common good as may exceedingly promote it if they be observed by posterity must have a great regard to his present and surviving fame because the honour of his Laws will depend much upon the honour of his name and if once the people vilifie him they will be likely to vilifie and cast off his Laws to the hurt of Church and Common-wealth and their own undoing And even as to the success of their present Government they should be very careful of their fame so also a Minister of the Gospel must be very careful of his present and future reputation For at present the saving good of his auditors doth much depend upon it For if they have a base esteem of the Pastor they will be unlikely to give diligent intention to his Doctrine but disesteem it as they do the speaker and it is not likely to go to their hearts Nor will they seek his advice in the great matters of salvation and the difficult cases and dangers that they meet with but to the great hazard of their souls will slight the necessary assistance of him that is appointed to be their guide to heaven and will set light by all the Ordinances of God And therefore the Pastors Reputation is ten thousand times more beneficial and necessary to the people than to himself For alas it is but their good thoughts and words that he receiveth which add little to his happiness but it 's everlasting life which they may receive by that Word of God and help from him which is furthered by his Reputation And therefore as Ministers should be exceeding watchful against Pride that they desire not Honor for themselves so when they are sure that God is their end they must be exceeding careful of their own Reputation and avoid all occasions appearances of evil and purchase it by all just means For though honour be worth little yet the Cause of God and the souls of men are worth much and we must not be prodigal of our Masters Talents and such as are very useful to his service Our Reputation is Gods and the Churches due and to be cherished for their use Especially those Ministers must be careful of their Reputation that by Reformation or Publick useful writings are capable of profiting Posterity and they may desire the surviving of their honours which for it self might not be desired because their works and writings and Doctrine are like to be much blasted by their own defamations and do little good to any that come after Nay the precious truths and cause of God may be most dangerously wronged and disadvantaged by it and get such a blot and dishonour by their dishonour that any that shall seek the promoting of it hereafter may be greatly hindered and disadvantaged thereby For it will seem enough to cast off such a Doctrine for ever that by the dishonour of the maintainers it was once dishonourable and rejected as an error And doubtless some things have been thus made Heresies and so will be long rejected as Heresies in many parts of the Christian world because they were once called by that name and that was because the Person that did own them had some such dishonour or disadvantage as left his Doctrine open to this reproach And therefore you may here see what a Potent instrument Reputation is in the Devils hand to do his work and what abundance of advantage he gets by defaming Gods servants Principally by this means did he long keep the world from the entertainment of the Gospel the servants of Christ being contemptible in their eyes and the preaching of the cross but foolishness to them By this means did the Pharisees hinder the Jews from believing in Christ And by this means is Heathenism Infidelity and Mahometanism continued in possession of most of the world to this day By this means it is that Popery keeps the common people in thraldom as the voluminous lies of Cochlaeus Bolsecus and many others concerning Luther Calvin Zuinglius and other of our Reformers and Writers do fully testifie And by personal reproaches and dishonours it is that the Doctrine of the Reformed Divines is made so odious among the Lutherans and the like instances might be given in others If now any weighty Christian Verity should be asserted by any Pastor of the Church in a sounder and clearer manner than is commonly known or owned if the person that doth it should but fall under any reproach which he shall be sure of if the Devil can procure it it 's two to one but for his sake his Doctine will be stigmatized with the name of error and so lie buried for ever till Divine Omnipotency commands its Resurrection And hence it is that there is not one Instrument that ever God raiseth up to vindicate any truth or ordinance or do him any special service but Satan raiseth up tongues and pens if not hands and swords against him and an Army of reproachers will presently be on the back of him Now in all such cases as these it is a great duty for any servant of Christ to be very regardful of his Reputation even with Posterity For his good name may much promote the Truth as we know the Name of Austin Calvin and many another doth at this day And if it be our great duty to extend our service of God as far as we can to all Countries and to all posterity to do them good then is it our duty to endeavour that a good Reputation should go along with our labours to further the success or remove impediments And thus while we are sincere and intend all for God we may and must regard our honour and yet in so doing we Deny our selves because we do it not for our selves but for God and his Church 2. And if honour be given in to us this way even as we partake of it our selves as a Means to Gods honour we must thankfully accept it esteem it and rejoyce in it And therefore it is made the matter of many promises and spoken of in Scripture as a blessing Prov. 22. 1. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches and 10. 7. The memory of the Just is blessed but the name of the wicked shall rot Eccles 7. 1. A good name is better than precious oyntment with many the like Thus much I have said to prevent a mis-application of that which followeth and to help you so to understand me on this point of Honour as not to run from extream into extream and to sin by seeking to avoid sin But alas this kind of seeking our Honour for God and his Church and not for our selves and as our own I doubt is more rare than the neglect of honour The sin that I disswade you from is in these two points 1. That you do not Affect and seek after Extending or surviving Reputation for your selves and out of a Proud desire to be still some body in the estimation of the world 2.
hope not habitually but in that act before the Church and honour of God Let a Minister or any other man resolve to bestow all that God hath given him for his service on the poor or pious uses Perhaps he shall displease as many as he pleaseth because he hath not enough for all and if he give to nineteen the twentieth will say He past by me and I am never the better And thus this insatiable unreasonable self will hardly be pleased And among the godly how much doth it prevail O how many Ministers in England can tell by sad experience how much of self surviveth in Professors so much that we can hardly rule them or keep them from breaking all to pieces and every man running away of his own The ruine of England's expected Reformation the fall of our hope in too great a measure the multiplying of sects the swarms of errors the rage against the faithfullest Ministers the neglect of Discipline and obstinate refusal of penitent confessions and humbling self-denying duties the backwardness to learn the forwardness to be teachers the high esteem of weak parts and weaker grace the commonness of backbiting censuring and slandering especially those that are not of their fond opinions the rising designs of many the tenderness of their reputations the contendings for preheminence all these with many others do too loudly tell the world how much of self and how little self-denial is in many that seem godly 7. But yet this is not the highest discovery of the power of Carnal self Though its sad to think that it should be so potent in any that have grace yet it s sadder to think that it hath too much Power in the wisest and most learned Magistrates and Ministers that should be the greatest enemies of it in the rest A Magistrate as a Magistrate is for the common good Political societies consisting of Soveraign and Subject are therefore called Commonwealths from the final Cause which is the common good or weal of all so that it is essential to a Magistrate to be for the common good And yet self creeps in and makes such work with many of them that its hard to judge whether it have left them the essence of the Magistracy and whether they should be called Magistrates or no. But yet it s sadder that the Learned Godly Preachers of self-denial should have so little of it as too many have Alas that Ministers do not remember how ill Christ took the first contendings among his Disciples who should be the greatest that they do not imprint upon their minds the image of Christs setting a child before them and after girding himself and washing their feet I think those men that make a Sacrament of this do err much less than those that forget it And I suspect that our contrariety to this example will tempt some ere long into this contrary extream and it may be set up as a Sacrament indeed O woful case to be daily lamented by all the compassionate members of the Church that the Learned Zealous Pastors of it are the leaders fomenters and continuers of her divisions and when they have opportunity to seek for healing they want a will and so much of self surviveth in them that though God call to them for Peace and Unity and the bleeding Church is begging it of them on her knees yet self hath such power over them that God is not heard and the Church cannot be regarded but Peace and Piety and all must be sacrificed to the will and Interest of self As if they were the Priests of self and the honour of God and Peace of the Church were the daily sacrifice which they have to offer Not a motion can be made for Reformation or Unity but some selfish Ministers rise up to strangle it under pretence of mending the terms Not a consultation can be held but self creeps in yea openly appears and ravels the work and will needs be the doer of all that 's done or nothing must go on that 's done against it O Blessed Nation if self-denial were more eminent predominant therein O pretious Ministry and Great and Honourable if we truly sought our honour in the habit of children and by being the servants of all O happy Churches abounding in Holiness and Peace if once the Pastors and People were better skilled in the practice of self-denial I must confess to the praise of Gods grace many such Ministers and people I have had the happiness to converse with and how sweet the fruit hath been both to them and me both they and I are ready to confess But one self-seeking unmortified Minister is enough to disturb a whole society and break the good endeavours of many And alas how many such are abroad that talk of almost nothing but their opinions or parties or carnal interests and are not in the harvest as Reapers to gather but as wild beasts that are broken in to make spoil or Sampsons Foxes to set all on fire running up and down from Country to Country with fire-brands at their tails and stings in their mouths which they call by the reverend name of Zeal But you may think I have been long in discoveries aggravations and complaints and therefore I will go no further in that sort of work but only to adjoyn these three or four practical consectaries following CHAP. X. Some weighty Consectaries Consect 1. SO common and Potent is selfishness in the world that its enough to convince a rational Considerate man of the truth of the doctrine of the fall of man and of Original corruption against all the objections that all the Socinians or Pelagians in the world do make against it He that thinks that God made man in this distempered distracted state that selfishness doth hold the world in hath unreasonable thoughts of the workmanship of God He that seeth even children before they can speak or go so selfish as they are all mankind without exception to be naturally as so many Idol gods in the world and can believe that this is the Image of God in which they were created doth make the Image of Satan to be the Image of God No wiser no better is the Doctrine that denieth Original sin when self hath such a tyrannical universal raign in all the world Consect 2. So deep rooted and powerful and universal is this abominable vice that it must teach us what to expect in all places we live in and may help us to make the truest Prognosticks or probablest conjectures of any mutations where the will of man is like to be the determiner Know once but where self-interest lies and you may know what almost all men will endeavour and might write a probable Prognostication of the changes that are like to be in States and Kingdoms and anywhere in the world were it not for the interposition of two greater Powers that have got the victory of self and that is Grace and Divine-over-ruling Providence I
sentence of your judge will dispel all the unjust reproaches that were on you and wash off all the blots that were falsly laid on your good name and he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noon-day for there is nothing hid that shall not be then revealed 8. In the mean time God will take care of your name He will make the very tongues that slander you to honour you in the blindness of their reproaches crossing themselves As the Papists by the poor Waldenses saying they were the more dangerous hereticks because they held all the Articles of faith and lived godly and honestly and were reputed holy but only that they were against the Church of Rome As you trust God with your health and wealth so must you do with your Reputation even in point of Honesty and be satisfied that he can clear you when he pleases 9. And it is not Gods ordinary way to leave the Reputation of his servants wholly uncleared even in this world If one condemn them another shall Justifie them and commonly the wisest and best men Justifie them and the most foolish and ungodly are they that condemn them And cannot you bear the words of fools and children The proudest man can pass by a contempt or slander from a drunken man an ideot or a mad man as being no dishonour to him and cannot you bear the censures of the distracted world Or if they are better men that slander you it 's two to one but it is the more foolish or passionate sort of them and that the judgment of the more wise and sober is against them and vindicateth your Reputation Or if at the present they do not it 's ten to one but Providence shall work to the clearing of your Reputation either in your life-time or when you are dead Most of the Servants of God that were most hated and slandered while they lived on earth are cleared and honoured now they are dead God is not dis-regardful of his Servants names 10. But however it go you are secured of the main that which you expected or covenanted for with God you shall be sure of If you have the Thing you may easily bear the want of the name Hath the Spirit of God renewed and sanctified you are you made the living members of Christ and the Sons of God and the heirs of Heaven I hope you may well spare then the applause of men and easily bear it if you be reputed to be destitute of what you have If you are in health it will not much trouble you if it be reported that you are sick And if you are alive you can bear it if the report go that you are dead For as long as you have the thing you can spare the name And if you have Christ and Grace and Pardon and Justification and Title to eternal life cannot you endure to have men think that you are without them How basely do you undervalue thâ—se inestimable things when the thoughts of a mans mind or the words of a mans mouth can blast the comforts of them all As if you said to the world It is not Christ and Grace and Pardon and Salvation that will serve me without the applause of men How basely think you of God and how highly of men if this be your mind It is more excusable for a Haman to say of all his honour and wealth that they satisfie him not or do him no good as long as he wants but Mordecai's obeysance than for a Christian to say of God of Christ of Glory All this will not serve my turn as long as men take me for an hypocrite or ungodly For there is not a satisfying sufficiency in Honors and wealth as there is in God and glory As long as you have the precious treasure methinks you may give losers leave to talk It was not for the good words of men that you became Christians and Covenanted with God but for pardon and salvation and these you shall have God will perform his Covenant to you and give you both his Kingdom and so much of worldly things as overplus as is truly good for you and what would you have more You shall have the Inheritance and Crown of blessedness and will not that serve your turn without a few good words from silly man I hope you would be loth to change Rewards with the Hypocrite Why then do you so much desire his Reward and so much undervalue your own Though his be present and yours be future I hope you think it but a doleful hearing to have Christ say Verily they have their Reward in comparison of his promise to his reproached servants Verily great is your Reward in Heaven Mat. 6. 2. Mat. 5. 12. And now I hope in all these ten particular considerations you may see reason enough for self-denial in the very Reputation of your Godliness and Honesty and why you should endure joyfully to be esteemed ungodly and dishonest rather than to be so CHAP. L. A Renowned and Perpetuated Name to be denied 10. THe last point of Honour which self must be denied in is A Renowed and Perpetuated Name For to that height doth Pride aspire that no less will satisfie where there is any apparent hope of this though in those that sit so low that they see no ground to hope for such a thing the desires after it are not so kindled as they be in others that think the prey is within their reach Fain men would be famous and talk'd of through the world They would have their real and supposed worth made known as far as may be And when they die they would fain have their names survive that they may be great in the estimation of posterity and magnified by all that mention them And so deeply are men possessed with this dangerous sin that they account this perpetuated fame for their felicity And there was nothing that most of the Heathens did prefer before it but when they seemed to be most vertuous heroical and patient it was but to be thus esteemed of after they were dead If you ask me How far a surviving reputation may be regarded I answer 1. So far as the interest of God or his Gospel Church or Cause or the publick good or the good of our posterity is concerned in it and may be promoted by it thus far it is lawful and a duty to value it desire it and seek it For if we have throughly searched our hearts and can say unfeignedly that it is God and his cause and honour that we principally intend and desire our own honour but as a Means to his and therefore desire it no further than it is such a means then we may justly desire both the extension and surviving of our reputation if we are groundedly perswaded that it 's like to conduce to these happy ends As for example A Prince that owns the cause of God and makes such Laws for the
If selfish interest led them not to this and if they were more tender of the Interest of Christ than of their own and of mens souls than of their flesh it would not be thus But the same argument that tempts the sensual to Hell doth tempt such Magistrates to set up Liberty for drawing men to Hell The wicked sell their souls to spare their flesh and let go Heaven to enjoy the Liberty of sinning and run into Hell to scape the trouble of an holy life And such Magistrates sell the peoples souls to spare the flesh of the deceivers and in tenderness and mercy to their bodies they dare not restrain men from seeking their damnation Is faith and holiness propagated by perswasion and not by force Surely then Infidelity Popery and Ungodliness are propagated by perswasion too Again I tell you self-love doth make such Rulers wiser than to grant Commission or Liberty to all that will to tice their souldiers to mutinies or rebellion their wives to Adultery their children to prodigality or their servants to thievery But the love of Christ and mens salvation is not so strong as to satisfie them whether men should be hindred from raising mutinies in his Church and from destroying souls Forsooth they tell us that Christ is sufficient to look to his own cause Very true and they shall one day know it But must he not therefore teach or rule by men Is not Adultery Murder Theft Rebellion against the Cause of Christ and his Laws as well as Popery and Infidelity And must they therefore be let alone by man Christ is sufficient to Teach the world as well as to Govern But doth it follow that men must be no Teachers under him Nothing but selfishness could cause this blindness And because I know that this stream proceeds from the Roman spring and it is their great design to perswade the world that it belongs not to Magistrates to meddle with Religion but only to cherish them that the Pope approveth of and to punish those whom the Pope condemns and that Christ must Govern and judge of matters of Religion himself that is by his pretended Roman Vicechrist I shall only now say this that if Rome were acquainted with self-denial and if the selfish carnal interest of Riches and Rule and worldly greatness had not blinded them they could never have believed themselves that Christ did appoint the Pope of Rome to be his Universal Vicar and that Princes and Magistrates in their own Dominions have not more Power to judge who is to be tolerated or punished by the sword than the Pope of Rome when no Priest or Prelate upon earth as such hath any thing to do with such a judgement no not in the places where they live All that they have to do herein is to judge who is the Heretick or offendor in order to his censure and excommunication But it's Magistrates only that must judge who is the Heretick or effendor in order to corporal punishment or restraint And this I undertake to make good against all the Papists in the world much more that the Roman Tyrant hath no such Power at the Antipodes and in all the Christian Nations on earth Remember in all this that I speak not against a Toleration of Godly tolerable men Episcopal Presbyterian Independent Anabaptist c. that will walk in Charity Peace and Concord ☞ we shall never be well till these are closed But do we not know that Papists have Italy and Spain and Germany and France at hand to help them And that if we grant them such a liberty as shall strengthen them and make way for their power we give away our own liberty and are preparing faggots for our martyrdom and giving away the Gospel that by wonders of mercy hath been till now preserved and I hope shall be preserved in despite of Rome and Hell Nor yet do I plead for any cruelty against a Papist but for a necessary Defence of the interest of Christ and the souls of men and the hopes of our posterity True Humanity abhorreth cruelty Did Magistrates well know their dependence upon God and that they are his officers and must make him their end they would not take their flocks to be their masters though they may take them for their charge nor would they set up a carnal interest of the multitude against the pleasing of God and mens salvation nor would they think so highly of mens conceits and wills as to judge it a matter of so much moment to allow them in Religion to say or do what they list If allowing a mans self in the practice of Known sin is inconsistent with a state of grace and a sign of a miserable slave of Satan I leave it to you to consider what it will prove to allow others even Countries and Nations in Known sin And if Rulers know not that setting up an Universal Vice-christ and worshipping bread though they think there is no bread with Divine worshp and serving God in an unknown tongue with other points of Popery are sin and that opposing and reproaching the holy Scriptures Ordinances and Ministry are sin wo to such Rulers and wo to the Nations that are Ruled by such O what a blessing is a holy self-denying Magistracy to a Nation If one could have told you twenty years ago that you and such as you should be Rulers in this Land how confidently would you have promised an universal encouragement to godliness and a vigorous promoting the cause of Christ and a zealous suppressing of all that is against it Little would you or I have thought that after Professors of godliness were in power so many years should have been spent in destroying Charity and Unity and cherishing almost all that will stand up for the Devil and plead his cause against the Doctrine and Discipline and Worship and Churches and Officers of Jesus Christ And that in their dayes it should have been put to the Question whether the Ministry it self should be taken down And that men in power should write for Liberty for all that will call it self Religion even Popery not excepted nor I think Infidelity or Mahumetism it self and that those that write so should be men in Power My heart would have risen against him as an odious calumniator that should have presumed to tell me that such men as have attempted this would ever have come to such a pass and I should have encountred them with Hazaels question Are they dogs that they should do so vile a thing and exercise such cruelty on souls and seek to bring back the people of God to the Romish vomit and set up the greatest tyranny on earth and all under pretence of a Religious Liberty But alas it is not Magistrates only that are so wanting in self-denial Ministers also are guilty of this crime Or else we should not have been so forward to divisions and so backward to the cure nor would men of this profession for
according as their self-interest commandeth them more than according to the Interest of Christ Let a man be never so eminent in holiness and never so useful and serviceable in the Church and one that hath proved faithful in the greatest tryals if he do but oppose a selfish man and be thought by him to be against him he hateth him at the heart or hath as base contemptuous thoughts of him as malice can suggest He can as easily nullifie all his graces and multiply his smallest infirmities into a swarm of crimes by a censorious mind and a slanderous tongue as if vertue and vice received their form and denominations from the respect of mens minds and waies to him and all men were so far good or evil as they please him or displease him and he expects that others should esteem men such as he is pleased to describe or call them Let all the Countrey be the witnesses of a mans upright and holy life yea let the multitude of the ungodly themselves be convinced of it so far as that their consciences are forced to bear witness of him as Herod did of John Mark 6. 20. that he was a just man and an holy yet can the selfish hypocrite that is against him blot out his uprightness with a word and make him to be Proud or False or Covetous or what his malice please yea make him an Hypocrite as he is indeed himself No man can be good in their eyes that is against them or if he be acknowledged honest in the main it is mixt with exceptions and charges enough to make him seem vile while they confess him honest and if they acknowledge him a man they will withal describe him to be so plaguy or leprous that he shall be thought not fit for humane converse Such a man is an honest man say they but he is a peevish humorous self-conceited fellow And why so Because he is against some opinion or interest of theirs He is proud because he presumeth to dissent from them or reprehend them He raileth every time he openeth their errours or telleth them of their mis-doings He is a Lyar if he do but contradict them and discover their sins though it be with words of truth and soberness In a word no person no speeches or writings no actions can be just that are against a selfish man In differences at Law his cause is good because it is his and his adversaries is alwaies bad because it is against him In publick differences the side that he is on that is for him is alwaies right let it be never so wrong in the eyes of all impartial men The cause is good that he is for which is alway that which seems for him though it be undoubted Treason and perfidious Rebellion accompanied with perjury murder and oppression And the cause must be alwaies bad that is against him and they are the Traytors and Rebels and Oppressors that resist him His own murders are honourable Victories and other mens Victories are cruel and barbarous murders All is naught that is against themselves They are Affected to men according to their self-interest they judge of them and their actions according as they do Affect them they speak of them and deal by them according to this corrupted judgement But as for any that they imagine do Love and Honour them they can Love them and speak tenderly of them be they what they will A little grace or vertue in them seemeth much And their parts seem excellent that indeed are mean If they drop into Perjury Fornication Treason or such like scandalous sins they have alwayes a mantle of Love to cover them or if they blame them a little they are easily reconciled and quickly receive them to their former honour If they have any thing like Grace it 's easily believed to be Grace indeed if they be but on their side If they have nothing like Grace they can Love them for their good natures but indeed it is for themselves When this self-love describeth any person when it writeth Histories or Controversies about any cause or person that they are concerned in how little credit do they deserve Whence is it else that we have such contrary descriptions of Persons and Actions in the writings of the several Parties as we find How holy and temperate and exceedingly industrious a man was Calvin if the whole multitude of sober godly men that knew him may be credited or if we may believe his most constant intimate acquaintance or if we may judge by his judicious pious numerous writings And yet if the Papists may be believed contrary to the witness of a Popish City where he was bred he was a stigmatized Sodomite he was a glutton that eat but once a day and that sparingly he was an idle fleshly man that preached usually every day and wrote so many excellent Volumes and he dyed blaspheming and calling on the Devil that is in longing and praying for his remove to Christ crying daily How long lord how long and how comes all this inhumane forgery about Why one lying Pelagian Apostate Bolsecke wrote it whom Calvin had shamed for his errours and a peevish Lutheran Schlusselburgius hath related part of it from him and this is sufficient warrant for the Papists ordinarily to perswade their followers it is true and with seared Consciences to publish it in their writings though Massonius and some other of the soberer sort among themselves do â—â—ame them for the forgery So do they by Luther Beza and many more Among our selves here how certainly and commonly is it known to all impartial men acquainted with them that the persons nick-named Puritans in England have been for the most part a people fearing God and studying an holy life and of an upright conversation so that the impartial did bear them witness that in the scorners mouth a Puritan was one that was Integervitae scelerisque purus and this was the reason of their suffered-scorn and that the name was the Devils common engine in this Land to shame people from reading and hearing Sermons and praying and avoiding the common sins and seriously seeking their salvation A Puritan was one that Believeth unfeignedly that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 12. 6. that strives to enter in at the strait gate and lives as men that believe that Heaven is worth their labour and that Gods Kingdom and its Righteousness should be first sought Mat. 6. 33. And yet if Fitz Simon and other Jesuits and Bishop Bancroft Dr. P. Heylin Mr. Tho. Pierce and other such among us are to be believed what an abominable odious sort of people are they and especially the Presbyterians who are the greatest part of them what intolerable hypocritical bloody men And what 's the reason of these accusations Much is pretended but the sum of all is that they were in some things against the Opinions or Interests of the persons that abuse
another mans case they could tell him that its better displease men than God and that its better venture a short life than an endless life and that it is little profit to win all the world and lose his own soul and that it is the wisest way to make sure work for eternity and not to venture on endless misery And they could consent that another should rather suffer than sin Why else do they commend the Martyrs for it And what is the reason of this strange partiality Why Self is the great Ruler and God hath but the name Self is partial in their own cause but not in another mans and therefore they can consent to his suffering without self-denial And hence comes the difference 15. Moreover when Offenders murmur at their punishment ask but the standers by and they are of another mind When the Ale-seller thinks he is wronged if he be put down ask but the poor women whose Husbands use to be drunk there and whose children lack meat and drink and clothes because the Alehouse devours that which should buy them and they will be quite of another judgment and think you love not God nor the Country if you will not suppress them 16. Also when you hear men extenuating their sin and excusing it put but the case as another mans and let them not understand that it is their own and you shall hear another judgment So Nathan came about David and put but a far lower case as anothers about the robbing a poor man of his only Sheep and he could presently say and swear As the Lord liveth the man that hath done this thing shall surely die because he had no pity and his anger was greatly kindled against the man 2 Sam. 12. 5 6. But why was he not as angry with himself for a greater sin O self had got the better in that grievous fall till grace broke his heart by true repentance So when Judah heard of Thamars fornication he commandeth Bring her out that she may be burnt Gen. 38. 24. But when he understood that it was by himself the case was altered 17. Let a man that his provoked by injuries and ill words have as bad by himself done or spoken against another and he can make but a small matter of them or think they should be easily put up or pardoned when yet the same words spoken against him do seem intolerable 18. Let a man speak with others in poverty sickness or any affliction and what good counsel can he give him to submit to God and take all patiently But let the suffering be his own and he cannot take the counsel that he gives 19. Nay more men are not only partial for themselves but for any that are neer themselves or that self is related to Let another mans Son or Servant do evil and you can be content that he be rebuked or corrected But if it be a Son or Kinsman or Servant of your Own the case is altered it s then a wrong to punish him because of his relation to you Let a Stranger do amiss and you can give way to Justice But if the Drunkard or Ale-seller or Swearer be your friend then he must be born with and forgiven and the justice must be intreated for him Let a scandalous or insufficient Minister or Schoolmaster be offered to any place If he be a Stranger you can be content that he be rejected but if he be a Kinsman or Child or Friend of yours what an alteration doth this make in the case then he must be born with or tried and you hope he will mend and his faults are made the least of his virtues more than indeed they are Nay any man that doth but love your selves and honour you and think highly of you shall have a favourabler construction for all his words and actions and intentions than one that you imagine is against you or hath low thoughts of you or is against your interest or your opinion Sirs I have run into abundance of instances but not a quarter so many as might be given and all is to meet with the turnings and windings of this Serpent self and to let you see if light it self can make you see against the blinding power of self how rare self-denial is in the the world and what a large Dominion self obtaineth I would here have added some more Discoveries as 6. From the excessive care and cost and labour that almost all the world is at for self and the little they are at for God or the good of others 7. The large proportion that is expended on self in comparison of God and others 8. The Zeal of men to vindicate self but the little Zeal for God or others 9. The rigorous Laws that are made in the cause of self Thieves and Traitors must die and the remissness of Law-givers in the cause of God Blasphemy Malignity and Impiety is not so roughly handled 10. The firmness of men to carnal self and their great mutability and unfaithfulness to God But I had rather omit somewhat than to be too tedious and therefore I go no further in these Discoveries save only to add a few of those Aggravations that shew you the extent of selfs Dominion as you have seen the sad discoveries of the reality of it CHAP. IX The great Power and prevalency of selfishness discovered ANd that you may see what cause we have for our Lamentation Consider the greatness of selfish Tyranny in these Particulars 1. Consider what a Power it is that self beareth down in the world The Commands of the God of heaven are overcome by it The promises of eternal life are trod under foot by it The threatnings of endless torments are nothing to it It casts by Heaven it ventures upon Hell It tramples upon the precious blood of Christ It will not hear the voice of wisdom it self Nor the voice of goodness and mercy it self It refuseth him that speaks from heaven Love it self is not lovely where self is Judge It quencheth all the motions of the Spirit it despiseth Ministers It turneth mercies into wantonness and sin Like Sampson it breaks all bonds that are laid on it and till it be weakned it self there is no holding no ruling no saving the soul that 's ruled by it 2. Consider also the exceeding Number of its Subjects Truly if there were no other proof that the sanctified and the saved are very few this one is so full and sad a proof that it tempteth me sometime to think them much fewer than willingly I would do Alas how few self-denying persons do you meet with in the world yea in the Church yea among the stricter Professors Look over all the world and see how few you can find at work for any one but for carnal self If you observe the Courts and see whose work is done most there and look into the Armies of the world and see who it is that ruleth there if you look
because you are idle that should use them Every hour that you lose in idleness what noble faculties and large provisions are all laid by As much as in you lieth you make the whole creation to be and work in vain Why should the Sun shine an hour or minute for you in vain Why should the Earth bear you an hour in vain why should the springs and rivers run for you an hour in vain why should the air refresh you an hour in vain why should your pulse beat one stroke in vain or your lungs once breathe a breath in vain shall all be at work for you to further your work and will you think that idleness is no sin 3. Moreover Laziness and sloth is a sin that loseth you much precious time All the time is lost that you are idle in Yea when you are at work if you do it slothfully you are losing much of your time A diligent person will go further and do more in an hour than the lazy flesh-pleaser will do in two When the slothful is praying or reading and working in his calling he is but losing half his time which diligence would redeem And is our time so â—…ort and precious and yet is idleness an excusable sin what loiter so near night so near eternity when we have but a little time to work O work while it is day for the night is coming when none can work Were it but for this that sloth doth steal so much of our time I must think it no better than an hainous Thievery 4. And by this means we rob our selves We might be getting some good all the time that we are idle or doubly advantage our selves if sloth did not keep us company in our work The slothful is brother to him that is a great waster Pro. 18. 9. slothfulness is self-murdering men die while they lie still and wish It 's a sin that famisheth soul and body Prov. 21. 25. The desire of the slothful killeth him because his hands refuse to labour It 's the common cause of beggery and want and what comfort can you have under such afflictions which you bring upon your selves If you want food or rayment if your wives and children are in want how can you think that God should take care of you and afford you relief when you bring this on your selves by pleasing your flesh which is his enemy If a Souldier get hurt by trucking with the enemy he may rather look that his General should hang him than relieve him And how should good men be moved to compassionate you If God do improveriâ—h you and you come to want by innocency or a righteous cause they must needs be ready to relieve you But if Sloth or Pride or Gluttony or Drunkenness bring you to it till you repent I see not how they should relieve you at least any further than to keep you alive For if you are set toplease your flesh by idleness must I joyn with you to please it by such supplies as shall cheriâ—â— you in your sin No one flesh-pleaser is enough for one man If you will please it either by Idleness or by Luxury your selves expect not that others should please it by your relief and make provision for your sin If I may not make provision for my own flesh to satisfie its lusts neither must I do it for another But that 's not the worst slothfulness is the common cause of mens damnation when they see a temptation and danger before them slothfulness hindereth them from resisting it When Heaven is offered them slothfulness makes them sit still and lose it They must Run and Strive and Fight and Conquer and these are not works for a slothful person especially when they must be continued to the death So that it 's manifest that most men in the world are undone soul and body by the sin of sloth 5. And by this you rob others as well as your selves You owe the world the fruit of your labours You rob the souls of men to whom you should do good You rob the Church that should be bettered by you You rob the Commonwealth of which you are a member and should have benefit by you You owe your labours to Church and Commonwealth and the souls of men and will you not pay so great a debt You deserve no room in the Church or Commonwealth but to be cut off as an unprofitable member if you bring no advantage to them They say the Bees will not suffer a drone in the Hive Nay if you be hired servants you plainly rob your Masters if you are slothful as much as if you stole their money or goods If you buy an hundred sheep of a man and he let you have but fourscore doth he not rob or cheat you And if a man buy a years or a days labour of you and you let him have but half a years labour or half a days labour because of your sloth do you not defraud or rob him of the other half So that the idle are thieves to themselves to the Church and the souls of men to the Commonwealth and those that they are related to even to their wives and children for whom they should provide due maintenance by their labour 6. And you are injurious to the honest poor in that you disable your selves from relieving them when God commandeth you to work with your hands not only for your selves but that you may have to give to them that need Eph. 4. 28. What if all men should do as you do how would the poor be maintained and the Church and Commonwealth served 7. Yea worst of all you are guilty of robbing God himself It is him that you owe your labours to and the improvement of all the talents which he lendeth you And idleness is unsaithfulness to the God of Heaven that setteth you on work Even in working for men you must do it ultimately for God Col. 3. 22 23. Not with eye-service as men-pleasers but in singleness of heart fearing God and whatsoever ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord But he that doth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done If it be an offence to wrong man what is it to wrong God and if you may not be slothful in the work of a man what a crime is it to be slothful in the work of the God of Heaven The greater your Master is the more hainous it is to be lazy in his service Remember the curse on them that do the work of the Lord deceitfully Jer. 48. 10. All work that you have to do is the work of the Lord. 8. And consider That the Idle forfeit the protection and provision of God even their daily bread For must he support and feed you to do nothing His own rule is that if any man will not work neither should he
some of them are no liberties but fancies or miseries the rest of them are no further to be valued than they are subservient to the Kingdom of Christ and the good of souls Conceited people call it their liberty to be governed rather by four hundred than by one or by Popularity than by other forms of Government and a great stir they make about this as if their felicity did consist in it When as the true liberty of a Commonwealth consisteth in the fullest conformity of their Laws and their execution to the will of God in being free from all Laws or Passions of men that encourage iniquity and are against the Gospel or the common good and peace and welfare of the body In a word to have Government best fitted to the ends of Government which is such a temporal safety and prosperity as most conduceth to the service and honour of God But the species of Government is none of this liberty in it self considered A people may be at much more liberty under a pious Monarch than an impious or unskilful Democracy The free choice of the most when they are bad as where is it better may enslave the best and the awe and interest of the Rich is commonly such upon the people that a free choice is somewhat strange And that sort of Government may be fittest for One people that is unfit for another And their happiness lieth not in the species of Government let them stretch their wits to invent new forms as long as they will but in the Predominancy of God and his Interest in the hearts of the Governors and in their Laws their Officers and Execution This is it and nothing but this in Government that will give the Commonwealth that desirable liberty in which their welfare doth consist And therefore those persons are Enemies to the Liberty of their Country that under that Name would advance such kind of Popular interest as is plainly against the interest of Christ and must have Magistrates and Ministers restrained from doing the Work of the Omnipotent Soveraign the one from punishing sin if it be against the first Table or come but under the name of conscience and the other from exercising Church-discipline and all under pretence of the Peoples Liberties All these are carnal Liberties to be Denied CHAP. XXXV Our Native Country and Habitations denied 18. ANother part of Carnal self-interest to be denied is Our Native Country or place of habitation with all the Comforts and Accommodations they afford us It is lawful to have some special Love to our own Country but not such as shall prevail against the love of Christ or seem sufficient to entangle us in sin We must shew our Love to it principally by desiring and endeavouring that Gods name may be hallowed and his Kingdom maintained and his will fulfilled among and by our Countrymen But if they should turn enemies to the Gospel or to Godliness we must love the servants of God abroad much better than his enemies at home and wish the success of his servants though of other Countries against his enemies though they were of our own And if we cannot serve God or enjoy the freedom of a good conscience at home another Nation though it were in the utmost parts of the Earth where we may better serve God must seem a better place to us And if we be banished or necessitated to forsake our Country we must not stick at it for the cause of Christ It is none of the greatest tryals to be put to remove from one Country to another as long as we have necessaries where-ever we come We have the same God to be with us and take care of us beyond sea as at home the same earth and air and sun to shine upon us The same Spirit and grace and promises do accompany us The same Saints of God and Ordinances of Worship may be had in other Countries as our own It 's a kind of childishness to make such a matter of being driven out of one Kingdom into another when we have the same or greater mercies in the other All is but our Fathers house and we do but remove from room to room The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof As I said before of Imprisonment so I say of Banishment It is in our own Wills by consenting to it to make it no banishment If you will make an affliction and a great matter of it you may A Merchant or Factor can live for his commodity far from home even among Turks and Infidels and take it for no banishment Much more should you do so for the sake of Christ Every place is our own Country where our Masters work lieth We are but pilgrims and as long as we are not out of our way we need not complain much for being out of our Country Indeed we are here but strangers and this is not our Country and therefore let us not overlove it upon a mistake The Apostles of Christ did purposely leave their Countreys and travel about the Countreys of the World to bring them the Doctrine of salvation by Christ And is it not better be walking Lights to illuminate the world than Candles shut up within the walls of our own habitation Heb. 11. 8 9 19. By faith Abraham when he was called to go into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whither he went By faith he sojourned in the Land of promise as in a strange Country dwelling in Tahernacles for he looked for a City which had foundations whose builder and maker is God ver 13 14 15 16. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a Country And truly if they had been mindful of that Country from whence they came out they might have had opportunity to have returned But now they desire a better Country that is an heavenly wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City It was the sorest kind of banishment that the Saints endured that 's mentioned Heb. 11. 37 38. and yet they patiently underwent it They wandred about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute afflicted tormented Of whom the world was not warthy they wondred in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth We judge our selves unworthy of Christ and the new Jerusalem and our Heavenly Country if we cannot deny an earthly sinful Country for them CHAP. XXXVI Bodily health and ease from torments 19. BUt a far greater Interest of self to be denied doth consist in our bodily health and ease and from those pains and torments which persecutors use to inflict upon the godly An averseness to suffering is natural to man and in it self no sin but an excessive averseness doth signifie too much tenderness of the flesh and too little power of Reason which should
reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called 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 Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
That if God deny you even that honour which in the lawfullest manner you desire that you submit to his pleasure and take it patiently and in these two respects you must here deny your selves Above all others these sorts of persons following are in danger of this odious Pride in desiring for themselves an extended and surviving Name 1. Princes and Souldiers that have the management of the great affairs of the world Fain would they be Renowned to Posterity And hence are their aspiring ambitious designs For this are their Wars and Conquests that they may be famous when they are dead as well as while they live And thus they make their Noble Conquests to be but Murders of the vilest sort and worse than any Cut-throats and Robbers by the high way while they intend them but for themselves and their own vain-glory and better might they seek honour by whoredom drunkenness or theft which are far smaller sins Whereas if their wars had been undertaken for God and managed according to his Will they had made them truly honourable and renowned And from this odious Pride it is that Absaloms Pillars must be erected and Monuments must be built to perpetuate their names and tell the world what need they have of means to keep alive their memories and how destitute they are of nobler means when Marbles and Monuments must be the great preservers of their fame Yea it were well if this Pride and selfishness did not corrupt the noblest of their works and turn them into deadly sins if they did not build their Hospitals Colledges or Churches and endow them with Revenues to perpetuate their own Names rather than to do good Though the works themselves are so good and so rare that I would not cast any dishonour upon them seeing all that can be said is too little to provoke men to do the like yet am I bound in duty to tell them that if self should be the End instead of God and Pride the cause instead of charity Hell would be the Reward instead of Heaven so great a matter it is to have an honest heart and right intentions in the most excellent and noble works In so much that a poor man that hath a heart to build a Colledge or an Hospital if he had but means shall be Rewarded by God as if he had done it if God were the End and Charity the Principle when a rich man that doth the work it self shall have but a poor and temporary reward if self be the End and Pride the Principle 2. Another sort that are specially in danger of this sin are all Rich men who would be the great in the world and perpetuate their names and memory in their houses lands and posterity and therefore they would purchase Towns and Lordships that their Houses may be famous when they are gone For it seems a kind of life to them if their Greatness do but live in their posterity Psal 49. 11 12. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own names This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings Hence also is that ostentation of Escucheons and Arms and of Ancient Gentility or Nobility and much more such proud and selfish vanity 3. Another sort that are in danger of this sin are Divines and Learned men in all Professions who make their Writings but a means to perpetuate their own Names to Posterity Temptations to this sin may be offered to the best and too much entertainment they may have with our natures because of the remnants of selfishness and Pride But yet they do not prevail with the sanctified so far as to aim more at their own honour than at Gods The Labours that in themselves are excellent and a blessing to the Church are lost to him that was the Author of them if self be the End and Pride the fountain And exceeding great need have the godliest men to watch their hearts in this particular for they are very deceitsul and selfishness will too often interpose where nothing but God and publick good is discerned And now because that the sin is very great and dangerous I shall here annex a few Considerations which by opening the evil of it may help you to abhor it 1. These Proud desires of a great and surviving Name do shew that you lamentably overlook the true eternal honour of the Saints Must you have Honour choose that which lieth in the esteem of God Must you be great and glorious why you may be so and God would have you be so if you will but know where Greatness and Glory is to be had even in that blessedness that Christ hath purchased Must you have your greatness and honour perpeuated why you may have that which will never have an end And when God hath set before you such an endless glory are you looking after a Name among mortal men to leave behind you on the Earth Do you think to be saved indeed or not If you do what need have you of the smoak of mans applause when you are with God what unworthythoughts have you of heaven if you think when you are there you shall have need of mens good thoughts or words on earth But it 's a dangerous sign that you are indeed unbelievers and lay not up your treasure in heaven when you are so careful to perpetuate your names and shaddows here with men The true reliâ—h of Heavenly honour would put you out of love with this 2. And do you not plainly see in your own desires the vanity of all these Earthly things when you are put at last to take up with such a shaddow such a Nothing as is a surviving name Is this all that the world can do for you And do you not see here the wonderous deceitfulness of the world and the foolishness of unsanctified men that they will dâ—â—s stick to the world for very nothing when they know that they shall have no more from it they are contriving for a name when they are dead Wonderful blindness that experience and the approach and thoughts of death should no more open your eyes surely if this be all that the world will do for you at the last you should even renounce it and use it accordingly at the first 3. You cannot but know that when you are dead and gone the Honour of the world is none of yours nor can it do you any good any further than it relateth to your eternal blessedness and your honour is serviceable to the honor of God What good will it do you to be magnified by men when you neither know nor feel it what the better is a Tree or House if men commend it And for your souls if they be with God they will be far above the praise of men 4. Nay as such a design is a dangerous sign of your Damnation so I beseech you think what
destroy the Church and Common-wealth and be a cruel enemy to mankind and to our Country and to rebel against the Powers that are ordained of God and thereby to receive damnation to our selves Rom. 13. 1 2 3. Heb. 13. 17. But yet this I must say that if a worthy person stand in competition with us self-denial requireth us to prefer them before our selves and to refuse honours and dignities when the good of the publick doth not call us to deny our selves more in the accepting them CHAP. LV. Q. Whether it be a denying our Relations Quest 5. WHether Self-denial consist in denying of Natural or Contracted Relations as of Father and Mother to Sons and Daughters of Brothers and Sisters Husband and Wife Master and Servant Prince and People Pastor and Flock Answ You might as wisely imagine that self-denial lieth in hating or denying any of Gods Works even the frame of nature or in denying food and rayment to our bodies or in denying our own lives so as to cut our throats For the same Law of Nature that made me a man and requireth me to preserve my life did make me a son and require me to love and honour my parents And it is in the Decalogue the first Commandment with promise as the Apostle calleth it Ephes 6. 2. It is frequently and expresly commanded in Scripture that children love honour obey their parents and terrible curses are pronounced on the breakers of these Commands Eph. 6. 1. 4. 5. 22 5. Colos 3. 20 21 22. 4. 1. Exod. 21. 17. Levit. 20. 9. Deuteron 21. 18 19. 27. 16. Prov. 30. 17. Mat. 15. 4. 19. 19. And if children were not bound to parents then parents should not be bound to educate children and then they would be exposed to misery and perish One would think that there should never such a Sect have risen up that should be worse than the very brutes who by the instinct of nature love their young ones and their dams But the Spirit foretold us that which is come to pass that in the last and perilous times there should be men that are disobedient to parents without natural affection 2 Tim. 3. 3. And for contracted Relations they are the express institution of God so frequently owned by him in Scripture and the duties of them so frequently commanded that I will not trouble you with the recital of the passages And as for the Adversaries objections they are frivolous The meaning of the Apostles words that we know no man after the flesh I have told you before The words of Christ to his Mother Joh. 2. 4. Woman what have I to do with thee which they alledge are nothing for their wicked cause they being no more but Christ's due Reprehension of his Mothers mistake who would prescribe him the time and manner of doing Miracles and have him do them in a way of ostentation which things did not belong to her but to the Spirit of God and the Lord himself And whereas they alledge that Text Luke 14. 26. that father mother brother sisters c. are to be hated for Christ I answer Even as our own lives are to be hated which are also numbred with them that is They must be all forsaken rather than Christ should be forsaken and therefore loved less than he and but for his sake If therefore this Text require you not at all to cut your own throats or some way kill your selves then it doth not require you to withdraw your due affections from Natural or Contracted Relations I must crave the Readers pardon that I trouble him with confuting such unnatural opinions and desire him to believe that it is not before I am urged to it by the arguments of some deluded souls that are not unlikely to do hurt by them with some CHAP. LVI Q. Or Relieving Strangers before Kindred Quest 6. WHether self-denial require that we should relieve godly strangers before our natural Kindred especially that are ungodly Or that we love them better Answ 1. Where our Natural Kindred are as holy and as needy as others there is a double obligation on us both natural and spiritual to love and relieve them 2. Where they are as Holy as others but less needy there may lie a double obligation on us to love them and yet not to give to them 3. If they be more needy or as needy as others though withal they be ungodly we are not thereby excused from natural affections or charitable relief 4. We must distinguish between children or such kindred as nature casteth upon our care for provision and such kindred as are by nature cast upon others If parents were not obliged to relieve and provide for their own children they would be exposed to misery and man should be more unnatural than brutes So that even when by ungodliness they are less amiable than others yet God hath bound men to provide for them more 5. Natural love and spiritual are much different you may have a stronger Natural Love to an ungodly child than to a Godly stranger but you must have a spiritual Love to that Godly stranger more than to your child And that spiritual Love must be at least as to the Rational and Estimative part much greater than the other Natural Love And yet you may be bound to Give more where you are not bound to Love more For it is not Love only that is the cause of giving but we are Gods Stewards and must dispose of what we have as he prescribeth us and his standing Law of Nature for the preservation of mankind is that parents take care of their children as such 6. The will and service of God being it that should dispose of all that we have we must in all such doubts look to these two things for our direction First to the particular Precepts of the Word and there we find the fore-said duty of parents expressed and withal the duty of relieving all that are needy to our power Secondly to the General Precept and there we find that we must honour God with our substance and lay out all our talents to his service And so the duty lieth plain before us If you have a child that is wicked yet as prents provide him his daily bread and leave him enough for daily bread when you die But more he should not have from me but the rest had I ten thousand pound a year I would lay out that way that my conscience told me may be most serviceable to God For 1. I am not bound to strengthen an enemy of Christ and enable him to do the greater mischief 2. Nor to cast away the mercies of God 3. If the Law required the parents to cause such a Rebellious son to be put to death Deut. 21. 18. then surely to provide him daily bread is now as much as a parent is obliged to And if it be an express Command that he that will not labour shall not eat 2 Thes 3. 10.
exhorted them Stand back This one fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge now will we deal worse with thee than with them what say they can he not preach and let me alone hath he none to rebuke before the Congregation but me And thus will every ungodly person reject the Word as they are selfish and self must be let alone in all But why must you be let alone will you be ever the safer or better for that will God let you alone if we should let you alone No he will not be frightened from dealing with you as you are whatever his word hath said against you he will certainly make good though you should never more be told of it by Ministers You have not silenced your Judge when you have silenced his Messengers He will handle you in another manner than Ministers do O how easie is it to hear a Preacher threatning the everlasting wrath in comparison of hearing the sentence of the Judge and feeling the execution If we should yield to your desires and let you alone God would neither let you nor us alone you would but go the quietlier to hell and your blood will be required also at our hands Ezek. 33. 6 7 8 9. and then what would become both of us and you O were it not for the Powerful resistance of this selfishness what work would every Sermon make that we preach to you O what abundance would be converted at a Sermon for what should hinder it I should make no doubt of perswading you all to close with the Lord upon his reasonable terms and to become a holy and heavenly people and presently to forsake your former sin even this hour Nay some ordinances there are that selfishness hath almost shut out of the Church as most of the exercise of the antient Discipline in open and personal admonitions and publick confessions and lamentation of sin with rejection of the impenitent and the Absolution of the penitent Besides most of that private address to Pastors for their advice in case of falls and spiritual decays or weaknesses and difficulties that meet them in doctrine or duty Self will not suffer men to stoop to most of these What will they be brought to open confessions and lamentations of sin and to follow the guidance and perswasions of a Priest no all the Priests in England shall not make such fools of them so wise are these selfish men for a little while But how long will this hold and how long will madness go for wisdom when they are dying then they will send for the Minister and confess and when some of them come to the Gallows they will confess And every one of them shall confess at last whether they will or no and God will indite their confession for them and open their shame to all the world in another manner than Ministers required them to open it But then Confession will do nothing for Remission and the preventing of execution as now it might have done So also the duty of brotherly reproof and admonition of offendors is almost quite cast out by selfishness and especially the patient and thankful receiving of it And those ordinances that are continued are very much frustrated by the opposition of selfishness It is a very hard task that Scripture and good books and preachers have to do when we speak every word to enemies of the Doctrine which we preach and we can do them no good but by their own consent And who will consent to that which he is an enemy to Our work is to subdue their Flesh and Carnal wills to Christ and this flesh is so dear to them that it is themselves so that they take all that Doctrine to be against them which should save them And we have as many Enemies as unconverted hearers in our Assemblies No wonder therefore if they carp and quarrel and strive when the self-denying humbly submit and obey Self-denial openeth the heart to Christ and giveth the Ordinances leave to work It taketh down all opposition and contradiction so that though the soul may stay to search the Scripture and see whether the things that are taught be so yet it searcheth with a childlike charitableness and willingness to learn and know and obey It hath no mind to quarrel with God how easily will a self-denying man submit to those duties which another man abhors How easily will he be perswaded to forgive a wrong to part with his right for a greater good to others to let go a gainful Trade that is unlawful or any sinful way of thriving How easily is he brought to ask forgiveness of those that he hath wronged to make a publick confession of his sins if the greatness of them or his duty to God or the good of others do require it to make restitution of all that he hath gotten wrongfully to bear a plain and sharp reproof to part with his own for the relief of the poor to lay out his estate to the best advantage of the Cause and Church of God and the common good to let go any unlawful vanity any excess in meat and drink or sport or sleep or any vanity in apparel or other work of Pride How easily can he bear all rebukes reproaches and neglects and undervaluing ingratitude from others But what ado shall we have with carnal unsanctified wretches to perswade them to all or any of this From them a Preacher hath such a work to pull their beloved profitable sins they seem profitable to them till the reckoning comes as a man hath to pull the prey from the jaws of a hungry Wolf or meat from the mouth of a greedy Dog But when we require the self-denying to do the same thing it is but as to bid a child obey his Father whom he loveth and honoureth The doing of these duties and forsaking these sins is to an ungodly man as the parting with a right hand or a right eye or the skin from his back or the flesh from his bones as we see by the rarity and the unsuccessfulness of the plainest reasons and great Authority of God himself and the few works of Piety charity or self-denyal that are done by such at any great cost But to the self-denying it is but as the casting away a handful of earth or casting off an upper garment for the doing of their work CHAP. LXVIII Enemy of all Society Relations and Common good 6. MOreover this selfishness is the enemy to all Societies and Relations and consequently to the common good And it is not only indirectly and consequentially but directly that it strikes at the very foundation of all For the manifesting of this consider in what respects this selfishness is at enmity with Societies 1. The End of Societies is essential to them and this End is the Common good of the Society and therefore a Republick hath its name from hence because it is constituted and to be administred for the