The Life of Faith. 177 all themeans and hopes of our well-being; and therefore our dependance mull be abfulutely on him :' The bldffings of this life, and of that to come ; all things which appertain to Me and godlincfs, are the gifts ofhis incomprchentible benignity. For it is natural tohim, who is infinitelygood, to do good, whenhe doth work ad extra; though when to communi- cate, and in what various degrees is tree to him, a Tim. 4.8. 6.33. 2 Pet. 1. 3. pfa/. i45. 14, r'5. & 146. 7. & 18.50. 1 Tim. 6. 17. James 1. 5. & 4. 6. Jer. 5. 24, 25. Direct. io. By Faith fet your eye and bear: moil fixedly anddevotedly on GOD, as your ultimate end (which is your felicity, and much mare. - He taketh not God for God indeed, who taketh him not as his ultimate end: Nay, he debafeth God, who placing his felicity in anv tong elfe, doth cleave to Godbut as the means to lu h a ffq it't . But to make God our,(elicity is lawful and necefrary ; but not to dream that this is the highefi refped that we mule have to God, to be our felicity. To love him, and to be. beloved by him; topleafe him, and to be pleafed in him, is our ul>.imate end ; which though it be complex, and contain our own felicity, yet doth it, as infinitely fuperemi- nent, contain the complacency ofGod, and God as the ob- je& of our Love, confidered in his own infinite petfeefions For he is the Alpha and Omega, the firti and the last ; and of him, and through him, and to bins are all things, Rom. a 1. 36. It is the highcft and noblefi workof faith, to make our own Original to be our End, and to fit our love entirely upon God; and to fee that we our felves are but wcrens and vanity; capable of no higher honour, than to be means to pleafeand glorifie God ; and mull not take down God fo, as to love him only for our felves. And he only who thus denycth him- fell for God, doth rightly improve fdflove, and leek the only exaltation and felicity, by carrying up himfelf to God, and adhering to the eternal good, r Cor.1o. 31. Luke 14. 33. Mat. 16.25. Mark8. 35' Dire6. a,. Diffinguifh thefe Relations of God, but divide themnot ; much lefs fet them in any oppofitiau to each other ; and remember that the effetls of them all are marveloufly and harms- nioufly mixt but tendtvided. A a The
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