it And this is it which we call Sanctification or Holiness to the Lord. And our cohabitation and relation to men will tell us that Justice and Charity are our duty as to them And when a man is fully satisfied that Holiness Justice and Charity are our duty he hath a great advantage for his progress towards the Christian Faith To which let me add that as to our selves also it is undeniably our duty to take more care for our souls than for our bodies and to rule our senses and passions by our Reason and to subject our lower faculties to the higher and so to use all sensible and present things as conduceth to the publick good and to the advancement of our nobler part and to our greatest benefit though it cross our sensual appetites All this being unquestionably our natural duty we see that man was made to live in Holiness Justice Charity Temperance and rational regularity in the world 5. When you have gone thus far consider next how far men are generally from the performance of this duty And how backward humane nature is to it even while they cannot deny it to be their duty And you will soon perceive that God who made it their duty did never put in them this enmity thereto nor ever made them without some aptitude to perform it And if any would infer that their indisposednâ—ss proveth it to be none of their duty the nature of man will fully confute him and the conscience and confession of all the sober part of the world What wretch so blind if he believe a Deity who will not confess that he should love God with all his heart and that Justice Charity and Sobriety are his duty and that his sense should be ruled by his reason c The evidence before given is not to be denyed And therefore something is marr'd in nature Some enemy hath seduced man And some deplorable change hath befallen him 6. Yea if you had no great backwardness to this duty your self consider what it must cost you faithfully to perform it in such a malignant world as we now live in what envy and wrath what malice and persecution what opposition and discouragements on every side we must expect Universal experience is too full a proof of this Besides what it costeth our restrained flesh 7. Proceed then to think further that certainly God hath never appointed us so much duty without convenient Motives to perform it It cannot be that he should make us more noble than the brutes to be more miserable Or that he should make Holiness our duty that it might be our loss or our calamity If there were no other life but this and men had no hopes of future happiness nor any fears of punishment what a Hell would this world be Heart-wickedness would be but little feared nor heart-duty regarded Secret sin against Princes States and all degrees would be boldly committed and go unpunished for the most part The sins of Princes and of all that have power to defeat the Law would have little or no restraint Every mans interest would oblige him rather to offend God who so seldom punisheth here than to offend a Prince or any man in power who seldom lets offences against himself go unrevenged And so man more than God would be the Ruler of the world that is our God Nay actually the hopes and fears of another life among most Heaâ—hens Infidels and Hereticks is the principle of Divine Government by which God keepeth up most of the order and virtue which is in the world Yea think what you should be and do your self as to enemies and as to secret faults and as to sensual vices if you thought there were no life but this And is it possible that the infinitely powerful wise and good Creatour can be put to govern all mankind by meer deceit and a course of lyes as if he wanted better means By how much the better any man is by so much the more regardful is he of the life to come and the hopes and fears of another life are so much the more prevalent with him And is it possible that God should make men good to make them the most deceived and most miserable Hath he commanded all these cares to be our needless torments which brutes and fools and sottish sinners do all scape Is the greatest obedience to God become a sign of the greatest folly or the way to the greatest loss or disappointment We are all sure that this life is short and vain No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us And if this be so reason commandeth us to prefer the pâ—ssibilities of such a life to come before the certain vanities of this life So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer that the preferring of the world to come is our duty And if it be our duty then the thing in it self is true For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature to seek an Vtopia and pursue a shadow and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness than of their sin and of their seeking Heaven than of wallowing in their lusts Nay then these hâ—avenly desires would be themselves our sins as being the following of a lye the aspiring after a state which is above us and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue as being natural to us and a seeking of our most real felicity The common conscience of mankind doth justifie the wisdom and virtue of a temperate holy heavenly person and acknowledgeth that our heavenly desires are of God And doth God give men both natural faculties which shall never come to the perfection which is their End and also gracious desires which shall but deceive us and never be satisfied If God had made us for the enjoyments of brutes he would have given us but the knowledge and desires of brutes Every King and mortal Judge can punish faults against Man with death And hath God no greater or further punishment for sins as committed against himself And are his rewards no greater than a mans These and many more such Evidences may assure you that there is another life of Rewards and punishments and that this life is not our final state but only a â—ime of preparation thereunto Settle this deeply and fixedly in your minds 8. And look up to the heavenly Regions and think Is this world so replenished with inhabitants both Sea and Land and Air it self And can I dream that the vast and glorious Orbs and Regions are all uninhabited Oâ— that they have not more numerous and glorious possessors than this small opacous spot of earth And then think that those higher creatures are intellectual spirits This is
multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light and which hath evidence which to us is more convincing than that of the Jewish Law 3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross that it seemeth vain to say any more against it than it saith it self unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness as to hear of nothing else and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world and withall are under the terrour of the sword which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect. 4. And to think that the Atheisme of Infidels is the way who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God the duty of obedience the immortality of the soul the life of retributior and the necessity of Repentance is but to go against the light For 1. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith which cannot by any sound reason be confuted 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans necessities and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance and yet excludeth the necessary means the revealed Light and Love and Power by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had It excludeth Christ and his Spirit and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion which few ever went from the beginning as to the exclusions As if that were Gods only way to Heaven which scarce any visible societies of men can be proved to have practised to this day Which of all these Religions have the most wise and holy and heavenly and mortified and righteous and sober persons to profess it and the greatest numbers of such If you will judge of the medicine by the effects and take him for the best Physician who doth the greatest cures upon the souls you will soon conclude that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14.6 Direct 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion 1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions and put Gods Name to it to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it Much less could so great a number of good men do this as the success of such a cheat were it possible would require There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit but must needs believe as we do of Mahomet that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world 2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy so self denying so merciful so just so spiritual so heavenly and so concordant in it self nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end No bad man could so universally condemn all badness and prescribe such powerful remedies against it and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world 3. If it be below any good man to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it 4. And if no bad man could do so much good we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it The Devil who is the worst in evil could never so much contradict his nature and overthrow his own Kingdom and say so much evil of himself and do so much against himself and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery would never do so much to destroy their sin And we plainly feel within our selves that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel and that these two maintain a war within us 5. And if you should say that the good which is in Christianity is caused by God and the evil of it by the Father of sin I answer either it is true or false If it be true it is so good that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it Nay it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil But if it be false it is then so bad that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation But it is somewhat in Christianity which it hath more than other Religions have which must make it more pure and more powerful and successful than any other Religions have been Therefore it must be more than common natural truths even the contexture of those natural truths with the supernatural revelations of it and the addition of a spirit of power and light and love to procure the success And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture or additions if it be false 6. If it be said that men that had some good and some bad in them did contrive it such as those Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who have pious notions and words with pride and self-exalting minds I answer The good is so great which is found in Christianity that it is not possible that a bad man much less an extreamly bad man could be the Author of it And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false that it is not possible that any but an extreamly bad man could be guilty of it Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extreamly good as to promote it even with their greatest labour and suffering and also so extreamly bad as to joyn together in the plot to cheat the world in a matter of such high importance Such exceeding good and evil cannot consist in any one person much less in so many as must do such a thing And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket Nailer David George or John of Leyden should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences their madness hath still appeared in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices And if any would and could be so wicked God never would or did assist them by an age of numerous open miracles nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world but left them to the shame of their proud attempts and made their folly known to all Direct 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity till their sense and weight and order be throughly digested understood and remembred by you and be as plain and familiar to you as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned It is not once or twice reading
it being his work to make us thus both Believers and Saints and his perfective work of our real Sanctification being as necessary to us as our Redemption or Creation Matth. 28.19 2â— Heb. 6.1 2 4 5 6. Direct 18. Therefore as every Christian must look upon himself as being in special Covenant with the Holy Ghost so be must understand distinctly what are the benefits and what are the conditions and what are the duties of that part of his Covenant The special Benefits are the Life Light and Love before mentioned by the quickening illumination and sanctification of the Spirit not as in the first Act or Seed for so they are presupposed in that Faith and Repentance which is the Condition But as in the following acts and habits and increase of both unto perfection Acts 2.38 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off and to as many as the Lord our God shall call See Acts 26.18 Ephes 1.18 19. Titus 3.5 6 7. The special condition on our parts is our consent to the whole Covenant of Grace viz. To give up our selves to God as our Reconciled God and Father in Christ and to Jesus Christ as our Saviour and to the holy Spirit as to his Agent and our Sanctifier There needeth no other proof of this than actual Baptism as celebrated in the Church from Christs daies till now And the institution of it Mat. 28.19 with 1 John 5.7 8 9. 1 Pet. 3.21 with John 3.5 The special Duties afterward to be performed have their rewards as aforesaid and the neglect of them their penalties and therefore have the nature of a Condition as of those particular rewards or benefits Direct 19. The Duties which our Covenant with the Holy Ghost doth bind us to are 1. Faithfully to endeavour by the power and help which he giveth us to continue our consent to all the foresaid Covenant And 2. To obey his further motions for the work of Obedience and Love 3. And to use Christs appointed means with which his Spirit worketh And 4. To forbear those wilful sins which grieve the Spirit John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you v. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you v. 9. Continue in my love Col. 1.23 If ye continue in the Faith c. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God Heb. 10.25 26. Not forsaking the assembling of your selves together c. For if we sin wilfully c. of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath done despight to the Spiâ—it of grace v. 29. Heb. 6.4 5 6. Ephes 4 3â— Grieve not the holy Spirit of God 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit Direct 20. By this it is plain that the Spirit worketh not on man as a dead thing which hath no principle of activity in it self nor as on a naturally necessitated Agent which hath no self-determining faculty of will but as on a living free self-determining Agent which hath duty of its own to perform for the attaining of the end desired Those therefore that upon the pretence of the Spirits doing all and our doing nothing without him will lye idle and not do their parts with him and say that they wait for the motions of the Spirit and that our endeavours will not further the end do abuse the Spirit and contradict themselves seeing the Spirits work is to stir us up to endeavour which when we refuse to do we disobey and strive against the Spirit Direct 21. Though sometimes the Spirit work so efficaciously as certainly to cause the volition or other effect which it moveth to yet sometimes it so moveth as procureth not the effect when yet it gave man all the power and help which was necessary to the effect because that man failed of that endeavour of his own which should have concurred to the effect and which he was able without more help to have performed That there is such effectual grace Acts 9. and many Scriptures with our great experience tell us That there is such meer necessary uneffectual grace possible and sometime in being which some call sufficient grace is undeniable in the case of Adam who sinned not for want of necessary grace without which he could not do otherwise And to deny this blotteth out all Christianity and Religion at one dash By all which it appeareth that the work of the Spirit is such on mans will as that sometimes the effect is suspended on our concurrence so that though the Spirit be the total cause of its own proper effect and of the act of man in its own place and kind of action yet not simply a total cause of mans act or volition but mans concurrence may be further required to it and may fail Direct 22. Satan transformeth himself oft into an Angel of Light to deceive men by pretending to be the Spirit of God Therefore the spirits must be tryed and not every spirit trusted 2 Cor. 11.14 15. Mat. 24.4 5 11 24. 1 John 3.7 Ephes 4.14 Revel 10.3 8. 2 Thes 3.2 1 John 4.1 3 6. Direct 23. The way of trying the spirits is to try all their uncertain suggestions by the Rule of the certain Truths already revealed in Nature and in the holy Scriptures And to try them by the Scriptures is but to try the spirits by the Spirit the doubtfull spirit by the undoubted Spirit which indited and sealed the Scriptures more fully than can be expected in any after revelation 1 Thes 1.21 Isa 8.16 20. 2 Pet. 1.19 John 5.39 Acts 17.11 The Spirit of God is never contrary to it self Therefore nothing can be from that Spirit which is contrary to the Scriptures which the Spirit indited Direct 24. When you would have an increase of the Spirit go to Christ for it by renewed acts of that same Faith by which at first you obtained the Spirit Gal. 3.3 4. Gal. 4.6 Faith in Christ doth two waies help us to the Spirit 1. As it is that Condition upon which he hath promised it to whom it belongeth to give us the Spirit 2. As it is that act of the soul which is fitted in the nature of it to the work of the Spirit That is as it is the serious contemplation of the infinite Goodness and Love of God most brightly shining to us in the face of the Redeemer and as it is a serious contemplation of that heavenly glory procured by Christ which is the fullest expression of the Love of God and so is fittest to kindle that Love to God in the soul which is the work of the Spirit These are joyned Rom. 5.1 2 5 6. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ By whom also we
of the most 17. Temptations are ever more strong and violent against some duties than against others and to some sins than to others 18. Most men have a memory which more easily retaineth some things than others especially those that are best understood and which most affect them And grace cannot live upon forgotten truths 19. There is no man but in his Calling hath more frequent occasion for some graces and duties and useth them more and hath more occasions to interrupt and divert his mind from others 20. The very temperature of the body inclineth some all to fears and grief and others to love and contentedness of mind and it vehemently inclineth some to passion some to their appetite some to pride and some to idleness and some to lust when others are far less inclined to any of them And many other providential accidents do give men more helps to one duty than to another and putteth many upon the tryals which others are never put upon And all this set together is the reason that few Christians are entire or compleat or escape the sin and misery of deformity or ever use Gods graces and their duties in the order and harmony as they ought IV. I shall be brief also in telling you what Inferences to raise from hence for your instruction 1. You may learn hence how to answer the question whether all Gods Graces live and grow in an equal proportion in all true Believers I need to give you no further proof of the negative than I have laid down before I once thought otherwise and was wont to say as it is commonly said that in the habit they are proportionable but not in the act But this was because I understood not the difference between the particular habits and the first radical power inclination or habit which I name that the Reader may chuse his title that we may not quarrel about meer words The first Principle of Holiness in us is called in Scripture The Spirit of Christ or of God In the unity of this are three essential principles Life Light and Love which are the immediate effects of the heavenly or divine influx upon the three natural faculties of the soul to rectifie them viz. on the Vital Power the Intellect and the Will And are called the Spirit as the Sunshine in the room is called the Sun Now as the Sunshine on the earth and plants is all one in it self as emitted from the Sun Light Heat and Moving force concurring and yet is not equally effective because of the difference of Recipients and yet every vegetative receiveth a real effect of the Heat and Motion at the least and sensitives also of the Light but so that one may by incapacity have less of the heat and another less of the motion and another less of the Lght so I conceive that Wisdom Love and Life or Power are given by the Spirit to every Christian But so that in the very first Principle or effect of the Spirit one may have more Light another more Love and another more Life Bus this it accidental from some obstruction in the Receiver otherwise the Spirit would be equally a Spirit of Power or Life and of Love and of a sound mind or Light But besides this New Moral Power or Inclination or Vniversal Radical Habit there are abundance of particular Habits of Grace and Duty much more properly called Habits and less properly called the Vital or Potential Principles of the New Creature There is a particular Habit of Humility and another of Peaceableness of Gentleness of Patience of Love to one another of Love to the Word of God and many habits of Love to several truths and duties a habit of desire yea many as there are many different objects desired there is a habit of praying of meditating of thanksgiving of mercy of chastity of temperance of diligence c. The acts would not vary as they do if there were not a variety and disposition in these Habits which appear to us only in their acts We must go against Scripture reason and the manifold hourly experience of our selves and all the Christians in the world if we will say that all these graces and duties are equal in the Habit in every Christian How impotent are some in bridling a passion or bridling the tongue or in controlling pride and self-esteem or or in denying the particular desires of their sense who yet are ready at many other duties and eminent in them Great knowledge is too oft with too little charity or zeal and great zeal and diligence often with as little knowledge And so in many other instances So that if the Potentiality of the radical graces of Life Light and Love be or were equal yet certainly proper and particular habits are not But here note further 1. That no grace is strong where the radical graces Faith and Love are weak As no part of the body is strong where the Brain and Heart are weak yea or the naturals the stomach and liver 2. The strength of Faith and Love is the principal means of strengthening all other graces and of right performing all other duties 3. Yet are they not alone a sufficient means but other inferiour graces and duties may be weak and neglected where Faith and Love are strong through particular obstructing causes As some branches of the tree may perish when the root is sound or some members may have an Atrophie though the brain and heart be not diseased 4. That the three Principles Life Light and Love do most rarely keep any disproportion and would never be disproportionable at all if some things did not hinder the actings of one more than the other or turn away the soul from the influences and impressions of the Spirit more as to one than to the rest 2. Hence you may learn That the Image of God is much clearlier and perfectlier imprinted in the holy Scriptures than in any of our hearts And that our Religion objectively considered is much more perfect than subjectively in us In Scripture and in the true doctrinal method our Religion is entire perfect and compleat But in it it is confused lame and lamentably imperfect The Sectaries that here say None of the Spirits works are imperfect are not to be regarded For so they may as well say that there are none infants diseased lame distracted poor or monsters in the world because none of Gods works are imperfect All that is in God is God and therefore perfect and all that is done by God is perfect as to his ends and as it is a part in the frame of his own means to that end which man understandeth not But many things are imperfect in the receiving subject If not why should any man ever seek to be wiser or better than he was in his infancy or at the worst 3. Therefore we here see that the Spirit in the Scripture is the Rule by which we must try the Spirit in our selves or any
they become the heirs of that Righteousness which is by faith and condemn the unbelieving careless world that take not the warning and use not the remedy By this time you may see that the Life of Faith is quite another thing than the lifeless opinion of multitudes that call themselves believers To say I believe there is a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell is as easie as it is common But the faith of the ungodly is but an uneffectual dream To dream that you are fighting wins no victories To dream that you are eating gets no strength To dream that you are running ridâ— no ground To dream that you are plowing or sowing or reaping procureth but a fruitless harvest And to dream that you are Princes may consist with beggery If you do any more than dream of Heaven and Hell how is it that you stir not and make it not appear by the diligence of your lives and the fervour of your duties and the seriousness of your endeavours that such wonderful unexpressible over-powering things are indeed the matters of your belief As you love your souls take heed lest you take an image of faith to be the thing it self Faith sets on work the powers of the soul for the obtaining of that joy and the escaping of that misery which you believe But the image of faith in self-deceivers neither warms nor works it conquereth no difficulties it stirs not up to faithful duty It 's blind and therefore seeth not God and how then should he be feared and loved Iâ— seeth not Hell and therefore the senseless soul goes on as fearlesly and merrily to the unquenchable fire as if he were in the safest way This image of faith annihilateth the most potent objects as to any due impression on the soul God is as no God and Heaven as no Hâ—aven to these imaginary Christians If a Prince be in the room an image reverenceth him not If musick and feasting be there an image finds no pleasure in them If fire and sword be there an image fears them not You may perceive by the senseless neglectful carriage of ungodly men that they see not by faith the God that they should love and fear the Heaven that they should seek and wait for or the Hell that they should with all possible care avoid He is indeed the true Believer that allowing the difference of degrees doth pray as if he saw the Lord and speak and live as alwaies in his presence and redeem his time as if he were to die to morrow or as one that seeth death approach and ready to lay hands upon him that begs and cries to God in prayer as one that foreseeth the day of judgement and the endless joy or misery that followeth that bestirreth him for everlasting life as one that seeth Heaven and Hell by the eye of faith Faith is a serious apprehension and causeth a serious conversation for it is instead of sight and presence From all this you may easily and certainly infer 1. That true faith is a Jewel rare and precious and not so common as nominal careless Christians think What say they Are we not all believers will you make Infidels of all that are not Saints are none Christians but those that live so strictly Answer I know they are not Infidels by profession but what they are indeed and what God will take them for you may soon perceive by comparing the description of faith with the inscription legible on their lives It 's common to say I do believe but is it common to find men pray and live as those that do believe indeed It is both in works of charity and of piety that a living faith will shew it self I will not therefore contend about the name If you are ungodly unjust or uncharitable and yet will call your selves Believers you may keep the name and see whether it will save you Have you forgotten how this case is determined by the holy Ghost himself James 2.14 c. What doth it profit my Brethren if a man say he hath faith and hath not works Can faith save him Faith if it hath not works is dead being alone Thou believest that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble If such a belief be it that thou gloriest in it 's not denyed thee But wilt thou know oh vain man that faith without works is dead c. Is there life where there is no motion Had you that Faith that is instead of sight it would make you more solicitous for the things unseen than you are for the visible trifles of this world 2. And hence you may observe that most true Believers are weak in Faith Alas how far do we all fall short of the love and zeal and care and diligence which we should have if we had but once beheld the things which we do believe Alas how dead are our affections how flat are our duties how cold and how slow are our endeavours how unprofitable are our lives in comparison of what one hours sight of Heaven and Hell would make them be O what a comfortable converse would it be if I might but joyn in prayer praise and holy conference one day or hour with a person that had seen the Lord and been in Heaven and born a part in the Angelical Praises Were our Congregations composed of such persons what manner of worship would they perform to God How unlike would their heavenly ravishing expressions be to these our sleepy heartless duties Were Heaven open to the view of all this Congregation while I am speaking to you or when we are speaking in prayer and praise to God imagine your selves what a change it would make upon the best of us in our services What apprehensions what affections what resolutions it would raise and what a posture it would cast us all into And do we not all profess to believe these things as revealed from Heaven by the infallible God Do we not say that such a Divine Revelation is as sure as if the things were in themselves laid open to our sight Why then are we no more affected with them Why are we no more transported by them Why do they no more command our souls and stir up our faculties to the most vigorous and lively exercise and call them off from things that are not to us considerable nor fit to have one glance of the eye of our observation nor a regardful thought nor the least affection unless as they subserve these greater things When you observe how much in your selves and others the frame of your souls in holy duty and the tenour of your lives towards God and man do differ from what they would be if you had seen the things that you believe let it mind you of the great imperfection of faith and humble us all in the sense of our imbâ—cility For though I know that the most perfect Faith is not apt to raise such high affections in
not But doubtless the observing of anniversary solemnities for their commemoration was a way of preserving the memory of the acts themselves to posterity How long the day of Christs Nativity hath been celebrated I know not Reading what Selden hath said on one side and on the other finding no currant Author mention it that I have read before Nazianzene and finding by Chrysostome that the Churches of the East till his time had differed from the Western Churches as far as the sixth of January is from the 25 of December But that is of less moment because Christs birth is a thing unquestioned in it self But we find that the time of his fasting forty daies the time of his Passion and of his Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Ghost were long before kept in memory by some kind of observation by faâ—ts or festivals And though there was a controversie about the due season of the successive observation of Easter yet that signified no uncertainty of the first day or the season of the year And though at first it was but few daies that were kept in fasting at that season yet they were enough to commemorate both the forty daies fasting and the death of Christ 18. And the histories of the Heathens and enemies of the Church do also declare how long Christianity continued and what they were and what they suffered who were called Christians such as Plinies Celsus Porphyry Plotinus Lucian Suâ—tonius and others 19. And the constant instruction of Children by their Parents which is Family-tradition hath been a very great means also of this commemoration For it cannot be though some be negligent but that multitudes in all times would teach their children what the Christian Religion was as to its doctrine and its history And the practice of catechizing and teaching children the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue and the Scriptures the more secured this tradition in families 20. Lastly A succession of the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and of much of the same works which were done by them was such a way of assuring us of the truth of their doctrine and history as a succession of posterity teleth us that our progenitors were men The same spirit of Wisdom and Goodness in a great degree continued after them to this day And all wrought by their doctrine and very credible history assureth us that many miracles also were done in many ages after them though not so many as by them Eusebius Cyprian Augustine Victor Vlicensis Sulpitius Severus and many others shew us so much as may make the belief of the Apostles the more easie And indeed the Image of Gods WISDOM GOODNESS and POWER on the souls of all true Christians in the world successively to this day considered in it self and in its agreement with the same Image in the holy Scriptures which do imprint it and in its agreement or sameness as found in all Ages Nations and Persons is such a standing perpetual evidence that the Christian Religion is Divine that being still at hand it should be exceeding satisfactory to a considerate Believer against all doubts and temptations to unbelief And were it not lest I should instead of an Index give you too large a recital of what I have more fully written in my foresaid Treatise I would here stay yet to shew you how impossible it is that this Spirit of Holiness which we feel in us and see by the effects in others even in every true Believer should be caused by a word of falshood which he abhorreth and as the Just Ruler of the world would be obliged to disown I shall only here desire you by the way to note that when I have all this while shewed you that the SPIRIT is the great witness of the truth of Christianity that it is this spirit of Wisdom Goodness and Power in the Prophets in Christ in the Apostles and in all Christians expressed in the doctrine and the practices aforesaid which I mean as being principally the Evidences or objective witness of Jesus Christ and secondarily being in all true Believers their teacher or illuminater and sanctifier efficiently to cause them to perceive the aforesaid objective Evidences in its cogent undeniable power And thus the Holy Ghost is the promised Agent or Advocate of Christ to do his work in his bodily absence in the world And that in this sense it is that we Believe in the HOLY GHOST and are baptized into his Name and not only as he is the third person in the Eternal Trinity And therefore it is to be lamented exceedingly 1. That any Orthodox Teachers should recite over many of these parts of the witness of the SPIRIT and when they have done tell us that yet all these are not sufficient to convince us without the testimony of the Spirit As if all this were none of the testimony of the Spirit and as if they would perswade us and our enemies that the testimony which must satisfie us is only some inward impress of this Proposition on the mind by way of inspiration The Scriptures are the Word of God and true Overlooking the great witness of the Spirit which is his special work and which our Baptism relateth to and feigning some extraordinary new thing as the only testimony And it is to be lamented that Papists and quarrelling Sectaries should take this occasion to reproach us as Infidels that have no true grounded faith in Christ as telling us that we resolve it all into a private inward pretended witness of the Spirit And then they ask us who can know that witness but our selves and how can we preach the Gospel to others if the only cogent argument of faith be incommunicable or such as we cannot prove Though both the Believing soul and the Church be the Kingdom of the Prince of Light yet O what wrong hath the Prince of Darkness done by the mixtures of darkness in them both So much for the first Direction for the strengthening of Faith which is by discerning the Evidences of Truth in our Religion CHAP. VIII The rest of the Directions for strengthening our Faith I Shall be more brief in the rest of the Directions for the increase of Faith and they are these Direct 2. Compare the Christian Religion with all other in the world And seeing it is certain that some way or other God hath revealed to guide man in his duty unto his end and it is no other you will see that it must needs be this 1. The way of the Heathenish Idolaters cannot be it The principles and the effects of their Religion may easily satisfie you of this The only true God would not command Idolatry nor befriend such ignorance errour and wickedness as doth constitute their Religion and are produced by it as its genuine fruits 2. The way of Judaism cannot be it For it doth but lead us up to Christianity and bear witness to Christ and of it self is evidently insufficient its
which Christ hath made for our pardon is in it self sufficient yea and effectual as to that end which he would have it attain before our believing But our actual pardon is no such end Nor can sin be forgiven before it be committed because it is no sin Christ never intended to justifie or sanctifie us perfectly at the first whatsoever many say to the contrary because they understand not what they say but to carry on both proportionably and by degrees that we may have daily use for his daily mediation and may daily pray Forgive us our trespasses There is no guilt on them that are in Christ so far as they walk not after the flesh but after the spirit nor no proper condemnation by sentence or execution at all because their pardon is renewed by Christ as they renew their sins of infirmity but not because he preventeth their need of any further pardon Therefore as God made advantage of the sins of the world for the honouring of his grace in Christ that grace might abound where sin abounded Rom. 5.12 16 17. So do you make advantage of your renewed sins for a renewed use of faith in Christ and let it drive you to him with renewed desires and expectations of pardon by his intercession That Satan may be a loser and Christ may have more honour by every sin that we commit Not that we should sin that grace may abound but that we may make use of abounding grace when we have sinned It is the true nature and use of Faith and Repentance to draw good out of sin it self or to make the remembrance of it to be a means of our hatred and mortification of it and of our love and gratitude to our Redeemer Not that sin it self doth formally or efficiently ever do any good But sin objectively is turned into good For so sin is no sin because to remember sin is not sin When David saith Psal 51.3 that his sin was ever before him he meaneth not only involuntarily to his grief but voluntarily as a meditation useful to his future duty and to stir him up to all that which afterward he promiseth Direct 13. In all the weaknesses and languishings of the new creature let Faith look up to Christ for strength For God hath put our life into his hand and he is our root and hath promised that we shall live because he liveth John 14.19 Do not think only of using Christ as you do a friend when you have need of him or as I do my pen to write and lay it down when I have done But as the branches use the Vine and as the members use the Head which they live by and from which when they are separated they die and wither John 15.1 2 3 c. Ephes 1.22 5.27 30. 4.4 5 12 15 16. Christ must even dwell in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 that is 1. Faith must be the means of Christs dwelling in us by his Spirit and 2. Faith must so habituate the heart to a dependance upon Christ and to an improvement of him that objectively he must dwell in our hearts as our friend doth whom we most dearly love as that which we cannot chuse but alwaies think on Remember therefore that we live in Christ and that the life which we now live is by the faith of the Son of God who hath loved us and given himself for us Gal. 2.20 And his grace is sufficient for us and his strength most manifested in our weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 And that when Satan desireth to sift us he prayeth for us that our faith may not fail Luke 22.32 And that our life is hid with Christ in God even with Christ who is our life Col. 3.3 4. That he is the Head in whom all the members live by the communication of his appointed ligaments and joynts Ephes 4.14 15 16. Therefore when any grace is weak go to your Head for life and strength If faith be weak pray Lord increase our faith Luke 17.5 If you are ignorant pray him to open your understandings Luk. 24.45 If your hearts grow cold go to him by faith till he shed abroad the love of God upon your hearts Rom. 5.3 4. For oâ— his fulness it is that we must receive grace for grace Jâ—hn 1.16 Direct 14. Let the â—hief and most diligent work of your faith in Christ be to inflame your hearts with love to God as his Goodness and Love is revealed to us in Christ Faith kindling Love and working by it is the whole summ of Christianity of which before Direct 15. Let Faith keep the example of Christ continually before your eyes especially in those parts of it which he intended for the contradicting and healing of our greatest sins Above all others these things seem purposely and specially chosen in the life of Christ for the condemning and curing of our sins and therefore are principally to be observed by faith 1. His wonderful Love to God to his Elect and to his enemies expressed in so strange an undertaking and in his sufferings and in his abundant grace which must teach us what fervours of love to God and man to friends and enemies must dwell and have dominion in us 1 John 4.10 Rev. 1.5 Rom. 5.8 10. John 13.34 35. 15.13 1 John 3.14.23.17 4.7 8 20 21. 2. His full obedience to his Fathers will upon the dearest rates or terms To teach us that no labour or cost should seem too great to us in our obeying the will of God nor any thing seem to us of so much value as to be a price great enough to hire us to commit any wilful sin Rom. 5.19 Heb. 5 8. Phil. 2 8. 1 Sam. 15.22 2 Cor. 10.5 6. Heb. 5 9. John 14.15 15.10 1 John 2.3 3.22 5.2 3. Rev. 22.14 3. His wonderful contempt of all the Riches and Greatness of the world and all the pleasures of the flesh and all the honour which is of man which he shewed in his taking the form of a servant and making himself of no reputation and living a mean inferiour life He came not to be served or ministred to but to serve Not to live in state with abundance of attendants with provisions for every turn and use which pride curiosity or carnal imagination taketh for a conveniency or a decency no nor a necessity But he came to be as a servant unto others not as despising his liberty but as exercising his voluntary humility and love He that was Lord of all for our sakes became poor to make us rich He lived in lowliness and meekness He submitted to the greatest scorn of sinners and even to the false accusations and imputations of most odious sin in it self Phil. 2.6 7 8 9. Heb. 12.1 2 3. Matth. 26.55 60 61 63 66. 27 28 29 30 31. Matth. 11.29 30. 20.28 2 Cor. 8.9 which was to teach us to see the vanity of the wealth and honours of the world and
in with the heavenly Spirit in his own way when we set our selves to be most heavenly Heavenly thoughts are the work which he would set you on and the Love of God is the thing which he works you to thereby And nothing will so powerfully inflame the soul with the Love of God as to think that we shall live in his Love and Glory for ever more Set your selves therefore to this work and it will be a sign that the Spirit sets you on it and you may be sure that he will not be behind with you in a work which both he and you must do To this sense the Apostle bids us pray in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. Because though prayer must be from the Spirit which is not in our power yet when we set our selves to pray it is both a sign that the Spirit exciteth and a certain proof that he will not be behind with us but will afford us his assistance Direct 29. Conveâ—se with those who have most of the Spirit as far as you can attain it And that is not those that are most for revelations or visions or that pretend to extraordinary illuminations or that set the Spirit against the Word or that boast most of the Spirit in contempt of others But those who are most humble most holy and most heavenly who love God most and hate sin most Converse with such as have most of the Spirit of love and heavenliness is the way to make you more spiritual as converse with learned men is the way to learning For the Spirit giveth his graces in the use of suitable means as well as he doth his common gifts Jude 20 21. Heb. 10.24 25. 3.13 Ephes 4.12 15 16. Direct 30. Lastly The right ordering of the body it self is a help to our spirituality A clean and a chearful body is a fitter instrument for the Spirit to make use of than one that is opprest with crudities or dejected with heavy melancholy Therefore especially avoid two extreams 1. The satisfying the lusts of the flesh and clogging the body with excess of meat or drink or corrupting the fantasie with foolish pleasures 2. And the addicting your selves to distracting melancholy or to any disconsolate or discontented thoughts And from hence you may both take notice of the sense of all that fasting and abstinence which God commandeth us and of the true measure of it viz. as it either fitteth or unfitteth the body for our duty and for our ready obedience to the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away Rom. 13.12 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkâ—nness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh for lust Pampering the body and addicting our selves to the pleasing of it turneth a man from spirituality into bruitishness and savouring or minding the things of the flâ—sh destroyeth both the relish and minding of the things of the Spirit Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. And a sowre discontented melancholy temper is contrary to that alacrity requisite in Gods service and to those which the Comforter is to work in us So much for living by Faith on the Holy Ghost CHAP. IV. Directions how to exercise Faith upon Gods Commandments for Duty IT being presupposed that your Faith is settled about the truth of the Scriptures in general by the means here before and elsewhere more at large described you are next to learn how to exercise the Life of Faith about the Precepts of God in particular and herein take these helps Direct 1. Observe well how suitable Gods Commands are to reason and humanity and natural revelation it self and so how Nature and Scripture do fully agree in all the precepts for primitive holiness This is the cause why Divines have thought it so useful to read Heathen Moralists themselves that in a Cicero a Plutarch a Seneca an Antonius an Epictetus c. they might see what testimony nature it self yieldeth against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men See Rom. 19 20 c. But of this I have been larger in my Reasons of the Christian Religion Direct 2. Observe well how suitable all Gods Commandments are to your own good and how necessary to your own felicity All that God commandeth you is 1. To be active and use the faculties of your souls in opposition to Idleness 2. To use them rightly and on the highest objects and not to debase them by preferring vanity and sordid things nor to pervert them by ill doing And are not both these suitable to your natural perfection and necessary to your good 1. If there were one Law made that men should lie or stand still all the day with their eyes shut and their ears stopped and their mouths closed and that they should not stir nor see nor hear nor taste and another Law that man should use their eyes and ears and limbs c. which of these were more suitable to humanity and more easie for a â—ound man to obey though the first might best suit with the lame and blind and sick and why should not the goodness of Gods Law be discerned which requireth men to use the higher faculties the Reason and Elective and Executive Powers which God hath given them If men should make a Law that no one should use his Reason to get Learning or for his Trade or business in the world you would think that it were an institution of a Kingdom of Bedlams or a herd of beasts And should not you then be required to use your Reason faithfully and diligently in greater things 2. And if one Law were made that every man that traveleth shall stumble and wallow in the dirt and wander up and down out of his way and that every man that eateth and drinketh should feed on dirt and ditch-water or poyson c. And another Law that all men should keep their right way and live soberly and feed healthfully which of these would fit a wise man best and be easiest to obey or if one Law were made that all Scholars shall learn nothing but lies and errours and another that they shall learn nothing but truth and wisdom which of them would be more easie and suitable to humanity Though the first might be more pleasing to some fools Why then should not the goodness of Gods Laws be confessed who doth but forbid men learning the most pernicious errours and wandering in the maze of folly and wallowing in the dirt of sensuality and feeding on the dung and poyson of sin Is the love of a harlot or of gluttony drunkennenss rioting or gaming more suitable to humanity than the Love of God and Heaven and Holiness of Wisdom Temperance and doing good To a Swine or a Bedlam it may be more suitable but not
this Trinity also of Relations towards Man 1. Their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their Benefactor The Father also as the first principle of Redemption acquiring a second title besides the first by Creation to all these and towards God Christ continueth the Relation of a heavenly Priest 30. In order to the works of these Relations for the future we must consider of Christs exaltation 1. Of his Justification and Resurrection 2. Of his Ascension and Glorification And 3. Of the delivering of All Power and All Things into his hands 31. The work of Redemption thus fundamentally wrought doth not of it self renew mans nature and therefore putteth no Law of Nature into us of it self as the Creation did And therefore we must next proceed to Christs Administration of this office according to these Relations which is 1. By Legislation or Donation enacting the New Covenant where this last and perfect edition of it is to be explained the Preceptive the Promisory and the Penal parts with its effects and its differences from the former Edition and from the Law of Nature and of Works 32. And 2. By the promulgation or publication of this Covenant or Gospel to the world by calling special Officers for that work and giving them their commission and promising them his Spirit his Protection and their Reward 33. And here we come to the special work of the Holy Ghost who is 1. To be known in his Essence and Person as the third in Trinity and the eternal Love of God 2. And as he is the grand Advocate or Agent of Christ in the world where his works are to be considered 1. Preparatory on and by Christ himself 2. Administratory 1. Extraordinary on the Apostles and their helpers 1. Being in them a spirit of extraordinary Power by gifts and miracles 2. Of extraordinary Wisdom and Infallibility as far as their commission-work required 3. And of extraordinary Love and Holiness 2. By the Apostles 1. Extraordinarily convincing and bringing in the world 2. Settling all Church-Doctrines Officers and Orders which Christ had left unsettled bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had taught and commanded them and guiding them in the rest 3. Recording all this for posterity in the holy Scriptures 2. His Ordinary Agency 1. On Ministers 2. By sanctification on all true Believers is after to be opened 34. And here is to be considered the Nature of Christianity in fieri Faith and Repentance in our three great Relations to our Redeemer as we are his Own his Disciples and Subjects and his Beneficiaries with all the special benefits of these Relations as antecedent to our duty and then all our duty in them as commanded And then the benefits after to be expected as in promise only 35. Next must distinctly be considered the preaching and converting and baptizing part of the ministerial Office 1. As in the Apostles 2. And in their successors to the end with the nature of Baptism and the part of Christ and of the Minister and of the baptized in that Covenant 36. And then the description of the universal Church which the baptized constitute 37. Next is to be described the state of Christians after Baptism 1. Relative 1. In Pardon Reconciliation Justification 2. Adoption 2. Physical in the Spirit of Sanctification 38. Where is to be opened 1. The first sanctifying work of the Spirit 2. It s after-helps and their conditions 3. All the duties of Holiness primitive and medicinal towards God our selves and others 39. Our special duties in secret reading meditation prayer c. 40. Our duties in Family Relations and Callings 41. Our duties in Church Relations where is to be described the nature of particular Churches their work and worship their ministry and their members with the duties of each 42. Our duties in our Civil Relations 43. What temptations are against us as be to be overcome 44. Next is to be considered the state of Christians and Societies in the world How far all these duties are performed and what are their weaknesses and sins 45. And what are the punishments which God useth in this life 46. And what Christians must do for pardon and reparation after falls and to be delivered from those punishments 47. Of Death and the change which it maketh and of our special preparation for it 48. Of the coming of Christ and the Judgement of the great day 49. Of the punishment of the wicked impenitent in Hell 50. And of the blessedness of the Saints in Heaven and the everlasting Kingdom These are the Heads and this is the Method of true Divinity and the order in which it should lye in the understanding of him that will be compleat in knowledge II. And as this is the Intellectual Order of knowledge so the order which all things must lye in at our hearts and wills is much more necessary to be observed 1. That nothing but GOD be loved as the infinite simple good totally with all the heart and finally for himself And that nothing at all be loved with any Love which is not purely subordinate to the Love of God or which causeth us to love him ever the less 2. That the blessed person of our Mediatour as in the Humane Nature glorified be loved above all creatures next to God Because there is most of the Divines Perfections appearing in him 3. That the heavenly Church or Society of Angels and Saints be loved next to Jesus Christ as being next in excellence 4. That the Vniversal Church on earth be loved next to the perfect Church in Heaven 5. That particular Churches and Kingdoms be next loved and where ever there is more of Gods Interest and Image than in our selves that our Love be more there than on our selves 6. That we next love our selves with that peculiar kind of love which God hath made necessary to our duty and our happiness and end with a self-preserving watchful diligent love preferring our souls before our bodies and spiritual mercies before temporal and greater before less 7. That we love our Christian Relations with that double Love which is due to them as Christians and Relations and love all Relations according to their places with that kind of Love which is proper for them as fitting us to all the duties which we must perform to them 8. That we love all good Christians as the sanctified members of Christ with a special Love according to the measure of Gods Image appearing on them 9. That we love every visible Christian that we cannot prove hath unchristened himself by apostacy or ungodliness with the special Love also belonging to true Christians because he appeareth such to us But yet according to the measure of that appearance as being more confident of some and more doubtful of others 10. That we love our intimate suitable friends that are godly with a double Love as godly and as friends 11. That we love Neighbours and civil Relations with a Love which is suitable to
which they do not perform and against many sins which they do not forbear as to forbear an oath or a lye or a cup of drink to go to Church when they go to an Ale-house c. Such a thing therefore there is and such a power mans will hath to do or not do when such a degree only of help is given Therefore we have reason enough to suppose 1. That such a degree of the Spirits help is given under the bare Teachings of the Creature or to them that have no outward light but natural revelation as is necessary to the foresaid ends and uses of that Light or Means that is to convince man that there is a God and what he is as aforesaid and that we are his subjects and benâ—ficiaries and owe him our chiâ—fest love and service and to convince them of the need of some further supernatural revelation Not that every one hath this measure of spiritual help for some by abusing the help which they have to learn the Alphabet of Nature or to practise it do forfeit that help which should bring them into Natures higher forms But so much as I have mentioned of the help of the Spirit is given to those that do not grosly forfeit it by abuse among the Pagans of the world And so much multitudes have attained 2. And so much of the Spirit was given ordinarily to the Jews as was sufficient to have enabled them to believe in the Messiah to come as aforesaid if they did not wilfully reject this help 3. And so much seemeth to be given to many that hear the Gospel and never believe it or that believe it not with a justifying Faith is as sufficient to have made them true Believers as Adams was to have kept him from his fall For seeing it is certain that such a sufficient uneffectual grace there is we have no reason to conceit that God doth any more desert his own means now than he did then or that he maketh Believing a more impossible condition of Justification under the Gospel to them that are in the neerest capacity of it before effectual grace than he made perfect obedience to be to Adam The objections against this are to be answered in due place and are already answered by the Dominicans at large 4. The outward means of grace under Christ are all one frame and must be used in harmony as followeth 1. The Witness and Preaching of Christ and his Apostles was the first and chief part together with their settling the Churches and recording so much as is to be our standing Rule in the holy Scriptures which are now to us the chief part of this means 2. Next to the Scriptures the Pastoral Office and Gifts to preserve them and teach them to us is the next principal part of this frame of means In which I comprehend all their office Preaching for conversion baptizing preaching for confirmation and edification of the faithful praying and praising God before the Church administring the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of communion and watching over all the flock by personal instruction admonition reproofs censures and absolutions 3. The next part conjunct with this is the communion of the faithful in the Churches 4. The next is our holy society in Christian families and family-instructions worship and just discipline 5. The next is our secret duties between God and us alone As. 1. Reading 2. Meditation and self examination 3. Prayer and thanksgiving and praise to God 6. The next part is our improvement of godly mens intimate friendship who may instruct and warn and reprove and comfort us 7. The next is the daily course of prospering Providences and Mercies which express Gods Love and call up ours as provisions protections preservations deliverances c. 8. The next is Gods castigations by what hand or means soever which are to make us partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.9 10. 9. The next is the examples of others 1. Their graces and duties 2. Their faults and falls 3. Their mercies And 4. Their sufferings and corrections 1 Cor. 10.1 10 11. 10. And lastly Our own constant watchfulness against temptations and stirring up Gods graces in our selves These are the frame of the means of Grace and of our receiving duties 2. The next in order to be considered is the whole frame of our returning duties in which we lay out the talents which we receive which lye in the order following 1. That we do what good we can to our own souls that we first pluck the beam out of our own eyes and set that motion on work at home which must go further Therefore all the foregoing means were primarily for this effect though not chiefly and ultimately for this end 2. Next we must do good according to our power to our neer Relations 3. And next to our whole Families and more remote Relations 4. And next them to our Neighbours 5. And next to Strangers 6. And lastly To Enemies of our selves and Christ 7. But our greatest duties must be for publick Societies viz. 1. For the Common-wealth both Governours and People 2. And for the Church 8. And the next part in intention and dignity must be for the whole world whose good by prayer and all just means we must endeavour 9. And the next for the honour of Jesus Christ our Mediatour 10. And the highest ultimate temination of our returning duties is the pure Deity alone For the further opening to you the Order of Christian Practice take these following Notes or Rules 1. Though receiving duties such as hearing reading praying faith c. go first in order of nature and time before expending or returning duties so that the motion is truly circular yet we must not stay till we have received more before we make returns to God of that which we have already But every degree of received grace must presently work towards God our end and as there is no intermission between my moving of my hand and pen and its writing upon this paper so must there be no intermission between Gods beams of Love and Mercy to us and our reflexions of Love and Duty unto him Even as ths veins and arteries in the body lye much together and one doth often empty it self into the other for circulation and not stay till the whole mass hath run through all the vessels of one sort veins or arteries before any pass into the other 2. The internal returns of Love are much quicker than the return of outward fruits The Love of God shed or streamed forth upon the soul doth presently warm it to a return of Love But it may be some time before that Love appear in any notable useful benefits to the world or in any thing that much glorifieth God and our Profession Even as the heat of the Sun upon the earth or trees is suddenly reflected but doth not so suddenly bring forth herbs and buds and blossoms and ripe fruits 3. All truly good works
are guilty of more disorders tautologies unmeet expressions and manifold defects than any that I ever yet heard from those Ministers that pray either by habit or book Direct 9. Take heed both of carelesness and curiosity in the worshipping of God Avoid carelesness because it is prophaneness and contempt Therefore watch against idleness of mind and wandering thoughts and remember how great a work it is to speak to God or to hear from him about your everlasting state And yet curiosity is a heinous sin When men are so nice that unless there be quaint phrases and fine cadencies and jingles or at least a very laudable style they nauseate all and are weary of hearing a homely style or common things when every unmeet expression or tautology of the speaker doth turn their stomachs against the wholesomest food This curiosity cometh from a weak and an unhealthful state of soul Direct 10. Lastly Let your eye of Faith be all the while upon the heavenly Host or Church triumphant I remember how they worship God with what wisdom and purity and fervour of Love and sacred pleasure and with what unity and peace and concord And let your Worship be as much composed to the imitation of them as is agreeable to the likeness of our condition unto theirs There is no hypocrisie dulness darkness errours self-conceitedness pride division section or uncharitable contention Oh how they burn in Love to God and how sweet that Love is to themselves and how those souls work up in heavenly Joyes to the face of God in all his praises Labour as it were to joyn your selves by faith with them and as far as standeth with your different case to imitate them They are more imitable and amiable than the purest Churches upon earth Their love and blessed concord is more lovely than our uncharitable animosities and odious factions and divisions are And remember also the time when you must meet all those upright souls in Heaven whose manner of Worship you vilified and spake reproachfully of on earth and from whose communion you turned away And only consider how far they should be disowned who must be dear to Christ and you for ever The open disowning and avoiding the ungodly and scandalous is a great duty in due season when it is regularly done and is necessary to cast shame on sin and sinners and to vindicate the honour of Christianity before the world But otherwise it is but made an instrument of pernicious pride and of divisions in the Church and of hindering the successes of the Gospel of Christ CHAP. XXII How to pray in Faith PAssing by all the other particular parts of Worship as handled elsewhere in my Christian Directory I shall only briefly touch the duty of prayer especially as in private Direct 1. Let your heart lead your tongue and be the fountain of your words and suffer not your tongues in a customary volubility to over-run your hearts Desire first and pray next and remember that desire is the soul of prayer and that the heart-searching God doth hate hypocrisie and will not be mocked Matth. 6.1 3 4. Direct 2. Yet do not forbear prayer because your desires are not so earnest as you would have them For 1. Even good desires are to be begged of God 2. And such desires as you have towards God must be exercised and expressed 3. And this is the way of their usual increase 4. And a prophane turning away from God will kill those weak desires which you have when drawing near him in prayer may revive and cherish them Direct 3. Remember still that you pray to a heavenly Father who is readier to give than you are to receive or ask If you knew his Fulness and Goodness how joyfully would you run to him and cry Abba Father John 20.17 Luke 12.30 32. Mark 11.25 Matth. 6.8 32. Direct 4. Go boldly to him in the Name of Christ alone Remember that he is the only Way and Mediatour When guilt and conscience would drive you back believe the sufficiency of his sacrifice and attonement When your weakness and unworthiness would discourage you remember that no one is so worthy as to be accepted by God on any other terms than Christs Mediation Come boldly then to the Throne of Grace by the new and living way and put your prayers into his hand and remember that he still liveth to make intercession for you and that he appeareth before God in the highest in your cause Heb. 10.19 Ephes 3.12 Rom. 5.2 Heb. 9.24 7.25 26. Direct 5. Desire nothing in your hearts which you dare not pray for or which is unmeet for prayer Let the Rule of Prayer be the Rule of your Desires And undertake no business in the world which you may not lawfully pray for a blessing on Direct 6. Desire and pray to God first for God himself and nothing lower and next for all those spiritual blessings in Christ which may fit you for communion with him And lastly for corporal mercies as the means to these Matth. 6.33 Psal 42.1 2 3 c. Psal 73.25 26. Direct 7. Pray only for what is promised you or you are commanded to pray for And make not promises to your selves and then look that God should fulfil them because you confidently believe that he will do it and do not so reproach God as to call such self-conceits and expectations by the name of a particular Faith For where there is no word there is no faith Direct 8. What God hath promised confidently expect though you feel no answer at the present For most of our prayers are to be granted or the things desired to be given at the harvest time when we shall have all at once Whether you find your selves the better at present for prayer or not believe that a word is not in vain but you shall reap the fruit of all in season Luke 18.1 7 8. James 5.7 8. Direct 9. Let the Lords Prayer be the Rule for the matter and method of your desires and prayers But with this difference It must alwaies be the Rule which your desires must be formed to both in matter and method You must alwaies first and most desire the hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will on Earth as it is in Heaven before your own being or well-being But this is only a Rule for your General Prayers which take in all the parts For when you either intend to pray only or chiefly for some one particular thing you may begin with that or be most upon it Therefore all Christians should specially labour to understand the true sense and method of the Lords Prayer which God willing I hope elsewhere to open Direct 10. Be more careful in secret of your affections than of the order of your words yet chusing such as are aptest to the matter and fittest to excite your hearts But in your families or with others be very careful to speak to God in
a word or two or none at all in the daily prayers of most Professors And it is rare to hear any to pray with any importunity for their conversion Is this mens love to mankind Is this their love to the Kingdom of Christ or to God and Godliness Is God of as narrow a mind as you Are you and your party all the world or all the Church or all that is to be regarded and prayed for Direct 2. Do not only pray for them but study what is within the reach of your power to do for their conversion For though private men can do little in comparison of what Christian Princes might do who must not be told their duty by such as I. Yet somewhat might be done by Merchants and their Chaplains if skill and zeal were well united and somewhat might be done by writing and translating such books as are fittest for this use And greater matters might be done by training up some Scholars in the Persian Indostan Tartarian and such other languages who are for mind and body fitted for that work and willing with due encouragement to give up themselves thereto Were such a Colledge erected natives might be got to teach the languages and no doubt but God would put into the hearts of many young men to devote themselves to so excellent a service and of many rich men to settle Lands sufficient to maintain them and many Merchants would help them in their expedition But whether those that God will so much honour be yet born I know not Direct 3. Pray and labour for the Reformation and Concord of all the Christian Churches as the most probable means to win to Christ the world of Heathens and Vnbelievers If the Protestant Churches were more pure and peaceable more holy and more unanimous and charitable to each other it would do much to win the Papists that are near them And if the Papists and Greeks and Armenians and Abassines were more reformed wise and holy it would do much to win the Heathens and Mahometanes round about them They would be the salt of the earth and the lights of the world and the leaven which must leaven the whole lump The neighbouring Mahometanes and Heathens would see their good works and glorifie God Matth. 5.16 A holy harmless loving conversation is a Sermon which men of all languages can understand Thus as Apostles we might preach to men of several tongues though we have but one O that the sanctifying Spirit would teach Christians this art and reform and unite the Churches of Christ that they might be no longer a scandal to hinder the saving of the world about them It is the sense of Christs prayer before his death John 17.21 22 23 25. that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that the world may believe that thou hast sent me I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me Direct 4. Be sure at least that your holy loving and blameless loves be an example to these that are about you If you cannot convert Kingdoms nor get other men to do their duty towards it be sure that you do your part within your reach And believe that your lives must be the best part of your labours and that good works and love and good example must be the first part of your doctrine Direct 5. When you see that the world lyeth still in wickedness and there seemeth to be no possibility of a cure yet search the Scripture and so far as you can find any Prophecy or Promise of their conversion believe that God in his time will make it good Direct 6. But take heed that on this pretence you plunge not your selves into any inordinate studies or conceited expositions of the Revelations and other Scripture Prophecies as many have done to the great wrong of themselves and the Church of God By inordinate studies I mean 1. When you begin there where you should end and before you have digested the necessary greater truths in Theology you go to those that should come after them 2. When an undue proportion of your zeal and time and study and talk is bestowed upon these Prophecies in comparison of other things 3. When you are proudly and causlesly conceited of your singular expositions That when of ten of the learnedest and hardest studied Expositors of the Revelation perhaps in many things scarce two are of a mind yet when you differ from them all or all save one you can be as peremptory and confident in your opinion as if you were far wiser or more infallible than they 4. When you place a greater necessity in it than there is as if salvation or Church-communion lay upon your conceits Whereas God hath made the points that are of necessity to salvation to be few and plain Direct 7. When you look on the sin and misery of the world and see small hope of its recovery look up by Faith to that better world where all is Light and Love and Peace And pray for that coming of Christ when all this sin shall be brought to Judgment and wisdom and godliness be fully justified before all the world Let the badness of this world drive up your hearts to that above where all is better than you can wish Direct 8. When you are ready to stumble at the consideration of Gods desertion of so great a part of the world quiet your minds in the implicite submission to his infinite wisdom and goodness Dare you think that you are more gracious and merciful than God Or that it is meet you should know all the secrets of his providence who must not know the mysteries oâ— Government in the State or Kingdom where you live He that cannot rest in the wisdom will and mercies of infinite Goodness it self but must have all his own expectations satisfied shall have no rest And think withall how little a spot of Gods Creation this earthly world is and how incomprehensibly vast the superiour Regions are in comparison of it And if all the upper parts of the world be possessed with none but holy Spirits and even this lower earth have also many millions of Saints prepared here for the things above we have no more reason to judge God to be unmerciful because this lower world is so bad than we have to judge the King unmerciful when we look into the common Jayle nor to judge of his government by the Rogues in a Jayle but by his Court and all the subjects of his Kingdom If God should forsake no place but Hell of all his Creation you could not grudge at him as unmerciful And it is a very hard question whether this earth and the air about it be not the place of Hell when you consider that the Devils are cast down from Heaven and yet that they dwell and rule in
great a likeness of the holy and heavenly nature in the Saints to the heavenly life that God hath promised that makes it the more easily believed 4. And it exceedingly helpeth our Belief of the life that 's yet unseen to find that Nature affordeth us undeniable Arguments to prove a future Happiness and Misery Reward and Punishment in the general yea and in special that the Love and Fruition of God is this Reward and that the effects of his displeasure are this Punishment Nothing more clear and certain than that there is a God He must be a fool indeed that dare deny it Psal 14.1 as also that this God is the Creatour of the rational nature and hath the absolute right of Soveraign Government and therefore that the rational Creature oweth him the most full and absolute obedience and deserveth punishment if he disobey And it 's most clear that infinite goodness should be loved above all finite imperfect created good And it 's clear that the rational nature is so formed that without the hopes and fears of another life the world neither is nor ever was nor by ordinary visible means can be well governed supposing God to work on man according to his nature And it is most certain that it consisteth not with infinite wisdom power and goodness to be put to rule the world in all ages by fraud and falshood And it is certain that Heathens do for the most part through the world by the light of nature acknowledge a life of joy or misery to come And the most hardened Atheists or Infidels must confess that for ought they know there may be such a life it being impossible they should know or prove the contrary And it is most certain that the meer probability or possibility of a Heaven and Hell being matters of such unspeakable concernment should in reason command our utmost diligence to the hazard or loss of the transitory vanities below and consequently that a holy diligent preparation for another life is naturally the duty of the reasonable creature And it 's a sure that God hath not made our nature in vain nor set us on a life of vain imployments nor made it our business in the world to seek after that which can never be attained These things and much more do shew that nature affordeth us so full a testimony of the life to come that 's yet invisible that it exceedingly helpeth us in believing the supernatural revelation of it which is more full 5. And though we have not seen the objects of our faith yet those that have given us their infallible testimony by infallible means have seen what they testified Though no man hath seen God at any time yet the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father hath declared him Joh 1.18 Verily verily saith our Lord we speak that we know and testifie that we have seen Joh. 3.11 Vers 31 32. He that cometh from Heaven is above all and what he hath seen and heard that he testifieth Christ that hath told us saw the things that we have not seen and you will believe honest men that speak to you of what they were eye-witnesses of And the Disciples saw the person the transfiguration and the miracles of Christ Insomuch that John thus beginneth his Epistle 1 Cor. 1.1 2 3. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew it to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you So Paul 1 Cor. 9.1 Am I not an Apostle have have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 15.5.6 7. He was seen of Cephas then of the twelve after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once of whom the greater part remain unto this present Heb. 2.3 4. This great salvation at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the holy Ghost according to his own will 2 Pet. 1.16 17. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And this voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount And therefore when the Apostles were commanded by their persecutors not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus they answered We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard Acts 4.18 20. So that much of the objâ—cts of our faith to us invisible have yet been sâ—en by those that have instrumentally revealed them and the glory of Heaven it self is seen by many millions of souls that are now possessing it And the tradition of the Testimony of the Apostles unto us is more full and satisfactory than the tradition of any Laws of the Land or History of the most unquestionable affairs that have been done among the people of the earth as I have manifested elsewhere So that faith hath the infallible Testimony of God and of them that have seen and therefore is to us instead of sight 6. Lastly Even the enemy of faith himself doth against his will confirm our faith by the violence and rage of malice that he stirreth up in the ungodly against the life of faith and holiness and by the importunity of his oppositions and temptations discovering that it is not for nothing that he is so maliciously solicitous industrious and violent And thus you see how much faith hath that should fully satisfie a rational man instead of presence possession and â—ight If any shall here say But why would not God let us have a sight of Heaven or Hell when he could not but know that it would more generally and certainly have prevailed for the conversion and salvation of the world Doth he envy us the most â—ffâ—ctuaâ— means I answer 1. Who art thou O man that disputest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Mâ—st God come down to the bar of man to render an account of the reason of his works Why do ye not also ask him a reason of the nature situation magnitude order influences c. of all the Stars and Superiour Orbs and call him to an account for all his works when yet there are so many things in your own bodies of which you little understand the reason Is it not intollerable impudency for such worms as we so
Nature and therefore if we have a Head who hath no such corruption there is no place for that objection And as it is not credible that God would make no communication of this Image of his Dominions in the world so it is certain that besides the Lord Jesus the world hath no other Universal Head whatever the Pope may pretend to be an Vniversal Vicarious Monarch under the Vniversal Vicarious Monarch Kingdoms have their Monarchs subordinate to Christ but the world hath none but Christ alone 11. And how meet was it that he who was the Monarch or Deputy of God should be also the Mediatour and that a polluted sinner dwelling in clay should not come immediately to God but by a Reconciler who is worthy to prevail 12. And when we had lost the knowledge of God and of the world to come and of the way thereto yea and of our selves too and our own immortality of soul how meet was it that a sure Revelation should settle us that we might know what to seek and whither to return and by what way seeing Light must be the guide of our Love and Power And who could so infallibly and satisfactorily do this as a Teacher sent from God of perfectest knowledge and veracity 13. And when God intended the free forgiveness of our sins how meet was it that he who would be the Mediatour of our pardon should yield to those terms which are consistent with the ends of Government and expose not the wisdom and veracity and justice and the Laws of God to the worlds contempt If no mark of odiousness should be put upon sin nor any demonstration of Justice been made the Devil would have triumphed and said Did not I say truer than God when he told you of dying and I told you that you should not die And if the grand penalty had been remitted to the world for four thousand years together successively without any sufficient demonstration of Gods Justice undertaken why should any sinner have feared Hell to the worlds end If you say that Repentance alone might be sufficient I answer 1. That is no vindication of the Justice and Truth of the Law-maker 2. Who should bring a sinner to Repentance whose heart is corrupted with the love of sin 3. It would hinder Repentance if men knew that God can forgive all the world upon bare Repentance without any reparation of the breaches made by sin in the order of the world For if he that threatneth future misery or death for sin can absolutely dispense with that commination they may think that he may do so as easily by his threatning of death to the impenitent If you say that Threatnings in a Law are not false when they are not fulfilled because they speak not de eventâ— but de debito poenae I answer they speak directly only de debito but withall he that maketh a Law doth thereby say This shall be the Rule of your lives and of my ordinary Judgement And therefore consequently they speak of an ordinary event also And they are the Rule of Just Judgement and therefore Justice must not be contemned by their contempt Or if any shall think that all this proveth not a demonstration of Justice on the Redeemer to be absolutely necessary but that God could have pardoned the penitent without it it is nevertheless manifest that this was a very wise and congruous way As he that cannot prove that God could not have illuminated and moved and quickened the inferiour sensitives without the Sun may yet prove that the Sun is a noble creature in whose operations Gods Wisdom and Power and Goodness do appear 14. And how agreeable is this doctrine of the Sacrifice of Christ to the common doctrine of Sacrificing which hath been received throughout almost all the world And who can imagine any other original of that practice so early and so universally obtaining than either divine revelation or somewhat even in nature which beareth witness to the necessity of a demonstration of Gods Justice and displeasure against sin 15. How wisely is it determined of God that he who undertakes all â—is should be Man and yet more than Man even God That the Monarch of Mankind and the Mediatour and the Teacher of Man and the Sacrifice for sin should not be only of another kind but that he be one that is fit to be familiar with man and to be interested naturally in his concerns and one that is by nature and nearness capable of these undertakings and relations And yet that he be so high and near the Father as may put a sufficient value on his works and make him most meet to mediate for us 16. How wisely is it ordered that with a perfect doctrine we should have the pattern of a perfect life as knowing how agreeable the way of imitation is to our natures and necessities 17. And as a pattern of all other vertue is still before us so how fit was it especially that we should have a lively example to teach us to contemn this deceitful world and to set little comparatively by reputation wealth preheminence grandeur pleasures yea and life it self which are the things which all that perish prefer before God and immortality 18. And how needful is it that they that must be overtaken with renewed faults should have a daily remedy and refuge and a plaister for their wounds and a more acceptable name than their own to plead with God for pardon 19. How meet was it that our Saviour should rise from the dead and consequently that he should die to shew us that his Sacrifice was accepted and that there is indeed another life for man and that death and the grave shall not still detain us 20. And how meet was it that our Saviour should ascend into Heaven and therein our natures be glorified with God that he might have all power to finish the work of mans salvation and his possession might be a pledge of our future possession 21. Most wisely also is it ordered of God that man might not be left under the Covenant of Works or of entire nature which after it was broken could never justifie him and which was now unsuitable to his lapsed state and that God should make a New Covenant with him as his Redeemer as he made the first as his Creatour and that an Act of general pardon and oblivion might secure us of forgiveness and everlasting life And that as we had a Rule to live by for preventing sin and misery we might have a Rule for our duty in order to our recovery 22. And what more convenient conditions could this Covenant have had than a believing and thankful Acceptance of the mercy and a penitent and obedient following of our Redeemer unto everlasting life 23. And how convenient is it that when our King is to depart from earth and keep his residence in the Court of Heaven he should appoint his Officers to manage the humane part of his remaining
though we must not with Fanatical persons put first our own interpretation upon Gods works and then expound his Word by them but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word and expound his Providences by his Precepts and his Promises and Threats Direct 7. Mark well Gods inward works of Government upon the soul and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us And as he is himself a Spirit so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse in the work of his moral Government in the world 1. There you shall find a Law of duty or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God 2. There you shall find an inward mover striving with you to draw you to perform this duty 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy labouring to draw you away from this duty and to make a godly life seem grievous to you and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth 4. There you shall find an inward conviction that God is your Judge and that he will call you to account for your wilful violations of the Laws of Christ 5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you according as you do good or evil 6. And there you may find the sorest Judgements of God inflicted which any short of Hell endure You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken with troubles and affrightments and some of the feeling of his displeasure And where that is long despised and men sin on still he useth to with hold his gracious motions and leave the sinner dull and senseless so that he can sin with sinful remorse having no heart or life to any thing that is spiritually good And if yet the sinner think not of his condition to repent he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most bruitish lust and to glory impudently in his shame and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ who would recover him till he hath filled up the measure of his sin and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost Ephes 4.18 19. 1 Thes 2.15 16. being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Titus 1.15 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit which Gods own servants find in themselves after some sins or neglects of grace 7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty by many tastes of Gods acceptance and many comforts of his Spirit and by his owning the soul and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit and peace of conscience and entertainment in prayer and all approaches of the soul to God and sweeter forecasts of life eternal In a word if we did but note Gods dreadful Judgements on the souls of the ungodly in this age as well as we have noted our plagues and flames and if Gods servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments and that in particulars as suited to their particular sins and duties you will see that Christ is King indeed and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel kept up in the consciences or souls of men though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day Direct 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects and let them not come too near your hearts Three things I here perswade you carefully to avoid 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world that they grow not too sweet to you nor too great in your esteem 2. That you gratifie not sense it self too much and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts You may ask perhaps what is all this to our faith why the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen And if you live upon the things that are seen and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence and fill your fancies with things of another nature how can you be acquainted with the life of faith Can a bird flye that hath a stone tyed to her foot Can you have a mind full of lust and of God at once Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities be fit to rellish the things that are spiritual And can it be a lover of earth and fleshly pleasures and also a Believer and lover of Heaven Direct 9. Vse your selves much to think and speak of Heaven and the invisible things of Faith Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts and to actuate and preserve them And the often thoughts of Heaven will make the mind familiar there And familiarity will assist and encourage faith For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to As he that converseth much with a learned wise or godly man will easilier believe that he is learned wise or godly than he that is a stranger to him and only now and then seeth him afar off So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of For doubting is the effect of ignorance And he that knoweth most here believeth best Falshood and evil cannot bear the light but the more you think of them and know them the more they are detected and ashamed But truth and goodness love the light and the better you are acquainted with them the more will your belief and love be increased Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of wilful sin For that will many waies hinder your belief 1. It will breed fear and horrour in your minds and make you wish that it were not true that there is a day of Judgement and a Hell for the ungodly and such a God such a Christ and such a life to come as the Gospel doth describe And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say And you will the more easily make your selves believe that the Gospel is not true by how much the more you desire that it should not be true 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe both by your wilfull sin and by your unwillingness to believe For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them who wilfully despise him and abuse it Or that he should make men believe who had rather not believe Indeed he may possibly do both these but these are not the way nor is it a thing which we can expect
true Suppose that the Law do pardon a fellon if he can read as a Clerk and one that is a fellon be in doubt whether his reading will serve or not this is not to deny belief to the pardoning act of the Law Suppose one promise a yearly stipend to all that are of full one and twenty years of age in the Town or Country To doubt of my age is not to doubt of the truth of the promise Object But do not Protestant Divines conclude against the Papists that saving Faith must be a particular application of Christ and the Promise to ourselves and not only a general assent Answ It is very true and the closer that application is the better But the application which all sound Divines in this point require as necessary in saving Faith is neither an assurance nor perswasion that your own sins are already pardoned or that they ever will be But it is 1. A belief that the Promise of pardon to all believers is so universal as that it includeth you as well as others and promiseth and offereth you pardon and life if you will believe in Christ 2. And it is a consent or willingness of heart that Christ be yours and you be his to the ends proposed in the Gospel 3. And it is a practical Trust in his sufficiency as chusing him for the only Mediatour resolving to venture your souls and all your hopes upon him Though yet through your ignorance of your selves you may think that you do not this thing in sincerity which indeed you do yea and much fear through melancholy or temptation that you never shall do it and consequently never shall be saved He that doubteth of his own salvation not because he doubteth of the truth of the Gospel but because he doubteth of the sincerity of his own heart may be mistaken in himself but is not therefore an unbeliever as is said before If you would know whether you believe the Promises truly answer me these particular questions 1. Do you believe that God hath promised that all true Believers shall be saved 2. Do you believe that if you are or shall be a true Believer you shall be saved 3. Do you chuse or desire God as your only happiness and end to be enjoyed in Heaven and Christ as the only Mediatour to procure it and his holy Spirit as his Agent in your souls to sanctifie you fully to the Image of God Are you truly willing that thus it should be And if God be willing will not you refuse it 4. Do you turn away from all other waies of felicity and chuse this alone to venture all your hopes upon and resolve to seek for none but this and to venture all on God and Christ though yet you are uncertain of your sincerity and salvation why this makes up true saving faith 5. And I would further ask you Do you fear damnation and Gods wrath or not If not what troubleth you and why complain you If you do tell me then whether you do believe Gods threatning that he that believeth not shall be damned or not If you do not what maketh you fear damnation Do you fear it and not believe that there is any such thing If you do believe it how can you chuse but believe also that every true Believer shall be saved Is God true in his Threatnings and not in his Promises This must force you plainly to confess that you do believe Gods Promises but only doubt of your own sincerity and consequently of your salvation which is more a weakness in your hope than in your faith or rather chiefly in your acquaintance with your self Direct 8. Yet still dwell most upon Gods Promises in the exercise of love desire and thankfulness and use all your fear about the threatnings but in a second place to further and not to hinder the work of love Direct 9. Let faith interpret all Gods Judgements meerly by the light of the threatnings of his Word and do not gather any conclusions from them which the Word affordeth not or alloweth not Gods Judgements may be dangerously misunderstood CHAP. VII How to exercise Faith about Pardon of sin and Justification THE practice of Faith about our Justification is hindered by so many unhappy controversies and heresies that what to do with them here in our way is not very easie to determine Should I omit the mention of them I leave most that I write for either under that disease it self or the danger of it which may frustrate all the rest which I must say For the errours hereabout are swarming in most quarters of the Land and are like to come to the caâ—s of most that are studious of these matters so that an antidote to most and a vomit to the rest is become a matter of necessity to the success of all our practical Directions And yet many cannot endure to be troubled with difficulties who are slothful and must have nothing set before them that will cost them much study and many peaceable Christians love not any thing that soundeth like controversie or strife As others that are Sons of contention relish nothing else But averseness must give place to necessity If the Leprosie arise the Priest must search it and the Physician must do his best to cure it notwithstanding their natural averseness to it Though I may be as averse to write against errours as the Reader is to read what I write we must both blame that which causeth the necessity but not therefore deny our necessary duty But yet I will so far gratifie them that need no more as to put the more practical Directions first that they may pass by the heap of errours â—â—ter if their own judgements prevail not against their unwillingness Direct 1. Vnderstand well what need you have of pardon of sin and Justification by reason of your guilt and of Gods Law and Justice and the everlasting punishment which is legally your due 1. It must be a sensible awakening practical knowledge of our own great necessity which must teach us to value Christ as a Saviour and to come to him in that empty sick and weary plight as is necessary in those who will make use of him for their supply and cure Matth. 9.12 11.28 29. A superficial speculative knowledge of our sin and misery will prepare us but for a superficial opinionative faith in Christ as the remedy But a true sense of both will teach us to think of him as a Saviour indeed 2. Original sin and actual the wickedness both of the heart and life even all our particular sins of omission and commission and all their circumstances and aggravations are the first reason of our great necessity of pardon And therefore it cannot but be a duty to lay them to heart as particularly as we can to make that necessity and Christs redemption the better understood Acts 2.37 Acts 2â— 8 9 c. 3. The wrath of God and the miseries of this life
must have one constant Order of intention which is before opened God must be first intended then Christ then the universal Church in Heaven and Earth c. But in the order of operation and execution there may be a great difference among our duties As God appointeth us to lay out some one way and some another Yet ordinarily as the emitted beams begin from God and dart themselves on the soul of man so the reflected beams begin upon or from our hearts and pass toward God though first beloved and intended by several receptacles before they bring us to the perfect fruition of him 4. Therefore the order of Loving or complacency and the order of doing good or Benevolence is not the same We must Love the universal Church better than our selves But we cannot do them sincere service before we do good to our selves And our neerest Relations must be preferred in acts of Beneficence before many whom we must love more 5. When two goods come together either to be Received or to be Done the greater is ever to be preferred and the chusing or using of the lesser at that time is to be taken for a sin I lately read a denyal of this in a superficial satyre but the thing it self if rightly understood is past all doubt with a rational man For 1. Else good is not to be chosen and done as good if the best be not to be preferred 2. Else almost all wicked omissions might be excused I may be excused for not giving a poor man a shâ—lling whatever his necessity be because I give him a farthing No doubt but Dives Luke 16. did good at such a rate as this at least and else a man might be excused from saving a drowning man if he save his horse that while c. A quatenus ad summum valet consequentia in the case of desiring and doing good But then mark the following explications 6. That is not alwaies to be accounted the greatest good which is so only in regard of the matter simply considered But that is the greatest good which is so consideratis considerandis all things considered and set together 7. When God doth peremptorily tye me to one certain duty without any dispensation or liberty of choice that duty at that time is a greater good and duty than many others which may be greater in their time and place A duty materially lesser is formally and by accident materially greater in its proper season Reaping and baking and eating are better than plowing and weeding the Corn as they are neerer to the end But plowing and weeding are better in their season To make pins or points is not materially so good a work as to pray But in its season as then done it is better And he that is of this trade may not be praying when he should be about his trade Not that he is to prefer the matter of it before praying But praying is to keep its time and may be a sin when it is out of time He that would come at midnight to disturb his rest to present his service to his Lord or King would have little thanks for such unseasonable service 8. He that is restrained by a lower calling or any true restraining reasons from doing a good which is materially greater yet doth that which is greatest unto him Ruling and Preaching are materially a greater good than threshing or digging and yet to a man whose gifts and calling restrain him from the former to the latter the latter is the greatest good 9. Good is not to be measured principally by the Will or Benefit of our selves or any creature but by 1. The Will of God in his Laws And 2. By the interest of his pleasedness and glory But secondarily humane interest is the measure of it 10. It followeth not that because the greatest good is ever to be preferred that therefore we must perplex and distract our selves in cases of difficulty when the ballance seemeth equal For either there is a difference or there is none And if any it is discernable or not If there be no difference there is room for taking one but not for chusing one If there be no discernable difference it is all one to us as if there were none at all If it be discernable by a due proportion of enquiry we must labour to know it and chuse accordingly If it be not discernable in such time and by such measure of enquiry as is our duty we must still take it as undiscernable to us If after just search the weakness of our own understandings leave us doubting we must go according to the best understanding which we have and chearfully go on in our duty as well as we can know it remembring that we have a gracious God and Covenant which taketh not advantage of involuntary weaknesses but accepteth their endeavours who sincerely do their best 11. Meer spiritual or mental duties require most labour of the mind but corporal duties such as the labours of our calling must have more labour of the body 12. All corporal duties must be also spiritual by doing them from a spiritual principle to a spiritual end in a spiritual manner But it is not necessary that every spiritual duty be also corporal 13. The duties immediately about God our end are greater than those about any of the means caeteris paribus And yet those that are about lower objects may be greater by accident and in their season As to be saving a mans life is then greater than to be exciting the mind to the acting of Divine Love or Fear But yet it is God the greatest object then which puteth the greatness upon the latter duty both by commanding it and so making it an act more pleasing to him and because that the Love of God is supposed to be the concurring spring of that Love to man which we shew in seeking their preservation 14. Our great duty about God our ultimate end can never be done too much considered in it self and in respect to the soul only we cannot so love God too much And this Love so considered hath no extream Matth. 22.37 15. But yet even this may by accident and in the circumstances be too much As 1. In respect to the bodies weaknesses if a man should so fear God or so love him as that the intenseness of the act did stir the passions so much as to bring him to distraction or to disorder his mind and make it unfit for that or any other duty 2. Or if he should be exciting the Love of God when he should be quenching a fire in the Town or relieving the poor that are ready to perish But neither of these is properly called A loving God too much 16. The duties of the heart are in themselves greater and nobler than the actions of the outward man of themselves abstractedly considered Because the soul is more noble than the body 17. Yet outward duties are frequently yea most frequently
greater than heart duties only because in the outward duty it is to be supposed that both parts concur both soul and body And the operations of both is more than of one alone and also because the nobler ends are attained by both together more than by one only For God is loved and man is benefited by them As when the Sun shineth upon a tree or on the earth it is a more noble effect to have a return of its influences in ripe and pleasant fruits than in a meer sudden reflexion of the heat alone 18. All outward duties must begin at the heart and it must animate them all and they are valued in the sight of God no further than they come from a rectified will even from the Love of God and Goodness However without this they are good works materially in respect to the Receiver He may do good to the Church or Common-wealth or Poor who doth none to himself thereby 19. As the motion is circular from God to man and from man to God again Mercies received and Duties and Love returned so is the motion circular between the heart and the outward man The heart moving the tongue and hand c. and these moving the heart again partly of their own nature and partly by divine reward The Love of God and Goodness produceth holy thoughts and words and actions and these again increase the Love which did produce them Gal. 5.6.13 Heb. 6.10 Heb. 10.24 2 John 6. Jude 21. 20. The Judgment must be well informed before the Will resolve 21. Yet when God hath given us plain instruction it is a sin to cherish causless doubts and scruples 22. And when we see our duty before us it is not every scruple that will excuse us from doing it But when we have more conviction that it is a duty then that it is none or that it is a sin we must do it notwithstanding those mistaking doubts As if in Prayer or Alms-deeds you should scruple the lawfulness of them you ought not to forbear till your scruples be resolved because you so long neglect a duty Else folly might justifie men in ungodliness and disobedience 23. But in things meerly indifferent it is a sin to do them doubtingly because you may be sure it is no sin to forbear them Rom. 14.23 1 Cor. 8.13 14. 24. An erring Judgment intangleth a man in a necessity of sinning till it be reformed whether he act or not according to it Therefore if an erring person ask What am I bound to the true answer is to lay by your errour or reform your Judgment first and then to do accordingly and if he ask an hundred times over But what must I do in case I cannot change my Judgment the same answer must be given him God still bindeth you to change your Judgment and hath given you the necessary means of information and therefore he will not take up with your supposition that you cannot His Law is a fixed Rule which telleth you what you must believe and chuse and do And this Rule will not change though you be blind and say I cannot change my mind Your mind must come to the Rule for the Rule will not come to your perverted mind Say what you will the Law of God will be still the same and will still bind you to believe according to its meaning 25. Yet supposing that a mans errour so entangleth him in a necessity of sinning it is a double sin to prefer a greater sin before a lesser For though no sin is an object of our choice yet the greater sin is the object of our greater hatred and refusal and must be with the greater fear and care avoided 26. An erring Conscience then is never the voice or messenger of God nor are we ever bound to follow it because it is neither our God nor his Law but only our own Judgment which should discern his Law And mis-reading or misunderstanding the Law will not make a bad cause good though it may excuse it from a greater degree of evil 27. The judicious fixing of the Wills Resolutions and especially the increasing of its Love or complacency and delight in good is the chief thing to be done in all our duties as being the heart and life of all Prov. 23.26.12 4.23 7.3 22.17 3.1 2 3. 4.4 21. Deut. 30.6 Psal 37.4 40.8 119.16 35 70 47. 1.2 Isa 58.14 28. The grand motives to duty must ever be before our eyes and set upon our hearts as the poise of all our motions and endeavours As the travelers home and business is deepest in his mind as the cause of every step which he goeth 29. No price imaginable must seem great enough to hire us to commit the least known sin Luke 12.4 14.26 28 33. Mat. 10.39 16.26 30. The second great means next to the right forming of the heart for the avoiding of sin is to get away from the temptations baits and occasions of it And he that hath most grace must take himself to be still in great danger while he is under strong temptations and allurements and when sin is brought to his hands and alluring objects are close to the appetite and senses 31. The keeping clean our Imaginations and commanding our Thoughts is the next great means for the avoiding sin and a polluted fantasie and ungoverned thoughts are the nest where all iniquity is hatched and the instruments that bring it forth into act 32. The governing of the senses is the first means to keep clean the Imagination When Achaâ— seeth the wedge of gold he desireth it and then he taketh it When men wilfully fill their eyes with the objects which entice them to lust to covetousness to wrath the impression is presently made upon the fantasie and then the Devil hath abundance more power to renew such imaginations a thousand times than if such impressions had been never made And it is a very hard thing to cleanse the fantasie which is once polluted 33. And the next notable means of keeping out all evil Imaginations and curing lust and vanity of mind is constant laborious diligence in a lawful calling which shall allow the mind no leisure for vain and sinful thoughts as the great nourisher of all foul and wicked thoughts is Idleness and Vacancy which inviteth the tempter and giveth him time and opportunity 34. Watchfulness over our selves and thankful accepting the watchfulness fault-findings and reproofs of others is a great part of the safety of our souls Mat. 26.41 25 13. Mark 13.37 Luke 21.36 1 Cor. 16.13 1 Thes 5.6.2 Tim. 4.5 Heb. 12.17 1 Pet. 4.7 35. Affirmative Precepts bind not to all times that is no positive duty is a duty at all times As to preach to pray to speak of God to think of holy things c. it is not alwaies a sin to intermit them 36. All that God commandeth us to do is both a Duty and a Means it
is called a Duty in relation to God the efficient Law-giver first and it is a Means next in relation to God the end whose work is done and whose will is pleased by it And we must alwaies respect it in both these notions inseparably No Duty is not a Means and no true Means is not a Duty but many seem to man to have the aptitude of a Means which are no duty but a sin because we see not all things and therefore are apt to think that fit which is pernicious 37. Therefore nothing must be thought a true Means to any good end which God forbiddeth For God knoweth better than we 38. But we must see that the negative or prohibition be universal or indeed extendeth to our particular case and then and not else you may say that negatives bind to all times 39. Nothing which is certainly destructive to the end and contrary to the nature of a Means is to be taken for a Duty For it is certain that Gods Commands are for edification and not for destruction for good and not for evil 40. Yet that may tend to present inferiour hurt which ultimately tendeth to the greatest good Therefore it is not some present or inferiour incommodity that must cause us to reject such a means of greater future good 41. Whatsoever we are certain God commandeth we may be certain is a proper Means though we see not the aptitude or may think it to be destructive because God knoweth better than we But then we must indeed be sure that it is commanded hic nunc in this case and place and time and circumstances 42. It is one of the most needful things to our innocency to have Christian wisdom to compare the various accidents of those duties and sins which are such by accident and to judge which accidents do preponderate For indeed the actions are very few which are absolutely and simply duties or sins in themselves considered without those accidents which qualifie them to be such Accidental duties and sins are the most numerous by far And in many cases the difficulty of comparing the various accidents and contrary motives is not small 43. Therefore it is that as in Physick and Law Cases c. the common people have greatest need of the advice of skilful Artists to help them to judge of particular Cases taking in all the circumstances which their narrow understandings cannot comprehend which is more of the use of Physicians and Lawyers than to read a publick Lecture of Physick or of Law so the Office of the Church-Guides or Bishops is of so great necessity to the people in every particular Church And that not only for publick Preaching but also to be at hand to help the people who have recourse unto them in all such cases to know in particular what is duty and what is sin 44. And therefore it is besides other reasons that the Office of the Bishops or Pastors of the Churches must in all the proper parts of it be done only by themselves or men in that Office and not per alios by men of another Office And therefore it is that bare titles or authority will not serve the turn without proportionable or necessary abilities or gifts because the work is done by personal fitness and cases and difficulties can no more be resolved nor safe counsel given for the soul in matters of Morality by men unable than for the body or estate in points of Physick or of Law As the Lord Verulam in his Considerations of Ecclesiastical Government hath well observed 45. In such cases where duty or sin must be judged of by compared accidents the nature of a Means or the interest of the End is the principal thing to be considered And that which will evidently do more harm than good is not to be judged a duty in those circumstances but a sin as if the question were whether Preaching be at this time in this place to this number to these individuals a duty If it appear to true Christian prudence that it would be like to do more hurt than good it is a sin at that time and not a duty and yet Preaching in due season as great a duty still So if the question were whether secret prayer be at this hour or day a duty If true reason tell you that it is like to hinder either family-prayer or any other greater good it is not at that time a duty Or if the question be whether reproof or personal exhortation of a sinner be now a duty If true reason tell me that it is like to do more harm than good it is not a duty then but accidentally a sin For we must not cast pearls before Swine nor give that which is holy unto Dogs lest they tread it under foot or turn again and all to rend us And there is a time when Preachers that are persecuted in one City must fly to another and when they must shake off the dust of their feet for a witness against the disobedient and turn away from them The imprudent people can easily discern this when it is their own case but not when it is the Preachers case so powerful is self-love and partiality Mat. 7.6 7. Mat. 10.14 23.34 10.23 The reason of all this is 1. Because God appointeth all Means for the End 2. And because the Law by which in such cases we must be ruled is only general as Let all things be done to edification as if he should say Fit all your actions which I have not given you a particular peremptory Law for to that good which is their proper end 1 Cor. 14.5 12.3 26.17 2 Cor. 10.8 12.19 13.10 1 Cor. 10.23 Ephes 4.12 16 29. 1 Tim. 1.4 Rom. 15.2 1 Cor. 12.7 46. Publick Duties ordinarily must be preferred before private And that which is for the good of many before that which is for the good of one only 47. Yet when the private necessity is more pressing and the publick may be omitted at that time with less detriment the case doth alter As also when that one that we do good to is more worth than the many in order to the honour of God or the more publick good of the whole society or when it is one that by special precept we are obliged to prefer in our beneficence 48. Civil Power is to be obeyed before Ecclesiastical in things belonging to the Office of the Magistrate and Ecclesiastical before the Civil in things proper to the Ecclesiastical Gvoernours only And Family Power before both in things proper to their cognizance only But what it is that is proper to each power I shall tell them when I think they are willing to know and it will do more good than harm to tell it them 49. The supreme Magistrate is ever to be obeyed before his Inferiours because they have no power but from him and therefore have none against him unless he so give it them 50. No Humane Authority
is above Gods nor can bind us against him but it is all received from him and subordinate to him 51. No Humane Power can bind us to the destruction of the society which it governeth because the publick or common good is the end of Government 52. The Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents Masters and Pastors in cases where they have true Authority do bind the soul primarily as well as the body secondarily But not as the primary but the secondary bond It is a wonderful and pittiful thing to read Divines upon this point Whether the Laws of men do bind the conscience what work they have made as in the dark when the case is so very plain and easie some are peremptory that they do not bind conscience and some that they do and some calling their adversaries the Idolizers of men and others again insinuating that they we guilty of treason against Kings who do gainsay them when surely they cannot differ if they would 1. The very phrase of their question is non-sense or very unfit Conscience is but a mans knowledge or judgment of himself as he is obliged to his duty and the effects and consequently of the obligations which lie upon him It is a strange question whether I am bound in knowledge of my self But it were a reasonable question whether I be bound to know or whether I know that I am bound It is the whole man and most eminently the Will which is bound by Laws or any Moral Obligations The man is bound But if by conscience they mean the soul it is a ridiculous question For no bonds can lie upon the body immediately but Cords or Iron or such like materials The soul is the first obliged or else the man is not morally obliged at all If the sense of the question be whether it be a Divine or a Religious obligation which mens commands do lay upon us The answer is easie 1. That Man is not God and therefore as humane it is not Divine 2. That Mans Government is Gods institution and Men are Gods Officers and therefore the obligation is Religious and Instrumentally or Mediately Divine Either mens Laws and Commands do bind us or not If not they are no Laws nor authoritative Acts If they do bind either it is primarily by an authority originally in themselves that made them and then they are all gods And then there is no God Or else it is by derived authority If so God must be the Original or still the Original must be God And then is the high way any plainer than the true answer of this question viz. That Princes Parents c. have a governing or Law-giving power from God in subordination to him and that they are his Officers in governing And that all those Laws which he hath authorized them to make do bind the soul that is the man immediately as humane and instrumentally or mediately as Divine or as the bonds of God As my Covenant bind my self to conscience if you will so speak rather than that they bind my conscience so do men a Laws also bind me You may as well ask whether the writing of my pen be its action or mine and be an animate or inanimate act which is soon resolved 53. To conclude these Rules as the just impress of the Spirit and Image of God upon the soul is Divine Life Light and Love communicated from God by Jesus Christ by the holy Spirit to work in us and by us for God in the soul and in the world and by Christ to bring us up at last to the sight and fruition of God himself so this Trinity of Divine principles must be inseparably used in all our internal and external duties towards God or men and all that we do must be the work of Power and of Love and of Wisdom or a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 II. Having been so large in opening the Order of our Duties I must be briefer than our case requireth in telling you our Disorders or contrary disease O what a humbling sight it would be if good Christians did but see the pittiful conâ—â—sions of their minds and lives They find little melody in their Religion because there is little harmony in their apprehensions affections or conversations If the displacing one wheel or pin in a clock will so much frustrate the effect it is a wonder that our tongues or lives do ever go true which are moved by such disordered parts within that were it not that the Spirit of grace doth keep an order where it is essential to our Religion between the End and the Means c. we should be but like the parts of a watch pulled in pieces and put up together in a bag But such is Gods mercy that the body may live when many smaller veins are obstructed so that the Master vessels be kept clear I. There are so few Christians that have a true method of Faith or Divinity in their understandings even in the great points which they know disorderly that it is no wonder if there be lamentable defectiveness and deformity in those inward and outward duties which should be harmoniously performed by the light of this harmonious truth And no Divine in the world can give you a perfect Scheme of Divinity in all the parts but he is the wisest that cometh neerest to it Abundance of Schemes and Tables you may see and all pretending to exactness But every one palpably defective and confused even those of the highest pretenders that ever I have seen And one errour or disorder usually introduceth in such a Scheme a confusion in all that followeth as dependant on it Some confound Gods Attributes themselves nay who doth not They confound the Three great Essential Principles with all the Attributes by similitude called Modal and Negative and they use to name over Gods Attributes like as they put their money or chess-men into a bag without any method at all Some confound Gods Primary Attributes of Being with his Relations which are subsequent to his Works and with his Relation-Attributes Some confound his several Relations to man among themselves and more do confound his Works as they flow from these various Relations The great works of the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and their several designs significations and effects are opened obscurely and in much confusion The Legislative Will of God de debiâ—â— institutive which is it that Damascene Chrysostome and the School-men mean by his Antecedent will if they speak properly which ever goeth before mans actions duties or sins or as the Fathers called them merits or demerits is confounded by many with the acts of his Judgment and Execution called his consequent Will because it ever presupposeth mens precedent actions Or his works as Law-giver Judge and Executioner are oft confounded And so are the Orders of his Precepts Promises and penal Threats and the Conditions of his Promises and the order of his Precepts among themselves and of his Promises
How ill they bear the least contempt neglect or disrespect How abundantly they overvalue their own understandings and how wise they are in their own conceits and how hardly they will think ill of their most false or foolish apprehensions and how proudly they disdain the judgments of wiser men from whom if they had humility they might learn perhaps twenty years together and yet not reach the measure of their knowledge and what a strange difference there is in their judging of any case when it is anothers and when it is their own And among how few is the sin of flesh-pleasing sensuality mortified abundance take no notice of it because it is hid and can be daily exercised in a less disgraceful way If they be rich they can enjoy that which is their own and they can cleanlily do as Dives did Luke 16. and take their good things here Having enough laid up for many years they think they may take their case and eat drink and be merry without rebuke Luke 12.19 10. They that are the most zealous in strict opinions and modes of Worship can live as Sodom did in pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness and use meat for their lusts and make provision for the flesh to satisfie those lusts and yet never seem to themselves nor those about them to offend much less to do any thing that is grosly evil Ezâ—k 16.49 Psal 78.18 30. Rom. 13 13 14. They drink not till they are drunk they eat not more in quantity than others they labour as far as need compels them and this they think is very tollerable And because the Papists have turned the just subduing of the flesh into hurtful austerities or formal mockeries therefore they are the more hardened in their flesh pleasing way They take but that which they love and that which is their own and then they think that the fault is not great and what Christ meant by Dives his being cloathed in purple and silk and faring sumptuously every day they never truly understood Nor yet what he meaneth by the poor in spirit Matth. 5.3 which is not at least only or chiefly a sense of the want of grace but a spirit suited to a life of poverty contrary to the love of money and of fulness and luxury and pride When we are content with necessaries and eat and drink for health more than for pleasure or for that pleasure only which doth conduce to health and when we will be at no needless superfluous cost upon the 〈◊〉 but â—hâ—se the cheapest food and rayment which is sufficient to our lawful ends and use not our appetites and sense and fantasie to such delight and satisfaction as either increaseth lust or corrupteth the mind and hindereth it from spiritual duties and delights by hurtful delectation or diversion nor bestow that upon our selves which the poor about us need to supply their great necessities This is to be poor in spirit and this is the life of abstinence and mortification which these sensual professors will not learn Nay rather than their throats shall not be pleased if they be children in their Parents Families or Servants they will steal for it and â—â—ke that which their Parents and Masters they know do not consent to nor allow them And they are worse thieves than they that steal for hunger and meer necessity because they steal to satisfie their appetites and carnal lusts that they may fare better than their superiours would have them And yet perhaps be really conscientious and religious in many other points and never humbled for their fleshly minds their gluttony and thievery especially if they see others fare better than they and they quiet their consciences as the most ungodly do with putting a hansome name upon their sin and calling it taking and not stealing and eating and drinking and not fulness of bread or carnal gulosity Abundance of such instances of mens partiality in avoiding sin I must omit because it is so long a work 6. Yea in the inward exercise of Graces there are few that use them compleatly entirely and in order but they neglect one while they set themselves wholly about the exercise of another or perhaps use one against another Commonly they set themselves a great while upon nothing so much as labouring to affect their hearts with sorrow for sin and meltingly to weep in their confessions with some endeavours of a new life But the Love of God and the thankful sense of the mercy of Redemption and the rejoycing hopes of endless Glory are things which they take but little care about and when they are convinced of the errour of this partiality they next turn to some Antinomian whimsie under the pretence of valuing Free Grace and begin to give over perâ—ileâ—s 〈◊〉 and the care and watchfulness against sin and diligence in a holy fruitful life and say that they were long enough Legalâ—sts and knew not Free Grace but lookt all after doing and something in themselves and then they could have no peace but now they see their errour they will know nothing but Christ And thus that narrow foolish soul cannot use Repentance wiâ—hout neglecting Faith in Christ and cannot use Faith but they must neglect Repentance yea set Faith and Repentance Love and Obedience in good works like enemies or hindrances against each other They cannot know themselves and their sinfulnâ—ss without forgetting Christ and his righteousness And they cannot know Christ and his Love and Grace without laying by the knowledge or resistance of their sin They cannot magnifie Free Grace unless they may have none of it but lay by the use of it as to all the works of holiness because they must look at nothing in themselves They cannot magnifie Pardon and Justification unless they may make light of the sin and punishment which they deserve and which is pardoned and the charge and condemnation from which they are justified They cannot give God thanks for remitting their sin unless they may forbear confessing it and sorrowing for it They cannot take the Promise to be free which giveth Christ and pardon of sin if it have but this condition that they shall not reject him Nor can they call it the Gospel unless it leave them masterless and lawless whereas there is indeed no such thing as Faith without Repentance nor Repentance without Faith No love to Christ without the keeping of his Commandments nor no true keeping of the Commandments without Love No Free Grace without a gracious sanctified heart and life nor no gift of Christ and Justification but on the condition of a believing acceptance of the gift and yet no such believing but by Free Grace No Gospel without the Law of Christ and Nature and no mercy and peace but in a way of duty And yet such Bedlam Christians are among us that you may hear them in pangs of high conceited zeal insulting over the folly of one another and in no wiser language than if you
heard one lunatick person say I am for health and not for medicine and another I am for medicine and not for the taking of it and another I am for the Physick and not for the Physician and another I am for the Physician and not the Physick and another I am for the Physick but not for health Or as if they contended at their meats I am for meat but not for eating it and I am for putting it into my mouth but not for chewing it or I am for chewing it but not for swallowing it or I am for swallowing it but not for digesting it or I am for digesting it but not for eating it c. Thus is Christ divided among a sort of ignorant proud Professors and some are for his Sacrifice and some for his Intercession some for his Teaching and some for his Commands and some for his Promises some for his Blood and some for his Spirit some for his Word and some for his Ministers and his Church and when they have made this strange proficiency in wisdom every party claim to be this Church themselves or if they cannot deny others to be parts with them of the Mystical Church yet the true ordered Political disciplined Church is among them the matter of their claim and competition and one saith It is we and the other no but it is we and the Kitchin and the Cole-house and the Sellar go to Law to try which of them is the House Thus when they have divided Christs garments among them and pierced if not divided himself they quarrel rather than cast lots for his coat 7. I perceive this Treatise swelleth too big or else I might next shew you how partial men are in the sense of their dangers 8. And in the resisting of Temptations he that scapeth sensuality feareth not worldliness or he that feareth both yet falleth into Heresie or Schism and he that scapeth errours falleth into fleshly sins 9. And what partial regard we have of Gods mercies 10. And how partial we are as to our Teachers and good Books 11. And also about all the Ordinances of God and all the the helps and means of grace 12. And how partial we are about good works extolling one and sensless of another and about the opportunities of good In a word what lâ—me apprehensions we have of Religion when men are so far from setting all the parts together in a well-ordered frame that they can scarce forbear the dividing of every part into particles and must take the food of their souls as Physick even like Pills which they cannot get down unless they are exceeding small III. The Causes of this Calamity I must for brevity but name 1. The natural weakness of mans mind doth make him like a narrow-mouthed bottle that can take in but a little at once and so must be long in learning and receiving 2. The natural laziness and impatience of men will not give them leave to be at such long and painful studies as compleatness of knowledge doth require 3. The natural pride of mens hearts will not give them leave to continue so long in a humble sense of their emptiness and ignorance nor to spend so many years in learning as Disciples but it presently perswadeth them that their first apprehensions are clear and right and their knowledge very considerable already and they are as ready to dispute and censure the ignorance of their Teachers if not to teach others themselves as to learn 4. The poverty and labours of many allow them not leisure to search and study so long and seriously as may bring them to any comprehensive knowledge 5. The most are not so happy as to have judicious methodical and laborious Teachers who may possess them with right principles and methods but deliver them some truths with great defectiveness and disorder themselves and perhaps by their weakness tempt the people into pride when they see that they are almost as wise as they 6. Most men are corrupted by company and converse with ignorant eâ—roneous and self-conceited men and hearing others perhaps that are very zealous make something of nothing and make a great matter of a little one and extolling their own poor and lame conceits they learn also to think that they are something when they are nothing deceiving themselves Gal. 6.3 4. 7. Most Christians have lost the sense of the need and use of the true Ministerial Office as it consisteth in personal counsel and assistance besides the publick Teaching and most Ministers by neglecting it teach them to overlook it 8. Every man hath some seeming Interest in some one Opinion or Duty or Way above the rest and selfishness causeth him to reel that way that interest leadeth him 9. Education usually possesseth men with a greater regard of some one opinion duty way or party than of the rest 10. The reputation of some good men doth fix others upon some particular waies or notions of theirs above others 11. Present occasions and necessities sometime do urge us harder to some means and studies than to others especially for the avoiding of some present evil or easing of some present trouble and then the rest are almost laid by 12. Some Doctrines deeplier affect us in the hearing than others and then the thoughts run more on that to the neglect of many thing as great 13. Perhaps we have had special experience of some Truths and Duties or Sins more than others and then we set all our thoughts about those only 14. Usually we live with such as talk most of some one duty or against some one sin more than all the rest and this doth occasion our thoughts to run most in one stream and confine them by hearing and custom to a narrow channel 15. Some things in their own quality are more easie and near to us and more within the reach of sense And therefore as corporal things because of their sensibility and nearness do possess the minds of carnal men instead of things spiritual and unseen even so Paul and Apollo and Cephas this good Preacher and that good Book and this Opinion and that Church-society and this or that Ordinance do possess the minds of the more carnal narrow sort of Christians instead of the harmony of Christian truth and holy duty 16. Nature it self as corrupted is much more against some truths and against some duties internal and external than against others And then when those that it is less averse to are received men dwell on them and make a Religion of them wholly or too much without the rest As when some veins are stopped all the blood is turned into the rest or when one part of the mould is stopped up the metal all runneth into the rest and maketh a defective vessel Or when one part of the seal is filled up before it maketh a defective impression on the wax Therefore the duties of inward self-denial humility mortification and heavenliness are almost left out in the Religion
Dives in his purple and silk more than a Lazarus at his gates in rags They wish not too eagerly for so dangerous an exaltation from which they see so many terribly cast down They much more honour a poor Believer than a pompous sinner For in their eyes a vile person is contemned but they honour them that fear the Lord Psal 15.4 7. The high-minded are ashamed of low employments If they be seen doing such work as is accounted base or proper to poor inferiour persons they think they are dishonoured If the proud sort of the Pastors of the Church had been sent as Paul and the Apostles to travel about the world on foot and to preach the Gospel in their humble self-denying terms they would have said that this was an unsufferable drudgery and Christ must have provided more encouraging rewards of learning or else he should have been no Master of theirs Yea a servant that is proud will disdain the lowest works of your service as if it were a disgrace to stoop so low But the lowly do learn of Christ another lesson He stoopt to wash and wipe the feet of his Disciples to teach them what to do toward one another Not as the Pope doth once a year wash some poor mens feet by a Scenical ceremony For Piety and Charity are both turnâ—d into imagery and ceremony by Satan when he would destroy them but seriously to instruct his Ministers themselves what lowliness they must use towards one another and to all the flock Christ went on foot to preach the Gospel and so did his Apostles not to oblige us to do so when weakness doth forbid us nor to deny the benefit of a horse when we mâ—y have it but to teach us that neither Pride shouâ—d make us ashamed to go on foot nor lazyness make it seem intollerable when we are called to it When Christ would appear in state at Jerusalem he rode upon a borrowed Ass to fulfill the Prophecy Zech. 9.9 Behold thy King cometh unto thee meek and sitting upon an Ass Matth. 21.5 Paul refused not with other Preachers to labour at the trade of a Tent-maker Acts 18.3 And Timothy was not ashamed to bring him his cloak and parchments so great a Journey 2 Tim. 4.13 Nothing is avoided by the lowly at a shame but that which is displeasing to God and disagreeeble to his Christian duty But not that which he can call the service of God and which God accepteth and will reward 8. The high-minded are ashamed of the company and familiarity of the poor unless when they seek for applause by populariâ—y And they greatly affect the savour and company of the rich James 5.4 6. Therefore Solomon saith that the rich hath many friends Prov. 14.20 When the poor is hated of his neighbour But the lowly chuse to converse with the low For so did Christ who was our pattern and it is his Law Rom. 12.16 Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate Christ was not ashamed to call us brethren Heb 3.11 nor will he be ashamed so to call the least of his true Disciples before God and Angels at the dreadful day Matth. 25.40 28.10 Joh. 20.17 They are the most honourable company who are likest to Christ and are the wisest and the holiest and not those who are likest to his crucifiers and enemies and have their portion in this world 9. Pride is usually attended with vain curiosity curiosity in ornaments in fashions in distressings in attendance in furniture in rooms and in abundance of small inconsiderable circumstances The proud who go this lower way do make a great matter of so many such trifles that their minds have no room for the greatest things They do not only trouble themselves with many things while the one thing needful is the more neglected Luke 10.42 but all about them must be partakers of the trouble What abundance of trades doth Pride maintain and how many are continually at work to serve it But the lowly who mind not vain ostentation do save themselves all this unprofitable pains They can avoid undecent sordidness at a cheaper rate than by proud curiosity They are accurate and curious in greater matters in doing good in securing their salvation in escaping sin and in pleasing God which will one day prove a wiser curiosity than to be curious in courtship and complements and dressings and other impertinent childish things Though the least just decency is not to be neglected in its place it is foolish pride to prefer it before things of importance and necessity Mans mind and time are not sufficient for all things Somewhat must be omitted and its wisdom which chuseth to omit the least and folly which chuseth to omit the greatest As in Learning they prove the soundest Scholars who spend their studies on the most excellent and useful parts of learning whilst those that too much study things superfluous are ever empty of necessary knowledge It is so also in the actions of our lives As Paul so vehemently condemneth vain jangling about unnecessary and unedifying questions though yet truth was not contemptible in those matters so also vain curiosity and unedifying diligence though about things not altogether contemptible is but the perilous diversion of the mind from greater things 1 Tim. 1.6 7 c. 10. The high-minded cannot endure to be beholden unless necessity or covetousness prevail against their Pride But they would have all others beholden to them that they may seem as petty Deities in the world O how it puffeth them up to have the people depend upon them and acknowledge them for their benefactors and to have crouded sacrifices of thanks and praise to be offered them as they go about the streets If they were accounted such as the world could not live nor be happy without them as being the most necessary parts or pillars thereof nothing could more content their humour But the lowly mind desireth rather to do good than to be known to do it And it is not mens unthankfulness that will take him off because it is not their thanks which is his reward He would be as like God as he can in doing good but not for his own glory but for Gods As he is Gods Steward it is with God that he keepeth reckoning and if his accounts will pass with him he hath enough And if God will have him to need the help of others he is not too stout to seek and be beholden Though every ingenious man should value his freedom from the servitude of man 1 Cor. 7.23 and if he can be free should chuse it rather vers 21. And the borrower is a servant to the lender Prov. 22.7 And we may say with him in Luke 16.3 To beg I am ashamed Yet here humility will make us stoop when God requireth it Christ himself refused not to be a Receiver Luke 8.3 No nor to ask a draught of water John 4. And poverty is oft a great mercy
dwelleth the Love of God in him When the poor we shall have alwaies with us that we may alwaies have exercise for our love And he that glutteth his own flesh to the full and giveth the poor but the leavings of his lust if it were a thousand pound a year that he giveth must look for small reward from God however he may do good to others More particular Directions may be as followeth Direct 1. Understand well how much the flâ—sh in this lapsâ—d state is our enemy and how much gulosity doth strengthen it against us and how much of the work of grace lyeth in resisting and overcoming it and what need we have to serve the Spirit and not to be helpers of the flesh And the true consideration of these things may do much Gal. 5.17 18 19 22 23. Rom. 8.6 7 8 9 10 13. Direct 2. Set your selves to the work of God according to your several places and live not idly And then mark what helpeth or hindereth you in your work If you play not the loitering hypocrites but make your duties the serious business of all your lives you will quickly find how inconsistent a bruitish appetite and a full belly and a curious costly and time-wasting pampering of the flesh is with such a Christian life Direct 3. Study well the life of Christ and the example of the ancient Saints Remember what dyet was in use with Abraham Isaac and Jacob with the Apostles and holiest servants of Christ And that it was Solomon the most voluptuous King of Israel that was told by his Mother that it is not for Kings to drink wine but for them that are of a sorrowful heart And that the description of the luxurious then was riotous eaters of flesh Prov. 31.5 23.20 And that it was the mark of fleshly Hereticks to feast themselves without fear Jude 12. And that they were destroyed by Gods wrath though they had their desire who murmured for want of flesh after many years abstinence in a wilderness and it 's called Asking meat for their lust Psal 78.18 I doubt many of our servants now would be discontented and think their bellies too hardly used if they had no better than the milk and honey of the Land of Promise yea or the Onions and flesh-pots of Egypt Direct 4. Think what a base and swinish kind of sin it is to be a slave to ones guts or appetite And how far it is below not only a Christian but a man and what a shame to humane nature Direct 5. Look often to the grave and observe those skulls into which once the pleasant meats and drinks were put and those jaws that were so oft employed in grinding for the belly And remember how quickly this will be your case and think then whether such a carkass deserve so much care and cost and curiosity to the neglect and danger of an immortal soul Direct 6. Lay a constant Law upon your appetite and use it not to be pleased without cause and benefit but use it to a wholesome but not a full a costly a curious or a delicious food And use will make intemperance to be loathsome to you and temperance to be sweet Direct 7. Learn so much reason as to know truly what is most conducible to your health both for quantity and quality and mark what diseases and deaths are usually caused by excess It is more reasonable to be temperate for prevention of diseases than under the power and feeling of them when pain and sickness force you to it whether you will or not If you will not obey God so carefully as your Physician yet obey the preventing counsels of your Physician before you need his curing counsel Direct 8. Neglect not the manly and the sacred delights which God alloweth I mean the pleasures of honest labours and of your calling and of reading and knowledge of meditation and prayer and of a well ordered soul and life and of the certain hopes of endless glory Live upon these and you will easily spare the fleshly pleasures of a Swine CHAP. XVII How to conquer sloth and idleness by the Life of Faith THE third sin of Sodom and of abused Prosperity is Idleness Ezek. 16.49 Concerning which I shall first tell you the nature and signs of it and then the evil of it and then give you more particular Directions against it But this also but briefly because I have done it more largely in my Christian Directory I. That you may know who are guilty of this sin and who not I shall first premise these Propositions 1. Nothing but disability will excuse any one from the ordinary labours of a lawful calling Riches or honours will excuse none They are the subjects of God as well as others that have less And he that hath most hath most to use and most to answer for To whom men commit much of them they require the more Luke 12.48 19.23 Greatness and wealth is so far from excusing the forbearance of a calling that it will not allow any one the omission of one hours labour and diligence in his calling If God give the Rich more wages than others it 's unreasonable to think that therefore they may do less work 2. Yet when meer necessity compelleth the poor to labour more than else they were obliged to do even to the detriment of their health or shortening of Gods Worship the rich are not bound therefore to imitate them and to incurr the same inconveniencies because they have not the same necessities As in their dyet the rich is not allowed to take any more for quantity or quality than is truly for their good any more than the poor but they are not bound to live as those poor do who want that either for quantity or quality which is truly for their good so is it also in this case of labouring 3. The labours of every ones calling must be the ordinary business of his life and not a little now and then instead of a recreation If it be a mans calling he must be constant and laborious in it 4. Yea no interposed recreation or idleness is lawful but that which either is necessitated by disability or that which is needfull to fit the mind or body for its work As whetting to the mower 5. All mens callings tye them not constantly to one kind of labour but some may be put to vary their employments every day as poor men that live by going on errands and doing other mens business under several Masters several waies And as many rich people whose occasions of doing good may often vary 6. The rich and honourable are not bound to the same kind of labour as the poor A Magistrate or Pastor is not bound to follow the Plow nay he is bound not to do it ordinarily lest he neglect his proper and greater work Some mens labours are with the hand and some mens with the head 7. Every man should chuse that calling which is most
agreeable to his mind and body Some are strong and some are weak some are of quick wits and some are dull All should be designed to that which they are fittest for 8. Every one should chuse that calling if he be fit for it in which he may be most serviceable to God for the doing of the greatest good in the world and not that in which he may have most ease or wealth or honour God and the publick good must be our chiefest ends in the choice 9. And in the labours of our calling the getting of riches must never be our principal end But we must labour to do the most publick good and to please God by living in obedience to his commands 10. Yet every man must desire the success of his labour and the blessing of God on it and may continue his work as best tendeth to success And though we may not labour to be rich Prov. 23.4 as our principal end yet we must not be formal in our callings nor think that God is delighted in our meer toil to see men fill a bottomless vessel but we must endeavour after the most successful way and pray for a just prosperity of our labours and when God doth prosper us with wealth we must take it thankfully though with fear and use it to his service and do all the good with it that we can 1 Cor. 16.2 Lay by as God hath prospered every man Ephes 4.28 Let him work with his hands the thing that is good that he may have to give to him that needeth James 1.9 Let the brother of low degree rejoyce in that he is exalted 11. The lowness of a mans calling or baseness of his employment will not allow him to be negligent or weary of it or uncomfortable in it Seeing God must be obeyed in the lowest services as well as in the highest and will reward men according to their faithful labour and not according to the dignity of their place And indeed no service should be accounted low and base which is sincerely done for so great and high a Master and hath the promise of so glorious a reward Col. 3.23 24. 12. The greater and more excellent any mans work and calling is his idleness and neligence is the greater sin It is bad in a Plow-man or any day-labourer but it is far worse in a Minister of the Gospel or a Magistrate Because they wrong many and that in the greatest things and violate the greatest trust from God Christ biddeth us pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth Labourers into his harvest Luke 10.27 and not proud covetous idle drones that would have honour only for their wealth and titles And he saith that the Labourer is worthy of his hire but not the loiterer Among the Elders that rule the Church it is especially the labourers in the word and doctrine that are worthy of double honour Dr. Hammond noteth on 1 Thes 5.12 that the Bishops whom they are required to know and honour were those that laboured among them and were over them in the Lord and admonished them and that it was for their works sake that they were to esteem them very highly in love The highest title that ever was put on Pastors was to be Labourers together with God 1 Cor. 3.9 And the calling of Magistrates also requireth no small diligence Jethro perswadeth Moses to take helpers not that he might himself be idle but lest he should wear away himself with doing more than he could undergo Exod. 18.18 So the calling of a Schoolmaster and of Parents and Masters of families who have rational souls to instruct and govern requireth a special diligence And negligence in such is a greater sin than in him that neglecteth sheep or horses So also it is a great sin in a Physician because he doth neglect mens lives and in a Lawyer when by sloth he destroyeth mens estates The greatness of the trust must greaten mens care 13. He that hath hired his labour to another as a Servant a Lawyer a Physician is guilty of a thievish fraud if he give him not that which he hath paid for Owe nothing to any man but love Rom. 13. Hired labour is a debt that must be paid 14. Religious duties will not excuse idleness nor negligence in our callings but oblige us to it the more nor will any bodily calling excuse us from Religious duties but both must take their place in their seasons and due proportions Qâ—est 1. But what if a man can live without labour may not be forbear who needeth it not Answ No because he is nevertheless a subject of God who doth command it and a member of the Common-wealth which needeth it Quest 2. What if I were not brought up to labour am I bound to use it Answ Yes you must yet learn to do your duty and repent and ask pardon for living so long in sinful idleness What if you had not been brought up to pray or to read or to any needful trade or ornament of life What if your Parents had never taught you to speak Is it not your duty therefore to learn it when you are at age rather than not at all Qu. 3. But what if I find that it hurteth my body to labour may I not forbear Answ If it so hurt you that you are unable to do it there is no remedy Necessity hath no Law Or if one sort of labour hurt you when you can take up another in which you may be as serviceable to the Common-wealth you may chuse that to which your strength is suitable But if you think that every sudden pain or weariness is a sufficient excuse or that some real hurt will warrant you in an idle life you may as well think that your servant and your Horse or Oxe may cease all their labour for you when they are weary or that your candle should not burn nor your knife be used in cutting because that use consumeth them Quest 4. What if I find that worldly business doth hinder me in the service of God I cannot pray or read or meditate so much Answ The labours of your callings are part of the service of God He hath set you both to do and you must do both that is both spiritual and corporal work And to quarrel with either is to quarrel against God who hath appointed them Quest 5. But is it not worldliness when we follow worldly business without any need Answ 1. Yes if you do it only from the love of the world and with a worldly mind But not when you do it in obedience to God and with a heavenly mind 2. He cannot be said to have no need who hath a body that needeth it or liveth in Common-wealth that needeth it and is a subject to God who commandeth it Quest 6. But what if I find by constant experince that my soul is more worldly after worldly business and more cold and alienated from God Answ What if you should
his body is a little weary his mind is so too and suffereth the weariness of the body to prevail Because the flesh is King within them Nay a slothful mind doth oft begin and they are weary to look upon their work or to think of it before it hath wearyed the body at all And what they do they do unwillingly because they are in love with idleness Mal. 1.13 But the lowly and laborious are in love with diligence and work and therefore though they cannot avoid the wearyness of the body their willing minds will carry on the body as far as it can well go The diligent woman worketh willingly with her hands her candle goeth not out by night c. Prov. 31.13 c. Servants must do service with good will as to the Lord Ephes 6.7 If Ministers preach and labour willingly they have a reward 1 Cor. 9.17 But not if they are only driven on by necessity and the fear of woe 1 Pet. 5.2 What shall we do willingly if not our duties He that sineth willingly and serveth God and followeth his labour unwilingly shall be rewarded according to his will 6. The idle Sodomite doth love and chuse that kind of life which is easiest and hath least work to be done This is the chief provision by which he fulfilleth his fleshly lust An idle servant thinketh that the best place in which he shall have most ease and fulness An idle Parent will cast all the burden of his childrens teaching upon the Schoolmaster and the Pastor An idle Minister thinketh himself best where he may have no more labour than what tendeth to his publick applause and when he hath the most wealth and honour and least to do he taketh that to be the flourishing prosperity of the Church And indeed if our calling were like the souldiers to kill men and not liker the Surgeons to cure them we might think it is the best time when we have least employment But the faithful servant will be most thankful for that state of life in which he doth most good And as he taketh doing good to be the surest way of getting and receiving so he taketh the good of another as his own and anothers necessity is his necessity He knoweth that he is best who is likest unto God and that is he that is the most abundant in love and doing good Like the Sun that never resteth from moving or giving light and heat The running spring is pure when the standing water is muddy and corrupt The cessation of motion quickly mortifieth the blood He that said as to works of charity Be not weary of well doing for in due time you shall reap if you faint not Gal. 6.9 hath said so too as to our bodily labour in our common callings in the world 2 Thes 3.13 I know that a servant may be glad of a place where he is not oppressed with unreasonable labour and where he hath competent time for the learning of Gods Word And a poor man may be glad when he is freed from necessity of doing that which is to his hurt But otherwise no man but a fleshly bruit will wish or contrive for a life of idleness Object Is it not said Blessed are the dead for they rest from their labours Rev. 14.13 Ans True but mark that their works follow them And what are the works which follow you And note that it is not work or duty that they shall rest from For they rest not crying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty c. But it is only their labours that is the painful sort of work and suffering proper to this sinful life The blessed indeed are freed in Heaven from this because they were not freed 〈◊〉 it on earth as the ungodly and slothful servant are 7. Lastly Idleness is seen by the work that is undone Pro. 24.30 The sluggards Vineyard is overgrown with weeds If your souls be unrenewed and your assurance of salvation and evidences yet to get and few the better for you in the world and you are yet unready for death and judgment you give too full a proof of idleness The diligent woman Prov. 31.16 c. could shew her labours in her treasures her Vineyard the cloathing and provisions of her family c. shew yours by the good which you have done in the world and by the preparation of your souls for a better world Let every man prove his own work that he may have rejoycing in himself alone and not in another Gal. 6.3 4. What case are your children in Are they taught or untaught What case is your soul in your fruit must judge you III. The mischiefs of this Sodomitical Idleness and the reasons against it are briefly these 1. It is contrary to the active nature of mans soul which in activity exceedeth the fire it self It is as natural for a soul to be active as for a stone or clod of earth to lie still And this active nature animateth the passive body to move it and use it in it's proper work And should this heavenly fire be imprisoned in the body which it should command and move Psal 104.23 Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour till the evening 2. It is contrary to the common course of nature Doth the Sun shine for you as well as for others or doth it not Doth all the frame of nature continue in its course the air the waters the summer and winter for you as well as for others or not If not then you take not your selves beholden to God for them And if you have no use for the Sun and other creatures you have no use for life for by them you live But if yea then what is it that they serve you for Did God ever frame you so glorious a retinuue to attend you only to sleep and laugh and play and to be idle what is all this for no higher an end or rather do you not by your idleness forfeit life and all these helps and maintainers of your lives 3. It is an unthankful reproach and blasphemy against the God of Nature yea and against the Lord your Redeemer to think that the wise Almighty God did make so noble a thing as a soul and place it in so curious an engine as the body where spirits and blood and heart and lungs are never idle but in constant motion and that he hath appointed us so glorious a retinue as aforesaid and all this to do nothing with or worse than nothing To sleep and rise and dress your selves and talk and eat and drink to tell men only that you are not dead lest they should mistake and bury you alive what is it but to put a scorn on your Creator and Redeemer to live as if he had created and redeemed you for no better and nobler ends than these 4. You do as it were pray for death or provoke God to take away your lives For if they be good for nothing else but idleness
and not to our own commodity in the world 2. No man can deny this principle but by setting up natural self-love or appetite and making the rational stoop to that which would infer as well that we may love our selves better than God himself and that our sense is nobler than our reason and must rule it 3. We find our own reason tell us much more of our duty in this than our corrupted wills do follow The best way therefore to discern the truth is to treat with reason alone and leave out the will till we have dispatcht with reason And you will find that the common light of nature justifieth this Law of God 1. He that would not confess that it is better he had no being than that there were no God or no world besides him is a monster of selfishness And if a man say never so much I cannot do so yet while he confesseth that this should be his desire it sufficeth to the decision of our present case 2. He that will not confess that it is better that he himself should die than all the Church of Christ or the whole Kingdom die is unreasonably selfish in the eyes of all impartial men The gallant Romans and Athenians had learnt it as one of their plainest greatest Lessons to prefer their Country before their lives And is not that to love their Countryes better than themselves 3. For the same reason many of them saw that it was the duty of a good subject or a gallant souldier to save the life of his King or General with the loss of his own Because their lives were of more publick utility And the ground of all this was these natural verities The best should be best loved Goodness must be measured by a higher rule than personal self-interest Multitudes are better than one c. 4. All men acknowledge that a man of eminent Learning Piety Wisdom and Vsefulness to the Church or World should be loved and preserved rather than a wicked sottish worthless child of our own Yea God himself requireth that Parents procure the death of their own children by publick Justice if they be obstinately wicked Deut. 21. 5. The same Reasons plainly infer that I ought rather to desire the life of a much more worthy useful instrument for the Church and State than my own and so to love a better man better than my self if I be acquainted sufficiently with his goodness And if this be all so sure and plain hence observe 1. How much humane nature is corrupted Alas how rare is this equal Love 2. How few true Christians are and how defective and imperfect grace is in the best Alas how strange are many Christians to the extent of this duty and how far are we all from practising it in any eminent degree 3. Wherein it is that natures corruption most consisteth and what is the chief part of the nature and work of sanctifying grace and reformation 4. Whence come all the oppressions injuries persecutions frauds and cruelties on the earth For want of loving mens neighbours as themselves Otherwise how tenderly would they handle one another How easily would they pardon wrongs How patiently would they bear the dissent of honest upright Christians who cannot force their judgments to be of other mens mould and size How apt would men be to suspect their own understandings of weakness presumption or errour rather than to rave with the fury of the Dragon against all others who think them to be mistaken How safely and quietly might we live by them in the world if they loved their neighbours as themselves I do not say now How plentiful would men be in doing good to others I am but pleading a lower cause How seldom they would be in doing hurt But alas miserable Brittain It was in thee that one extraordinary Emperour Alexander Sevetus was betrayed and murdered who made that Christian precept his Motto and wrote it on his doors and books and goods Do as you would be done by In thee it is that Love hath been beheaded while nothing hath been more acknowledged and professed If Love be treacherous hurtful envious scandalous ensnaring and plotting for mens destruction If Love teach proud and vicious sots to take themselves for Deities and Oracles and all for Vermine that must be hunted unto death who bow not to their carnal erroneous conceits and do not with the readiest prostitute consciences serve their carnal interests and ends If Love be known by reviling those that are much better than our selves and stigmatizing the faithfullest servants of Christ with the most odious character that lyes can utter If it was Love that called Paul a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and represented Christ as an enemy to Caesar and his followers as the filth and off-scouring of the earth then happy age in which we live and happy they that are possessed with the proud and factious spirit But if all be otherwise alas where be they and how few that love their neighbours or betters as themselves 5. You see here what a plague sin is to the earth and how great a punishment may I call it or rather a misery to the sinner and to the world 6. And you see how joyful and heavenly a life we should live if we did but follow Gods commands And what a felicity Love it self is to the soul 7. And you see by what measure to try mens spirits and to know who are the best among all the pretenders to goodness in the world Certainly not the most censorious contemptuous backbiters and cruel that seek to make all odious that are not for their interest But those that most abound in Love which Faith it self is given to produce Object All this is true but still we find it a thing impossible to love our neighbour equally with our selves Can you teach us how to do it Answ It is that I have been teaching you in the ten Directions before set down But it is this which I have reserved to the close that must do the work indeed and without it nothing else will do it Direct 11. Make it the work of all your lives by Faith in Christ to bring up your souls to the unfeigned Love of God and then it will be done For then you will love God above all and love God in all and love your selves and your neighbours principally for God Then Gods Image and Glory and Will will be Goodness or Amiableness in your eyes and not carnal pleasure honour or commodity And then it will be easie to you to love that most which hath most of God You will then easily see the reason of this seeming Paradox and that the contrary is most unreasonable You will then be as Timothy who had a natural Love to others as others have to themselves and who sought the things of Jesus Christ when all others even the best Ministers too much sought their own Phil. 2.20 21. You