most Certain and Necessary things and be more seldom and sparing upon the rest If we can but teach Christ to our people we teach them all Get them well to heaven and they will have knowledge enough The great and commonly acknowledged Truths are they that men must live upon and which are the great instruments of raising the heart to God and destroying mens sins And therefore we must still have our peoples necessities in our eyes It will take us off gawdes and needless Ornaments and unprofitable Controversies to remember that One thing is Necessary Other things are desirable to be known but these must be known or else our people are undone for ever I confess I think Necessity should be a great disposer of a Ministers course of study and labours If we were sufficient for every thing we might fall upon every thing and take in order the whole Encuclopaedia But life is short and we are dull and eternal things are necessary and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious I confess Necessity hath been the Conductor of my studies and life It chooseth what book I shall read and tells when and how long it chooseth my Text and makes my Sermon for matter and manner so far as I can keep out my own corruption Though I know the constant expectation of death hath been a great cause of this yet I know no reason why the most healthful man should not make sure of the Necessaries first considering the uncertainty and shortness of all mens lives Xenophon thought there was no better Teacher then Necessity which teacheth all things most diligently Curtius saith Efficacior est omni arte Necessitas Who can in study preaching or life aliud agere be doing other matters if he do but know that This must be done Who can trifle or delay that feeleth the spurs of hasty Necessity As the souldier saith Non diu disputandum sed celeriter fortiter dimicandum ubi urget Necessitas So much more must we as our business is more important And doubtless this is the best way to redeem time and see that we lose not an hour when we spend it only on Necessary things And I think it is the way to be most profitable to others though not alwaies to be most pleasing and applauded because through mens frailty its true that Seneca complains of that Nova potius miramur quam magna Hence it is that a Preacher must be oft upon the same things because the matters of Necessity are few We must not either feign Necessaries or fall much upon unnecessaries to satisfie them that look after Novelties Though we must cloth the same necessaries with a grateful variety in the manner of our delivery The great volumns and tedious controversies that so much trouble us and waste our time are usually made up more of Opinion then necessary verities For as Marsil Ficinus saith Necessitas brevibus clauditur terminis opinto nullis And as Greg. Nazianz. and Seneca often say Necessaries are common and obvious it is superfluities that we waste our time for and labour for and complain that we attain them not Ministers therefore must be observant of the case of their Flocks that they may know what is most necessary for them both for matter and for manner And usually matter is first to be regarded as being of more concernment then the manner If you are to chose what Authors to read your selves will you not rather take those that tell you what you know not and speak the needful truth most evidently though it were with barbarous or unhandsom language then those that will most learnedly and elegantly and in grateful language tell you that which is false or vain and magno conatu nihil dicere I purpose to follow Austins counsel li. de catech praeponendo verbis sententiam ut animus praeponitur corpori ex quo fit ut ita mallem Veriores quam Discretiores invenire sermones sicut mallem prudentiores quam formosiores habere amicos And surely as I do in my studies for my own edification I should do in my teaching for other mens It is commonly empty ignorant men that want the matter and substance of true learning that are over curious and sollicitous about words and ornaments when the antient experienced most learned men abound in substantial verities usually delivered in the plainest dress As Aristotle makes it the reason why women are more addicted to pride in apparel then men because being conscious of little inward worth and ornament they seek to make it up with borrowed ornaments without So is it with empty worthless Preachers who affect to be esteemed that which they are not and have no other way to procure that esteem 5. All our teaching must be as Plain and Evident as we can make it For this doth most suite to a Teachers ends He that would be understood must speak to the capacity of his hearers and make it his business to make himself understood Truth loves the Light and is most beautiful when most naked It s a sign of an envious enemy to hide the truth and a sign of an Hypocrite to do this under pretence of revealing it and therefore painted obscure Sermons like the painted glass in the windows that keeps out the light are too oft the markes of painted Hypocrites If you would not Teach men what do you in the Pulpit If you would why do you not speak so as to be understood I know the height of the matter may make a man not understood when he hath studied to make it as plain as he can but that a man should purposely cloud the matter in strange words and hide his mind from the people whom he pretendeth to instruct is the way to make fools admire his profound learning and wise men his folly pride and hypocrisie And usually its a suspicious sign of some deceitful project and false Doctrine that needeth such a cloak and must walk thus masked in the open day light Thus did the followers of Basilides and Valentinus and others among the old Hereticks and thus do the Behmenists and other Paracelsians now who when they have spoken that few may understand them lest they expose their errours to the open view they pretend a necessity of it because of mens prejudice and the unpreparedness of common understandings for the truth But truth overcomes prejudice by meer light of Evidence and there is no better way to make a good cause prevail then to make it as plain and commonly and throughly known as we can and it is this Light that will dispose an unprepared mind And at best it s a sign that he hath not well digested the matter himself that is not able to deliver it plainly to another I mean as plain as the nature of the matter will bear in regard of capacities prepared for it by prerequisite truths For I know that some men cannot at present under stand some truths if you speak
a thing as satisfactory when true Repentance is absent hath discovered more of the accusers error then of theirs For no doubt it is true Repentance that they exhort men to and it is true Repentance which offendors do profess and whether they truly profess it who can tell but God It is not nothing that sin is brought to so much disgrace and the Church doth so far acquit themselves of it But of this next 2. Next To the duty of Publike Reproof must be joyned an exhortation of the person to Repentance and to the Publike Profession of it for the satisfaction of the Church For as the Church is bound to avoid Communion with impenitent scandalous sinners so when they have had the Evidence of their sin they must see some Evidence of their Repentance for we cannot know them to be penitent without Evidence And what Evidence is the Church capable of but their Profession of Repentance first and their actual reformation afterwards both which must be expected 3. To these may most fitly be adjoyned the publike prayers of the Church and that both for the Reproved before they are Rejected and for the Rejected some of them at least that they may repent and be restored but we are now upon the former Though this is not expresly affixed to Discipline yet we have sufficient discovery of Gods will concerning it in the general precepts We are commanded to pray alway and in all things and for all men and in all places and all things are said to be sanctified by it It is plain therefore that so great a business as this should not be done without it And who can have any just reason to be offended with us if we pray to God for the changing of their hearts and the pardon of their sins It is therefore in my Judgement a very laudable course of those Churches that use for the three next daies together to desire the Congregation to joyn in earnest prayer to God for the opening of the sinners eyes and softning of his heart and saving him from impenitency and eternal death And though we have no express direction in Scripture just how long we shall stay to try whether the sinner be so impenitent as to be necessarily excluded yet we must follow the general directions with such diversity as the case and quality of the person and former proceeding shall require it being left to the discretion of the Church who are in general to stay so long till the person manifest himself obstinate in his sin not but that a temporal exclusion called suspension may oft be inflicted in the mean time but before we proceeded to an exclusion à statu it is very meet ordinarily that three daies prayer for him and patience towards him should antecede And indeed I see no reason but this course should be much more frequent then it is and that not only upon those that are members of our special charge and do consent to Discipline but even to those that deny our Pastoral oversight and Discipline and yet are our ordinary hearers For so far as men have Christian Communion or familiarity with us so far are they capable of being excluded from Communion Though the members of our special charge have fuller and more special Communion and so are more capable of a fuller and more special exclusion yet all those that dwell among us and are our ordinary hearers have some Communion For as they converse with us so they hear the word not as heathens but as Christians and members of the universal Church into which they are baptized And they joyn with us in publike prayers and praises in the celebration of the Lords day From this therefore they are capable of being excluded or from part of this at least Morally if not Locally For the precept of avoiding and withdrawing from and not eating with such is not restrained to the members of a Governed Church but extended to all Christians that are capable of Communion When these ungodly persons are sick we have daily bills from them to request the prayers of the Congregation And if we must pray for them against sickness and temporal death I know no reason but we should much more earnestly pray for them against sin and eternal death That we have not their consent is no disswasive For that is their disease and the very venom and malignity of it and we do not take it to be sober arguing to say I may not pray for such a man against his sickness because he is sick Or if he were not sick I would pray against his sickness No more is it to say If he were not impenitent so as to refuse our prayers I would pray that he might be saved from his impenitency I confess I do not take my self to have so strict a charge over this sort of men that renounce my oversight as I do over the rest that own it and that 's the reason why I have called no more of them to publike Repentance because it requireth most commonly more time to examine the matter of fact or to deal with the person first more privately that his impenitenc may be discerned then I can possibly spare from the duties which I owe to my special charge to whom I am more indebted and therefore may ordinarily expend no more on the rest who are to me but as strangers or men of another Parish and of no governed particular Church then I can spare when I have done my main duty to my own Flock But yet though I cannot use any such discipline on all that sort nor am so much obliged to do it yet some of them that are most notoriously and openly wicked where less proof and shorter debates are requisite I intend to deal thus with hereafter having found some success in that kind already But specially to all those whom we take for Members of that particular Church which we are Pastors of there is no question but this is our duty And therefore where the whole Parish are members Discipline must be exercised on the whole I confess much prudence is to be exercised in such proceedings least we do more hurt then good but it must be such Christian prudence as ordereth duties and suteth them to their ends and not such carnal prudence as shall enervate or exclude them It may be fit therefore for younger Ministers to consult with others for the more cautelous proceeding in such works And in the performance of it we should deal humbly even when we deal most sharply and make it appear that it is not from any contending or Lordly disposition nor an act of revenge for any injury but a necessary duty which we cannot conscionably avoid And therefore it will be meet that we disclaim all such animosities and shew the people the commands of God obliging us to what we do E. G. Neighbours and Brethren sin is so hateful an evil in the eyes of the most holy God how light
people to go to the Priest whose lips must preserve knowledge and at whose mouth they must ask the Law because he is the Messenger of the Lord of hosts And because the people are grown unacquainted with the office of the Ministery and their own necessity and duty herein it belongeth to us to acquaint them herewith and to press them publikely to come to us for advice in such cases of great concernment to their souls We must not only be willing of the trouble but draw it upon our selves by inviting them hereto What abundance of good might we do could we but bring our people to this And doubtless much might be done in it if we did our duties How few have I ever heard that heartily prest their people to their duty in this A sad case that peoples souls should be so injured and hazarded by the total neglect of so great a duty and Ministers scarce ever tell them of it and awaken them to it were they but duly sensible of the need and weight of this you should have them more frequently knocking at your doors and open their cases to you and making their sad complaints and begging your advice I beseech you put them more on this for the future and perform it carefully when they seek your help To this end it s very necessary that we be acquainted with Practical Cases and specially that we be acquainted with the nature of true Grace and able to assist them in trying their states and resolve the main question that concerns their everlasting life or death One word of seasonable prudent advice given by a Minister to persons in necessity hath done that good that many Sermons would not have done 4. We must also have a special eye upon families to see that they be well ordered and the duties of each relation performed The life of Religion and the welfare and glory of Church and State dependeth much on family Government and duty If we suffer the neglect of this we undo all What are we like to do our selves to the Reforming of a Congregation if all the work be cast on us alone and Masters of families will let fall that necessary duty of their own by which they are bound to help us If any good be begun by the Ministery in any soul in a family a careless prayerless worldly family is like to stiffle it or very much hinder it Whereas if you could but get the Rulers of families to do their part and take up the work where you left it and help it on what abundance of good might be done by it as I have elsewhere shewed more at large I beseech you therefore do all that you can to promote this business as ever you desire the true Reformation and welfare of your Parishes To which end let these things following be performed 1. Get certain information how each family is ordered and how God is worshippped in them that you may know how to proceed in your carefulness for their further good 2. Go now and then among them when they are like to be most at leisure and ask the master of the family Whether he pray with them or read the Scripture or what he doth And labour to convince the neglecters of their sin And if you can have opportunity pray with them before you go and give them an example What you would have them do and how And get a promise of them that they will be more conscionable therein for the future 3. If you find any unable to pray in tolerable expressions through ignorance and disuse perswade them to study their own wants and get their hearts affected with them and so go oft to those neighbours who use to pray that they may learn and in the mean time perswade them to use a form of prayer rather then none Only tell them that it is their sin and shame that they have lived so negligently as to be now so unacquainted with their own necessities as not to know how to speak to God in prayer when every beggar can find words to ask an alms and therefore tell them that this form iâ— but for necessity as a crutch to a Cripple while they cannot do as well without it but they must not resolve to take up there but to learn to do better as soon as they can seeing prayer should come from the feeling of the heart and be varied both according to our necessities and observations Yet is it necessary to most unaccustomed ill-bred people that have not been brought up where prayer hath been used that they begin at first with the use of a form because they will else be able to do nothing at all and in sense of their disability will wholly neglect the duty though they desire to perform it For many disused persons can mutter out some honest requests in secret that be not able before others to speak tolerable sense And I will not be one of them that had rather the duty were wholly neglected or else prophaned and made contemptible then encourage them to the use of a sorm either recited by memory or read 4. See that they have some profitable moving book besides the Bible in each family If they have not perswade them to buy some of small price and great use such as Mr. Whateleys New Birth and Dod on the Commandments or some smaller moving Sermons If they be not able to buy them give them some if you can if you cannot get some Gentlemen or other rich persons that are willing to good works to do it And engage them to read on it at nights when they have leisure and especially on the Lords day 5. By all means perswade them to procure all their children to learn to read English 6 Direct them how to spend the Lords day how to dispatch their worldly businesses so as to prevent encombrances and distractions and when they have been at the Assemblie how to spend the time in their families The life of Religion lieth much on this because poor people have no other free considerable time and therefore if they lose this they lose all and will remain ignorant and brutish Specially perswade them to these two things 1. If they cannot repeate the Sermon or otherwise spend the time profitably at home that they take their family with them and go to some godly neighbour that spends iâ— better that by joyning with them they may have the better help 2. That the Master of the family will every Lords day at night cause all his family to repeat the Catechism to him and give him some account of what they have learn't in publike that day 7. If there be any in the family that are known to be unruly give the Ruler a special charge concerning them and make them understand what a sin it is to connive at them and tolerate them Neglect not therefore this necessary part of your work Get masters of families to their duties and they will spare you
a great deal of labour with the rest or further much the success of your labours If a Captain can get his Lieutenant Cornet and other inferiour officers to do their duties he may rule the Souldiers with less trouble then if all should lie upon his own hands alone You are like to see no general Reformation till you procure family Reformation Some little obscure Religion there may be in here and there one but while it sticks in single persons and is not promoted by these societies it doth not prosper nor promise much for future increase 5. Another part of the work of our private Over-sight consisteth in a vigilant opposing of Seducers and seeking to prevent the Infection of our Flock and speedy reclaiming those that begin to itch after strange Teachers and turn into crooked paths When we hear of any one that lies under the influence of their temptations or that is already deceived by them we must speedily with all our skill and diligence make out for their relief The means I shall shew in the Directions in the end 6. Another part of this oversight lieth in the due encouragement of those that are humble upright obedient Christians and profit by our teaching and are an honour to their Profession We must in the eyes of all the Flock put some difference between them and the rest by our Praises and more special samiliarity and other testimonies of our approbation and rejoycing over them that so we may both encourage them and incite others to imitate them Gods graces are amiable and honourable in all even in the poorest of the Flock as well as in the Pastors and the smallest degrees must be cherrished and encouraged but the highest more openly honoured and propounded to imitation They that have slighted or vilified the most gracious because they were of the Laity while they claimed to themselves the honour of their Clergy though adorned with little or none of that grace as they shewed themselves to be Proud and Carnal so did they take the next way to debase themselves by self-exaltation to bring the office it self into contempt For if there be no honour due to the Real sanctity of a Christian much less to the relative sanctity of a Pastor and he that vilifieth the Person cannot well plead for the honouring of Robes and empty Titles Nor can he expect that his people should give him the honour of a Pastor if he will not give them the love and honour that is due to Christians and members of Christ As the Orator said to Domitius Cur ego te habeam ut principem cum tu me non habeas ut Senatorem It was an unchristian course therefore which our late Prelates and their Agents took who discountenanced none so much as the most godly whom they should have rejoyced in and encouraged and made them not only the common scorn but also the objects of their persecuting rage as if they had fed their Flock for the Butcher and called them out for suffering as they came to any maturity This vilifying and persecuting the most diligent of the Flock was neither the note of Christian Shepherds nor the way to be so esteemed As Hierom saith Quid de Episcopis qui verberibus timeri volunt canones dicant bene fraternitas vestra novit Pastores enim facti sumus non percussores Egregius praedicator dixit Argue obsecra increpa in omni patientiâ doctrina Nova vero atque inaudita est illa praedicatio quâ— verberibus exiâ— it sidem Much more might he have said quae verberibus castigat pieâ—atem 7. Another part of our Over-sight lieth in visiting the sick and helping them to prepare either for a fruitful life or a happy death Though this be the business of all our life and theirs yet doth it at such a season require extraordinary care both of them and us When time is almost gone and they must be now or never reconciled to God possessed of his grace O how doth it concern them to redeem those hours and lay hold upon eternal life And when we see that we are like to have but a few daies or hours time more to speak to them in order to their endless state What man that is not an Infidel or a block would not be with them and do all that he can for their salvation in that short space Will it not waken us to compassion to look upon a languishing man and to think that within a few daies his soul will be in heaven or hell Surely it will much try the faith and seriousness of Ministers or others to be about dying men and they will have much opportunity to discern whether they are themselves in good sadness about the matters of the life to come So great is the change that is made by death that it should awaken us to the greatest sensibility to see a man so neer it and should provoke us in the deepest pangs of compassion to do the office of inferiour Angels for the soul before it is departed from the flesh that it may be ready for the convoy of superiour Angels to transmit it to the prepared glory when it is removed from sin and misery When a man is almost at his journeys end and the next step puts him into heaven or hell its time for us to help him if we can while there is hope As Bernard saith The death of the righteous is bona propter requiem melior propter novitatem optima propter securitatem sed mors peccatorum est mala in mundi amissione pejor in carnis separatione pessima in vermis ignisque duplici contritione Could they have any hope that it would be their ultima linea rerum and that they have no more to suffer when that dismal day is past they might have such abatements of their terror as to die as brutes who fear no sorrow after death But it s so far otherwise that death it self is the smallest matter that they need to care for Sed moneudo quo ire Cogantur ut August It s not the prima mors quae animam pellit violenter è corpore that 's the most terrible sed secunda quae animam nolentem tenet in corpore in quit Idem And as their present necessity should move us to take that opportunity for their good so should the advantage that sickness and the fore-sight of death affordeth There are few of the stoutest hearts but will hear us on their death-bed that scorned us before They will then let fall their fury and be as tame as Lambs that were before as intractable as wasps or mad men A man may speak to them then that could not before I find not one of ten of the most obstinate scornful wretches in the Parish but when they come to dye will humble themselves confess their fault and seem penitent and promise if they should recover to do so no more If the very Meditations of death be so effectual
in the time of health that it is saith August quasi Clavis carnit omnes motus superbiae ligno crucis affigens l. 2. de Doct. Christ much more when it comes in as it were at the window and looks men in the face Cyprian saith to those in health Qui se quotidie recordatur moriturum esse contemnit praesentia ad futura festinat much more qui sentit se statim moriturum Nil it a revocat à peccato saith Austin quam frequens mortis meditatio O how resolvedly will the worst of them seem to cast away their sins and promise a reformation and cry out of their folly and of the vanity of this world when they see that death is in good sadness with them and away they must without delay Perhaps you will say that these forced changes are not cordial and therefore we have no great hope of doing them any saving good I confess that it is very common to be frighted into uneffectual purposes but not so common to be at such a season converted to fixed resolutions And as Austin saith Non potest male mori qui bene vixerit vix bene moritur qui male vixit Yet vix and nunquam be not all one It should make both them and us the more diligent in the time of health because it is vix but yet we should bestir us at the last in the use of the last remedies because it is not nunquam And it will not be unuseful to our selves to read such Lectures of our own mortality It is better to go into the house of mourning then into the house of feasting for it tendeth to make the heart better when we see the end of all the living and what it is that the world will do for those that sell their salvation for it When we see that it will be our own case and there is no escape Scilicet omne Sacrum mors importuna prophanat Omnibus obscuras injicit illa manus it will make us talk to our selves in Bernards language Quare O miser non omni hora ad mortem te disponis Cogita te jam mortuum quem scis necessitate moriturum distingue qualiter oculi vertentur in capite venae rumpentur in corpore cor scindetur dolore When we see that as he saith death spareth none inopiae non miseretur non reveretur divitias non sapientiae non moribus non aetati denique parcit nisi quod senibus mors est in januis juvenibus vero in insidiis it will excite us the better to consider the use of faith and holiness that it is not to put by death but to put by hell not that we may not dye as certainly as others but that we may dye better and be certainly happy after death Because I intend no such thing as a Directory for the whole Ministerial work I will not stand to tell you particularly what must be done for men in that last extremity but only choose out these three or four things to remember you of passing by all the rest 1. Stay not till strength and understanding be gone and the time so short that you scarce know what to do but go to them as soon as you hear that they are sick whether they send for you or not 2. When the time is so short that there is no opportunity to endeavour the change of their hearts in that distinct way as is usual with others nor to press truths upon them in such order and stay the working of it by degrees we must therefore be sure to ply the main and dwell upon those truths which must do the great work Shewing them the certainty and glory of the life to come and the way by which it was purchased for us and the great sin and folly of their neglecting it in time of health but yet the possibility that remaineth of obtaining it if they but yet close with it heartily as their happiness and with the Lord Jesus as the way thereto and abhorring themselves for their former evil can now unfeignedly resign up themselves to him to be justified sanctified ruled and saved by him Three things must be chiefly insisted on 1. The End The Certainty and Greatness of the Glory of the Saints in the presence of God that so their hearts may be set upon it 2. The sufficiency and necessity of the Redemption by Jesus Christ and the fulness of the Spirit which we may and must be made partakers of This is the principal way to the end and the neerer end it self 3. The Necessity and Nature of faith repentance and resolutions for New Obedience according as there shall be opportunity This is the subservient way or the means that on our part must be performed 3. Labour upon Conviction and Deliberation to engage them by solemn promise to Christ and new obedience according to their opportunity specially if you see any likelyhood of their recovery 4. If they do recover be sure to mind them of their promises Go to them purposely to set it home and reduce them into performance And when ever after you see them remiss go to them then and mind them what they formerly said And because it is of such use to them that recover and hath been a means of the conversion of many a soul it is very necessary that you go to them whose sickness is not mortal as well as to them that are neerer death that so we may have some advantage to move them to repentance and engage them to newness of life and may afterward have this to plead against their sins As a Bishop of Colen is said by Aeneas Sylvius to have answered the Emperour Sigismund when he askt him What was the way to be saved that he must be what he purposed or promised to be when he was last troubled with the stone and the gout So may we hereafter answer these 8. Another part of our Ministerial Oversight consisteth in the right comforting the consciences of the troubled setling our people in a well grounded peace But this I have spoken of elsewhere and others have done it more at large 9. Another part of this Oversight is in Reproving and admonishing those that live offensively or impenitently and receiving the information of those that have admonished them more privately in vain Before we bring such matters to the Congregation or to a Representative Church it is ordinarily most fit for the Minister to try himself what he can do more privately to bow the sinner to repentance especally if it be not a publike crime A great deal of skill is here required and difference must be made according to the various tempers of offenders but with the most it will be necessary to fall on with the greatest plainness and power to shake their careless hearts and make them see what it is to dally with sin to let them know the evil of it and its sad effects and the unkindness unreasonableness
you had all conversed with neighbour-neighbour-death as oft as I have done and as often received the sentence in your selves you would have an unquiet Conscience if not a reformed life in your Ministerial diligence and fidelity and you would have something within you that would frequently ask you such questions as these Is this all thy Compassion on lost sinners wilt thou do no more to seek and to save them Is there not such and such and such a one O how many round about thee that are yet the visible sons of death What hast thou said to them or done for their recovery shall they dye and be in Hell before thou wilt speak to them one serious word to prevent it shall they there curse thee for ever that didst no more in time to save them such cries of Conscience are daily in mine ears though the Lord knows I have too little obeyed them The God of Mercy pardon me and awake me with the rest of his servants that have been thus sinfully negligent I confess to my shame that I seldom hear the Bell toll for one that is dead but Conscience asketh me What hast thou done for the saving of that soul before it left the body There is one more gone to Iudgement what didst thou to prepare them for Iudgement and yet I have been slothful and backward to help the rest that do survive How can you chuse when you are laying a Corps in the grave but think with your selves Here lieth the body but where is the soul and what have I done for it before it departed It was part of my charge what account can I give of it O Sirs is it a small matter to you to answer such questions as these It may seem so now but the hour is coming when it will not seem so If our hearts condem us God is greater then our hearts and will condemn us much more â—even with another kind of Condemnation then Conscience doth The voice of conscience now is a stil voice and the sentence of Conscience is a gentle sentence in comparison of the voice and the sentence of God Alas Conscience seeth but a very little of our sin and misery in comparison of what God seeth What mountains would these things appear to your souls which now seem mole hils What beams would these be in your eyes that now seem motes if you did but see them with a clearer light I dare not say As God seeth them we can easily make shift to plead the Cause with Conscience and either bribe it or bear its sentence but God is not so easily dealt with nor his sentence so easily born Wherefore we receiving and preaching a Kingdom that cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear for our God is a Consuming fire Heb. 12. ult But because you shall not say that I affright my self or you with bug bears and tell you of dangers and terrors when there are none I will here add the certainty and sureness of that Condemnation that is like to befal the negligent Pastors and particularly that will befall us that are here this day if we shall hereafter be wilful neglecters of this great work How many will be ready to rise up against us to our Condemnation 1. Our Parents that destinated us to the Ministry may condemn us and say Lord we devoted them to thy service and they made light of it and serv'd themselves 2. Our Masters that taught us our Tutors that instructed us The Schools and Universities that we lived in and all the years that we spent in study may rise up in judgement against us and Condemn us For why was all this but for the work of God 3. Our Learning and Knowledge and Ministerial gifts will condemn us For to what are we made partakers of these but for the work of God 4 Our voluntary undertaking the Charge of souls will condemn us For all men should be true to the trust that they have undertaken 5. All the Care of God for his Church and all that Christ hath done and suffered for them will rise up in judgement against us if we be negligent and unfaithful and condemn us For that we did by our neglect destroy them for whom Christ dyed 6. All the severe Precepts and Charges of holy Scripture with the Promises of Assistance and reward and the threatnings of punishment will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them For God did not speak all this in vain 7. All the Examples of the Prophets and Apostles and other Preachers recorded in Scripture will rise up against such and condemn them even this pattern that is set them by Paul Acts 20. And all the examples of the diligent servants of Christ in these latter times and in the places about them For these were for their imitation and to provoke them to a holy emulation in fidelity and Ministerial diligence 8. The Holy Bible that is open before us and all the Books in our studies that tell us of our duty directly or indirectly may condemn the lazy and unprofitable servant For we have not all these helps and furniture in vain 9. All the Sermons that we preach to perswade our people to work out their salvation with fear and trembling to lay violent hands upon the Crown and take the Kingdom as by force to strive to enter in at the strait gate and so to run as they that may obtain c. will rise up against the unfaithful and condemn them For if it so nearly concern them to labour for their salvation doth it not concern us who have the charge of them to be also violent laborious and unwearied in striving to help on their salvation Is it worth their labour and patience and is it not also worth ours 10. All the Sermons that we preach to them to set out the danger of a natural state the evil of sin the need of Christ and Grace the Joyes of heaven and the torments of hell yea and the truth of Christian Religion will rise up in Judgement against such and condemn them And a sad review it will be to themselves when they shall be forc't to think Did I tell them of such great dangers and hopes in publike and wâ—â—ld I do no more to help them in private What tell them daily of threatned damnation and yet let them run into it so easily Tell them of such a Glory and scarce speak a word to them personallly to help them to it Were these such great matters with me at Church and so small when I came home All this is dreadful self-condemnation 11. All the Sermons that we have preached to perswade other men to such duties as neighbours to exhort one another daily and plainly to rebuke them and parents and masters to do it to their children and servants will rise up in Judgement against such and condemn them For will you perswade others to that which
Reformation And this Covenant we made as in the presence of God the searcher of all hearts with a true intention to perform the same as we shall answer at the great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed O dreadful case then that we have put our selves into if infinite mercy help us not out May we not say after the reading of this as Iosiâ—h after the reading oâ— the Law a Kings 22. 13. 2 Chron. 34. 21. Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because we have not done according to this Covenant Could a people have devised a readrer way to thrust themselves under the curse of God by such a solemn dreadful Covenant and when they have done so long so wilfully so openly to violate it Doth not this plainly bind us to the private as well as the publike part of our duty and to a Real Reformation of Discipline in our practice Again therefore I must needs say what a bottomless depth of deceit is the heart of man O what heavy charges have we brought against many others of these times for breaking this solemn Vow and Covenant from which I am far from undertaking to acquit them when yet we that led the way and drew on others and daily preach't up Reformation and Discipline have so horribly violated this Covenant our selves that in a whole Countrey it is rare to find a Minister that hath set up Discipline or private Instruction And he that can see much done towards it in England hath more acquaintance or better eyes then I have 2. Also in our frequent solemn Humiliation days in the time of our deep distress and fear how publikely and earnestly did we beg deliverances not as for our sakes but for the Church and Gospel sake as if we had not cared what had become of us so that the Reformation of the Church might go on and we promised if God would hear and deliver us what we would do towards it But O how unfaithful have we been to those Promises as if we were not the same men that ever spoke such words to God! I confess it filleth my own soul with shame to consider the unanswerableness of my affections and Endeavours to the many fervent prayers rare deliverances and confident Promises of those years of advesity And such experiences of the almost incredible unfaithfulness of our hearts is almost enough to make a man never trust his heart again and Consequently to shake his Certainty of sincerity Have we now or are we like to have any higher Resolutions then those were which we have broken And it tends also to make us question in the next extremity even at the hour of death whether God will hear and help us any more who have forfeited our Credit with him by proving so unfaithful If so many years publike humiliations spurred on by such calamities as neither we nor our fathers for many Generations had ever seen had no more in them then now appears and if this be the issue of all how can we tell how to believe our selves hereafter It may makes us fear lest our case be like the Israelites Psal 78. 34 35 36 37 43 42 57. Who when he slew them then they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their Rock and the high God their Redeemer Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth and they lyed unto him with their tongues For their heart was not right with God neither were they stedfast in his Covenant They remembred not his hand nor the day when he delivered them from the Enemy But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers they were turned aside like a deceitful bow 3. Moreover if we will not be faithful in duties that we are engaged to our own Agreements and Engagements which remain subscribed by our hands and are published to the view of the world will rise up in judgement against us and condemn us We have engaged our selves under our hands near three years ago that we will set up the exercise of Discipline and yet how many have neglected it to this day without giving any just and reasonable excuse We have now subscribed another Agreement and Engagement for Catechizing and Instructing all that will submit We have done well so far But if now we should flag and prove remiss and superficial in the performance Our subscriptions will condemn us this days humiliation will condemn us Be not deceived God is not mocked it is not your Names only but your hearts and hands also that he requireth There is no dallying with God by feigned Promises He will expect that you be as good as your words He will not hold him guiltless that by false Oaths or Vows or Covenants with him doth take his holy Name in vain When thou vowest a vow unto God defer not to pay it for he hath no pleasure in fools pay that which thou hast vowed Better it is that thou shouldst not vow then that thou shouldst vow and not pay suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin neither say thou before the Angel that it was an Error wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thy hands Eccless 5 4 5 6. And thus I have shewed you what will come on it if you shall not set your selves faithfully to this work to which you have so many obligations and engagements and what an unexcusable thing our neglect would be and how great and manifold a condemnation it would expose us to Truly Brethen if I did not apprehend the work to be of exceeding great moment to your selves to the people and to the honour of God I would not have troubled you with so many words about it nor have presumed to have spoken so sharply as I have done But when it is for life and death men are apt to forget their reverence and courtefie and complements commonly called Good manners For my part I apprehend this as one of the best and greatest works that ever I put mine hand to in my life And I verily think that your thoughts of it are as mine and then you will not think my words too many or too keen I can well remember the time when I was earnest for the Reformation of matters of Ceremony and if I should be cold in such a substantial matter as this how disorderly and disproportionable would my Zeal appear Alas can we think that the Reformation is wrought when we cast out a few Ceremonies and changed some vestures and gestures and forms O no Sirs it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business That 's the chiefest part of the Reformation that doth most good and tendeth most to the salvation of the people Let others take it how they will I will so far speak my conscience for your just encouragement as to say again that I am verily perswaded that as you are happily
foresaid proportion hath been blessed to my preservation though I know that much more had been like to have tended to my greater health And I do not know one Minister of an hundred that needeth so much as my self Yea I know abundance of Ministers that scarce ever use any exercise at all though I commend it not in them I doubt not but it is our duty to use so much exercise as is of necessity for the preservation of our health so far as our work requireth else we should for one daies work lose the opportunity of many But this may be done and yet the works that we are engaged in be done too On those two daies a week that you set apart for this work what hinders but you may take an hour or two to walk for the exercise of your bodies Much more on other daies But as for those men that limit not their Recreations to their stated hours but must have them for the pleasing of their voluptuous humor and not only to fit them for their work such sensualists have need to study better the nature of Christianity and learn the danger of living after the flesh and get more mortification and self-denyal before they preach these things to others If you must needs have your pleasures you should not have put your selves into that calling that requireth you to make God and his service your pleasure and restraineth you so much from fleshly pleasures Is it your baptismal engagement to fight against the flesh and do you know that much of the Christian warfare consisteth in the combate between the flesh and the spirit and that is the very difference between a true Christian and a wicked wretch that one liveth after the spirit and mortifyeth the deeds and desires of the body and the other liveth after the flesh and do you know that the overcoming the flesh is the principal part of our victory on which the Crown of life depends and do you make it your calling to preach all this to others and yet for all this must you needs have your pleasures If you must then for shame give over the preaching of the Gospel and the profession of Christian self-denyal and profess your selves to be as you are and as you sow to the flesh so of the flesh shall you receive the wages of corruption Doth such a one as Paul say I therfore so run not as uncertainly so fight I not as one that beateth the air But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection least that by any means when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away 1 Cor. 4. 26 27. And have not such sinners as we need to do so Shall we pamper our bodies and give them their desires in unnecessary pleasures when Paul must keep under his body and bring it into subjection Must Paul do this least after all his preaching he should be a cast-away and have not we cause to fear it of our selves much more I know that some pleasure it self is lawful that is when it is of use to the fitting us for our work But for a man to be so far in love with his pleasures as that he must unnecessarily wast his precious time in them and neglect the great work of God for mens salvation yea and plead for this as if it must or might be done and so to justifie himself in such a course is a wickedness inconsistent with the common fidelity of a Christian much more with the fidelity of a Teacher of the Church And such wretches as are lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God must look to beloved of him accordingly and are fitter to be cast out of Christian Communion then to be the chief in the Church for we are commanded from such to turn away 2 Tim. 3. 5. Recreations for a student must be specially for the exercise of his body he having before him such variety of delights to his mind And they must be as whetting is with the Mower that is only to be used so far is necessary to his work And we must be careful that it rob us not of our precious time but be kept within the narrowest bounds that may be I pray peruse well Mr. Wheatley's Sermon of Redemption of time 2. And then the labour that we are now engaged to perform is not likely much to impair our health It s true it must be serious but that will but excite and revive our spirits and not so much spend them Men can talk all the day long of other matters without any abatement of their health and why may not we talk with men about their salvation without such great abatement of ours 3. It is to be understood that the direction that we give and the work which we undertake is not for dying men that be not able to preach or speak but for men of some competent measure of strength and whose weaknesses are tollerable and may admit of such labours 4. What have we our time and strength for but to lay it out for God What is a Candle made for but to be burnt Burnt and wasted we must be and is it not fitter it should be in lighting men to heaven and in working for God then in living to the flesh How little difference is there between the pleasure of a long life and of a short when they are both at an end What comfort will it be at death that you lengthened your life by shortening your work He that works much liveth much Our life is to be esteemed according to the ends and works of it and not according to the meer duration As Seneca can say of a drone ibi jacet non ibi vivit diu fuit non diu vixit Will it not comfort us more at death to review a short time faithfully spent then a long time unfaithfully 4. And for the matter of Visitations and Civilities if they be for greater ends or use then our Ministerial imployments are you may break a Sabbath for them you may forbear preaching for them and so may forbear this private work But if it be otherwise how dare you make them a pretence to neglect so great a duty Must God wait on your friends What if they be Lords or Knights or Gentlemen Must they be served before God Or is their displeasure or censure a greater hurt to you then Gods displeasure Or dare you think when God shall question you for your neglects to put him off with this excuse Lord I would have spent more of my time in seeking mens salvation but that such a Gentleman and such a friend would have taken it ill if I had not waited on them If you yet seek to please men you are no longer the servants of Christ He that dares spend his life in flesh-pleasing and man-pleasing is bolder then I am And he that dares wast his time in complements doth little consider what he hath to do with it O that I
could but improve my time according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it He that hath lookt death in the face as oft as I have done I will not thank him to value his time I profess I admire at those Ministers that have time to spare that that can hunt or shoot or bowl or use the like recreations two or three hours yea whole daies almost together That can sit an hour together in vain discourses and spend whole daies in complemental visitations and journeys to such ends Good Lord what do these men think on when so many souls about them cry for their help and death gives no respite and they know not how short a time their people and they may be together When the smallest Parish hath so much work that may imploy all their diligence night and day Brethren I hope you are content to be plainly dealt with If you have no sense of the worth of souls and of the preciousness of that blood that was shed for them and of the glory that they are going to and of the misery that they are in danger of then are you no Christians and therefore very unfit to be Ministers And if you have how can you find time for needless recreations visitations or discourses Dare you like idle Gossips chat and trifle away your time when you have such works as these to do and so many of them O precious time How swiftly doth it pass away How soon will it be gone What are the 40 years of my life that are past Were every day as long as a moneth me thinks it were too short for the work of a day Have we not lost enough already in the daies of our vanity Never do I come to a dying man that is not utterly stupid but he better sees the worth of time O then if they could call time back again how loud would they call If they could but buy it what would they give for it And yet can we afford to trifle it away Yea and to allow our selves in this and willfully cast off the greatest works of God! O what a befooling thing is sin that can thus distract men that seem so wise Is it possible that a man of any true compassion and honesty or any care of his Ministerial duty or any sense of the strictness of his account should have time to spare for idleness and vanity And I must tell you further Brethren that if another might take some time for meer delight which were not necessary yet so cannot you for your undertaking binds you to stricter attendance then other men are bound to May a Physitian in the plague-time take any more relaxation or reereation then is necessary for his life when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death As his pleasure is not worth mens lives so neither is yours worth mens souls Suppose your Cities were besieged and the enemy on one side watching all advantages to surprize it and on the other seeking to fire it with granadoes which are cast in continually I pray you tell me now if certain men undertake it as their office to watch the ports and others to quench the fire that shall be kindled in the houses what time will you allow these men for their recreation or relaxation When the City is in danger or the fire will burn on and prevail if they intermit their diligence Or would you excuse one of these men if he come off his work and say I am but flesh and blood I must have some pleasure or relaxation At the utmost sure you would allow him none but of necessity Do not grudge at this now and say This is a hard saying who can bear it For it is your mercy and you are well if you know when you are well as I shall shew you in answering this next Objection Object 3. I do not think that it is required of Ministers that they make drudges of themselves If they preach diligently and visit the sick and do other Ministerial duties and occasionally do good to those they converse with I do not think that God doth moreover require that we should thus tie our selves to Instruct every person distinctly and to make our lives a burden and a slavery Answ 1. Of what use and weight the duty is I have shewed before land how plainly it is commanded And do you think God doth not require you to do all the good you can Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death and say God doth not require me to make my self a drudge to save them Is this the voice of Ministerial or Christian Compassion or rather of sensual Lazarus and diabolical cruelty I Doth God set you work to do and will you not believe that he would have you do it Is that the voice of obedience or of rebellion It is all one whether your flesh do prevail with you to deny obedience to acknowledge duty and say plainly I wil obey no further then it pleaseth me Or whether it may make you wilfully reject the evidence that should convince you that it is a duty and say I will not believe it to be my duty unless it please me It s the true Character of an hypocrite to make a Religion to himself of the cheapest part of Gods service which will stand with his fleshly ends and felicity and to reject the rest which is inconsistent therewith And to the words of Hypocrisie this objection superaddeth the words of gross impiety For what a wretched Calumny is this against the most high God to call his service a slavery and drudgery what thoughts have these men of their Master their work and their wages the thoughts of a believer or of an Infidel Are these men like to honour God and promote his service that have such base thoughts of it themseves Do these men delight in Holiness that account it a slavish work Do the believe indeed the Misery of sinners that account it such a slavery to be diligent for to save them Christ saith that he that denieth not himself and forsaketh not all and taketh not up his cross and followeth him cannot be his Disciple And these men count it a slavery to labour hard in his vineyard and deny their ease in a time when they have all accomodations and Encouragements How far is this from forsaking all and how can these men be fit for the Ministry that are such enemies to self-denyal and so to true Christianity Still therefore I am forced to say that all these Objections are so prevalent and all these carnal reasonings hinder the Reformation and in a word hence is the chief misery of the Church that so many are made Ministers before they are Christians If these men had seen the diligence of Christ in doing good when he neglected his meat to talk with one woman Joh. 4. and when they had no time to eat bread Mark 3. 22. would not
that Jesus Christ the only Son of God and the Redeemer of the world hath recovered it for us by the price of his blood shed and hath made a New Covenant with us assuring us of Life and Salvation if we Repent and believe in him for that life and mortifie our fleshly desires To which end he sendeth forth his holy Spirit to convert all that shall be saved and to turn their hearts from this world to God If ever you mean to be saved therefore it must be thus with you Your formersins must be the grief of your soul and you must fly to a crucified Christ as your only Refuge from the deserved Curse and the Spirit of Christ must Convert you and dwell in you and make you wholly a new Creature or there is no salvation Some such short plain rehearsal of the Principles of Religion in the most familiar manner that you can devise with a brief touch of application in the end will be necessary when you deal with the grosly ignorant And if you perceive they understand you not go over it again and ask them whether they understand it and seek to leave it fixed in their memories Direct 6. Whether they begrosly Ignorant or not if you suspect them to be ungodly fall next upon a prudent enquiry into their states And the best and least offensive way will be this to take your occasion from some Article of the Catechism as the fifth or seventh and then to make way by a word that may demulce their minds by convincing them of the necessity of it as E. g. thus or to this purpose You see in the 7. Article proved by Scripture that the Holy-Ghost doth by the word enlighten mens minds and soften and open their hearts and turn them from the power of Satan to God by faith in Christ and so makes them a Sanctified peculiar people to God and that none but these are made partakers of Christ and life Now though I have no desire needlesly to pry into any mans secrets yet because that it is the office of Ministers to give advice to a people in the matters of salvation and because it is so dangerous a matter to be mistaken where life or death everlasting doth lie upon it I would intreate you to deal truly and tell me Whether ever you found this great change upon your own heart or not Did you ever find the spirit of God by the word come in upon your understanding with a new heavenly life which hath made you a new creature The Lord that seeth your heart doth know whether it be so or not Therefore I pray you see that you speak the truth If he tell you that he hopes he is converted all are sinners but he is sorry for his sins or the like then tell him more particularly in a few words of the plainest notes or by a short description what true conversion is and so renew and enforce the enquiry as thus Because your salvation or damnation lyeth upon it I would fain help you a little in this that you may not be mistaken in a business of such consequence but may find out the truth before it be too late for as God will judge us impartially so we have his word before us by which we may know now how God will judge us then for this word tells us most certainly who they be that shall go to heaven and who to hell Now the Scripture tells us that the state of an unconverted man is this He seeth no great matter of felicity in the Love and Communion of God in the life to come which may draw his heart thither from this present world but he liveth to his carnal self or to the flesh and the main bent of his life is that it may go well with his body here and that religion that he hath is but a little on the by lest he should be damned when he can keep the world no longer so that the world and flesh are highest in his esteem and nearest to his heart and God and Glory stand below them and further off and all their service of God is but a giving them that which the world and flesh can spare This is the true case of every unconverted man and all that are in this case are in a state of misery But he that is truly converted hath had a light shining into his soul from God which hath shewed him the greatness of his sin and misery and made it a heavy load upon his soul and shewed him what Christ is and hath done for sinners and made him admire at the riches of Gods grace in him O what glad news is it to him that yet there is hope for such lost sinners as he That so many and so great sins may be pardoned and that this is offered to all that will accept it How gladly doth he entertain this Message and offer And for the time to come he resigneth himself and all that he hath to Christ to be wholly his and disposed of by him in order to the everlasting glory which he hath promised He hath now such a sight of the blessed state of the Saints in glory that he despiseth all this world as dross and dung in comparison of it and there he layeth up his happiness and his hopes and takes all the matters of this life but as so many helps or hindrances in the way to that so that the very bent and main care and business of his life is to be happy in the life to come This is the case of all that are truly converted and shall be saved Is this your case or not Have you found such a change or work as this upon your soul If he say he hopes he hath descend to some particulars distinctly E. G. I pray you then answer me to these two or three questions 1. Can you truly say that all the known sins of your life past are the grief of your heart and that you have felt that everlasting misery is due to you for them and that in the sense of this heavy burden you have felt your self a lost man and have gladly entertained the news of a Saviour and cast your soul upon Christ alone for pardon by his blood 2. Can you truly say that your heart is so far turned from your former sins that you hate the sins that formerly you loved and love that holy life that you had no mind to before and that you do not now live in the willful practise of any known sin Is there no sin which you be not heartily willing to leave whatever it cost you And no duty which you be not willing to perform 3. Can you truly say that you have so far taken the everlasting enjoyments of God for your happiness that it hath the most of your heart of your love desire and care and that you are resolved by the strength of grace to let go all that you have in the world rather