know most certainly that the world will serve you but a little while You know the day is hard at hand when it will turn you off and you shall say I have now had all that the world can do for me Naked you came into it and naked you must go out of it Haud ullas portabis opes Acherontis ad undas And then you shall more sensibly know what you now so overvalued and what you preferred before God and your salvation then now I am able to make you know O what low thoughts will every one of you have of all your pomp and pleasure your vain-glory and all your fleshly accommodations when you perceive that they are gone and leave your souls to the â—ustice of that God whom for the love of them you wilfully neglected If poor men of mean and low education were so soâ—â—ish as not to know these things me thinks it should not be â—…ith you that are bred to more understanding then they 12. Lastly you sin against the most plain and terrible passages of Scripture seconded with dreadful judgements of God inflicted either upon your selves or at least on others of your rank before your eyes You have read or heard the words of Christ Luk 9. 25. For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself and be cast away And Luke 12. 33 34. Sell all that you have and give alms provide your selves baggs which wax not â—ld a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approacheth neither moth corrupteth For where your treasure is there will your hearts be also You have heard there the terrible Parable of the Rich man Luke 12. 16 17 18 19 20. which endeth with Thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided with this general application So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not Rich towards God And you have heard that more dreadful Parable Luke 16. of the Rich man that was cloathed in purple and fared sumptuously and what was his endless end You have heard the difficulty of the salvation of the Rich. Luke 18. 24 25. How hardly shall they that have Riches enter into the Kingdom of God Because they are so hardly kept from loving them inordinately and trusting in them You have heard how fully Christ is resolved that no man can be his Disciple that forsaketh not all that he hath for him Luke 14. 33 26 27. And if you go never so far in your Obedience and yet lack this one thing to part with all in affection and resolution and practise when he requireth it and follow Christ in sufferings and wants in hope of a treasure in heaven its certain that Christ and you must part Luke 18. 22. You have heard the terrible passages in Jam. 5. 1 2 c. and abundance such in the word of God And yet are you not afraid of worldliness or sensuality You have seen in England the Riches of abundance quickly scattered that were long in gathering and God knows how many lost their souls to build that which a few years wars pull'd down And yet when you have but a little breathing time you are at it again as eagerly as ever as men that knew no greater good and are acquainted with no better and more gainful an employment Gentlemen do you know indeed what it is that you make so great a stir for which you value at so high a rate which you hold so fast which you enjoy so delightfully You do not know I dare say by your using of it that you do not know it Or else you would soon have other thoughts of it and use it in another manner Come nearer and see it through and look into the inside Consult not with blind and partial sense but put on a while the spectacles of faith go into the Sanctuary and see the end Nay Reason it self may tâ—ll you much of it When you must part with it you 'l wish it hang'd loose from you and not been so glued to you as to tear your hearts You feel not what the Devils lime-twigs have done till you are about to take wing either by an heavenly contemplation or by death and then youâ—l find your selves entangled The world is like to bad Physitians quoâ—um successus Sol intuetur errores autem Tellus operit The earth beareth yet all the good it doth you but Hell hath hidden from you the mischief that it hath done to millions of your Ancestors and therefore though this their way was their folly yet do their posterity approve their sayings Psal. 19. 13. Dic miâ—i saith Bernard ubi sunt amatores mundi qui ante pauâ—a tâ—n pâ—…nobiscum fuerunt Nihil ex ejâ— remaâ—sit nisi cinâ—â—â—s vermes Attende diligenter qui sunt suerunt siâ—…ru commederunt biberunt riserunt duxerunt in bonis dies suos in puncto ad inferna descenderunt Hic caro eorum vermibus illic anima eorum slammis deputatur donec rursus infelici collegio colligati sempiternis ignibus in volvantur Who would so value that which he must eternally complain of and not only say It hath done me no good but also say It hath deceived me and undone me I would not thank you to make me the Owner of all your Lands and Honours to day and take it from me all to morrow What the better now are your Grand fathers and great Grandfathers for living in those houses and possessing those lands and honours and pleasures that you possess Vnless they used them spiritually and holily for God and heaven and the common good they are now in hell for their sensuality upon earth and are reaping as they have sown Gal. 6 7 8. and paying dear for all their pleasures Their bones and dust do give you no notice of any remnants of their honours or delights and if you saw their souls you would be further satisfied It may be there stands agilded Monument over their rottenness and dust and it may be they have left an honourable name with those that follow them in their deceit and so might the tormented Rich man with his Brethren Luke 16. who were following him towards that place of torment A just judgement of God it is to to give up men that choose deceit to be thus befooled That they should not only despise the durable Riches and choose a dream of honour wealth and pleasure here but also that their end may answer their beginning they should also take up with a picture of honour and felicity when they are dead That their deceived posterity may see a guilded Image bearing an honourable mention of their names and hear them named with applause and so may be allured thee more boldly to go after them And so a shadow of wisdom and vertue hath a shadow of surviving Honour for its Reward which alas neither soul nor body
is the better for You see that all your wealth and honour will not preserve your Honourable Corpse from loathsom putrefaction How much less will it keep your guilty souls from the place that you have here been purchasing by your Mammon Sic metit Orcus Grandia cum parvis non exorabilis auro If this be your Wealth and Honour and Delight the Lord deliver me from such a selicity Haec alii capiunt liceat mihi paupere cuâ—…u Securo charo numine posse frui For what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained or scraped together as the Hebrew may be turned when God shall take or pull away his soul Iob 27. 8. The triumphing or praise of the wicked is short or but at hand and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment Job 20. 5. Yea one would think that the very troubles and smart that in this life accompanyeth your wealth and honour in the getting and keeping and the gripes of conscience that the fore-thoughts of the parting hour and your heavy reckoning must needs mix with all your pleasure and vain glory unless you have laid asleep your wits besides your experience of the emptiness and deceit of all that you have overvalued I say one would think that this much should somewhat allay your thirst and calm your minds and make you think of a better treasure Sure I am that God would do ten thousand fold more for you and be better to you and yet because of some fleshly arguments you are turned away from him He cannot be thus loved and delighted in and sought and yet he offereth more for you then the world doth Saith Augustine Ecce mundus turbat amatur quid si tranquill us esset formoso quomodo haereres qui sic amplecteris foedum Flores ejus quomodo colligeres quia spinis non revocas manum And it is just that they should have a bed of thorns that wilfully make choice of it Seneca thus justifieth God that though he give men such perplexities and vexations it is nullis nisi optantibus only to them that will needs have it â—o and are choosers of their own distructions Choosers do I say Yea and will compass Sea and Land for it Stretch conscience for it till it tear or can stretch no further Oppress and defraud for it some of them break Vows and Covenants for it sell God and Heaven for it scrambling with such distracted violence for the smoaky honours the nominal wealth the intoxicating pleasures of a few hasty daies that they care not what they part with for them nor who they bear down that standeth in their way Quid non mortalia pectora cogit Auri Sacre fames And is Christ worth no more then to be sold with Judas for so base a price Is our heavenly birth-right a thing so base or the promise of our immortal Crown so uncertain as to be parted with on Esau's terms Is God and Endless Glory worth no more then this comes to Propter nummos Deum contemnere saith Hierom to despise and cast off God for a thing so base is the basest kind of despising him The Idolators that villified him by making images of him were askt To whom will you liken me saith the holy One Isa. 40. 18 25. And these sensual and covetous idolators must be asked Whom will you match with God or set up against him and prefer before him What will you choose if you choose not him What shall be your portion instead of heaven Doth it excuse you that the world hath so lovely an aspect Yes if God be not more amiable then it and if his face and favour be not more desirable Doth it excuse you that the Baits of the world are pleasant and that it offered you fair Yes if God had not out-bid it and offered you ten thousand times more Doth it excuse you that the world is near and certain and heaven uncertain or out of sight Yes if you are beasts that have no Reason to know what will be but only sense to feel what is or if God have not given you an infallible promise befriended by Reason sealed by multitudes of uncontroled Miracles and transcribed on his servants hearts and if the Greatness of the Glory promised were not sufficient to do more at a distance with a man of faith and reason then childish trifles near at hand as the Sun at a distance giveth us more light then a glow-worm that is hard by Yea and if the world which you think so certain were not certainly transitory and vain so that he that gets it is certain shortly to be no gainer and he that looseth it to be no looser You look on a poor praying self-denying Believer but you look before you on a Saint that shall raign with Christ and judge the world when he cometh to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe 2 Thes. 1. 10. You see them sow their seed in tears but see it not springing up nor do you foresee the joyful harvest You see them following Christ through tribulations bearing his Cross and despising the shame but you see them not yet set down with him on their thrones The sight you see but the triumph you see not You see them tost at Sea but you know not how sure a Pilot they have nor do you see the riches of their fraight You see sickness or persecution unpinning their corruptible rags and death undressing them but you see not the cloathes which they are putting on You see them laid asleep by death but you see not their awaking nor the rising of their Sun when the Righteous shall have dominion in the morning The man that is dead to the world you see but you see not the life that is hid with Christ in God nor their appearing with him in Glory when Christ who is their life appears Your unbelieving souls imagine there will be no May or harvest because it is now Winter with us You think the Rose and beautious flowers which are promised us in that Spring are but delusions because you know not the vertue of that life that 's in the root nor the Powerful influence of that Sun of the Believers You see the dead body but you see not the soul alive with Christ retired into its Root You see the Candle put out and know not whether the flame is gone and think not how small a touch of the yet living soul will light it again And so on the other side you look on the swaggering Gallant but you look not on the ulcerous soul you hear them laughing and jesting in their jovialty but you hear them not yet groaning in their pains you see them clambering into the seat of honour but see them not cast into the grave you see them run and ride in pompe and pleasure following the delights of the flesh attended by their followers that honour and applaud them but you see them
not yet gasping under the pangs of death nor laid in the dust as still as stones You see their beauty and glittering attire but you see not the pale and ghastly face that death will give them nor the skulls that are stript of all those ornaments you smell their perfumes but you smell not their putrefaction you see their lands and spacious houses and sumptuous furniture but you see not how narrow a room will serve them in the grave nor how little there they differ from the most contemptible of men Nay more you see them with Ahab going forth to battle and leaving the Prophets with the bread and water of affliction but you see them not yet returning with the mortal blow you see them in their honours and abundance but see them not on Christs left hand in judgement you see them cloathed richly and faâ—ing deliciously every day but you see them not in bell torments wishing in vain for a drop of water to abate their flames you hear them honoured and hear their words of pride and ostentation but you hear them not yet crying out of their folly and bewailing their loss of present time and lamenting in vain the unhappy choice that now they make Sirs believe it future things are as sure as present These things are no fables because they are not visible yet You see not God and yet he is the Principal Intelligible object you see not your own Intellectual souls and yet you know you have them by the Intellection of other things You see not your own eye-sight and yet you know that an eye-sight you have by the seeing of other things If there were not an Invisible God there would have been no visible creatures Visibles are more vile and are for I visibles that are more noble Our visible Bodies are for our Invisible Souls This visible life is the womb of everlasting life that is Invisible we are hatched by the Spirit in this shell till we are ready to pass forth into that glorious light that here we see not I beseech you Gentlemen awake and be not so lamentably deceived as to think that your honourable Pleasant Dreams are the only Realities O no! it is the last awaking hour that will shew you the now unconceivable Realities You are now but as in jest in your pomp and pleasure but you shall then be in good sadness in your pains and loss if Sanctifying Grace do not prevent it by putting you out of your feasting vein and making you in good sadness to be men of Real Faith and Holiness and lay about you for the Real Ioies Believe it Sirs the life of Christianity is not a bare Opinion It is a living by faith upon a life invisible and so serious resolving a Belief of the Truth of the everlasting blessedness as purchased and given bâ— Iesus Christ to persevering Saints as effectually turneth the affections and endeavours of the man to the Loving and seeking it above all this world It s one thing to take God and heaven for your portion as Believers do and another thing to be desirous of it as a reservè when you can keep the world no longer It s one thing to submit to Heaven as a Lesser evil then hell and another thing to desire it as a greater Good then earth It s one thing to lay up your Treasure and Hopes in heaven and to seek it first and another thing to be contented with it in your Necessity and to seek the world before it and give God that the flesh can spare Thus differeth the Religion of serious Christians and of Carnal worldly hypocrites But I shall break off my Admonition and end with some Advice Direct 1. Look upon this world and all things in it with the fore-seeing eye of Faith and Reason and vallue it but as it deserves And then you will neither be eager after it nor too much delighted in it nor puft up by it nor will it so prevalently entice you to venture or neglect eternal things Did you know and well consider but what an empty fading thing it is you could never be satisfied with so poor a portion nor quiet your souls till you had assurance or sound hopes of better things Nor would you take such pleasure in childish trifles nor debase your selves to be so inordinately imployed about such low and sordid matters while God and your eternal happiness are laid by You take not your selves for the basest of men much less for bruits or ideots O then do not make your selves the basest and do not unman your selves and brutifie your immortal souls A heathen could say Nemo alius est Deo dignus nisi qui opes contempsit If you would be Rich choose that which will make you Rich indeed make sure of his favour that is the absolute Lord of all and then you can want nothing whatever you may be without And if yet you thirst for worldly Riches or inordinately Love them and tenaciously keep them from your Masters use remember that this discovereth your disease and therefore should mind you rather to cure it then to feed it It is not money nor any thing in this world that will cure such an empty depraved soul. As Seneca saith If a sick man be carried about whether in a bed of gold or a bed of wood his disease is carried with him It is not a golden bed that will cure a diseased man Nor is it all the gold or honour in the world that will help such a deluded soul as thinks this world will make him happy Get but the cure of your Carnal minds and a little will serve you For it is your sinful fancy that would have much and not your nature that needs much Saith Seneca Si ad naturam vives nunquam eris pauper si ad opinionem nunquam eris dives Exiguum natura desiderat Opinio immensum He is not the poor man that hath but little but he that would have more Nor is he the Rich man that hath much but he that is content with what he hath If you pray but for your daily bread be not such hypocrites as by the bent of your desires to cross your prayers The nearest way to Riches saith the Moralist is the contempt of Riches and saith the Christian to be Rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which God hath promised all that Love him Jam. 2. 5. The greatest Riches are got proportionably on the easiest terms Loving the world will not procure it but Loving God will procure the everlasting fruition of his Love Millions love the world that miss of it but no man misseth of God that Loveth him above the world Buy not these gawds then at a dearer rate then you may have the Kingdom If you have not enough make sure of heaven and that will be enough for you and get a cure for your diseased minds which is easier and more profitable then to fulfill them No man saith Seneca
callings and about all the creatures Think with your selves Here is now a lesson in my hands if I can but learn it Here is somewhat that may shew me both God himself and my duty if I could but skilfully open it and understand it And so bethink your selves What it is that God would teach you or command you by that creature and especially to what use he requireth you to put it And remember that if you should think of God all the day long and yet not intend him and refer your labours and your riches to his service and give them up to his use this is not sanctifying God in the creature but hypocriticall abusing of him For it is not all thinking of God that will serve the turn 6. As you use to take account of your servants how they do your work so I would advise you every night or as often as you can to take an account of your selves as you are the servants of the God of heaven and ask your Consciences What have I done this day for God and how have I observed and sanctified him in his works So much for the fifth Direction Direct 6. REmember alwaies that the world is the enemy of your salvation and that if you be damned it is like to be through its enticements and therefore labour to be alwaies sensible that you go in continual danger of it And this will make you use it as an enemy and walk in a constant fear least it should over-reach you And see also that you endeavour as clearly as you can to find out wherein its enmity doth consist and then you will perceive that it is especially in seeming more Lovely then it is as it is the fewel of concupiscence and the provision of the flesh And when you understand this you will perceive that your danger lyeth in over-loving it and that it killeth by its embracements And this will direct you which way to bend the course of your opposition and what you must do to be saved from its snares To call the world an enemy is easie and common but so far as your very hearts apprehend it as an enemy so far you are out of danger of it An easie enemy that is conquered by understanding that it is an enemy And the way of its conquest is by enticing men to take it for a friend And also remember how great a part of your Christian life consisteth in keeping up the comâ—ate with this enemy and how certainly and miserably you will perish if you be overcome Direct 7. TO â—e much in the house of mourning and see the end of all the living will help us towards the Crucifying of the world Go among the sick and hear what they say of the world Stand by the dying and see what it will do for them and think now whether God or the world be better Look on the corpses of your deceased friends and think now Whether the soul be ever the better for all the riches and pleasures of the world Take notice of the graves and bones of the dead and think what a worthless thing is the world and all the glory and delights that it affords which will so turn us off and leave our bodies in such a plight as that Take notice of the frailties and diseases of your own flesh that tell you how shortly it must lie down in the dust And then compare this world and that to come where your abode will be everlasting It s a shame for a wise man to live as a stranger to so great a change and to look so much after a world that he is leaving and so little after the world that he shall abide in Direct 8. IT will much avail to the Crucifying of the world to you that you study the improvement of all your Afflictions Do not repine at them and think them a greater evil then they are but believe that they are a special advantage to your souls for the mortifying of your inordinate affections to the world and if you have but the wisdom and hearts to make use of them they may do you more good then all the prosperity of your lives hath done If you fall into poverty or fall under slanders or reproach from men if your friends prove false to you if those that you have done good to prove unthankful if the wickedness and frowardness of men do make you even weary of the world remember now what an advantage you have for Mortification When you have experience it self to disgrace the creature to you and your very flesh doth seem to be convinced Now see that you observe the teachings of this providence and come off from the world when you see it is so little worth and set as light by it as it doth by you Bethink you now that God doth this to lead you to himself and thankfully accept his call and close with him as your portion and be content with him alone and let them take the world that can get no better You see that adversity will make even a worldling speak hardly of the world as men will do of their friends when they fall out with them How much more should it help the gracious soul to a fuller sense of its vanity and nothingness and of the necessity and excellency of more certain things It s a great sin and folly in us that we strive more to have afflictions removed then sanctified and so we lose the gain that we might have got Though affliction alone will do little good yet grace doth make such use of affliction that thousands in heaven will have cause to bless God for them that before they were afflicted went astray and were deceived by the flatteries of the world as well as others Abundance that have been convinced of the vanity of the world have lingered long before they would forsake it till affliction hath rowsed their sleepy souls and by a lowder voice hath called them away Direct 9. BE very suspicious of a prosperous state and be more afraid of the world when it smiles then when it frowns Some are much perplexed for fear left they should not stand in adversity that too little fear being ensnared by prosperity They are afraid what they should do in a time of tryal and do not consider that prosperity is the great tryal Adversity doth but shew that love of the world which was in mens hearts in time of prosperity When men forsake Christ for fear of suffering and because they will not forsake the world they do but shew the effects of that disease which they had catcht long before When the world pleased them they fell so deep in love with it that now they will venture their souls to keep it It is prosperity that breeds the disease though adversity shew it Love not the world and you will easily part with it and so will easily suffer for Christ And prosperity is liker to tice your Love to it then
MOreovor where the world is Crucified A great deal of self-tormenting care and trouble of mind will be prevented You will not live such a perplexed miserable life as worldlings do Even in your outward troubles you will have less inward trouble of soul then they have in their abundance They are like a man that is hanged up in chains alive that gnaws upon his own flesh a while and then must famish What else do worldlings but tear and devour themselves with cares and sorrows and scourge themselves with vexatious thoughts and troubles If others did but the hundredth part as much to them against their wills as they wilfully do against themselves they would account them the cruellest persons in the world Paul saith of men that are in love with money that while they covet after it they do not only err from the faith but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they pierced themselves through and through and stab'd their own hearts with many sorrows A worldly mind and a melancholly are some kin The daily work of both is self-vexation and they are wilfully set upon the stabbing and destroying of themselves But it is not thus with the Believer so far as he is mortified Will he vex himself for nothing Will he be troubled for the loss of that which he disregardeth The dead world hath not power thus to disquiet his mind and to toss it up and down in trouble When it hath power on his body it cannot reach his soul. As the soul of a dead man feeleth no pain when the corpse is cut in pieces or rotteth in the grave So in a lower measure the soul of a Believer being in a sort as it were separated from the body by faith and gone before to the heavenly inheritance is freed from the sense of the calamities of the flesh So far as we are Dead we are insensible of sufferings Benefit 7. ANother Benefit that followeth upon the former is this We shall be far better able to suffer for Christ because that sufferings will be much more easie to us when once we are truly Crucified to the world What is it that makes men so tender of suffering and startle at the noise of it and therefore conform themselves to the times they live in and venture their souls to save their flesh but only their over-valuing fleshly things and not knowing the worth and weight of things everlasting They have no soul within them but what is become carnal by a base subjection to the flesh and therefore they savour nothing but the things of the flesh All Life desireth a suitable food for its sustentation A Carnal Life within hath a Carnal appetite and is most sensible of the miss of Carnal commodities But a Spiritual Life hath a Spiritual appetite And as Carnal minds can easily let go Spiritual things so a spiritual mind so far as it is such can easily let go carnal things when God requireth it When you are Dead to the world you will easily part with it For all things below will seem but small matters to you in comparison of the things which they are put in competition with If you are scorned or accounted the off scouring of the Town you can bear it because with you it is a very small matter to be judged of man 1 Cor. 4. 3. If you must endure abuses or persecutions for Christ you can do it because you reckon that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. You can let go your gain and account it loss for Christ yea and account all things loss for the knowledge of him and suffer the loss of all things for him accounting them but as dung that you may win him Phil 3. 7 8. If you knew that bonds and afflictions did abide you yet none of these things would move you neither would you account your life it self dear to you so that you may finish your course with joy Acts 20 23 24. So far as you are dead to the world and alive to God it will be thus with you When they that are alive to the world are so far from being able to dye for God that every cross doth seem a death to them I have many a time heard such lamentable complaints from people that are â—aln into poverty or disgrace or some other worldly suffering that hath given me more cause to lament the misery of their souls then of their bodies When they take on as if they were quite undone and had lost their God and hope of heaven doth it not too plainly shew that they made the world their God and their heaven Benefit 8. MOreover if indeed you are Crucified to the world your hearts will be still open to the motions of the Spirit and the motions of further Grace And so you will have abundant advantage both for the exercise and encrease of the graces which you have received The earthly minded have their hearts locked up against all that can be said to them Never can the Spirit or his Ministers make a motion to them for their good but some worldly interest or other doth contradict it and rise up against it But what have you to stop your ears when the world is dead The word then will have free access to your hearts When the Spirit comes your thoughts are ready your affections are at hand and all are in a posture to entertain him and attend him and so the work goes on and prospers But when he comes to the worldly mind the thoughts are all from home the affections are abroad and out of the way and there is nothing for his entertainment but all in a posture to resist him and gainsay him O what work would the preaching of the Gospel make in the world if there were not a worldly principle within to strive against it But we speak against mens Idols against their Jewels and their Treasure and therefore against their hearts and natures And then no wonder if we leave them in the jaws of Satan where we found them till irresistible merciful violence shall rescue them But so far as you are mortified the enemy is dead contradictions are all silenced opposition is ceased the Spirit findeth that within that will befriend its motions and own its cause the soul lyeth down before the word and gladly heares the voice of Christ And thus the work goes smoothly on Benefit 9. MOreover when once you are Crucified to the world you are capable of the true spiritual use of it which it was made for Then you may see God in it and then you may savour the blood of Christ in it Then you may perceive a great deal of Love in it And that which before was venemous and did endanger your souls will now become a help to you and may be safely handled when the sting is thus taken out Before it was the road to Hell and now there is some taste
the lice or worms from eating him alive God useth to pour contempt upon Princes when they will not know and submit to the everlasting King He taketh himself as engaged to break down all that would usurp his honour and tumble down the Idols of the world therefore hath he alway so abhorred the two grand abominations Pride and Idolatry above other sins For he will not give his glory to another He will not with patience hear it spoken of an Idol These are thy Gods O Israel that brought thee out of Egypt The first Commandment is not meerly a precept for some particular act of obedience as are the rest but it is the fundamentall Law of God establishing the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject And as this is the first and great command and that which virtually containeth all Thou shalt have no other Gods before me or Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart So he that breaketh this is guilty of all When the Parent of the world would needs become as God he made himself the slave of the Devil You see then I hope sufficient reason why the world must be abhorred and crucified when it is made an Idol and would become our God and why this Crucifixion of it is of absolute indispensable necessity to salvation If it had kept its place and distance and would have been only a stream from the infinite power and wisdom and goodness and a Messenger to bring us the report of his excellencies and a book in which we might read his name and a glass in which we might see his face then might we have esteemed and magnified it But when the Devil and the flesh will make it their bait to draw away our hearts from God and to steal that love desire and care which is due to him and begin to tell us of Rest or Satisfaction or Felicity here its time to cry out Crucifie it crucifie it When it would insinuate it self into our bosom and get next our hearts and have our most delightfull and frequent thoughts and become so dear to us that we cannot be without it when it is the very thing that our minds are bent upon and that lifts us up when we have it and casts us down when we want it and thus disposeth of our affections and endeavours its time to lay such an Idol in the dust and to cast out such a Traytor with the greatest detestation As we our selves shall be exalted if we humble our selves and brought low if we exalt our selves so must we cast down the world when it would exalt it self in our esteem and the right exaltation of it is by the lowest subjecting of it unto God For whoever hath to deal with Infinite Power must think of no other way of exaltation 3. The world must be abhorred and crucified by us as it standeth at enmity to God and his holy waies It is become through mans corruption the great seducer and an impediment to our entertainment of heavenly Doctrine and a means of keeping the soul from God Yea it is become the Interest of the flesh and is set in fullest opposition to our spiritual Interest In what degree soever the world would turn your hearts from God or stop your ears against his word or take you off from the duty which he prescribeth you in that measure must you seek to crucifie it to your selves If Father or Mother would draw us away from Christ though as parents they must be honoured still yet as enemies to Christ they must be contemned When your honours would hinder you from honouring God and your credit doth contend against your conscience and your worldly business contradicteth your heavenly business and your gain is pleaded against your obedience it is time then to use the world as an enemy and to vilifie those honours and businesses and commodities A tender conscience that is acquainted with a course of universall obedience will take notice when these worldly interpositions and a vocations would interrupt his course and a soul acquainted with an holy dependance upon God and Communion can feel when these enticing and deluding things would interrupt his Communion and turn his eye from the face of God and therefore he can feel by the advantage of his holy experience when the world becomes his enemy and calleth him to the conflict 4. The world is to be crucified as it is the matter of our flesh-pleasing or the food of our carnal affections and the fuel of our concupiscence The grand Idol that is exalted against the Lord is Carnal Self This is the God of all the unregenerate This hath their hearts their care their labours The pleasing of this flesh is the end of the unsanctified and therefore the summary capital sin which virtually containeth all the rest Even as the Pleasing of God is the End of every Saint and therefore the summary capital duty which virtually containeth all other duties The world is an Idol subservient to the flesh as being the matter of its delight and the means by which its End is attained as in the contrary state the Mediator is subservient to the Father as being the matter of his delight in whom he is well-pleased and the means by whom he obtaineth his Ends in making his people also well-pleasing in his eyes The Devil also is an Idol of the ungodly but that is in a suberviency to the world and to the flesh as by the bait of worldly things he pleaseth the flesh as in the contrary state the Holy Ghost is in office subordinate to the Son and to the Father in that he bringeth us to Christ by whom we must have access to the Father In the Carnal Trinity then you may see that as the flesh is the Principall and Ultimate End and hath the first place so the world is the nearest means to that End and hath the second place and as there is no coming to the Father or Pleasing him but by the Son so is there no way of Pleasing the flesh but by the world So that by this you may perceive in what relation we stand to the sensual seducing world and on what grounds and how far it is necessary that we crucifie it The fixed determination of our Soveraign is that if we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the Spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live Rom. 8. 13. To live after the flesh is by loving the world and enjoying it as our felicity and to mortifie the deeds of it by the Spirit is by withdrawing this fuel and food that doth maintain them and by crucifying and killing the world as to such ends Our work is to put on the Lord Iesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 14. It is the world that is this provision for the fulfilling of our fleshly lusts So far therefore as the flesh must be mortified the
Sanctity and to true Christianity it self They confess they should be all contemners of the world but God forbid say they that none but such should be saved But I tell you God hath forbidden already by his Laws and God will forbid hereafter by his sentence and execution that any other but such should be saved Do you think in good sadness that any man can be saved that is not truly dead to the world and doth not despise it in comparison of God and the great things of Everlasting Life Let me satisfie you of the contrary here once for all and I pray you see that your flesh provoke you not to mutter forth such unreasonable self-delusions any more 1 Ioh. 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him what can be spoken more plainly or to a worldly minded man more terribly 1 Ioh. 5. 4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Jam. 4. 4. Know ye not that the Friendship of the world is enmity with God Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God Will not all this serve to convince you of this truth Rom. 8. 5 6 7 13. For they that are after the flesh do minde the things of the flesh but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit For to be carnally minded is death but to be spirituall â—â—nded is life and peace Because the carnal minde is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Gal. 5. 16 17. 6. 8. Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Col. 3. 1 2 3. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Mortifie therefore your members which are upon the earth Matth. 6. 19 20 21 24. Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the ore and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other Ye cannot serve God and Mammon Matth. 10. 38 39. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me He that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it Mat. 16. 24. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me Luk. 14. 26 27. If any man come to me and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my disciple And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple Verse 33. Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath he cannot be my disciple Heb. 11. 13 14 15. and to the end But I will cite no more Here is enough to convince you or condemn you If any thing at all be plain in Scripture this is plain that every true Christian is dead to the world and looks on the world as a crucified thing and that God and the life of glory which he hath promised have the Ruling and chiefest interest in their souls Believe it Sirs this is not a work of supererrogation nor such as only tendeth to the perfecting of a Christian but such as is of the essence of Christianity and without which there is not the least hope of salvation SECT XIV Use 2. BY all that hath been said you may perceive what it is to be a Christian indeed and that true Christianity doth set men at a further distance from the world then carnal self-deceiving Professors do imagine You see that God and the world are enemies not God and the world as his Creature but as his Competitor for your hearts and as the seducer of your understandings and the opposer of his interest and the fuel and food of a fleshly minde and that which would pretend to a Being or Goodness separated from God or to be desirable for it self having laid by the relation of a means to God To be a Friend to the world in any of these respects is to be an enemy to God And God will not save his enemies while enemies An enmity to God is an enmity to our salvation for our salvation is in him alone If then you have but awakened consciences if the true love of your selves be stirring in you and if you have but the free use of common reason I dare say you do by this time perceive that it closely concerneth you presently to look about you and to try whether you are crucified to the world or not Seeing my present business is for the securing of your Everlasting Peace and the healing of your souls of that which would deprive you of it let me intreate you all in the fear of God to give me your assistance and to go along with me in the work for what can a Preacher do for you if you will do nothing for your selves How can we convert or heal or save you without you I do foresee your appearance before the Lord a jealous God that will not endure that any Creature should be sweeter and more amiable to you then himself I do foresee the condemnation that all such must undergo and the remediless certain misery that they are 〈◊〉 know there is no way that the wit of man or Angels can devise to prevent the damnation of such a soul but by Crucifying the flesh and world by the Cross of Christ and dethroning these Idols and submitting sincerely to God their Happiness This cannot be done while you are strangers to your selves and will not look into your own hearts and see what abominable work is there that you may
unthankful to your own Parents disobedient to your superiours unfaithful to your equals and unmerciful to your inferiours There is no trusting a worldling he will sell his friend for money He careth not to wrong you in your life your chastity estate and name for his lustful ambitious and covetous desires For he directly breaketh the tenth Commandment which is the sum of the second Table requiring us to regard the welfare of our neighbour and not to maintain a private selfish interest against it So true is that of Paul 1 Tim. 6. 10. The love of money is the root of all evil As adhering to God is the sum of all Duty and Spiritual Goodness so adhering to the creature instead of God is the sum of all wickedness and disobedience And seeing all this is so I require you here in the name of God to cast out this wickedness and cherish it no longer Bring forth that Traytor that hath dethroned God in your hearts and exalted it self and let it die the death It subverteth Common-wealths and all societies it causeth perjury perfidiousness and sedition it raiseth wars and sets the world together by the ears it overturneth all right order and strikes at the heart of Morality it self and would make every man a Woolf or Tyger to his brother It is a murderer of your own souls and the cause of cruelty both to the souls and bodies of others It is a lyar that promiseth what it cannot perform It is a cheater that would deceive you of your everlasting happiness and tice you into Hell by pretences of furthering your profitâ— and contents It causeth parents to neglect the souls of their children and children to wish the death of their parents or be weary of them or disregard them and causeth Law-suits and contentions between brother and brother and neighbour and neighbour and fills the heart with rancor and malice and turneth families and Kingdoms into confusion it maketh people hate their Teachers and too many Ministers to neglect their flocks It adulterously seeketh to vitiate the spouse of Christ and take up the heart which was reserved for himself It robbeth him of his honour of our affections and obedience and Sacrilegiously defaceth the Temple of the Holy Ghost It will not allow God one free thought nor full affection of your heart nor one hour entirely improved for his honour This is the World and thus is it used by sensual men Judge now whether it deserve not to die the death and to be cast out of your souls and wherher we have not reason to say Crucifie it Crucifie it Ask me no more What evil it hath done You see it is such an enemy to the God of heaven that if you cherish it and let it live in your hearts you are not friends to Christ or your salvation Away with it then without any more ado and use it as the world did use your Lord and as it nailed him on the Cross so go to his Cross for a nail to fasten it and for strength to Crucifie it that you may be victors and super-victors through him that loved you and overcame the world for you Choose not to be slaves when you may be free-men and triumphers Take warning by all that have gone before you serve not a Master that casteth off all his servants in distress and leaveth them all in fruitless complaints of its unprofitablness Think not to speed well where never man sped well before you nor to find content where none have found it If all the worlds followers complain of it at the parting take warning by them and foresee the end Find out one man that ever was made happy by the world in a true and durable happiness before you venture your own hopes and happiness in such hands Put not your selves and all that you have in such a leaking vessel that never yet brought man safe to shore Will neither the experience of your own lives nor the experience of all the world before you delivered in the history of so many thousand years be a sufficient warning to you to avoid the snare What will you take then for a sufficient warning Were not reason captivated one would think that a walk into the Church-yard might satisfie you The sight of a grave or of a dead body should kill and disgrace the world in your eyes Do you see where you must lie and what that flesh which you so regard must be turned to and what is the most that can be expected from the world and in how poor and despicable a case it will then leave you and yet will you doat upon it and neglect and lose the life everlasting for it Will you be wilfully seduced by the vain-glory and oftentation of blinded worldlings when you are certain before-hand that they will not be long of the mind themselves that now they are Name me one man if you can that rejoyceth in his worldly prosperity now and speaketh well of it who rejoyced in it and spoke well of it two hundred years ago It s a child indeed that would have an house builded by every fine flower that he seeth in his way and forgetteth his home his friends and his inheritance When its two to one but the flower will be withered before his house be finished and the pleasure will not answer the trouble and cost Indeed if the world were a better place then that which we are going to I could not then blame any to desire to keep it as long as they can And yet if it were so the certainty of our removall should make us less regard it and look more to the place where we must evermore remain Much more when our home doth exceed this world in worth as much as in continuance It s folly enough to set a mans heart upon the fairest Inn that is in his way but to prefer a swine-stye before a Pallace where his Father dwells and his inheritance doth lie is somewhat worse then meer folly and its meet that such be used according to their choice It s meet indeed that we be patient in our Wilderness and murmure not at God for the sufferings that it casteth us upon But to love it better then the promised Land and to think or speak hardly of our happiness it self and those that would lead us to it this is unreasonable The Israelites were never so foolish as to build Cities in the Wilderness as desiring to make it their fixed habitations but contented themselves with moveable tents What a curse were it if God should put you off with earth and give you no other treasure and felicity but what it can afford You might well then look on your Inheritance as Hiram did on his twenty Cities in Galilee 1 King 9. 11 12. and disliking it call it the Land of Cabul It is the description of miserable wicked men to have their portion in this life Psalm 17. 14. Suppose you had the most that you
of heaven in it The stones and earth are useful for you to tread upon though they are unfit for you to feed on or too hard to rest upon So though the world be unfit to Rest or feed your souls it may be made a convenient way for you to travail in It is unmeet to be Loved but it is meet to be Used when you have learned so to use it as not abusing it When self is throughly down and denyed and God is exalted and your souls brought over so clearly to him that you are nothing but in him and would have nothing but in and with him and do nothing but for him then you shall be able to see that glory and amiableness in the creature that now you cannot see I or you shall see the Creator himself in the creature Benefit 10. WHEN once you are truly Crucified to the world You will have the honour and the comfort of an heavenly life Your thoughts will be daily steeped in the Coelestial delights when other mens are steept in Gall and Vinegar You will be above with God when your carnal neighbours converse only with the world Your thoughts will be higher then their thoughts and your waies then their waies as the heaven where you converse is higher then the earth When you take flight from earth in holy Devotions they may look at you and wonder at you but cannot follow you for whither you go they cannot come till they are such as you You leave them groveling here on earth and feeding on the dust and striving like children or rather like swine or dogs about their meat When you are above in the Spirit on the speedy wings of Faith and Love beholding that face that perfecteth all that perfectly behold it and tasting that Joy which fully reconcileth all that fully do enjoy it which we must here contend for but none do there contend about it What a noble employment have you in comparison of the highest servants of the world How sweet are your delights in comparison of the Epicures O happy souls that can see so much of your eternal happiness and reach so near it Were I but more in your condition I would not envy Princes their glory nor any sensualists and worldlings their contents nor desire to be their partner I could spare them their troublesom dignities and their burdensom Riches and the unwholsom pleasures which they so often surfet on and the wind of popular applause which so swelleth them Yea what could I not spare them if I might be more with you O happy poverty sickness or imprisonment or whatever is called misery by the world if it be nearer Heaven then a sensual life and if it will but advantage my soul for those contemplations which are the imployment of mortified heavenly men Yea if it do but remove the impediments of so sweet a life I know by some little too little experience I know that one hours time of that blessed life will easily pay for all the cost and one believing view of God will easily blast the beauty of the world and shame all those thoughts as the issues of my dotage that ever gave it a lovely name or turned mine eye upon it with desire or caused me once with complacency to behold it or ever brought it near my heart O Sirs what a noble life may you live and how much more excellent work might you be employed in if the world were but dead to you and the stream of your souls were turned upon God Had you but one draught of the Heavenly consolations you would thirst no more for the pleasures of the world Yea did you but taste of it as Ionathan of the honey from the end of his rod 1 Sam. 14. 27. your eyes would be enlightened and your hearts revived and your hands would be so strengthened in your spiritual warfare that your enemies would quickly perceive it in your more resolute prevailing opposition of their assaults And experience will tell you that you will no further reach this heavenly life then you are Crucified to earth and flesh God useth to shew himself to the Coelestial inhabitants and not to the Terrestrial And therefore you will see no more of God then you get above and converse in Heaven And if faith had not this elevating power and could not see further then sense can do we might talk long enough of God before we had any saving knowledge of him or relish of his Goodness And doubtless if we must get by faith into Heaven if we will have the reviving sight of God then we must needs away from earth For our hearts cannot at once converse in both Believe it Sirs God useth to give his heavenly Cordials upon an empty stomack and not to drown them in the mud and dirt of sensuality When you are emptyest of creature-delights and love you are most capable of God And fasting from the world doth best prepare you for this heavenly Feast Let Abstinence and Temperance be imposed upon your senses but command a totall Fast to your Affections And try then whether your souls be not fitter to ascend and whether God will not reveal himself more clearly then before It may seem a paradox that the vallies should be nearer Heaven then the Hills But doubtless Stephen saw more of it then the high Priests And Lazarus had a fairer prospect thither from among the dogs at the Rich mans gate then the Master of the house had at his plentiful table And who would not rather have Lazarus's sores with a fore-sight of Heaven then the Rich mans fulness without it yea with the fears of after misery A Heavenly life is proper to the mortified Benefit 11. MOreover those that are Crucified to the world are most fruitfull unto others and blessings to all within their reach They can part with any thing to do good with They are rich to God and their Brethren if they be rich and not to themselves If a mortified man have hundreds or thousands by the year he hath no more of it for himself then if he had a meaner estate He takes but necessary food and rayment he shunneth intemperance and excess Nay he often pincheth his body if needfull that he may tame it and bring it into subjection to the Spirit and the rest he layes out for the service of God so far as he is acquainted with his will Yea his necessary food and rayment which he receiveth himself is ultimately not for himself but for God Even that he may be sustained by his daily bread for his daily duty and fitted to please his Master that maintaineth him If they have much they give plenteously If they have but little they are faithfull in that little And if they have not silver and gold they will give such as they have where God requireth it But the unmortified worldling is like some spreading trees that by drawing all the nutriment to themselves and by dropping on the rest