an executive power But when the Memorial Book of God is opened which is written for them that fear the Lord and think upon his name and when the Lord shall say of them These are mine as he is making up his Iewels and spareth them as â— man spareth his Son that serveth him then shall those Infidels â—â—turn to their wits and the righteous shall return from their fears and sufferings and shall discern between the Righteous and the Wicked between those that served God and those that served him not Mal. 3.16 17 18. Another Objection I find most common in the mouths of the ungodly especially of late years They say We can do nothing without God We cannot have grace if God will not give it us and if he will we shall quickly Turn If he have not predestinated us and will not Turn us how can we Turn our selves or be saved It is not in him that wills nor in hâ—m that runs And thus they think they are excused I have answered this formerly and in this book but let me now say this much 1. Though you cannot cure your selves you can hurt and poison your selves It s God that must sanctifie your hearts but who corrupted them Will you wilfully take Poison because you cannot cure your selves Me think you should the more forbear it You should the more take heed of sinning if you cannot mend what sin doth marr 2. Though you cannot be converted without the special Grace of God yet you must know that God giveth this Grace in the use of his holy means which he hath appointed to that end and common grace may enable you to forbear your gross sinning as to the outward act and to use those means Can you truly say that you do as much as you are able to do Are you not able to go by an Ale-house door or to shut your mouths and keep out the drink or to forbear the company that hardneth you in sin Are you not able to go to hear the word and think of what you heard when you come home and to consider with your selves of your own condition and of everlasting things Are you not able to read good Books from day to day at least on the Lords day and to conversâ— with those that fear the Lord You cannot say that you have done what you were able 3. And therefore you must know that you can forfeit the Grace and help of God by your wilful sinning or negligence though you cannot without Grace turn to God If you will not do what you can its just with God to deny you that grace by which you might do more 4. And for Gods Decrees you must know that they separate not the end and means but tie them together God never decreed to save any but the sanctified nor to damn any but the unsanctified God doth as truly Decree from everlasting whether your Land this year shall be barren or fruitful and just how long you shall live in the world as he hath Decreed whether you shall be saved or not And yet you would think that man but a fool that would forbear plowing and sowing and say If God have Decreed that my ground shall bear corn it will bear it whether I plough and sow or not If God have decreed that I shall live I shall live whether I eat or not but if he have not it is not eating that will keep me alive Do you know how to answer such a man or do you not If you do then you know how to answer your selves for the case is alike Gods Decree is as peremptory about your bodies as your souls If you do not then try first these conclusions upon your bodies before you venture to try them on your souls see first whether God will keep you alive without food or rayment and whether he will give you corn without tillage and labour and whether he will bring you to your journeys and without your travel or carriage and if you speed well in this then try whether he will bring you to heaven without your diligent use of means and sit down and say we cannot sanctifie our selves And for the point of Free-will which you harp so long upon Divines are not so much disagreed about it as you imagine Augustine as well as Pelagius Calvin as well as Arminius the Dominicans as well as the Iesuits all do generally maintain that man hath Free-will but the Orthodox say that Free-will is corrupted and disposed to evil Epiphanius condemned Origen for saying that man had lost the image of God and makes it a point of Heresie And yet one may truly say that man hath lost Gods image and another may truly say that he hath not lost it For there is a twofold image of God on man the one is Natural and that is Our Reason and Free-will and this is not lost The other is Qualitative and Ethical and this is our Holiness and this is lost and by Grace restored No man of brains denyeth that man hath a will that 's Naturally free It s free from violence and its a self determining Principle But it is not free from evil Dispositions It is Habitually averse to God and Holiness and enclined to earthly fleshly things It is enslaved by a sinful byas This no man me thinks that it a Christian should deny and of the Aged I see not how an Infidel can deny it Alas we easily confess to you that you have not this Spiritual Moral-Free will which is but your right Inclination and your Habitual Willingness it self If you had a will that were freed from wicked Inclinations I had no need to write such Books aâ— this to perswade you to be willing in a case which your own salvation lyeth on To the grief of our souls we perceive after all our preaching and perswasions that the ungodly have not this spiritual free wil. But this is nothing but your willingness it self inclination to be willing and therefore the want of it is so far from excusing you that the more you want it that is the more you are wilful in sin the worse you are and the sorer will be your punishment And our preaching and perswasion and your Hearing and Considering are the appointed means it get this Moral power or Freedom that is to make you truly willing Well Sirs I have but three requests to you and I have done First that you will seriously read over this small Treatise and if you have such as need it in your Families that you would read it over and over to them and if those that fear God would go now and then to their ignorant neighbours and read â—his or some other Book to them of â—his subject they might be a meanâ— of winning of souls If we cannot intreate so small a Labour of men for their own salvation as to read such short Instructions as these they set little by themselves and will most justly perish Secondly when you have
and to tell you what greater and better things you might certainly have if you would hearken to his Call Isaiah 55 1 2.3 We believe and obey the voice of God and come to you daily on his message who hath charged us to preach and be instant with you in season and out of season and to lift up our voice like a Trumpet and shew you your transgressions and your sins Isa. 58.1 2 Tim. 4.1 2. But wo and alas to the grief of our souls and your own undoing you stop your ears you stiffen your necks you harden your hearts and break our hearts and send us back to God with groans to tell him that we have done his message but can do no good on you nor scarcely get a sober hearing O that our eyes were as a fountain of tears that we might lament our ignorant careless people that have Christ before them and pardon and life and heaven before them and have not hearts to know and value them that might have Christ and grace and glory as well as others if it were not for their wilful negligence and contempt O that the Lord would fill our hearts with more compassion to these miserable souls that we might cast our selves even at their feet and follow them to their houses and speak to them with our bitter tears For long have we preached to many of them as in vain we study plainness to make them understand and many of them will not understand us We study serious piercing words to make them feel but they will not feel If the Greatest mattter would work with them we should awake them If the sweetest things would work we should entice them and win their hearts if the most dreadful things would work we should at least affright them from their wickedness if Truth and Certainty would take with them we should soon convince them if the God that made them and the Christ that bought them might be heard the ease would soon be altered with them if Scripture might be heard we should soon prevail if Reason even the best and strongest Reason might be heard we should not doubt but we should speedily convince them if experience might be heard even their own experience and the experience of all the world the matter would be mended Yea if the Conscience within them might be heard the case would be better with them then it is But if nothing can be heard wâ—at then shall we do for them If the dreadfull God of Heaven be slighted who then shall be regarded If the inestimable Love and blood of a Redeemer be made light of what then shall be valued If Heaven have no desiderable Glory with them and everlasting Ioys be nothing worth If they can jest at Hell and dance about the bottomless pit and play with the consuming fire and that when God and man do warn them of it What shall we do for such souls as these Once more in the name of the God of Heaven I shall do the Mâ—ssage to you which he had commanded us and leave it in these standing lines to convert your or condemn you to change you or to rise up in Iudgement against you and to be a witness to your faces that once you had a serious Call to Turn Hear all you that are the drudges of the world and the servants of the flesh and Satan That spend your daies in looking after prosperity on earth and drowâ— your consciences in drinking and gluttony and idleness and foolish sports and know you sin and yet will sin as if you set God at defiance and bid him do his worst and spare not Hearken all you that mind not God and have no heart to holy things and feel no savour in the Word or Worship of the Lord or in the thoughts or mention of eternal life that are careless of your immortal souls and never bestowed one hour in enquiring whaâ— case they are in whether sanctified or unsanctified and whether you are ready to appear before the Lord Hearken all you that by sinning in the light have sinned your selves into Atheism and Infidelity and do not believe the Word of God He that hath an ear to hear let him hear the Gratious and yet Dreadful Call of God! His eye is all this while upon you Your sins are registred and you shall surely hear of them all again God keepeth the Book now and he will write it all out upon your Consciences with his terrors and then you also shall keep it your selves O Sinners that you knew but what you are doing and who you are all this while offending The Sun it self is darkness before the glory of that Majesty which you daily abuse and carelesly provoke The sinning Angels were not able to stand before him but were cast down to be tormented Devils And dare such silly worms as you so fearlesly offend and set your selves against your Maker O that you did but a little know what a case that wretched soul is in that hath engaged the Living God against him The word of his mouth that made thee can unmake thee the frown of his face will cut thee off and cast thee out into utter darkness How eager are the Devils to be doing with thee that have tempted thee and do but wait for thâ— word from God to take and use thee as their own and then in a moment thou wilt be in Hell If God be against thee all things are against thee this world is but thy prison for all that thou so lovest it thou art but reserved in it to the day of wrath Job 21.30 Thy Iudge is coming thy soul is even going Yet a little while and thy friends shall say of thee He is dead and thou shalt see the things that now thou didst despise and feel that which now thou wilt not believe Death will bring such an Argument as thou canst not answer An Argument that shall effectually confute thy Cavils against the word and ways of God and all thy self-conceited dotages And then how soon will thy mind be changed Then be an unbeliever if thou canst stand then to all thy former words which thou wast wont to utter against the Scriptures or against a holy and a heavenly life Make good that cause then before the Lord which thou wast wont to plead against thy Teachers and against the people that feared God Then stand to thy old opinions and contemptuous thoughts of the diligence of the Saints Make ready now thy strongest Reasons and stand up then before the Iudge and plead like a man for thy fleshly thy unworldly and ungodly life But know that thou must have one to plead with that will not be outfaced by thee nor so easily put off as we thy fellow Creatuâ—es O poor deceived wretched soul there is nothing but a slender vail of flesh betwixt thee and that amazing sight which will quickly silence thee and turn thy tune and make thee of another mind As soon as
Doth he give us Sun and Moon and Stars the earth and all the creatures to attend us and serve us with their lives and virtues and yet doth he not care for our hearts or service This is as foolish as to say that he hath made all the world in vain and careth not for it now he hath made it 7. If he cared not for the frame of our hearts and lives he would not have sent his Son to Redeem us and to cleanse us from all iniquity and sanctifie us a peculiar people to himself Tit. 2.14 Surely the price that was paid for sinners and the wonderful design of God in our Redemption doth shew that he makes not light of sin and that he is wonderfully in love with holiness 8. If God did not regard our hearts and lives he would not have made it the office of his Ministers to call us daily to Repentance and an holy life Nor commanded them to make such a stir with sinners to win them unto God He would not have appointed all his Ordinances publick and private also to this end Doth God command all this ado for a thing that he regards not 9. Nor would he punish the world with Hell hereafter or so many dreadful judgements here as thousands feel if he cared not what they think or do Methinks men that are so often groaning under his rod should feel that he looks after their hearts and wayes 10. And how can the Holy Ghost be our Sanctifier if God be so indifferent whether we be clean or unclean Dare you think that the Holy Ghost doth take upon him a needless work 11. Methinks you might perceive even in the malice of the Tempter that God is holy and hateth iniquity and his Word is true that telleth us of the eternal punishment of sin This Scripture tells us of the Angels fall and that many of them are become Devils by their sin and are malicious enemies of mans salvation And do you not easily perceive it to be true How come they else to be such importunate Tempters of men which we feel alas by too much experience Or if this evidence be not palpable enough to convince the Infidel How come they to make so many bargains with Conjurers and Witches to draw them from God and Salvation as they have done How come they to appear in terrible shapes to so many as they have done and still upon designs that declare their own dejected base Condition and their enmity to God and man and their eager desire to engage men in a way of sin If any Infidel will not believe that really there have been Witches and Apparitions and consequently that there are Devils who are miserable and malicious spirits who by sin are cast out of the favour of God and would draw men into their miserable case let them come and reason the case with me and I shall quickly tell them of so many sure undenyable instances and give them so much proof of the truth of it as shall leave them nothing to say against it â—â—less they will still say We will not believe Yea so much as that I will not be beholden to the vilest Atheist or Infidel to believe it if he will not quite renounce his Reason but give it leave to see the Light 12. Lastly if yet you think that God the Soveraign Ruler of the world that is everywhere present and preserveth all doth care so little what men are or what they do whether they are holy or unholy obedient or disobedient to his Laws then methinks that you your selves and all the rest of your fellow-creatures should little care Two Questions therefore I must here propound to you 1. Do not you care what men say of you or do to you Are you contented that men slander you and abase you or set your houses or Towns on fire or destroy your cattle or wives and children and imprison wound or kill your selves If you will make a great matter of what men say or do against you can you be so mad for it is no better as to think that the Omnipotent Holy God should little regard what 's said or done against himself and against hâ—s servants and that by such silly worms as men that are his workmanship Did not selfishness make you blind and partial you would know that one sin against God deserves more punishment then ten thousand thousand times as much against such silly things as you Do you make no matter of difference between a bad servant and a good an obedient and a disobedient child a Son that would lay down his life for you and a Son that longs for your death that he may have your Lands between a faithful friend and a deadly enemy If you do not you are not men but something else in humane shape If you do then you are somewhat worse then men if yet you would have the Blessed God to make no great difference between those that love him above all the world and those that regard him not between the Holy and unholy soul. And 2. I would ask you Whether you would have the Rulers of the world to take no care what men say or do or would you not If not then you would have all the world turned loose and you would have every man that is poorer then you have leave to rob you and every man that hateth you have leave to beat you or to kill you and every man that liketh your house or lands or goods or cattle to have leave to take them from you and every man to defile your wives or daughters that hath a mind to it And so we should see whether it is that Infidelity leads men But if you like not this then you are most unreasonable if you would have Magistrates to be regardful of mens actions and not God If Magistrates must hang men for wronging you and the Eternal Majesty must not punish them for wronging him and breaking his Laws which is infinitely a greater matter As if you would have a Constable punish men and the King or Iudge to have no regard of it For Kings are under God as Constables are under Kings and a thousandfold lower The truth is wicked men are fallen so far from God to themselves that they are as gods to themselves in their own esteem and besides themselves they know no God and therefore any wrong that is done against them or any good that is done for them they would have regarded but the wrong and disobedience that is against God they would have nothing made of And they have such narrow blasphemous thoughts of God as if he were a finite creature like themselves that can be but in one place at once that makes them so blaspheme his Providence and think he minds not Good or Evil and will not reward the godly or punish the ungodly but â—ere like the Idols of the Heathen that have eyes and see not ears and hear not and hands without
when the civiler sort do delude themselves by thinking that they are Converted already when they be not O Sirs Conversion is another kind of work then most are ware of It s not a small matter to bring an Earthly mind to Heaven and to shew man the amiable excellencies of God till he be taken up in such Love to him that never can be quenched to break the heart for sin and make him flie forrefuge unto Christ and thankfully embrace him as the lâ—fe of his soul to have the very drift and bent of the heart and life to be changed so that a man renounceth that which he took for his felicity and placeth his felicity where he never did before and liveth not to the same end and driveth not on the same design in the world as formerly he did in a word he that is in Christ is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new 2 Cor. 5.17 He hath a new understanding a new will and resolution new sorrows and desires and love and delight new thoughts new speeches new company if possible and a new conversation Sin that before was a jesting matter with him is now so odious and terrible to him that he flies from it as from death The world that was so lovely in his eyes doth now appear but as vanity and vexation God that was before neglected is now the only Happiness of his soul before he was forgotten and every lust preferred before him but now he is set next the heart and all things must give place to him and the heart is taken up in the attendance and observance of him and is grieved when he hides his face and never thinks it self well without him Christ himself that was wont to be slightly thought of is now his only hope and refuge and he liveth upon him as on his daily bread he cannot pray without him nor rejoyce without him nor think nor speak nor live without him Heaven it self that before was lookt upon but as a tolerable reserve which he hoped might serve turn as better then hell when he could not stay any longer in the world is now taken for his home the place of his only Hope and Rest where he shall See and Love and Praise that God that hath his heart already Hell that before did seem but as a bugbear to frighten men from sin doth now appear to be a real misery that is not to be ventured on nor jested with The works of holiness which before he was weary of and seemed to be more ado then needs are now both his recreation and his business and the trade that he lives upon The Bible which was before to him but almost as a common book is now as the Law of God as a Letter written to him from heaven and subscribed with the name of the Eternal Majesty it is the Rule of his thoughts and words and deeds the commands are binding the threats are dreadful and the promises of it speak life to his soul. The godly that seemed to him but like other men are now the excellentest and happyest on earth And the wicked that were his play-fellows are now his grief and he that could laugh at their sin is readyer now to weep for their sin and misery Psalm 16.3 15.4 Phil. 3.18 In short he hath a New End in his thoughts and a New Way in his endeavours and therefore his Heart and life is New Before his Carnal Self was his End and his pleasure and worldly Profits and Credit were his Way and now God and everlasting Glory is his End and Christ and the Spirit and Word and Ordinances Holiness to God and Righteousness and Mercy to men these are his Way Before Self was the chief Ruler to which the matters of God and Conscience must stoop and give place and now God in Christ by the Spirit Word and Ministry is the chief Ruler to whom both Self and all the matters of Self must give place So that this is not a change in one or two or twenty points but in the whole soul and the very end and Bent of the Conversation A man may step out of one path into another and yet have his face the same way and be still going towards the same place but t is another matter to turn quite back again and take his journey the clean contrary way to a contrary place So it is here A man may turn from drunkenness to thriftiness and forsake his good fellowship and other gross disgraceful sins and set upon some duties of Religion and yet be going still to the same End as before intending his carnal Self above all and giving it still the Government of his soul. But when he is Converted this Self is denyed and taken down and God is set up and his face is turned the contrary way and he that before was addicted to himself and lived to himself is now by Sanctification devoted to God and liveth unto God before he asketh himself what he should do with his time his parts and his estate and for himself he used them but now he asketh God what he shall do with them and he useth them for him Before he would Please God so far as might stand with the Pleasure of his flesh and Carnal Self but not to any great displeasure of them But now he will please God let Flesh and Self be never so much displeasd This is the great change that God will make upon all that shall be saved You can say that the Holy-Ghost is your Sanctifier but do you know what Sanctification is Why this is it that I have now opened to you and every man and woman in the world must have this or be condemned to everlasting misery They must Turn or Dye Do you believe all this Sirs or do you not Surely you dare not say you do not For t is past doubt or denyal These are not Controversies where one learned pious man is of one mind and another of another where one party saith this and the other saith that Papists and Aanbaptists and every Sect among us that deserve to be called Christians are all agreed in this that I have said and if you will not believe the God of Truth and that in a case where every sect and party do believe him you are utterly unexcusable But if you do believe this how comes it to pass that you live so quietly in an unconverted state Do you know that you are Converted and can you find this wonderful change upon your souls Have you been thus born again and made anew Be not these strange matters to many of you and such as you never felt upon your selves If you cannot tell the day or the week of your change or the very Sermon that Converted you yet do you find that the work is done and such a change indeed there is and that you have such hearts as are before described Alas the most do follow