change it, at
least in this life.
Object. But let it be granted that he giveth
not man specifically another nature, yet he may
140 Walking with God.
give him such higher gifts, as may be like
another nature to him so far.
jinsio. No doubt he may and doth give him
such gifts as actuate and perfect nature: but
some disposition to our ultimate end is essential
to our nature ; and therefore to assign man
another ultimate end, and to give a disposition
to it, of which he had no seed, or part, or
principle before, is to make him another crea-
ture. I confess that in lapsed man, the holy
disposition is so far dead, as that the change
maketh a man a new creature in a moral sense
(as he is a new man that changeth his mind and
manners) : but still nature hath its aptitude as
rational to be employed for its maker; so that
he is not a new creature in a natural sense.
An actual or habitual willingness to this holy
employment, a promptitude to it, and a due
understanding of it, is the new creature morally
so called which is given in our sanctification:
but the natural aptitude that is in our faculties
as rational, to this holy life, is essential to us
as men, or as rational; even to have the poteti'
tiam naturalem which must yet have further help
or moral life to actuate it. - And Adam had both
these: the one he retained, or else he had not '
continued a man; the other he lost, or else he
^ad not had need of renovation.
6. If Adam's nature had not been disposed
to God as to his end and sovereign, then the
law of nature (to adhere to God, and obey and
Walking with God. 141
serve him) was not written in his heart : and
then it would not have been his duty to adhere
to God, and to obey and serve him ; which is so
false, that even in lapsed unrenewed nature,
there is left so much aptitude hereto, as will
prove him to be still under the obligations of
this law of nature, even actually to adhere to
God, and to obey him, which a dead man, a
mad man, or an infant is not (immediately.)
By all this you see, that though the blindness
and disease of reason is contrary to faith and
holiness, yet reason itself is so much for it, as
that faith itself is but the act of elevated well
informed reason ; and supernatural revelation is
but the means to inform our reason, about things
which have not a natural evidence, discernible
by us. And sanctification (actively taken) is
but the healing of our reason and rational appe-
tite : and holiness is but the health or soundness
of them. The error of reason must be renounced
by believers ; but not the use of reason : the
sufficiency of reason and natural light without
supernatural light and help, we must all deny :
but to set reason as reason in opposition to faith
or holiness, or divine revelation, is as gross a
piece of foolery, as to set the visive faculty iii
opposition to the light of the sun, or to its
objects. It is the unreasonableness of sinners
that is to be cured by illuminating grace. They
are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no
knowledge. Their reason is wounded, depraved
142 Walking with God,
and corrupted about the matters of God : they
have reason to serve the flesh, but not to master
it. God doth renew men by giving them wis-
dom, and bringing them to a sound mind. As
logic helpeth reason in discourse and arguing,
so theology informeth reason about the matters
of God and our salvation ; and the Spirit of God
doth make his doctrine and revelation effectual.
Make nature sound, and reason clear, and then
we will consent that all men be persuaded to
live according to their nature and their reason.
But if a bedlam will rave and tear himself and
others, and say, this is according to my nature
or my reason ; it is fitter that chains and whips
do cure that nature and reason, than that he be
allowed to live according to his madness. If a
drunkard or whoremonger will say, my nature
and reason incline me to please my appetite and
lust, it is fit that the swinish nature be cor-
rected, and the beast which rideth and ruleth the
man, be taken down; and when indeed his
nature is the nature of a man, and fitted to the
use and ends that it was made for, then let him
live according to it and spare not. If a malicious
man will abuse or kill his neighbours, and say,
this is according to my nature, let that nature
be used as the nature of wolves and foxes, and
other noxious creatures are. But let human
nature be cured of its blindness, carnality and
corruption, and then it will need no external
testimony to convince it, that no employment is
Walking with God. 143
so natural and suitable to man, as to walk with
God, in love and confidence, and reverent wor-
ship, and cheerful obedience to his will. A
worldly fleshly sensual life, Avill then appear to
be below the rational nature of a man, as it is
below us to go to grass with horses, or to live
as mere companions of brutes. It will then
appear to be as natural for us to love and live
to our Creator and Redeemer, and to walk with
God, as for a child to love his parents, and to
live with them and serve them. When I say
that this is natural, I mean not that it is neces-
sary by natural necessity, or that grace doth
operate per modum natures, as the irrational
motion is so called. There is a brutish or
manimate nature, and there is a rational volun-
tary nature : grace worketh not according to the
way of inanimate or brutish nature, but accord-
ing to the way of rational nature, in free agents.
I may well say that whatever is rational, is
natural to a rational creature as such, so far as
he discerneth it. Yea, and habits, though they
effect not necessarily, but freely in a rational
nature, yet they incline necessarily, and per
modum naturae. They contain in their being a
natural aptitude and propensity to action.
Object. But thus you confound nature and
grace, natural and supernatural operations, while
you make grace natural.
Amiv. No such matter : though walking with
God be called natural, as it is most agreeable
144 Walking with God.
to nature so far as it is sound, and is the felicity
and meetest employment of the rational nature
as such; yet 1. Diseased nature doth abhor it,
as a diseased stomach the pleasantest and most
wholesome food, (as I said before.) 2. And
this disease of nature cannot be cured without
divine supernatural grace : so that as to the
efficient cause, our holiness is supernatural.
But it is unsound doctrine of those that affirm
that Adam in his pure natural state of inno-
cency, had no natural holiness, or aptitude and
promptitude to walk with God in order to ever-
lasting happiness, but say that all this was
either wanting to him, and was a state speci-
fically distinct, which he fell short of by his
sin, or that it was given him by superadded
grace, and was not in his entire nature.
And yet we deny not but as to degrees,
Adam's nature was to grow up to more per-
fection ; and that his natural holiness contained
not a sufficient immediate aptitude and prompti-
tude to every duty which might afterward be
required of him; but this was to be obtained
in the exercise of that holiness which he had.
Even as a vine or other fruit tree, though it be
natural to it to bear its proper fruit, yet hath
it not an immediate sufficient aptitude hereto,
whilst it is but appearing out of the seed, before
it be grown up to just maturity: or as it is
natural to a man to discourse and reason ; but
yet his nature in infancy, or untaught and
Walking wilh God. 145
unexercised, hath not a sufficient immediate
aptitude and promptitude hereunto : or as grace
inclineth a renewed soul to every holy truth
and duty ; and yet such a soul in its infancy
of grace, hath not a sufficient immediate apti-
tude or promptitude to the receiving of every
holy truth, or the doing of every holy duty,
but must grow up to it by degrees. But the
addition of these degrees, is no specifical altera-
tion of the nature of man, or of that grace
which was before received.
Having been so long upon this first con-
sideration (that walking with God is most agree-
able to human nature), I shall be briefer in the
rest that follow.
II. To walk with God and live to him, is
incomparably the highest and noblest life. To
converse with men only, is to converse with
worms; whether they be princes or poor men,
they differ but as the bigger vermin from the
lesser : if they be wise and good, their converse
may be profitable and delightful, because they
have a beam of excellency from the face of
God; (and O how unspeakable is the distance
between his wisdom and goodness, and theirs !)
but if they be foolish, ungodly and dishonest,
how loathsome is their conversation ! What
stinking breath is in their profane and filthy
language ! in their lies and slanders of the just !
in their sottish jeers and scorns of those that
walk with God ! which expose at once their
(n
146 Walking with God.
folly and misery to the pity of all that are
truly understanding. When they are gravely
speaking evil of the things which they under-
stand not, or with a fleering confidence deriding
merrily the holy commands and ways of God,
they are much more lamentably expressing their
infatuation, than any that are kept in chains
in bedlam: though indeed with the most they
scape the reputation which they deserve, because
they are attended with persons of their own
proportion of wisdom, that always reverence a
silken coat, and judge them wise that wear gold
lace and have the greatest satisfaction of their
wills and lusts, and are able to do most mischief
in the world : and because good men have learnt
to honor the worst of their superiors, and not
to call them as they are. But God is bold to
call them as they are, and give them in his word
such names and characters by which they might
come to know themselves. And is it not a
higher, nobler life to walk with God, than to
converse in bedlam, or with intoxicated sen-
sualists, that live in a constant deliration ?
Yea, worse than so. Ungodly men are chil-
dren of the devil, so called by Jesus Christ
himself, John viii. 44, because they have much
of the nature of the devil, and the lusts of
their father they will do ; yea they are taken
captive by him at his will. 2 Tim. ii. 26. They
are the servants of sin, and do the drudgery
that so vile a master sets them on. John viii. 34.
Walking with God. ' 147
Certainly as the spirits of the just are so like
to angels, that Christ saith, we shall be as they
and equal to them ; so the wicked are nearer kin
to devils than they themselves will easily believe.
They are as like him as children to their father.
He is a liar, and so are they. He is a hater of
God, and godliness, and godly men ; and so are
they. He is a murderer, and would fain devour
the holy seed ; and such are they. He envieth
the progress of the gospel, and the prosperity
of the church, and the increase of holiness; and
so do they. He hath a special malice against
the most powerful and successful preachers of
the word of God, and against the most zealous
and eminent saints ; and so have they. He cares
not by what lies and fictions he disgraceth them,
nor how cruelly he useth them; no more do
they (or some of them at least). He cherisheth
licentiousness, sensuality, and impiety; and so
do they. If they do seem better in their adver-
sity and restraint, yet try them but with pros-
perity, and power, and you shall see quickly how
like they are to devils. And shall we delight
more to converse with brutes and incarnate
devils, than with God ? Is it not a more high
and excellent conversation to walk with God,
and live to him, than to be companions of such
degenerate men, that have almost forfeited the
reputation of humanity? Alas! they are com-
panions so deluded and ignorant, and yet so
wilful ; so miserable, and yet so confident and
148 Walking with God.
secure, that they are, to a believing eye, the
most lamentable sight that the whole world can
shew us out of hell. And how sad a life must
it then needs be, to converse with such, were it
not for the hope that we have of furthering their
* recovery and salvation!
But to walk with God is a word so high, that
I should have feared the guilt of arrogance in
using it, if I had not found it in the holy scrip-
tures. It is a word that importeth so high and
holy a frame of soul, and expresseth such high
and holy actions, that the naming of it striketh
my heart with reverences, as if I had heard the
voice to Moses, " Put off thy shoes from off
tiiy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground." Exod. iii. 5. Methinks he that
shall say to me, Come see a man that walks
with God, doth call me to see one that is next
unto an angel, or glorified soul! It is a far
more reverend object in mine eye, than ten
thousand lords or princes, considered only in
their fleshly glory. It is a wiser action for
people to run and crowd together to see a man
that walks with God, than to see the pompous
train of princes, their entertainments, or their
triumphs. O happy man, that walks with God,
though neglected and contemned by all about
him ! What blessed sights doth he daily see I
What ravishing tidings, what pleasing melody
doth he daily hear, imless it be in his swoons
or sickness ! What delectable food doth he
Walking with God. 149
daily taste! He seeth by faith the God, the
glory, which the blessed spirits see at hand by
nearest intuition: he seeth that in a glass and
darkly, which they behold with open face : he
seeth the glorious majesty of his Creator, the
eternal king, the cause of causes, the com-
poser, upholder, preserver, and governor of all
the worlds: he beholdeth the wonderful methods
of his providence: and what he cannot reach to
see, he admireth, and waiteth for the time when
that also shall be open to his view ! He seeth
by faith the world of spirits, the hosts that
attend the throne of God; their perfect righte-
ousness, their full devotedness to God, their
ardent love, their flaming zeal, their ready and
cheerful obedience, their dignity and shining-
glory, in which the lowest of them exceedeth
that which the disciples saw on Moses and Elias
when they appeared on the holy mount, and
talked with Christ. They hear by faith the
heavenly concert, the high and harmonious songs
of praise, the joyful triumphs of crowned saints,
the sweet commemorations of the thing's that
were done and suffered on earth, with the praises
of him that redeemed them by his blood, and
made them kings and priests to God. Herein
he hath sometime a sweet foretaste of the ever-
lasting pleasures, which though it be but little,
as Jonathan's honey on the end of his rod, or as
the clusters of grapes which were brought from
Canaan into the wilderness, yet are they more
VOL. II. I
150 Walking with God.
excellent than all the delights of sinners. And
in the beholding of this celestial glory, some
beams do penetrate his breast, and so irradiate
his longing soul, that he is changed thereby into
the same image from glory to glory ; the spirit
of glory and of God doth rest upon him; and
O what an excellent holy frame doth this con-
verse with God possess his soul of I How
reverently doth he think of him! What life is
there in every name and attribute of God which
he heareth or thinketh on ! The mention of his^
power, his wisdom, his goodness, his love, his
holiness, his truth — how powerful and how plea-
sant are they to him .* when to those that know
him but by the hearing of the ear, all these are
but like common names and notions : and even
to the weaker sort of christians, whose walking
with God is more uneven and low, interrupted
by their sins, and doubts, and fears, this life and
glory of a christian course is less perceived.
And the sweet appropriating and applying
works of faith, by which the soul can own
his God, and finds itself owned by him, are
exercised most easily and happily in these
near approaches unto God. Our doubts are
cherished by our darkness, and that is much
caused by our distance :^ the nearer the soul
doth approach to God, the more distinctly it
heareth the voice of mercy, the sweet recon-
ciling invitations of love; and the more clearly
it discerneth that ooodness and amiableness ixk
Walking with God. 151
Ood wliich maketh it easier to us to believe that
he loveth us, or is ready to embrace us ; and
banisheth all those false and horrid apprehen-
sions of him, which before were our discourage-
ment, and made him seem to us more terrible
than amiable. As the ministers and faithful
servants of Christ are ordinarily so misrepre-
sented by the malignant devil, to those that
know them not, that they are ready to think
them some silly fools, or falsehearted hypocrites,