and comfortable a life is it to live in the Family of such a Father and with a thankful carelesness to trust his will and take that portion as best which he provideth for us And into what misery do foolish Prodigals run who had rather have their portion in their own hand than in their Fathers 5. Thy heavenly Father knoweth with what kind and measure of Tryals and Temptations it is fit that thou shouldst be exercised It is his work to permit and bound and order them It is thy work to beg his grace to overcome them and watchfully and constantly to make resistance and in Tryal to approve thy faithfulness to God Blessed are they that endure Temptations for when they are tryed they shall receive the Crown of life James 1. If he will try thee by bodily pain and sickness he can make it turn to the health of thy Soul Perhaps thy diseases have prevented some mortal Soul-diseases which thou didst not fear If he will try thee by mens malice Injury or Persecution he knoweth how to turn it to thy good and in season to bring thee out of trouble He will teach thee by other mens wickedness to know what grace hath cured or prevented in thy self and to know the need of trusting in God alone and appealing to his desireable Judgment He that biddeth thee when thou art Reviled and Persecuted and loaded with false reports for righteousness sake to rejoyce and be exceeding glad because of the great reward in heaven can easily give thee what he doth Command and make thy sufferings a help to this exceeding joy If he will try thee by Satans molesting Temptations and suffer him to buffet thee or break thy peace by Melancholy disquietments and vexatious thoughts from which he hath hitherto kept thee free he doth but tell thee from how much greater evil he hath delivered thee and make thy fears of Hell a means to prevent it and call thee to thy Saviour to seek for safety and peace in him If it please him to permit the malicious tempter to urge thy thoughts to blasphemy or other dreadful sin as it ordinarily falleth out with the Melancholy it telleth thee from what malice grace preserveth thee and what Satan would do were he let loose It calleth thee to remember that thy Saviour himself was tempted by Satan to as great sin as ever thou wast even to worship the Devil himself And that he suffered him to carry about his body from place to place which he never did by thee It tells thee therefore that it is not sin to be tempted to sin but to consent And that Satans sin is not laid to our charge And though our corruption is such as that we seldom are tempted but some culpable blot is left behind in us for we cannot say as Christ that Satan hath nothing in us Yet no sin is less dangerous to mans damnation than the Melancholy thoughts which such horrid vexatious Temptations cause both because the person being distempered by a disease is not a volunteer in what he doth and also because he is so far from loving and desiring such kind of sin that it is the very burden of his life They make him weary of himself and he daily groaneth to be delivered from them And it is certain that Love is the damning malignity of sin and that there is no more sin than there is will And that no sin shall damn men which they had rather leave than keep and therefore forgiveness is joyned to Repentance Drunkards Fornicators Worldlings Ambitious men love their sin But a poor Melancholy Soul that is tempted to ill thoughts or to despair or terrour or to excessive griefs is far from loving such a state The case of such is sad at present But O how much sadder is the case of them that are Lovers of pleasure more than of God and prosper and delight in sin 6. God knoweth how long it is best for me to live Leave then the determination of the time to him All men come into the word on the condition of going out again Die we must and is it not fitter that God choose the time than we Were it left to our wills how long we should live on Earth alas how long should many of us be kept out of heaven by our own desires And too many would stay here till misery made them impatient of living But our lives are his gift and in his hand who knoweth the use of them and knoweth how to proportion them to that use which is the justest measure of them He chose the time and place of my birth and he chuseth best Why should I not willingly leave to his choice also the time and place and manner of my departure I am known of him and my concerns are not despised by him He knoweth me as his own and as his own he hath used me and as his own he will receive me Psal 37.18 The Lord knoweth the days of the upright and their inheritance shall be for ever And if he bring me to death through long and painful sickness he knoweth why and all shall end in my Salvation He knoweth the way that is with me and when he hath tryed me I shall come forth as Gold Job 23.10 He forsaketh us not in sickness or in death Like as a Father pityeth his Children the Lord pityeth them that fear him For he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust As for man his days are as grass as a flower of the Field so he flourisheth For the wind passeth over it and it is not and the place thereof shall know it no more But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear him If the Ox should not know his owner nor the Ass his Masters Crib the owner will know his own and seek them That we understand and know the Lord is matter of greater joy and glorying than all other wisdom or riches in the world Jer. 9.24 But that he knoweth us in Life and Death on Earth and in Heaven is the top of our rejoycing The Lord is good and strength in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him Nah. 1.7 Sickness may so change my flesh that even my Neighbours shall not KNOW ME and Death will make the change so great that even my friends will be unwilling to see such an unpleasing loathsome spectacle But while I am carried by them to the place of darkness that I may not be an annoyance to the living I shall be there in the sight of God and my Bones and Dust shall be owned by him and none of them forgotten or lost 7. It may be that under the temptations of Satan or in the languishing weakness or distempers of my flesh I may doubt of the love of God and think that he hath withdrawn his mercy from me or at least may be unmeet to tast the sweetness of his love or to meditate
ordinary for self-conceited Persons to ruine their own Estates and Healths and Lives When they are rashly making ill Bargains or undertaking things which they understand not they rush on till they find their error too late and their Poverty Prisons or ruined Families must declare their sin For they have not humility enough to seek Counsel in time nor to take it when it is offered them What great numbers have I heard begging relief from others under the confession of this sin And far more even the most of Men and Women overthrow their Health and lose their Lives by it Experience doth not suffice to teach them what is hurtful to their Bodies and as they know not so you cannot convince them that they know not Most Persons by the excess in quantity of food do suffocate Nature and lay the Foundation of future Maladies And most of the Diseases that kill men untimely are but the effects of former Gluttony or Excess But as long as they feel not any present hurt no man can perswade them but their fulness is for their Health as well as for their Pleasure They will laugh perhaps at those that tell them what they do and what Diseases they are preparing for Let Physicians if they be so honest tell them It is the perfection of the nutritive Juices the Blood and nervous Oyl which are the causes of Health in man Perfect Concoction causeth that perfection Nature cannot perfectly concoct too much or that which is of too hard digestion While you feel no harm your Blood groweth dis-spirited and being but half concocted and half Blood doth perform its Office accordingly by the halves till crudities are heaped up and obstructions fixed and a Dunghil of Excrements or the dis-spirited humours are ready to take in any Disease which a small occasion offereth either Agues Feavers Coughs Consumptions Pleurisies Dropsies Colicks and Windiness Head-achs Convulsions c. or till the Inflammations or other Tumors of the inward Parts or the torment of the Stone in Reins or Bladder do sharply tell men what they have been doing A clean Body and perfect Concoction which are procured by Temperance and bodily Labours which suscitate the Spirits and purifie the Blood are the proper means which God in the course of nature hath appointed for a long and healthful Life This is all true and the reason is evident and yet this talk will be but despised and derided by the most and they will say I have so long eaten what I loved and lived by no such rules as these and I have found no harm by it Yea if Excess have brought Diseases on them if Abstinence do but make them more to feel them they will rather impute their illness to the Remedy than to the proper cause And so they do about the quality as well as the quantity Self-conceitedness maketh men uncureable Many a one have I known that daily lived in that fulness which I saw would shortly quench the Vital Spirits and fain I would have saved their Lives but I was not able to make them willing Had I seen another assault them I could have done somewhat for them but when I foresaw their death I could not save them from themselves They still said they found their measures of eating and drinking between Meals refresh them and they were the worse if they forbore it and they would not believe me against both Appetite Reason and Experience And thus have I seen abundance of my acquaintance wilfully hasten to the Grave And all long of an unhumbled self-conceited understanding which would not be brought to suspect it self and know its error 2. And O how often have I seen the dearest Friends thus kill their Friends even Mothers kill their dearest Children and too oft their Husbands Kindred Servants and Neighbours by their self-conceit and confidence in their ignorance and error Alas what abundance empty their own Houses gratifie covetous Landlords that set their Lands by Lives and bring their dearest Relations to untimely ends and a wise man knoweth not how to hinder them How oft and oft have I heard ignorant Women confidently perswade even their own Children to eat as long as they have an Appetite and so they have vitiated their Blood and Humours in their Childhood that their Lives have been either soon ended or ever after miserable by Diseases How oft have I heard them perswade sick or weak diseased Persons to eat eat eat and take what they have a mind to when unless they would Poyson them or cut their Throats they could scarce more certainly dispatch them How oft have these good Women been perswading my self that eating and drinking more would make me better and that it is Abstinence that causeth all my illness when Excess in my Childhood caused it as if every wise Woman that doth but know me knew better what is good for me than my self after threescore years experience or than all the Physicians in the City And had I obeyed them how many years ago had I been dead How ordinary is it for such self-conceited Women to obtrude their skill and Medicines on their sick Neighbours with the greatest confidence when they know not what they do yea upon their Husbands and their Children One can scarce come about sick Persons but one Woman or other is perswading them to take that or do that which is like to kill them Many and many when they have brought their Children to the Grave have nothing to say but I thought this or that had been best for them But you 'l say They do it in love they meant no harm I answer so false Teachers deceive Souls in Love. But are you content your selves to be kill'd by Love If I must be kill'd I had rather an Enemy did it than a Friend I would not have such have the guilt or grief Love will not save mens lives if you give them that which tends to kill them But you 'l say We can be no wiser than we are If we do the best we can what can we do more I answer I would have you not think your selves wiser than you are I would write over this word five hundred times if that would cure you About matters of Diet and Medicines and Health this is it that I would have you do to save you from killing your selves and your Relations 1. Pretend not to know upon the report of such as your selves or in matters that are difficult and beyond your skill or where you have not had long consideration and experience Meddle with no Medicining but what in common easy cases the common judgment of Physicians and common Experience have taught you 2. If you have not Money to pay Physicians and Apothecaries tell them so and desire them to give you their counsel freely and take not on you to know more than they that have studied and practised it all their riper part of their lives 3. Suspect your understandings and consider how much there may be
though they do some job of present service the next way at the end we shall find that they did more harm than good And that to say the contrary and that men will cease to be Christians unless they be kept to it by deceit is the way to downright infidelity And yet that you may see how much more than ordinary I favour the weaknesses of such I will here answer a great question Quest Whether a Man can have true saving Faith who believeth the Gospel or Scripture to be Gods word and Christ to be the Saviour of the World upon reasons or grounds not sure nor cogent and concluding yea possibly not true for the most part Ans He that readeth Mr. Pinks excellent Sermons and many other such Divines will find them thus describing the Faith of Hypocrites that they conclude have no true saving Faith that they believe in Christ but on the same or like reasons as a Turk may believe in Mahomet that is because the most the greatest the Learnedst and the best and all the Countrey are of their minds and in that way their Parents did educate them in For my part I easily confess 1. That such a belief which buildeth on unsound grounds is wanting proportionably in its own soundness 2. And that it should not be rested in 3. Much less cherished against all counsels that would cure it 4. And that though uncertain reasons are 1. The first 2. And the most prevailing with him afterwards yet every true Believer discerneth some intrinsick Signs of Divinity at least as probable in the Word it self But yet supposing that wrong motives be his chief and that he discerneth not that in the word it self which most prevaileth with him I am of opinion that 1. If the end of such a Believer be sound the reducing of the Soul to God and attainment of Glory and the perfect Love of God. 2. And if that man unfeignedly believe all that is Gods Word to be true 3. And if he believe all the substance of the Gospel to be Gods word though by an unsound and non-concluding medium as his chief 4. And if he by this belief be brought himself to the actual love of God as God This unsound Believer is sound in the Essentials of Christianity and shall be saved The objection is An uncertain yea deceived belief upon false suppositions is no true belief and therefore cannot save I answer There is a double Truth in such a belief 1. That all Gods Word is true 2. That this Gospel is Gods Word and Christ is the Messiah You will say that there can be no more no surer no better in the Conclusion than is in the weaker of the Premises I answer I grant it And all that will follow is that the Conclusion is not necessary from these Premises and that the believer was mistaken in the reason of his inference and that he concluded a truth upon an unsound medium I grant all this and consequently that his Faith hath some unsoundness or diseasedness in it But for all this I see not but such a believer may be saved 1. Because Christs promise is that whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life without excepting such as are drawn to it by non-cogent arguments And he that will put in an exception against the Covenant of Grace must prove it or be injurious to Christ to his Gospel and to mens Souls 2. Because by experience I find that it is but a small part of serious Godly Christians who believe the Scriptures upon cogent evidence or at least many do not But abundance take it upon trust from Godly Preachers or Parents and go on without much examining of their grounds And are not able to bring a cogent proof of the Divinity of the Scriptures when they are called to it And I am not willing to conclude so great a part of humble upright Christians to Damnation as know not such reasons for their Faith as would hold good in strict disputation Not that our Charity must bend the Scripture to it But that Scripture commandeth such Charity and it no where condemneth any man that believeth upon uncogent reasons For he that doth so may yet firmly Trust on Jesus Christ and firmly believe that the Gospel is true as being the very Word of God and may take Heaven for his Portion and Love God as God and therefore may be saved Though yet I think it impossible that any man should truly believe the Scriptures and not perceive in them some Characters of Divinity which as an intrinsical Evidence much encourage and induce him to believe them And-though this secret gust and perception be not the medium that he useth in arguing or be not the chief yet it may have an effectual force with his Soul to hold him close to Christ But if you suppose the man to have no Spiritual sight and tast of a difference between Gods Word and a common Book then he cannot be supposed to be a sound believer As a man that hath one ingredient in his medicine which is effectual may be cured though in the composition the main bulk be vanities or as a debtor that hath many insufficient sureties may do well if he have one sufficient one though he more trust the rest or as a mans cause may go for him in Judgment that hath one or two good Witnesses and twenty bad ones which he put more trust in and as he truly proveth his position who bringeth one sound argument for it and twenty bad ones So I think that the common way of the illiterate in believing is first to believe Gods Word to be his Word by humane Faith and after upon trial to find a Spiritual light and goodness in the Word it self and by both together to believe that it is Gods Word And the worser reasons may be the more powerful with him and yet not destroy the sincerity of his Faith. Nor doth this make his Faith meerly humane For the Question now is not why he believeth God's Word to be True trusteth on it For that is because it is God's Word discerned by him so to be but he that by an insufficient Medium at least with a Better though less understood doth take it to be God's may yet by a Divine Faith believe it because he judgeth it his Word If a man should counterfeit himself an Angel from Heaven and come in some splendid deceitful appearance in the night to an Heathen and tell him that he is sent from God to bring him this Bible as his Certain Word and if the man receive it and believe it on his credit to the death and by that Believing it be brought to see an excellency and credibility and taste a spiritual sweetness in it and be brought by it as he may be to Holiness and the Love of God that man shall be saved though I cannot say that the Intrinsick Evidence of the Word alone would have
love of Children which prepareth men for all the Calamity that followeth their miscarriages in Soul and Body Their unnatural ingratitude their Lewdness and Debauchery and Prodigality their Folly and Impiety would nothing so much torment us were they no more loved than other men And our dearest Friends do usually cost us much dearer than our sharpest enemies But the love of God and Satisfying everlasting good is our very life our pleasure our Heaven on Earth As it is Purest and Highest above all other because of the Object so is it yet more pleasant and contenting because it includeth the hopes of more even of those greater delights of heavenly everlasting love which as a pledge and earnest it doth presignify As in nature conception and the stirring the Child in the womb do signify that same life is begun which must shortly appear and be exercised in the open world So the stirrings of holy love desires towards God do signify the beginning of the heavenly life Humility and Patience and diligent obedience do comfort us by way of Evidence and as removing many hinderances of our comfort and somewhat further they go But Faith Hope and Love do comfort us by way of direct efficiency Faith seeth the matter of our Joy love first tasteth it so far as to stir up desires after it Then Hope giveth some pleasure to us in expecting it And lastly complacential love delightfully embraceth it and is our very Joy itself and is that blessed union with God and holy Souls the amiable Objects of true love which is our felicity it self To work out our comforts by the view of Evidences and Signs is a necessary thing indeed but it requireth a considerate search by an understanding and composed mind and it 's often much hindered and interrupted by mens ignorance of themselves and weakness of grace and darkness or smalness of Evidence and divers passions especially fear which in some is so Tyrannical that it will not suffer to believe or feel any thing that is comfortable But love taketh in the sweetness of that good which is its object by a nearer and effectual way even by immediate taste As we feel in the exercise of our Love to a dear Friend or any thing that is amiable and enjoyed The readiest and surest way therefore to a contented and comfortable life is to keep clear indeed our evidence especially sincere Obedience but especially to bend all our Studies and Religious endeavours to the kindling and exercise of holy love and to avoid all though it may come on religious pretence of humiliation or fear which tendeth to quench or hinder it I. In Health and Prosperity as you live upon Gods love be sure that you do not atheistically overlook it but take all as from it and savouring of it The hand of divine love perfumeth each mercy with the pleasant odour of itself which it reacheth to us Every bit that we eat is a love token and every hour or minute that we live All our health wealth Friends and Peace are the Streams which still flow from the Spring of unexhausted love Love shineth upon us by the Sun love maketh our Land fruitful or Cattel useful our Habitations convenient for us our Garments warm our Food pleasant and nourishing Love keepeth us from a thousand unknown dangers night and day It giveth us the comforts of our Callings our Company our Books our lawful Recreations It blesseth means of Knowledge to our understandings and means of Holiness to our Wills and means of Health and Strength to our bodies Mercies are Sanctified to us when we tast Gods love in them and love him for them and are led up by them to himself and so love him ultimately for himself even for his Infinite Essential Goodness As God is the efficient life of our mercies and all the world without his Love could never give us what we have so is Gods love the Objective life of all our mercies and we have but the Corps or Carkass of them and love them but as such if we love not in them the Love that giveth them II. And even in adversity and pain and sickness whilst Gods love is unchanged and is but changing the way of doing good our thoughts of it should be unchanged also We must not think that the Sun is lost when it is set or clouded we live by its influence in the night though we see not its light unless as reflected from the Moon Our Mother 's brought us into the World in sorrow and yet they justly accounted it a mercy that we were born Our lives are spent in the midst of sorrows yet it is a mercy that we live and though we die by dolour all is still mercy to believers which faith perceiveth contrary to sense And here is the greatest and final victory which Faith obtaineth against the flesh to believe even the ruine of it to be for our good Even Antonine the Emperor could say that it was the same good God who is the cause of our birth and of our death one as well as the other is his work and therefore good It was not a Tyrant that made us and it is not a Tyrant that dissolveth us And that is the best man and the best will which is most pleased with the Will of God because it is his Will. Yet just self-love is here a true coadjutor of our joy for it is the will of God that the Justified be Glorified And Infinite love is saving us when it seemeth to destroy us To live upon the comforts of Divine love in sickness and when death approacheth is a sign that it is not the welfare of the body that we most esteem and that we rejoice not in God only as the preserver and prosperer of our flesh but for himself and the blessings of immortality It is a mercy indeed which a dying man must with thankfulness acknowledge if God have given him a clear understanding of the excellent mysteries of Salvation knowledge as it kindleth and promoteth love is a precious gift of grace and is with pleasure exercised and may with pleasure be acknowledged But all other knowledge is like the Vanities of this World which approaching death doth take down our esteem of and causeth us to number it with other forsaking and forsaken things All the unsanctified learning and knowledge in the World will afford no solid peace at death but rather aggravate natures sorrows to think that this also must be left But love and its comforts if not hindered by ignorance or some strong temptation do then shew their immortal nature And even here we feel the words of the Apostle verified of the vanishing nature of Knowledge and the perpetuity of holy love whilst all our learning and knowledge will not give so much comfort to a dying man as one act of true love to God and Holiness kindled in us by the communication of his love Make it therefore the work of