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
out their voice and stir up themselves to an earnest utterance But if they do speak loud and earnestly how few do answer it with earnestness of matter and the voice doth little good the people will take it but as meer bauling when the matter doth not correspond It would grieve one to hear what excellent Doctrines some Ministers have in hand and let it die in their hands for want of close and lively application What fit matter they have for convincing sinners and how little they make of it and what a deal of good it might do if it were set home and yet they cannot or will not do it O sirs how plain how close and earnestly should we deliver a message of such a nature as ours is when the everlasting life or death of men is concerned in it Me thinks we are nowhere so wanting as in this seriousness There is nothing more unsuitable to such a business then to be slight and dull What! speak coldly for God! and for mens salvation Can we believe that our people must be converted or condemned and yet can we speak in a drowsie tone In the name of God Brethren labour to awaken your hearts before you come and when you are in the work that you may be fit to waken the hearts of sinners Remember that they must be wakened or damned and a sleepy Preacher will hardly wake them If you give the holy things of God the highest praises in words and yet do it coldly you will seem in the manner to unsay what you said in the matter It is a kind of contempt of great things especially so great to speak of them without great affection and fervency The manner as well as the words must set them forth If we are commanded what ever our hand findeth to do to do it with all our might then certainly such a work as preaching for mens salvation should be done with all our might But alas how few how thin are such men here one and there one even among good Ministers that have an earnest perswading working way or that the people can feel him preach when they hear him SECT VI. 3. IF we are all heartily Devoted to the work of God why do we not compassionate the poor unprovided Congregations about us and take care to help them to able Ministers and in the mean time step out now and then to their assistance when the business of our own particular charge will give us any leave A Lecture in the more ignorant places purposely for the work of conversion performed by the most lively working-preachers might be a great help where constant means is wanting SECT VII 4. THE negligent execution of acknowledged duties doth shew that we be not so wholly Devoted to the work as we should be If there be any work of Reformation to be set a foot how many are there that will go no further then they are drawn And it were well if all would do but that much If any business for the Church be on foot how many neglect it for their own private business when we should meet and consult together for the unanimous and successful performance of our work one hath this business of his own and another that business which must be preferred before Gods business And when a work is like to prove difficult and costly how backward are we to it and make excuses and will not come on For instance What hath been for more talked of and prayed for and contended about in England for many years past then the business of Discipline And there are but few men the Erastians but they seem zealous in disputing for one side or other some for the Prelatical way and some for the Presbyterian and some for the Congregational And yet when we come to the practice of it for ought I see we are most of us for no way It hath made me admire sometimes to look on the face of England and see how few Congregations in the Land have any considerable execution of Discipline and to think withall what volumns they have written for it and how almost all the Ministery of the Nation is engaged for it how zealously they have contended for it and made many a just exclamation against the opposers of it and yet for all this will do little or nothing in the exercise of it I have marvelled what should make them so zealous in siding for that which their practice shews that their hearts are against But I see a disputing zeal is more natural then a holy obedient practizing zeal How many Ministers in England be there that know not their own charge that plead for the truth of their particular Churches and know not which they be or who be members of them and that never cast out one obstinate sinner no nor brought one to publike Confession and expression of Repentance and promise of reformation No nor admonished one publikely to call him to such Repentance But they think they do their duties if they give them not the Sacrament of the Lords Supper when it is perhaps avoided voluntarily by themselves and thousands will keep away themselves without our prohibiting them and in the mean time we leave them stated members of our Churches and grant them all other Communion with the Church and call them not to personal Repentance for their sin Read Albaspinaens a sober Papist in his Observat 1. and 2. and 3. after his Annot on O tatus and see whether Church-Communion in former times was taken to consist only â—n co-partaking of the Lords Supper Either these hundreds that we communicate not with in the Supper are members of our Churches or not If not then we are Separatists while we so much disclaim it for we have not cast them out nor have we called them to any profession whether they own or disown their membership but only whether they will be examined in order to a Sacrament nor do we use to let them know that we take their refusal of Examination for a refusal of Church membership and exclusion of themselves It follows therefore that we have gathered Churches out of Churches before they were unchurched or before we took Gods way to cast any of them much less all of them out But if they are taken for members how can we satisfie our consciences to forbear all execution of Discipline upon them It is not Gods Ordinance that they should be personally rebuked and admonished and then publikely called to Repentance and be cast out if they remain impenitent If these be no duties why have we made such a noise and stir about them in the world as we have done If they be duties why do we not practise them If none of all these persons be scandalous why do we not admit them to the Lords Supper If they keep away themselves is not that a sin which a brother should not be permitted to remain in Is it not a scandal for them to avoid the
apparent danger of damnation And every impenitent person that you see and know about you suppose that you hear them cry to you for help as ever you pitied poor wretches pity us lest we should be tormented in the flames of hell if you have the hearts of men pitty us And do that for them that you would do if they followed you with such complaints O how can you walk and talk and be merry with such people when you know their case Me thinks when you look them in the face and think how they must lie in perpetual misery you should break forth into tears as the Prophet did when he looked upon Hazael and then fall on with the most importunate Exhortations when you must visit them in their sickness will it not wound your hearts to see them ready to depart into misery before you have ever dealt seriously with them for their recovery O then for the Lords sake and for the sake of poor souls have pity on them and bestir your selves and spare no pains that may conduce to their salvation 3. ANd I must further tell you that this Ministerial fidelity is Necessary to your own welfare as well as to your peoples For this is your work according to which among others you shall be judged You can no more be saved without Ministerial diligence and fidelity then they or you can be saved without Christian diligence and fidelity If you care not for others at least care for your selves O what is it to answer for the neglect of such a charge and what sins more hainous then the betraying of souls Doth not that threatning make us tremble If thou warn not the wicked their blood will I require at thy hands I am afraid nay I am past doubt that the day is near when unfaithful Ministers will wish that they had never known that charge But that they had rather been Colliars or Tinkers or sweepers of Channels then Pastors of Christs flock when besides all the rest of their sins they shall have the blood of so many souls to answer for O Brethren our death as well as our peoples is at hand and it is as terrible to an unfaithful Pastor as to any When we see that dye we must and there is no remedy no wit or learning no credit or popular applause can put by the stroke or delay the time but willing or unwilling our souls must be gone and that into a world that we never saw where our persons and worldly interest will not be respected O then for a clear Conscience that can say I lived not to my self but to Christ I spared not my pains I hid not my talent I concealed not mens misery nor the way of their recovery O Sirs let us therefore take time while we may have it and work while it is day for the night cometh when none can work This is our day too and by doing good to others we must do good to our selves If you would prepare for a comfortable death and a sure and great Reward the harvest is before you gâ—rd up the loins of your minds and quit your selves like men that you may end your days with that confident triumph I have fought a good fight I have kept the faith I have finished my course henceforth is laid up for me a crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Iudge shall give me And if you would be blessed with those that dye in the Lord Labour now that you may rest from your labours then and do such works as you would wish should follow you and not such as will prove your terror in the review SECT IV. HAving found so great Reason to move us to this work I shall before I come to the Directions 1. Apply them further for our Humiliation and Excitation And 2. answer some Objections that may be raised And 1. what cause have we to bleed before the Lord this day that have neglected so great and good a work so long That we have been Ministers of the Gospel so many years and done so little by personal instructions and conference for the saving of mens souls If we had but set a work this business sooner that we have now agreed upon who knows how many more might have been brought over unto Christ and how much happyer we might have made our Parishes ere now And why might we not have done it sooner as well as now I confess many impediments were in our way and so there are still and will be while there is a Devil to tempt and a corrupt heart in man to resist the light But if the greatest impediment had not been in our selves even in our own darkness and dulness and undisposedness to duty and our dividedness and unaptness to close for the work of God I see not but much might have been done before this We had the same God to command us and the same miserable objects of compassion and the same liberty from Governors of the Common-wealth But we stood looking for changes and we would have had the Magistrate not only to have given us leave to work but have done our work for us or at least to have brought the game to our hands and while we lookt for better daies we made them worse by the lamentable neglect of a chief part of our work And had we as much petitioned Parliaments for the interposition of their Authority to compell men to be catechized and instructed by the Minister as we did for maintenance and other matters its like we might have obtained it long ago when they were forward to gratifie us in such undisputable things But we have sinned and have no just excuse for our sin somewhat that may perhaps excuse à tanto but nothing à toto and the sin is so great because the duty is so great that we should be afraid of pleading excuse too much The Lord of Mercy forgive us and all the Ministry of England and lay not this or any of our Ministerial negligences to our charge O that he would cover all our unfaithfulness and by the blood of the everlasting Covenant would wash away our guilt of the blood of souls that when the chief Shepherd shall appear we may stand before him in peace and may not be condemned for the scattering of his Flock And O that he would put up his controversie which he hath against the Pastors of his Church and not deal the hardlyer with them for our sakes nor suffer underminers or persecutors to scatter them as they have suffered his Sheep to be scattered and that he will not care as little for them as they have done for the souls of men nor think his salvation too good for them as they have thought their labour and sufferings too much for mens salvation and as we have had many daies of Humiliation in England for the sins of the Land and the Judgements that have lain upon us I hope we shall hear that God will more
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
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
Disorder and Confusion inconsistent with right order and discipline that I dislike in him or those of his way And so would I do by others in this case And you should be as loath that they should out-go you in the Practise of a Holy and Righteous life any more then in sounder diligent teaching Do any of them express a hatred of sin and desire of Church Reformation So must we do more Do any of them use to spend their time when they meet together in holy discourse and not in vain janglings Let us do so much more Are they unwearied in propagating their opinions Let us be more so in propagating the Truth Will they condescend to the meanest and creep into houses to lead captive the sillyest of the Flock Let us stoop as low and be as diligent to do them good Are any of them loving to their party and contemners of the world Let us be lovers of all and specially of all Saints and do good to all as we have power and specially to all the houshold of faith and love an enemy as well as they can do a friend Let us be more just then they and more merciful then they and more humble and meek and patient then they For this is the will of God that by well-doing we may put to silence the Ignorance of foolish men Let us excell them in a holy harmless righteous merciful fruitful heavenly life as we do in soundness of Doctrine that by our fruits we may be known and the weaker sort of our people may see the truth in this reflexion that cannot see it in itself and that our Light may so shine before men that they may see our conversation and glorifie our Father which is in heaven and even they that obey not the word may without the word be won by the conversation of their Teachers 1 Pet. 3. 1 2. O how happy had England been how happy had all the Church been if the Ministers of the Gospel had taken these courses It would have done more against Errors and Schism then all our chiding at them hath done or then all the force can do which we desire from the Magistrate THree sorts of persons that we may meet with in our conference are now over viz. 1. The grosly ignorant and unconverted 2. The doubting troubled believer 3. The Cavilling Questionist or seduced Schismatick The fourth that I should speak of in this Direction is Those that by a professed willingness to learn and obey and by other signs do give us some probability that they may have true Repentance and faith and yet by their ignorance or lukewarmness being not noted for any special profession of Godliness or by some uneven walking do make our fears to be as great or greater then our hopes so that we are between hope and fear of them doubting the worst of their present safety though we have not ground to charge them to be unconverted impenitent unsanctified persons I think half that come to me are of this sort and ten of this sort if not 40 for one that I dare flatly say are unregenerate Now it may be a great difficulty with some younger Ministers what they should do with this sort of people where they have no sufficient ground to determine of them as Godly or Ungodly what ever their fears or hopes may be Of these I shall only briefly say this 1. The first Directions may suffice in the main for dealing with these and are as much fitted to these as to the worst As we may tell a Notorions ungodly man Your case is miserable you are a child of death so may we tell these I much fear your Case is sad these are ill signs I wonder how you dare so hazard your salvation And so abating of the confidence of our Censures according to the several degrees of the hopeful good that appeareth in them we may see in the first case how to deal in this 2. And I would advise you to be very cautelous how you pass too hasty or absolute Censures on any that you have to do with because it is not so easie a matter to discern a man to be certainly graceless that professeth himself a Christian as many do imagine it to be And you may do the work in hand as well without such an absolute conclusion as with it as the former examples which will serve all with a little alteration do shew 3. The general descriptions of the Ministerial work may supply the rest I shall only add in a word 1. Keep them close to the use of private and publike means 2. Be oft with the luke-warm to awaken them rouzingly and with the careless to admonish them 3. Take the opportunity of sickness which will bow their hearts and open their ears 4. See that they spend the Lords day and order their families aright 5. Draw them from temptations and occasions of sin 6. Charge them to come and seek help in all great streights and open their temptations and dangers before they are swallowed up 7. Strike at the great Radical sins Self-seeking fleshly mindedness sensuality Pride wordliness Infidelitie c. 1. Keep them to the Reading of Scripture and good books and direct them to those that are likest to awake them 8. Engage their godly neighbours to have an eye upon them 9. Keep up Discipline to awe them 10. Maintain the life of Grace in your selves that it may appear in all your Sermons to them that every one that comes cold to the Assembly may have warming helps before he depart I have done my Advice and leave you to the Practice Though the proud may receive it with scorn and the selfish and slothful with some distast and indignation I doubt not but God will use it in despight of the oppositions of sin and Satan to the awakening of many of his servants to their duty and the promoting of the work of a Right Reformation and that his much greater blessing shall accompany the present undertaking for the saving of many a soul the Peace of you that undertake and perform it the exciting of his servants through the nation to second you and to increase Purity and the unity of his Churches Amen FINIS Decemb. 25. 1655. To the Reverend and faithful Ministers of Christ in the several Counties of this Land and the Gentlemen and other Natives of each County now inhabiting the City of London Reverend and Beloved Brethren THE whole design and business of this Discourse being the Propagation of the Gospel and the saving of mens souls I have thought it not unmeet to acquaint you with another work to that end which we have set afoot in this County and to propound it to your Consideration and humbly invite you to an universal imitation You know I doubt not the great inequality in Ministerial abilities and that many places have Ministers that are not qualified with convincing lenity awakening gifts Some must be tolerated in the necessity