first Charity p. 178.179 c. secondly Justice p. 190.191 c. thirdly Peaceableness p. 201.202 c. fourthly Modesty fifthly Courtesy p. 209.210 c. SECT IV. Containing some Motives and Considerations to persuade men to the Practice of these Vertues first the Suitableness of them to our present State and Relation p. 222.223 c. secondly the Dignity of them p. 226.227 c. thirdly the Freedom and Liberty of them p. 229.230 c. fourthly the Pleasure of them p. 234.235 c. fifthly the Ease and Repose of them p. 238.239 c. sixthly the absolute Necessity of them p. 242.243 c. CHAP. IV. Concerning the Instrumental Duties of the Christian Life which is the second sort of Means necessary to our obtaining of Heaven as they are necessary to our acquiring and Perfecting the Christian Vertues in order to the better Distribution of which Man is considered under a threefold Respect to the Christian Life first as entering into it secondly as actually ingaged in it thirdly as Growing on to Perfection by Perseverance in it to one of which three States these Instrumental Duties of Christianity belong p. 247.248 c. SECT I. Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us in our Entrance in the Christian life which are first Faith p. 250.251 secondly Consideration p. 254.255 c. thirdly a deep and through Conviction of our need of a Mediator p. 259.260 c. fourthly a deep Sorrow Shame and Remorse for our past Iniquities p. 268.269 c. fifthly earnest Prayer for divine Assistance p. 271 272 c. sixthly a serious and solemn Resolution of Amendment p. 275.276 c. SECT II. Containing certain Motives to ingage men to the Practice of these Duties first the vast Necessity of our entering into the Christian life one time or other p. 281.282 secondly the Great Security and Advantage of our entring upon it now p. 284.285 c. thirdly the necessary Dependence of the final Success upon the well-beginning of it p. 288.289 c. fourthly that when once 't is well begun the main Difficulty of it is over p. 291.292 c. SECT III. Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us when we are actually ingaged in the Christian life p. 298 c. in General it is necessary that we should frequently repeat the Duties of our Entrance p. 299.300 but more particularly first that we should arm our selves with Patience and Courage p. 304.305 c. secondly that we should propose to our selves the best Examples p. 308.309 thirdly that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our Spiritual Guides p. 216.317 c. fourthly that as often as we can we should actually intend and aim at God in the Course of our Lives and Actions p. 323.324 c. fifthly that we should possess our Minds with an awful Apprehension of Gods Presence with and Inspection over us p. 333.334 c. sixthly that we should frequenty examine and review our own Actions p. 343.344 c. seventhly that we should be very watchful and circumspect p. 348.349 c. eighthly that we should be diligent and industrious in our Particular Callings p. 353.354 c. ninthly that we should endeavour to keep up a constant Chearfulness of Spirit in Religion p. 365.366 c. tenthly that we should maintain in our minds a constant Sense and Expectation of Heaven p. 372.373 c. eleventhly that we should live in the frequent Vse of the publick Ordinances and Institutions of our Religion p. 377.378 SECT IV. Containing certain Motives to animate men against the Difficulties of these Duties first that whatsoever Difficulty there is in them we may thank our selves for it p. 388.389 c. secondly that in the Course of our Sin there is a great deal of Difficulty as well as in these Duties p. 391.392 c. Thirdly that how great soever the Difficulty be it must be undergon or that which is much more intolerable p. 394.395 fourthly that how difficult soever they may be the Grace of God will render them possible to us if we be not wanting to our selves p. 396.397 fifthly that though they are difficult yet they are fairly consistent with all our other necessary Occasions p. 400.401 sixthly that the Difficulty is such as will abate and wear off by degrees p. 404.405 seventhly that there is a world of present Peace and Satisfaction intermingled with the difficulties p. 407.408 eighthly that the difficulty is abundantly compensated by the Reward of them p. 411.412 SECT V Containing those Instrumental Duties which are necessary for us in order to our improving towards Perfection by Perseverance in the Christian life which are first that while we stand we should not be over-confident of our selves but keep a Jealous eye upon the Weakness and Inconstancy of our own natures p. 417.418 secondly that if at any time we wilfully fall we should immediatly arise again by Repentance p. 420.421 thirdly that for the future we should indeavor to withdraw our Affections from the Temptations of the world and especially from those which were the Occasion of our Fall p. 424.425 fourthly that we should curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our timely correcting and reforming them p. 429.430 c. fifthly that we should as far as lawfully we can live in the Communion of the Church whereof we are members p. 434.435 c. sixthly that we should not stint our Progress in Religion out of a fond Opinion that we are good enough already to any determinate Degrees or Measures of Goodness p. 458.459 c. seventhly that we should frequently entertain our selves with the Prospect of our Mortality 462.463 eighthly that to put our selves into a good Posture of Dying we should discharge our Consciences of all the Reliques and Remains of our past Guilts p. 467.468 c. ninthly that to Compensate so far as we are able for those Guilts we should take care to Redeem the Time we have formerly mispent in sinful Courses by being doubly diligent in the Exercise of all the contrary Vertues p. 471.472 c. tenthly that we should labour after a rational and well-grounded Assurance p. 476.477 c. SECT VI Containing certain Motives to persuade men to the Practice of these duties of Perseverance which are all deduc'd from the Consideration of the urgent Necessity of our final Perseverance as first unless we immediatly recover when we have wilfully relapsed we shall go much faster back than ever we went forward p. 487.488 c. secondly if after we have made some Progress in Religion we Totally Relapse we shall thereby forfeit the Fruit of all our past Labour p. 490.491 c. thirdly we shall forfeit the Fruit of it after we have undergone the greatest Difficulty of it p. 494.495 c. fourthly we shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but render our Recovery more hazardous p. 497.498 c.
imploy'd my best Thoughts and Skill about it and if after this I have any where wronged or misrepresented it it is more my Vnhappiness than my Fault Perhaps it may be thought that in the first three Chapters I have discours'd more speculatively than 't is fit in a Book that is design'd for common Use and Edification but it may be when the Reader hath considered the Nature of the Arguments I have there handled and how necessarily they fall in with my Design he will be convinc'd that 't was unavoidable And yet I doubt not but with a little Diligence and Attention of mind the plainest Reader may be able to comprehend the main Reason and Evidence of what I drive at IN the first place I thought 't would be necessary in treating of the Christian Life to give some Account of the blessed End it refers to that so from the Nature of that we might be the better able to judg of the Necessity and Vsefulness of those Means which Christianity prescribes in order to it And this I have indeavoured in the first Chapter where I have only so far explained the Nature of the heavenly State and Felicities as was necessary to light and conduct us through the ensuing Design In the second place I judg'd it would be no less expedient to give some general Account of what kinds of Means are necessary to our obtaining this End that so we might be convinc'd how requisite both the principal and instrumental Parts of the Christian Life are to our everlasting Happiness And this I have attempted in the second Chapter wherein from the Consideration of the vast Distance there is between the pure and blessed State of Heaven and this corrupt and degenerate State of Human Nature I have indeavoured to shew that 't is not only necessary for us to practise and acquire those Christian Vertues in the perfection whereof the heavenly Bliss consists but that to inable us to practise acquire and improve them there are sundry other instrumental Duties indispensably necessary which Duties as I have there proved are of no other Vse or Significancy in Religion than as they are Means of Vertue and Piety AND having thus distributed the Means into their proper Kinds and Order I have in the third Chapter treated largely of the first Kind to wit the Practice of the Christian Vertues in which I confess I have neither handled the particular Vertues in their full Extent and Latitude nor inforc'd them with all their moral Reasons that being done already to excellent purpose in those two incomparable Treatises of Holy Living and Dying and of the whole Duty of Man Nor could I have done it without swelling this Discourse which is large enough already into a Volume too large for common Use. And indeed all that was necessary to my Purpose was only so far to explain the Nature of each particular Vertue as that the Reader might thereby understand what is meant by them but that which most concern'd me in pursuance of my main Design was to prove that the Practice of every Vertue is an essential Part of the Christian Life and a necessary Means to the blessed End of it And accordingly as I have shewn from the express Commands of our Religion our indispensible Obligation to practise every Vertue so I have indeavoured to shew how in the Practice of it we do naturally grow up to the heavenly State as on the contrary how in the course of a sinful Life we do by a necessary Efficiency gradually sink our selves into the State of the Damned For I have proved at large that there is something of Heaven and Hell in the very Nature of each particular Virtue and Vice and that in the perfection of these two opposite Qualities consists the main Happiness and Misery of those two opposite States From whence it will necessarily follow that as in the Practice of the one or t'other we grow more virtuous or vicious so proportionably we rise up towards Heaven or sink down towards Hell by a fatal Tendency of Nature The Truth of which is not only acknowledged by the generality of Christian Writers but also by the best and wisest of the Heathen Philosophers though this I think is the first Attempt that hath been made to derive the Heavenly and the Hellish States from the nature of the particular Virtues and Vices I pray God that what I have said may but ingage some more skilful Pen in the Prosecution of this noble Argument For I know nothing in the World that can be more effectual to ingage men to be substantially Religious to take them off from Hypocrisie and Formality from all presumptuous Hopes and false Dependencies than their being throughly convinc'd of this Truth that the eternal Happiness or Misery of Souls is founded in their Vertue or Vice and that there is as inseparable a Connexion between Grace and Glory Sin and Hell as there is between Fire and Heat Frost and Cold or any other necessary Cause and its Effect For if they were but throughly persuaded of this they would easily discern what wretched Non-sense it is to think of going to Heaven or escaping Hell whilst they continue in any wilful Course of Disobedience to the Laws of Vertue HAVING thus treated at large of the first Sort of Means by which the End of our Christian Life is to be obtained I proceed in the fourth Chapter which is the largest of all to give an Account of the second viz. the Instrumental Duties of Christianity which are injoin'd us as Means subservient to our Practice Acquisition and Improvement of those Heavenly Vertues in the perfection whereof our Chief Happiness consists And for the more distinct handling of these I have considered men under a Threefold State with respect to the Christian Life First as entering into it Secondly as actually ingaged in it Thirdly as perfecting and improving themselves by Perseverance in it to each of which I have appropriated such of the instrumental Duties as I conceived did more especially belong to them 'T is true some of the Duties here treated of are not purely instrumental but of a mixt Nature such as Faith Prayer actual Dedication of our good Works to God c. which are essential Parts of Divine Worship and as such do belong to those Divine Vertues the Perfection wherof makes a Principal Part of the everlasting Happiness of Souls But here I have considered them only as Means and Instruments in the Use of which we are to acquire and perfect those Beatifical Vertues And of this sort of Means I do not remember any one Particular recommended in holy Scripture but what hath been here treated of Upon some indeed I have insisted much more briefly than upon others because I find them already largely accounted for in other practical Books and especially in those two excellent Treatises above-named but of those which they either cursorily touch or take no notice at all I thought my self obliged
to give a larger Account FROM the whole I would recommend to the pious Reader the Consideration of the admirable Structure and Contrivance of the Practical Part of Christianity which having proposed to us an End so great and sublime and so highly worthy of our most vigorous prosecutions hath also furnish'd us with such choice and effectual Means of all sorts to attain it The consideration of which would be in itself a great Inducement to me to believe Christianity a Divine Religion though I were utterly unacquainted with its External Evidence and Motives of Credibility For it can never enter into my Head that such a rare and exquisite Contrivance to make men good and happy could ever owe its Original to the mere invention of a Carpenters Son and a company of illiterate Fishermen Especially considering how far it excels the Moral Precepts even of those divine Philosophers who believ'd the future State of a blessed Immortality and exerciz'd their best Wit in prescribing Rules to guide and direct men thither AND having given this large Account of the instrumental Duties of the Christian Life and also inforc'd the several Divisions of them with proper Arguments and Motives I thought fit to add a fifth Chapter wherein I have given some Rules for the more profitable reading of this practical Discourse and also some general Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with certain Forms of private Devotion fitted for each State In which I have supposed what I doubt is a very deplorable Truth viz. that the Generality of Christians after their Initiation by Baptism into the Publick profession of Christianity are so unhappy as to be seduc'd either through bad Example or Education into a vicious State of Life and that consequently from thence they must take their first start into the through Practice of Christianity Not that I make the least doubt but that there are a great many excellent Christians who by the Blessing of God upon their pious Education have been secur'd from this Calamity and trained up from their Infancy under a prevailing Sense of God and Religion and therefore for such as these as there is no need of that solemn method of Repentance prescribed in the first Section of the fourth Chapter so neither is there of those first penitential Prayers in this fifth Chapter which are accomodated to that State For these persons have long since been actually ingaged in the Christian Life and as 't is to be supposed have made considerable Improvements in it and therefore as they are only concerned in the Duties of the second and third States of the Christian Life so they are only to use the Prayers which are fitted to those States which with some variation of those phrases which suppose the past Course of our Life to have been vicious they may easily accommodate to their own Condition But the Design of this Discourse is not only to conduct them onwards in their Way who have already entered upon the Christian Life but also to reduce those to it who have been so unhappy as to wander into vicious Courses or rather though it serves both Purposes 't is wholly designed for the same persons viz. to seek and bring back those lost Sheep who have straid from the Paths of Christian Piety and Vertue and then to lead them on through all the intermediate Stages to the happy State of immortal Pleasures at the end of them And now if what hath been said should by the Blessing of God obtain its designed Effect upon any person I ask no other Requital for all the Pains it hath cost me but his earnest Prayers to God for me that after my best Endeavours to guide and direct him to Heaven I may not fall short of it my self THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. COncerning the Ultimate End of the Christian Life the Necessity of explaining what it is in order to our understanding the Christian Life Page 1. that Heaven is the End of it p. 2.3 c. that Heaven and Gods Glory are the same thing p. 5.6 what kind of Happiness Heaven implies with a general Account of the Happiness of Rest and the Happiness of Motion shewing that Heaven includes both but consists principally of the latter p. 7.8 c. that the Happiness of a Man consists in the vigorous Motion of his Vnderstanding and Will towards suitable Objects p. 11.12 and chiefly in the Knowledge and Choice of God p. 12.13 c. and also in the Knowledge and Choice of those that are most like him p. 21.22 c. the Glory of the Place p. 25.26 the Eternity of the Enjoyment p. 26.27 two Inferences from the whole p. 27.28 c. CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which the End of the Christian Life is to be obtained that the Means must be more and greater than what was necessary to the first End of man viz. the Enjoyment of an earthly Paradice p. 33.34 c. that the great Distance of man from Heaven in his degenerate State creates a Necessity of many more Means than otherwise would be needful p. 35.36 c. two Kinds of Means necessary to our attainment of Heaven viz. the Practice of the Vertues of Christianity and the Vse of the instrumental Duties of Christianity p. 38.39 c. that the instrumental Duties of Christianity conduce no farther to our Happiness than as they are Means of Vertue proved in four particulars p. 42.43 c. CHAP. III. Concerning the Proximate Means of attaining Heaven viz. the Practice of the Christian Vertues shewing what Vertues this kind of Means consists of and how much every Vertue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven A distribution of the Christian Vertues into Humane Divine Social p. 57.58 SECT I. Concerning the Humane Vertues shewing that from the Constitution of humane Nature there are five Vertues necessary to its Happiness p. 59.60 c. first Prudence p. 62.63 c. secondly Moderation p. 70.71 c. thirdly Fortitude p. 79.80 c. fourthly Temperance p. 89.90 c. fifthly Humility p. 97.98 c. SECT II. Concerning the Divine Vertues which are comprehended in this first sort of Means shewing what they are and how effectually they conduce to our future Happiness that from the Relation we stand in to God there arises an Obligation to six several Vertues all which are necessary to our Happiness p. 108.109 c. first Contemplation of his Nature p. 109.110 c. secondly Adoration of his Perfections p. 117.118 c. thirdly Love p. 123.124 c. fourthly Imitation p. 136.137 c. fifthly Resignation p. 147.148 c. sixthly Trust and Dependance p. 162.163 c. SECT III. Concerning the Social Vertues which are included in this first sort of Means shewing that from our Inclination to Society and from the Nature and Condition of humane Society there arises a necessity of five Vertues to our everlasting Happiness p. 175.176 c.
by passing out of one world into another And therefore as in this world it is Likeness that does congregate and associate Beings together so doubtless it is in the other too So that if we carry with us thither our wicked and devillish dispositions as we shall doubtless do unless we subdue and mortifie them here there will be no Company fit for us to associate with but only the devillish and damned Ghosts of wicked men with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined by a likeness of Nature will mingle themselves as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the society of Mortals For whither should they flock but to the Birds of their own Feather with whom should they associate but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are already joined by a Community of Nature So that supposing that when they land in Eternity it were left to their own Liberty to go to Heaven or Hell into the society of the Blessed or the Damned it is plain that Heaven would be no Place for them that the Air of that bright Region of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures For alas what should they do among those Blessed Beings that inhabit it to whose God-like Natures Divine Contemplations and Heavenly Employments they have so great a Repugnancy and Aversation So that besides the having a Right to Heaven it is necessary to our enjoying it that we shoule be antecedently disposed and qualified for it And it being thus God hath been graciously pleased to to make those very Virtues the Conditions of our Right to Heaven which are the proper Dispositions and Qualifications of our Spirits for it that so with one and the same Labour we might entitle our selves to and qualifie our selves to enjoy it NOW as we shewed you before the Condition of our Right to Heaven is our practising those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End and as the Religion of the Means no further entitles us to Heaven than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues so it no further qualifies us for it For when the Soul goes into Eternity it leaves the Religion of the Means behind it and carries nothing with it but only those Heavenly Virtues and Dispositions which it here acquired by those Means For as for Faith and Consideration Hearing of Gods Word and Receiving of Sacraments c. they are all but Scaffolds to that Heavenly Building of inward Purity and Goodness and when this is once finished for Eternity then must those Scaffolds all go down as things of no further Use or Necessity But as for the Graces of the Mind they are to stand for ever to be the Receptacles and Habitations of all Heavenly Pleasure And hence the Apostle tells us that of those three Christian Graces Faith Hope and Charity Charity which in the largest sense of it comprehends all Heavenly Virtue is the greatest because the Two former being but Means of Charity shall cease in Heaven and be swallowed up for ever in Vision and Enjoyment but Charity saith he never faileth 1 Cor. xii 13 BY all which it is apparent that the Religion of the Means is no further useful to us than as it is apt to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues the practice of which is the most direct and immediate Means to the ultimate End of a Christian. Wherefore as a man may knock and file and yet be no Mechanick though the Hammer and File with which he does it are very useful Tools to the making of any curious Machine so a man may pray and hear and receive Sacraments c. and yet be a very Bungler in the blessed Trade of a Heavenly Life For though it is true these are excellent Means of Heavenly Living yet as the Art of the Mechanick consists not barely in using his Tools but in using them in such a manner as is necessary to the perfecting and accomplishing his Work So the Art of one that pretends to the Heavenly Life consists not barely in praying and hearing c. but in using these Means with that Religious Skill and Artifice which is necessary to render them effectually subservient to the Ends of Piety and Virtue AND thus I have given a general Account of the Means which are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven and which as I have shewed are either such as tend more directly and immediately to it or such as more remotely respect it The first is the Practice of those Heavenly Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Happiness of Heaven consists the second is the Practising of those Duties which are necessary to our acquiring and perfecting those Heavenly Virtues And of these two Parts consists the whole Christian Life which takes in not only all those Virtues that are to be practised by us in Heaven but also all those Duties by which we are to overcome the Difficulty of those Virtues and to acquire and perfect them The first of these for Distinction sake we will call the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life it being that part of it which we shall lead in Heaven after we have learnt it here upon Earth The second I shall call the Warfaring or Militant Part of the Christian Life which is peculiar to our Earthly State wherein we are to contend and strive with the manifold Difficulties which attend us in the Exercise of those Heavenly Virtues Both which I conceive are implied in those words of the Apostle Phil. i. 27 Only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Let your Conversation be strictly signifies behaving our selves as Citizens or which if we may have leave to coin a word may be fitly rendered Citizen it as becomes the Gospel For the word implies that those of whom he speaks were Denizens of some Free City for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phil. iii. 20 is rendered Conversation strictly denotes a Citizenship from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Citizens and is of the same Import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Acts xxii 28 is translatee a Freedom i. e. of the City of Rome which denotes the State and Condition of those who though they dwelt out of that City and sometimes remote from it had yet the Jus Civitatis Romanae the Privileges of it belonging to them For thus Cicero describes it Omnibus Municipibus duas esse Tatrias unam Naturae alteram Juris Catonis Exemplo qui Tusculi natus in Populi Romani Societaem susceptus est i. e. All such as are made free of the City have two Countries one of Nature the other of Law As Cato for instance who was born at Tusculum and afterwards admitted a Citizen of Rome Which exactly agrees with the Nature of this Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Citizenship which the Apostle here attributes to Christians who though they belong at present to another
your corrupt Natures yet if you vigorously persist in it you will find the Difficulty will soon wear off and then 't will be all Ease and Pleasure For when our Nature is depraved either by Sensuality or Devilishness 't is like a Bone out of joint full of Pain while it is out and much more painful while it is setting but as soon as that is done 't is immediately well and easie VI. AND lastly Consider the absolute Necessity of this heavenly Life and Conversation For besides that God exacts it of us as an indispensable Condition of our Happiness and hath assured us that if we live after the flesh we shall die and that without holiness we shall never see the Lord besides this I say an heavenly Conversation is in the Nature of the thing necessary to qualifie us for Heaven or as the Apostle expresses it to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light For Happiness being a relative thing implies in the very Nature of it a mutual Correspondence between the Objects which felicitate and the Faculties which are felicitated by them and be the Objects never so good in themselves never so pregnant with Pleasure and Bliss yet if they do not agree with the Faculties whereunto they are objected instead of blessing they will but afflict and torment them and if a man were placed in the midst of Heaven among all the ravishing Fruitions with which that blessed place abounds yet unless his Mind and Temper did suit and agree with them they would be so many Miseries and Vexations to him and he would be afflicted even in Abraham's Bosom and grope for Heaven in the midst of Paradise So that supposing that God were so unreasonably fond of the Happiness of wicked Souls as to prefer it before the Honour of his Government and the Purity of his Nature and the Sanction of his Laws yet still there is an invincible Obstacle behind that must render their future Felicity impossible and that is that it cannot be without a plain Contradiction to the Nature of things the Temper of wicked Souls being wholly repugnant to all the Felicities of the other World So that if they were all set before them they would not be able to enjoy them but must be forced to pine and famish amidst all that plenty of Delights there being no viand in all that heavenly Entertainment that they would relish any Sweetness in And therefore if God should so far pardon them as not to punish them himself by any immediate stroke of Vengeance that would be the utmost Favour that his Omnipotent Goodness could do for them whilst they continued in their Sins which notwithstanding such a Pardon would for ever continue them extremely miserable And what great matter doth a Pardon signifie to a Malefactor that is dying of the Stone or Strangury he could but have died though he had not been pardoned and die he must though he be And just as little almost would it signifie to a depraved Soul to be pardoned and absolved by God whilst it hath a Disease within that preys upon its Vitals and hastens it on to a certain Ruine For it could have been but miserable in the future Life if it had not been pardoned and miserable it must be if it continue wicked whether it be pardoned or no. For it is not so much the Place as the State that makes either Heaven or Hell and the State of Heaven and Hell consists in perfect Holiness and Wickedness and proportionably as we do improve in either of these so we do approach towards the one State or the other For as Heaven is the center of all that is virtuous pure and holy and all that is good tends thither by a natural Sympathy so Hell is the center of all Impiety and Wickedness and all that is bad doth naturally press and sink down thither as towards its proper Place and Element and should not the divine Vengeance concern it self to exclude wicked Souls out of Heaven yet their own Wickedness would do it For that is a Place of such inaccessible Light and Purity that no Impurity or Wickedness can approach it but must of necessity be beaten off with the dreadful lightnings of its Glory and tumbled headlong down as oft as it essays to climb up thither as on the other hand should not God by an immediate Vengeance precipitate wicked Souls into Hell yet their own Wickedness by the mighty weight of its own Nature would inevitably press and sink them down into that miserable Condition What egregious Nonsense therefore is it for wicked men to talk of going to Heaven Alas poor Creatures what would you do there There are no wanton Amours among those heavenly Lovers no Rivers of Wine among their Rivers of Pleasure to gratifie your unbounded Sensuality no Parasites to flatter your lofty Pride no Miseries to feed your meagre Envy no Mischiefs to tickle your devillish Revenge nothing but chast and divine pure and spiritual Enjoyments such as your brutish and devilish Appetites will eternally loath and nauseate Wherefore if we mean to go to Heaven and to be happy there we must now endeavour to dispose and attemper our Minds to it which is no other way to be done but by leading a heavenly Life and Conversation which by degrees will habituate and naturalize our Souls to the heavenly Virtues and so work and inlay them into the Frame and Temper of our Minds that 't will be our greatest Pleasure to be exerting and exercising them And then our Souls will be dressed and made ready for Heaven and when we go from hence to take Possession of its Joys they will be all so agreeable to our prepared Appetites that we shall presently fall to and feed upon them with infinite Gust and Relish But till by living a heavenly Life we have disposed our selves for Heaven we are utterly incapable of enjoying it So that now things are reduced to this Issue that either our Sins or our Souls must die and we must necessarily shake hands either with Heaven or our Lusts. And therefore unless we value eternal Happiness so little as to exchange it for the sordid and trifling Pleasures of Sin and unless we love our Sins so well as to ransom them with the bloud of our Immortal Souls it concerns us speedily to ingage our selves in this heavenly Life and Conversation For this is an eternal and immutable Law that if we will be wicked we must be miserable CHAP. IV. Concerning the militant or warfaring Part of the Christian Life by which we are to acquire and perfect the heavenly Virtues shewing how effectually all the Duties of it conduce thereunto HAVING in the former Chapter given a large Account of the heavenly Part of the Christian Life and shewn how directly and immediately the Practice of all the Virtues that are comprehended in it tends to the heavenly State and how naturally they all grow into eternal
Happiness I shall in the next Place endeavour to give some brief Account of that Part of the Christian Life which is purely militant and which wholly consists of those instrumental Duties by the Use of which we are to conquer the difficulties of those heavenly Virtues and to acquire and perfect them Which Difficulties as I shewed before Chap. 2. are the inbred Corruptions of our own Nature together with those manifold Temptations from without by which they are continually provoked and excited and so to subdue and conquer these as that they may neither take us off from nor clog and indispose us in the Exercise of the heavenly Virtues is the great Design and Business of this warfaring Part of the Christian Life THAT I may therefore handle it distinctly I shall divide it into three Parts and endeavour with as much Brevity as I can First To explain the Duties of each Part and to shew how they all conduce to our conquering the Difficulties of the heavenly Virtues and to the acquiring and perfecting them and Secondly To press the Duties of each Part with proper and suitable Arguments IN this part of our Christian Life therefore there is 1. Our Beginning or Entrance into it which is in Scripture called Repentance from dead works 2. Our Course and Progress in it and this is nothing but a holy Life 3. Our Perfecting and Consummation of it and this is final Perseverance in well doing Each of which have their proper and peculiar Duties which I shall endeavour in this Chapter to explain and inforce SECT I. Concerning those Duties that are proper to our Beginning and Entrance into this warfaring Part of our Christian Life shewing how they all conduce to the subduing of Sin and acquiring the heavenly Virtues THIS first part of our militant Life being nothing but our Initial Repentance or the first turning of our Souls to God from a state of wilful Sin and Rebellion the Duties that are proper to it and by which this turn of our Souls is to be introduced and performed may be reduced to these six Heads 1. A hearty and firm Belief of the Truth of our Religion 2. A due Consideration of its Motives and a ballancing of them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo 3. A deep and through Conviction of our great need of a Mediator to render us acceptable to God 4. A hearty Sorrow Shame and Remorse for our Sins past 5. Earnest Prayer to God for Aid and Assistance to enable us effectually to renounce them 6. A serious and well weighed Resolution to forsake and abandon them for ever I. IT is necessary to our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare that we should heartily believe the Truth and Reality of our Religion For our hearty Belief of the Gospel is in Scripture represented as the main and principal Weapon by which we are to combat against the World and our own Lusts. And hence it is called the shield of faith and the breastplate of faith which are the two principal parts of Armour of Defence denoting that an hearty Belief of the Gospel is the principal Defence of a Christian against all the fiery darts of Temptation the Armour of Proof that guards our Innocence and renders us Invulnerable in all our spiritual Conflicts For above all things saith the Apostle take the shield of faith whereby ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one Eph. vi 16 And as it is the principal part of our defensive so it is also of our offensive Armour For so we find all the Victories and Triumphs of those glorious Heroes Heb. xi attributed to this irresistible Weapon of their Faith 'T was by Faith that they despised Crowns confronted the Anger of Kings and triumphed over the bitterest Torments and Afflictions by faith that they wrought righteousness obtained promises stopped the mouths of lyons quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword and out of weakness were made strong Nay so great a share hath Faith in the Successes of our Christian Warfare that it is called by the Apostle the good fight of faith 1 Tim. vi 12 and S. John assures us that this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith 1 John v. 4 FOR if we firmly believe the Gospel that will furnish us with undeniable Answers to return to all Temptations and enable our Faith infinitely to out-bid the World whatsoever it should proffer us for our Innocence For our Belief of the Gospel carries in the one hand infinitely greater Goods and in the other infinitely greater Evils to allure and bind us fast to our Duty than any the World can propose to entice or terrifie us from it For on the one hand it discovers to us those immortal Regions of the Blessed which are the proper Seat and pure Element of Happiness where the blessed Inhabitants live in a continued Fruition of their utmost Wishes being every moment entertained with fresh inravishing Scenes of Pleasure where all their Happiness is eternal and all their Eternity nothing else but one continued Act of Love and Praise and Joy and Triumph where there are no Sighs or Tears no Intermixtures of Sorrow or Misery but every Heart is full of Joy and every Joy is a Quintessence and every happy Moment is crowned with some fresh and new Enjoyment On the other hand it sets before our eyes a most frightful and amazing Prospect of those dismal Shades of Horror where mighty Numbers of condemned Ghosts perpetually wander to and fro tormented with endless Rage and Despair where they always burn without consuming always faint but never die being forced to languish out a long Eternity in unpitied Sighs and Groans And after such a Prospect as this what poor inconsiderable Trifles will all the Goods and Evils of this world appear to us But yet unless we believe the Reality of them how great soever they may be in themselves they will signifie no more to our Hope and Fear which are the Master Springs of our Action than if they were so many golden Dreams or liveless Scare-crows For all Proposals of good and evil do work upon the Minds of men proportionably as they are believed and assented to and as that which is not true is not so that which we do not believe is to us as if it were not How then is it possible we should be moved by that Good or Evil which we do not believe and in which by consequence we cannot apprehend our selves concerned WHEREFORE in our Entrance into the Christian Warfare it is highly necessary that we do not take up our Faith at a venture and believe winking without knowing why or wherefore but that we should so far as we are able impartially examine the Evidences of our Religion and search into the Grounds of its Credibility that so we may be able to give some Reason to our selves and others of the Hope that is in us For
never returning to them more whatsoever Temptations may invite or Difficulties encounter and oppose us Which Resolution is in Scripture called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Repentance but in strictness signifies a Change of Mind or of Purpose and Resolution a renouncing our sinful Purposes and solemnly ingaging our selves in a contrary Resolution of living soberly and righteously and godly in this present World So that wheresoever the Precept of Repentance is expressed by this word the meaning of it is to oblige us to change the wicked Purposes of our Hearts into a firm and serious Resolution of forsaking all ungodliness and worldly lusts and intirely resigning up our selves to the Will and Disposal of God And hence it is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to change our minds and convert or turn are in Scripture so often put together the one denoting the inward Change of our Resolution the other the outward Change of our Practice pursuant to it So Acts iii. 19 repent and be converted and Acts xxvi 20 that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance that is that they should resolve to forsake their Sins and submit to their Duty and put their Resolution into Practice And so that other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we also render Repentance strictly signifies an after-care that is pursuant unto this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Change of Resolution NOW this Repentance or Change of Resolution is the Initial Act of the Religion of Sinners whereby they resume their inward man from the Service of sin and submit and resign their Wills to God whereby in Heart and Will they forsake the Devils Colours and list themselves Volunteers under the Banner of Christ. And being so it ought to be performed with so much the more Care and Preparation For the Beginning of all great Enterprizes is the Ground and Foundation of them which if it be not firmly laid will be apt to sink under the Superstructures and to endanger their Ruin and Downfal Now all the foregoing Duties being necessary Preparations to a good Resolution we ought before we resolve to spend a considerable portion of time in the diligent Practice of them and not to resolve hand over head till we are duly and throughly prepared for it till by exercising our Faith and Consideration c. we have broken and tamed our perverse and obstinate Wills and throughly persuaded them to part with every Sin and to approve of and consent to every Duty that is comprehended in a through Resolution of Amendment And if when we are about to resolve we find upon a strict Examination any secret Reserve or Exception in our Wills if there be any Lust which they are not throughly persuaded to part with or any Duty to which they are not fully reconciled we ought for that time to forbear resolving and to go on in the Exercise of the preparatory Duties till we find our reluctant Wills throughly conquered and persuaded by them For if there be any leak left open in our Resolution for any Sin to creep in at that will be sure to insinuate in the next Storm of temptation and if it should not let in other Sins after it as 't is a thousand to one but it will 't will by its own single Weight sink us into eternal Perdition Wherefore before ever we enter into the Resolution of Amendment we ought to be very careful that our Wills be throughly prepared for it that they be reduced to a fair Compliance with the matter we are resolving upon and effectually dissuaded out of all Resolution to the contrary and when this is done we may chearfully proceed to the forming of our good Resolution WHICH ought to be performed by us between God and our selves with the greatest Seriousness and Solemnity For now our Hearts being ready we are to betake our selves to our Knees and in these or such like words to devote our selves to God O thou blessed Author of my Being I am now fully convinced that I ow my self to thee by a thousand Ties and Obligations and am infinitely sorry and ashamed that I have so long sequestred and withdrawn my self from thee to serve my own base Lusts and Affections Wherefore now in thy dread Presence and in that of thy holy Angels I here intirely resign up my self unto thee and do resolve without any Reserve or Exception that whatsoever Temptations I may meet with for the future I will never wilfully withdraw or alienate my self from thee more From henceforth I heartily renounce all my Sins and particularly those that have been most dear and pleasant to me and do faithfully promise to continue thy true and loyal Subject as long as I breath and that whatsoever Invitations I may have to the contrary I will never revoke the Resolution I now make or any part of it So help me O my God AND having thus solemnly resolved it will be highly necessary that for the farther Ratification of it we should yet more solemnly repeat it in the holy Sacrament wherein according to the Custom of Feasts upon Sacrifices God and every faithful Communicant do mutually re-oblige themselves to one another and upon the sacred Symbols of the Body and Blood of Jesus do ratifie to each other each others Part of that everlasting Covenant which by the Federal Rite of his meritorious Death and Sacrifice was inviolably sealed and confirmed So that when we take those holy Elements into our hands which the Priest in Gods stead presents and offers to us we do in effect make this solemn Dedication of our selves to God Here we offer and present unto thee O Lord our selves our souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and lively Sacrifice unto thee and here we call to witness this sacred Blood that redeemed us and those vocal Wounds which do now intercede for us that from henceforth we oblige our selves never to start from thy service what Difficulties soever we may encounter in it or what temptations soever we may have to forsake it And having thus resolved and confirmed our Resolution by the Body and Blood of our Saviour and taken the Sacrament upon it not to depart from what we have resolved we have actually listed and ingaged our selves in a Warfare against Sin the World and the Devil upon the final Success whereof our everlasting Fate depends And thus you see what Duty is implied in the Beginning or Entrance of this warfaring Part of the Life of a Christian. SECT II. Wherein some Motives are urged to persuade men to the Practice of those Duties that are proper to the Beginning of the Christian Warfare HAVING in the former Section given a brief Account of those Duties which are necessary to the well Beginning of our Christian Warfare I shall now for a close of that Argument endeavour to press and persuade those who have not as yet begun to enter immediately
those Virtues which through our vicious Aversations to them seemed at first impossible will grow on by degrees from possible to easie and from easie to necessary and then the Sins will be more impossible to us than the Virtues NOW what a mighty Encouragement is this to make a good Beginning of the Christian Warfare that in so doing we are sure to conquer the main Difficulty of it that when we have broke through all those Oppositions that lie in the way to a wise and good Resolution we are past the Frontiers of Religion and having gotten over those steep Alps at its Entrance shall be sure to find the Region round about a plain and an easie Champain in which the further we go the smoother 't will be and so smoother and smoother till at last 't will be all sweet and delightful like the flowry Walks of Paradise Let us therefore be persuaded without any farther Delay to enter immediately upon this our holy Warfare and by Faith and Consideration c. to lay the Foundations of a religious Resolution that so when we are actually ingaged against our spiritual Enemies we may be able to stand our ground against all Temptations and that having finally conquered and subdued them we may receive that Immortal Crown which God the righteous Judge hath laid up for the victorious AND so I have done with the First Part of our Christian Warfare viz. our Entrance into it SECT III. Concerning the Second Part of the Christian Warfare with a particular Account of the Duties thereunto appertaining I SHALL now proceed to the Second Part of our Christian Warfare viz. the Course and Progress of it which consists in holy living For when once we have reduced our Wills to a firm and well-grounded Resolution of entring into this militant State that which is next incumbent upon us is to pursue our Resolution in the future Course of our Lives and Actions that is to abstain from all Sin and endeavour to mortifie our Inclination to it and to practise all the contrary Graces and Virtues and endeavour to improve them to farther and farther degrees of perfection or as the Scripture expresses it to cease to do evil and to learn to do well to strive against sin and to die to it and to grow in grace and perfect holiness in the fear of God In this consists the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare In order whereunto it 's indispensably necessary that we should still repeat the Practice of those Duties by which we were first prepared to enter into it all those means by which our good Resolution was produced being naturally conducive to maintain and support it And therefore we find that Faith and Consideration c. are not enjoined as temporary Duties that are only to be practised in the Beginning of our Warfare but as means that will be always necessary for us throughout our whole Progress to Heaven For so we are commanded not only to acquire a sincere Faith or Belief of the Gospel but to continue and be stablished in it Col. i. 2 3. compared with Cap. ii 7 And so again we are injoined not only to admit the proposals of Religion into our Consideration but to keep them there Luk. viii 15 and suffer them to dwell richly in us Coll. iii. 16 And so for all those other preparatory Duties For that from a hearty Conviction of our need of Christ we should beg all Mercies of God in his Name and for his sake is a standing Precept of Christian Devotion John xvi 24 and so is also Confession of our sins to God 1 John i. 9 and Prayer for his Grace and Assistance Coll. iv 2 Nor is it only required that we should once repent or change our bad Resolution for a good one but that we should also repeat and confirm our good Resolution that we should stablish our hearts that is keep our Wills fixed and determined to all good Intentions and Purposes James v. 8 and stand fast in the Lord that is adhere to the Profession and Practice of Christianity with a firm and constant Resolution Phil. iv 1 For to proceed in our Christian Warfare is constantly to live up to our good Resolution which will require a continued Application of those means by which we were first prepared and disposed to enter into it Thus Faith is no less necessary to inable us to perform than it was to prepare us to make our good Resolution and still the more we believe our Religion the more we shall think our selves concerned in its proposals and consequently the more firmly we shall be resolved to close with and embrace them and so still as our Faith improves in degrees of Certainty our Resolution will proportionably grow stronger and stronger Again if it were necessary to the Birth of our Resolution that we should first duly weigh and consider the Motives and the Difficulties of the Duties we were resolving on then it will be no less necessary to the Growth and Emprovement of it that we should frequently consider over these Motives and Difficulties again and ballance them one against another And at first especially while our good Resolution is yet in its Infancy it will be very necessary that we should every day before we go abroad into the World spend some portion of Time in fore-thinking of the many Temptations that do lie in wait for us whether in our Business or Company or necessary Refreshments and Diversions and fore-arming our selves against them with the Motives and Arguments of our Religion that so we may have our Weapons ready when ever they shall assault us and be always provided to resist them Again if it were necessary to the forming our Resolution that we should be convinced of the Necessity and Reality of our Saviours Mediation then it will be no less necessary to the performance of it that our Hope and Fear which are the Springs of our Action should still be excited by the glorious Assurance of Mercy and horrid Prospect of Sin which this Conviction implies Once more was it necessary to the well making of our Resolution that we should affect our selves before-hand with a hearty Shame and Sorrow for our past Transgressions then will it be no less necessary for the strengthening and confirming it that we should ever and anon revive this our Shame and Grief by reflecting on the Filthiness of our past State and the Weakness and Imperfection of our present and by an ingenuous Confession of both to the high and holy God that so our Shame and Sorrow for our Sins being digested into Anger and Displeasure may sharpen our Resolution and animate it more and more against them In short if it be necessary to the founding of our Resolution that we should first earnestly implore the divine Grace and Assistance then it will be no less necessary for the continuance of it that for the same purpose we should continually apply our selves to the Throne
possest of Peace of Conscience for the present but assured of a happy Life for the future when he hath conquered the Difficulties he contends with VIII CONSIDER that the Difficulty of these Duties is abundantly compensated by the Reward of them A generous Mind will think no Means too hard which tend to noble and worthy Ends in the prosecution of which Opposition only whets its Courage and Resolution So that doubtless had we any Spark of Generosity in us the Vastness and Excellency of the End we pursue would make us despise all Difficulties in the Way to it What a Meanness of Spirit therefore doth it argue in us to stand boggling as we do at the Difficulties of Religion to think much of spending a few Days or Years in this World in striving and contending with our Inclinations in Consideration and Watchfulness in earnest Prayer and severe Reflections on our selves when we are assured before-hand that at the Conclusion of this short Conflict we shall be carried off by Angels in Triumph to Heaven and there receive from the Captain of our Salvation a Crown of everlasting Joys and Pleasures when after a few Moments Pains and Labour we shall live Millions of Millions of most happy Ages in the ravishing Fruition of a boundless Good and after these are expired have as many Millions of Millions more to live What an unconscionable thing is it for us to complain of any Difficulty who have such a vast Recompence of Reward in our View In the name of God Sirs what would you have Why we would have Heaven drop down into our Mouths and not put us to all this Trouble of reaching and climbing after it Would you so 't is a very modest Desire indeed that is you would have the God of Heaven thrust his Favours upon you while you scorn and despise them and prostitute his Heaven to a company of Drones that don't think it worth their while to go out of their Hives to gather it O! for Shame look once more upon Heaven and consider again what it is to dwell in the Paradise of the World with God and Angels and Saints and in their blessed Company to live out an Eternity in the most rapturous Contemplations and Loves and Joys to bath our dilated Faculties in an everflowing River of Pleasures and in perfect Ease Health and Vigor of Mind to feed upon a Happiness that is as large as our Capacities and as lasting as our Beings Is this a Reward of that inconsiderable nature that we should think much to labour and contend for it is not the Hope of being satisfied for ever a sufficient Encouragement to induce us to deny our Lusts and Appetites a few Moments or is there not good enough in an everlasting Rest to countervail a few Days and Years Labour and Contention What though you pant and labour now while you are climbing the everlasting Hills God be praised 't is not so far to the Top but that the pleasant Gales and glorious Prospects you shall everlastingly enjoy there will so abundantly compensate for the Difficulty of the Ascent that instead of complaining of it you will to eternal Ages reflect upon it with Pleasure and Delight Wherefore when your Courage begins to shrink at the Difficulty of your Warfare do but lift up your Eyes to the Recompence of Reward and to be sure if you have any Heart that will inspire you with such a brave Resolution as nothing will be too hard for but what is absolutely impossible For how can we be disheartned at any superable Difficulty so long as we are animated with this persuasion that if we have our Fruit unto holiness our End shall be everlasting Life SECT V. Concerning those Duties which appertain to the Perfection and Consummation of our Christian Warfare shewing what they are and how effectually they conduce to the perfecting us in the Virtues of the Heavenly Life I PROCEED now to the Third and last Part of our Christian Warfare viz. the Consummation of it which is final Perseverance For after we have actually ingaged and made some Progress in it our next Care and Duty is that we do not relapse and basely retreat from what we have so prosperously undertaken and hitherto so effectually prosecuted but that so long as we live we persist in an open Defiance to our Sins and Endeavour to pursue and mortifie our Inclinations to them and persevere in the Practice of all Vertue still indeavouring thereby to improve and grow on to Perfection that so we may die as we have hitherto lived and consummate our Warfare in a final Victory and that when our Lord shall come or send his Herald Death to summon us off from the Field we may be found fighting under his Banner against Sin the World and the Devil and finally die as we have lived his faithful Soldiers and Followers For this he indispensably exacts of us viz. that we should be faithful unto Death Rev. ii 10 that we should patiently continue in well-doing Rom. ii 7 that we should indure to the end Matt. x. 22 and hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast to the end Heb. iii. 14 that we should keep his works to the end and finally overcome as well as fight Rev. ii 26 in a word that having set our hands to the plow we should not look back Luke ix 62 but that we should be always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. xv 58 the sense of all which is that we should not only begin this our Christian Warfare and prosecute it for a while but that we should proceed and persevere in it as long as we breath and never lay down our Arms till we lay down our Lives In order to which as we must still persevere in the Practice of those Duties which appertain to the Course and Progress of our Warfare so there are sundry other Duties which we must practise and which have a more direct and immediate Influence upon the final Success and Consummation of it All which I shall reduce to these following Particulars 1. That while we stand we should not be over confident of our selves but still keep a jealous eye upon the Weakness and Inconstancy of our own Natures 2. That if at any time we wilfully fall and miscarry we should immediately arise again by Repentance 3. That to prevent the like Falls and Miscarriages for the future we should indeavour to withdraw our Affections from the Temptations of the World but more especially from those which were the Occasions of our Fall 4. That we should more curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our reforming and correcting them 5. That so far as lawfully we can we should live in a close Communion with the Church whereof we are Members 6. That we should not out of a fond Opinion that we are good enough already
us to some great Work or to support us under some extraordinary Suffering For he is a wise and careful Father of his Children and knows 't is much more necessary for us to be good than to be ravished and transported and that such high Cordials are neither proper nor safe for us but in great Extremities and therefore for us to expect that he should make them our ordinary Food and Entertainment is an Argument of our Childish Ignorance and Presumption But though such immediate Whispers and Revelations may serve to good Purposes in a Pinch of Extremity yet are they by no means to be built upon as the Foundations of our ordinary standing Assurance For so long as there is an evil Spirit without and a disordered Fancy within us that can imitate these Whispers we shall be continually liable so long as we put Confidence in them to all the Cheats and Impostures of natural and Diabolical Enthusiasm and unavoidably mistake many an Injection of the Devil and many a warm Flush of Fancy or brisk Fermentation of melancholy Humour for a Whisper and Testimony of the spirit of God and by this means be often lull'd into false Confidences and Assurances which like Golden Dreams will vanish when we awake and leave us miserably disappointed That Assurance therefore which we are to aim at must be founded in the Testimony of a good Conscience and infer'd from the Sense of our own Integrity and Uprightness AND this we are commanded to indeavour after so Heb. x. 22 we are bid to draw near unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Confidence or full assurance of faith that is in a firm Persuasion of Gods Love to us and our Interest in his Promises which Persuasion is to be founded upon an inward Sense of our having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies wash'd with pure water and accordingly Heb. vi 11 to be diligent in good works to the full assurance of hope unto the end i. e. to be so diligent in our Duty as that we may thereby acquire such a full Assurance of our Reward as may inable us to continue and hold out to the End For so St. John tells us that 't is by the Integrity of our Vertue and particularly of our love to one another that we are to assure our hearts before God 1 Joh. iii. 14 19. for saith he v. 21 if our hearts condemn us not then have we confidence towards God and for this purpose among others the same Apostle tells us he wrote this Catholick Epistle that true Christians might know and be assured that they had eternal life 1 Joh. v. 13 FROM all which 't is evident that 't is our Duty to labour after such an Assurance of Heaven as naturally ariseth from the clear and certain Sense of our Sincerity towards God and the firm Belief of the Promise of eternal Life to which our Sincerity intitles us For when we are so far improved in Religion as that upon an impartial Surveigh of our selves we can feel our own Integrity and sensibly perceive that our Intention is pure our Resolution fixt and our Heart intirely devoted to God we may from thence most certainly infer our Title and Interest to the Promise of Heaven So that to the obtaining this Assurance all that we have to do is so far to purifie our Intentions from sinister Aims and subdue our bad Inclination to our Resolution of Obedience as that when ever we reflect upon and compare our selves with the Rule our Conscience may be able without any Diffidence to pronounce us sincere and then we may as certainly conclude our Interest in Heaven as we can that Gods Promises are true and if after we are thus far improved in Religion we still remain unassured it proceeds not from the Want of sufficient Evidence but either from a melancholy Temper or a weak Faith or a misinformed Conscience and whichsoever of these is the Cause of it when that is once removed we shall as plainly feel our own Sincerity and therein our Interest in Heaven as we do now our bodily Passions And having once attained this Assurance 't will animate our Hearts with an Heroick Courage against all Temptations and carry us on with unspeakable Alacrity through all the remaining Stages of our Duty it will invigorate our Endeavours and wing our Activity and make us all Life and Spirit in the Exercises of our holy Religion And as when the Christian Army after a tedious march towards the Land of Canaan came within view of the holy City and beheld afar off the Towers and Turrets of Hierusalem they were so Ecstacied with Joy that they made the Heavens ring with triumphant Shouts and Acclamations and as if that Sight had given new Souls to them ran on upon their Enemies with a Courage that forced Victory where-ever they came so when a good Man after a long Progress from one Degree of Vertue to another is got so far as that from a certain Sense and Feeling of his own Sincerity he can discern the new Hierusalem above and his own Interest in it that blessed Sight will fill him with so much Joy Courage and Alacrity that no Temptation for the future will be able to withstand or interrupt him So that his Conscience will be always ringing with Acclamations of Victory and the remainder of his March will be all a Triumphal Progress to him and when he comes to the Conclusion of it to die and pass the Gate of this blessed City the firm Assurance which he hath of Admittance will dispel the Fears sweeten the Troubles and asswage the Pangs and Agonies of the dolorous Passage So that he will die not only with Peace but with Joy and go away into Eternity with Hallelujahs in his Mouth If therefore we mean to bring this our spiritual Warfare to a happy Conclusion it concerns us now while we have Opportunity to labour after a wise and well-grounded Assurance of Heaven SECT VI. Containing certain Motives to Press men to the Practice of these Duties of Perseverance in the Christian Warfare HAVING in the foregoing Section described all those Duties which appertain to the last Part of our Christian Warfare to wit final Perseverance and shewn how effectually they all contribute thereunto I shall now according to my former Method conclude with some Motives to press and persuade men to the Practice of them all which I shall deduce from the Consideration of the great and urgent Necessity of our final Perseverance to which those Duties are such necessary Helps and Means For unless we take in the Assistance of these Duties in all Probability we shall never be able to hold out to the End and unless we persevere to the End we are guilty of the most fatal and mischievous piece of Folly in the World For Consider 1. If after we have made some Progress in Religion we wilfully relapse we shall go back much faster than ever we have
together to the Tribunal of God for a dire and speedy Vengeance against us VI. CONSIDER if after you have made some Progress in Religion you revolt into sinful Courses you will not only render your selves for the present more guilty but as a Consequence of that you will certainly expose your selves if you die before your Recovery to a deeper and more dreadful Ruine For this we may depend upon that the Judg of all the World will do righteously and consequently that as on the one hand he will proportion his Rewards to our Services so on the other he will measure his Punishments by our Guilts and Demerits and if he thus proceed as he most certainly will how horrible is it to think of the black and dismal Fate that hangs over the Heads of Apostates whose Guilt being aggravated by those above-named Circumstances to such a prodigious Bulk and Magnitude must be supposed to draw after it a Punishment proportionable And if so then doubtless the Portion of Apostates among wicked and miserable Spirits will be the most wretched deplorable For besides those supernumerary Stripes they must expect to receive from God as being Servants that have known their Masters Will and experienced the Goodness of it and yet have finally refused to comply with it their reflections on their own Apostacy and the Folly and Madness of it will doubtless gall and torment them a thousand times more than all the other Stings of their Conscience together For how must it inrage them against themselves to ruminate on their own Follies as they are wandering through the Infernal Shades O desperate Creatures from what glorious Hopes have we precipitated our selves into this dismal State We had once got a fair Way onwards to Heaven and were arived within Sight of its blessed Shores we had shaken off our Lusts mastered our Inclinations and subdued our Wills to the Will of God and in so doing had conquered the most difficult Part of our Voyage we had weathered the cross Winds of Temptation from without and stem'd the Tide of corrupt Nature within so that had we but bore up couragiously a little farther we that are now howling among damned Ghosts might have been triumphing with blessed Spirits But O abominable Fools and Traytors to our selves after all the successful Pains we had taken to be happy we have shipwrack'd our Souls at the Mouth of our Harbour and to gratifie a base Lust have leapt headlong from the Brinks of the Rivers of Pleasure into this Lake of fire and Brimstone And have we thus undone our selves thus madly thus without Pretence or Temptation O! cursed be our Folly cursed be our Lusts and for ever cursed be we for harbouring and entertaining them Thus will these miserable People incessantly rave against themselves and with dire Reflections on their desperate Follies for ever inrage and multiply their own Torments So that were I descending to the bottomless Pit and had but so much Time before I came there as to make one Prayer more in my own Behalf next to that of being wholly delivered thence I know none I should sooner pitch upon than this O Lord deliver me from that Portion of Hell which thou hast reserved for Apostates SO that if now that we have so far ingaged our selves in the Christian Warfare we should be so mad as to retreat into our old sinful Courses it had been a thousand times better for us that we had never ingaged in it at all For unless we repent of our Retreat and come on again we have taken a great deal of Pains in Religion to no other Purpose but only to to treasure up to our selves wrath against the day of wrath and heat the Furnace of our future Torment yet seven times hotter Wherefore since the Matter is now reduced to this Issue that if we revolt from our Christian Warfare we shall not only defeat our selves of all the Fruit of our past Labour and Contentions but also inhance our future Punishment so that we must either resolve to win Heaven by our Perseverance or sink our selves into the neithermost Hell by our Apostacy let us pull up our Courage and mangre all Temptations to the contrary continue steadfast and immoveable in our Christian Resolution remembring what the Captain of our Salvation hath promised Rev. iii. 21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am sat down with my Father in his Throne CHAP. V. Containing some short Directions for the more profitable reading the preceding Discourse and also for the Conduct and regular Exercise of our Closet Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State IN the foregoing Chapter I have indeavoured a full Account of all those instrumental Duties of Christianity by which we are to acquire improve and perfect the principal Vertues of it in the Perfection of which Vertues Heaven which is the great End of Christianity consists And for the more distinct management thereof I considered men under a threefold State first as entering into the Christian Life secondly as actually ingaged in the Course of it thirdly as improving towards Perfection by Perseverance in it and gave a distinct account of all those Instrumental Duties that are proper to each of these States And now that what hath been said in that and the preceding Chapters may have its due Effect upon the Readers Mind I have thought fit to reduce it to Practice by directing men First how to read and apply the several parts of it to their own particular States Secondly By furnishing them with some short Rules for the more profitable Exercise of their private Religion in each of those different States together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State I. AS to the first of these it is to be considered that to the making men sincere and hearty Christians it is highly necessary that they should have a right understanding First of the Nature of the great and chief End which Christianity proposes to them Secondly of the Means by which that End is to be obtained Thirdly of the natural Tendency of all the Vertues of Christianity towards this blessed End and of the contrary Tendency of the opposite Vices towards their eternal Misery and Ruin Of all which I have indeavoured to give an Account in the three first Chapters of this Book Wherefore I would advise the Reader 1. Carefully and seriously to peruse those Chapters wherein because I have been sometimes forc'd by the sublimity of my Argument to discourse a little more abstrusely than in any of the following Parts it will be necessary for him to imploy more of his Thoughts and Consideration and not to content himself with a slight and cursory Perusal And when by a serious Consideration of what hath been there discoursed his Mind is fully convinc'd what a kind of Heaven he is to expect hereafter
what kinds of Means are necessary to obtain it how naturally all the Vertues of Religion do raise up mens Souls to Heaven and how all the contrary Vices do as naturally sink and press them down to Hell it is to be hop'd he will be fully persuaded of the indispensible Necessity of entering into the Christian Life which if he be I would advise him 2. Seriously to read over and consider the first and second Sections of the fourth Chapter wherein are contained the several Duties which are proper to his State of Entrance into the Christian Life and also proper Arguments and Motives to ingage him to the Practice of them which if he would read to good Effect he must by no means content himself with a single Perusal but read them over at least once a week whilst he continues in that State till he fully comprehends the Meaning and Use of all those Duties and the Force and Cogency of those Arguments which if he do it is to be hop'd he will at last be reduced to a through and wel-weighed Resolution of forsaking his Sins and actually ingaging in the Christian Life Which being done I would advise him 3. With the same Care and Frequency to peruse the third and fourth Sections of the fourth Chapter wherein are contained all the several Duties proper to this second State of actual Engagement in the Christian Life as also sundry Arguments or Motives to press and inforce them and when by the Assistance of these Duties he hath continued for some time faithful and constant to his good Resolution 4. Together with the third and fourth Section let him often peruse and consider the fifth and sixth wherein are contained the Duties appertaining to the third State of Emprovement and Perseverance in the Christian Life together with some Considerations to inforce the Practice of them All which I would earnestly persuade the pious Reader to read and consider over and over again till his Mind is fully instructed in the Nature and Vse of each Duty and hath throughly digested the Force and Evidence of every Argument And this may suffice for the first thing proposed concerning the profitable Method of reading this practical Treatise II. AS for the second Part of it which is that which I mainly design in this Chapter viz. the Rules and Directions for the private Exercise of our Religion in each State of the Christian Life together with the Forms of private Prayer fitted for each take them in their following Order Directions for the more profitable Exercise of our private Religion in the State of our Entrance into the Christian Life In the Morning before you go into the World enter into your Closet and there consider with your self a while the miserable State you have reduc'd your self to by your past sinful Courses the absolute Necessity of your forsaking them and the possibility of your Recovery if your heartily indeavour it and then adress your self to God in this following Prayer O Most glorious and eternal God thou art the fountain of Beings the Father of Angels and Men the righteous and almighty Governour of Heaven and Earth from thy Throne thou beholdest all the Children of men and their most secret Actions are open and naked to thy alseeing Eye and such is the Purity of thy Nature that thou lovest Righteousness and hatest Iniquity wheresoever thou beholdest it with what Face then can I a most miserable polluted Wretch appear in thy presence who by the past course of my Wickedness and Rebellion against thee have not only rendered my self guilty and justly obnoxious to thy eternal Displeasure but have also contracted such obstinate Dispositions and Inclinations to sin on as without thy Grace and Assistance I shall never be able to conquer O desperate vile and ungrateful Wretch that I have been I have renounced the God of my Being and the Fountain of my Mercies I have despised thy Goodness trampled upon thy Authority mock'd and abused thy Patience and long suffering and in Particular I must confess to my own Shame and Confusion I have been wofully guilty of And now by these my manifold Abominations I have utterly undone my self unless thou take pity upon me I confess I have forfeited my soul into thy hands and if thou so pleasest thou mayest justly cast me away from thy Presence and make me a dire Example of thy Vengeance for ever But I know O Lord that thou desirest not the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should repent and live and upon the Propitiation of thine own Sons blood thou hast declared thy self willing to receive returning Prodigals and to be heartily reconciled to them notwithstanding all their past Provocations O that I could return that I could but shake off those corrupt Inclinations which detain my wretched soul in Captivity I am willing to contribute towards it whatsoever I am able but alass without thee all that I can do will be utterly ineffectual Wherefore for thy tender Mercies sake for thy dear Sons and my Saviours sake have pity upon a miserable Wretch that without thy helping hand is lost for ever And since thou hast given me thy Gospel as an outward means to save and recover me O do thou inable me by thy blessed Spirit heartily to believe and throughly to consider it For which end I beseech thee to remove all sinful Prejudices from my Mind that so I may impartially weigh those Evidences thou hast given me of the Truth of it and do thou suggest them to my Mind with such a clear and convincing Light as that they may at last conquer my Infidelity and beget in me a firm and lively Faith And forasmuch as my mind is vain and roving and utterly averse to all serious Considerations O do thou who art the Father of Spirits and canst turn the Hearts of men which way thou pleasest inspire good Thoughts into me and imprint them upon me with such a Power and Efficacy as that my wandring Mind may be reduced by them to a through Consideration and my stubborn Will to a firm Resolution of Amendment Particularly I beseech thee to give me a right understanding of the urgent need I have of a Saviour and of all those things which he hath done and suffered and is still doing at thy right hand in order to the cleansing my guilty and polluted Nature and restoring me to thy Grace and Favour that so hereby I may be fully convinced how odious my Sins are in thy sight how base and vile they have rendered me and at what a mighty Distance they have set me from thee and that being convinced of this I may put on a holy Shame and Confusion and abhor my self in dust and ashes before thee Thou knowest O Lord it is not in my power to soften this hard and unrelenting Heart and affect it with that Godly sorrow which is requisite to work a true Repentance O do thou smite it with such a sharp and
THE Christian Life From its BEGINNING TO ITS CONSUMMATION In GLORY TOGETHER WITH The several Means and Instruments of Christianity conducing thereunto WITH Directions for private Devotion AND Forms of PRAYER Fitted to the several States of Christians By JOHN SCOTT Rector of Saint Peter Poor London LONDON Printed by M. Clark for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Pauls Church-yard 1681. To the Right Honourable AND Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON And one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy-Council c. My Lord THAT I presume to lay these Papers at your Lordships feet is not because I imagin they deserve but because I am Conscious they need so great a Patronage Not but that were the Discourses they contain as great and meritorious as their Argument they might safely shelter themselves under their own Deserts and challenge Homage instead of begging Protection but though I have done my best Endeavour to treat this great Theme suitably to its own native Majesty yet I am very sensible it hath not escap'd the too common Fate of all such sublime and excellent Subjects which is to be foul'd and sullyed by coarse handling But my lot falling in this unhappy Age wherein the best Church and Religion in the World are in such apparent Danger of being Crucified like their blessed Author between those two Thieves and both alas impenitent ones Superstition and Enthusiasm I thought my self obliged not to sit still as an unconcerned Spectator of the Tragedy but in my little Sphere and according to my poor Ability to indeavour its Prevention And considering that the most effectual Means the Romanists have used to subvert this Church which they so much envy and all the Reformations do so much admire and depend on hath been to divide her own Children from her and arm them against her by starting new Opinions among them and ingaging their Zeal which was wont to be imploy'd to better Purposes in hot Disputes about the Modes and Circumstances of her Worship I thought a Discourse of the Christian Life which is the proper Sphere of Christian Zeal might be a good Expedient to take men off from those dangerous Contentions which were kindled and are fed and blown by such as design our common Ruin For sure did our People throughly understand what 't is to be Christians indeed and how much Duty that implies they could never find so much Leisure as they do to quarrel and wrangle about Trifles This my Lord is the sincere Design of what I here present to your Lordship and however it may succeed I have this Satisfaction that I meant well and have exprest my Good Will to this poor envied Church whose truly Primitive Constitution pure and undefiled Religion I shall always admire and reverence and whatsoever her Fate may be I am chain'd to her Fortunes by my Reason and Conscience and shall ever esteem it more eligible to be crusht in pieces by her Fall which God avert than to flourish and Triumph on her Ruines But among the many ill Omens that threaten our Church there is one which seems to presage its Prosperity and that is that such Eminent Stations in it as your Lordships are so excellently supplied For although whether the Part you are design'd for be to Grace her Triumphs or her Funeral is known only to the soveraign Disposer of Events yet this my Lord all that wish well to our Church conclude that God bestow'd You upon her as a Token of Love For which they have sufficient Warrant even from the daily Experience they have of the Prudence and Vigilance of your Government the Piety Integrity and Generosity of your Temper of your invincible Loyalty to your Prince your undaunted Zeal for the Reformed Religion and grave and Obliging Deportment towards all you converse with I shall trouble your Lordship no farther but conclude this Address with that which I am sure is the hearty Prayer of all your honest Clergy that the God of Heaven would long continue your Lordship a Blessing to the Church and to this Diocess an Honour to your Sacred Order and the Noble Stock you descend from and if what I here present prove but so prosperous as to do some good in the World and obtain your Lordships Acceptance it will be a noble Compensation of this well-meant Endeavour I am My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and most Obedient Servant IOHN SCOTT THE PREFACE I SHALL not trouble the Reader with a long Apology for the Publication of the ensuing Treatise though I might plead as other Authors do the Importunity of Friends whose Judgments I very much reverence For to say the Truth I do by no means think that in an Affair of this Nature it is safe or fit for a man to be over-born by the persuasions of those whose Judgments he hath just cause to suspect may be brib'd by their Friendships And therefore had I not hop'd that in such an Age as this wherein through our own Divisions and Debaucheries both in Opinion and Practice and the hellish Contrivances of our Enemies we have such a dismal Prospect of things before us these Papers might be of some Vse to Religion and the Souls of men I would never have troubled the World with them but hoping they might I have ventured upon that reason to publish them I HAVE for some years been a sorrowful Spectator of the black Cloud that is gathering over my Native Country and I must confess have not been without my share of the Fears and Anxieties of the Age but being at last quite sick of looking downwards upon this uncomfortable Scene of things I had no other way to relieve my oppressed Thoughts but to raise them above this miserable World and entertain them with the Comforts of Religion and the Hopes of a better State beyond the Grave wherein I thank God I have found such Rest and Satisfaction of Mind as render'd my blackest Apprehensions of the ensuing Storm very tolerable And now because I would not eat my Morsel alone and injoy my Satisfaction to my self I have indeavour'd by this following Treatise of Heaven and the Way thither to break and distribute it among my distressed Neighbours that so by carrying their Minds from these dismal Expectations into the quiet and happy Regions above and directing their Lives and Actions thither I may communicate to them the blessed Art how to live happily in a distracted World And methinks when our present State is so perplext and uncertain we should be more than ordinarily concerned to make sure of something and to provide for a future Well-being that so we may not be miserable in both Worlds As for the Argument I have undertaken I may without breach of Modesty say it is a great and a noble one it is the Christian Life which next to the Angelical approaches nearest to the Life of God But as for the Management of it all that I can say is this I have
Fifthly we shall not only render our Recovery more difficult for the future but plung our selves for the present into a far more criminal and guilty Condition p. 501.502 c. sixthly we shall not only render our selves more guilty for the present but expose our selves if we die in our sin to a deeper and more dreadful Ruine 508.509 CHAP. V. Containing some short Directions for the more Profitable reading the ensuing Discourse p. 513.514 and also directions for the good Conduct and regular Exercise of our Closet Religion in all the different states of the Christian Life together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State p. 517. the first are for the State of Entrance into the Christian Life p. 517.518 c. the second for the state of actual Engagement in it p. 530. the third for the state of Growth and Improvement towards Perfection OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE CHAP. I. Concerning the ultimate End of the Christian Life IN order to our understanding what is the Nature Use and Excellency of any Means it is necessary we should have a true and genuine Notion of those peculiar Ends which they drive at For the nature of them as they are Means consists in being serviceable to some End but to what they are particularly serviceable must be collected from the nature of those particular Ends whereunto they are directed And therefore till we know what those particular Ends are it is impossible we should know whether they are Means or no or which is the same thing whether they are serviceable to any End or Purpose IT being therefore the Design of this Work to explain the nature of the Christian Life it will be necessary for the clearing of our way to give some account of the blessed End for which it is intended which will very much contribute to our right understanding of the great usefulness and subserviency of each part of it thereunto Therefore I. I shall endeavour to shew what is the peculiar End of the Christian Life II. Wherein the true Nature of this End consists I. As for the End of the Christian Life we are assured from Scripture that it is no other but Heaven it self that state of endless Bliss and Happiness which God hath prepared in the World above for the reception of all those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality That this is the End of the Christian Life is evident from hence because 't is every where proposed by our Saviour and his Apostles as the Chief Good of a Christian and the Supreme Motive to all Christian Virtue For so St. John that bosome-Favourite of our Saviour assures us that This is the promise which Christ hath promised us even Eternal Life 1 John ii 25 And if we look into the Gospel of St. John who hath more largely recorded our Saviours Sermons and Discourses than any other Evangelist we shall find Eternal Life still proposed by him as the supereminent Promise to encourage and persuade men to the profession and practice of Christianity For so John iv 36 't is proposed by our Saviour as that which is the Harvest of a Christian to which like the Husbandman's plowing and sowing all our care and endeavour is to be directed He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto eternal life Consonantly whereunto St. Paul tells us that he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Gal. vi 8 And this as our Saviour tells us is the great Reward which he gives to all those that hear and follow him John x. 27 28. and this the great argument which he every where insists on that he that believeth hath Life Everlasting that whosoever heareth his word hath Life Everlasting and that his commandment is Life Everlasting And Rom. vi 22 Everlasting Life is expresly said to be the End of having our fruit unto Holiness and as such we are bid to direct our actions unto it to believe in Christ unto Everlasting Life 1 Tim. i. 16 to do good to this end that we may lay hold upon Eternal Life 1 Tim. vi 18 19. to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross c. Heb. xii 2 And therefore Heaven is described to be the Christian Canaan to which we are to direct all our steps whilst we are travailing through this World Heb. xi 14 15 16. And the whole life of a Christian is expressed by seeking it Mat. vi 33 Heb. xiii 14 Col. iii. 1 And the incorruptible Crown is affirmed to be as much the end of the race of the Christian Life as those corruptible Crowns were of the races in the Olympick Games 1 Cor. ix 25 For it is to Eternal Glory that we are called 1 Pet. v. 10 2 Thes. ii 14 and in the discharge of all that Duty whereunto we are called we are to look to this blessed Hope as our great End and Encouragement Tit. ii 13 THIS I have the more largely insisted upon because of a great mistake that many persons have lain under in this matter which is that the Glory of God is the only ultimate End of a Christian and that this is a distinct End from Heaven The first of which I confess is very true but the last absolutely false That the glory of God is the last End of a Christian is evident from those Texts which bid us do all to the glory of God 1 Cor. x. 31 and which make the glory of God to be the point in which all the fruits of righteousness do concenter Phil. i. 11 which propose this as the End of all Religious Performances that God in all things may be glorified 1 Pet. iv 11 and affirm that t is to this purpose that we are chosen to be Christians that we should be to the Praise of his Glory Eph. i. 12 But that the glory of God is no distinct End from our being made partakers of the Happiness of Heaven is as evident from hence that this Glory consists not in any thing that we can add or contribute to Him whose essential Glory is so immense and secure that there is nothing we can do can either Increase or Diminish it and there is no other Glory can redound to him from any thing without but what is the Reflection of his own natural Rays He understands himself too well to value him self either the more or the less for the Praises or Dispraises of his Creatures For he is enough of Stage and Theatre to himself and hath the same satisfying Prospect of his own Glory in the midst of all the loud Blasphemies of Hell as among the perpetual Halelujahs of Heaven And having so it cannot be supposed that he should injoyn us to Praise and Glorifie him for the sake of any Good or Advantage that can accrue to Himself by it or out of any other pleasure he takes in
hearing himself applauded and commended by us than he doth in any other Act that is decent and reasonable in it's own Nature but 't is therefore he will have us Praise him because he knows it is for Our Good and highly conduces as it is a most reasonable Action to the Perfection and Happiness of our reasonable Natures because our praising him naturally excites us to imitate him and to transcribe into our own Natures those Adorable Perfections which we do so admire and extol in His. So that to pursue our own Perfection and Happiness is to Glorifie God according to his own design and intention who requires us to Glorifie him for no other purpose but that thereby we may Glorifie our selves And indeed our Happiness is Gods Glory even as all other worthy Effects are the Glory of their Causes T is He that gives being to it and consequently He that is glorified by it It being nothing but the resplendency of his own Almighty Goodness or his own out-stretched Rays shining back upon Himself And therefore we aim at Gods glory just as He himself doth when we aim to be as happy as He would have us that is when we pursue Heaven and co-operate with his Infinite Goodness whose great design is to advance us to that blessed condition in which we shall Glorifie him for ever and be Everlasting Monuments of his overflowing Benignity So that whether we call our last End Heaven or the Glory of God it is all but one and the same thing since by obtaining Heaven we shall Glorifie him according to his own Design and Intention And this I think may suffice to shew what is the true ultimate End of the Christian Life But then II. IT will be yet farther necessary for our clearing the way to the Design in hand to enquire what Kind of Happiness this is Which when we understand we shall be the better able to comprehend what Duties or Means are necessary for the obtaining it And this Enquiry will be easily resolved by considering the Nature of Those for whom it was prepared and intended For all Happiness consists in the free and vigorous Exercise of the Faculties of Nature about Objects that are suitable to themselves There is indeed a privative happiness which is nothing but Indolence or freedom from pain and misery and this consists not so much in the Exercise as in the rest and quiet of the Faculties And herein the soft and restive Epicureans placed the whole Happiness of a Man In which I confess they would not be very much mistaken if there were no happiness belonging to a Man beyond that Animal and Sensual one in which the Disciples of this Atheistical Philosopher placed their chief Good For the greatest part of the Pleasures of Sense indeed are merely Privations of Misery and short Reprieves from the Griefs and Troubles of a wretched Life For what else is our Ease and Rest but only the removal of our Pain and Weariness which being removed the Pleasure is presently over and then we grow weary again of our Rest and Ease till Pain and Weariness return and sweeten them and gives them a fresh and new relish For when we are weary of Rest we are fain to recreate our selves with Action and when we are weary of Action to refresh our selves with Rest and so round again still in the same Circle Thus the greatest part of the pleasure of Eating and Drinking consists in asswaging the pain of our Hunger and Thirst. For when this is over you see the pleasure ceases and till it returns again every fresh morsel is but a new load to a tired Digestion So that in short the greatest part of those sensual Felicities which we do here enjoy are only short intermissions of the pains and uneasinesses of a wretched Life But if there were no other Happiness belonging to a Man but what consists in not being sensible of Misery it were much more desirable to be a Stone than a Man and the only way for him to be perfectly Happy would be to deprive himself of all Sense and Perception T IS true That which is positive in our Happiness can never be perfectly injoyed by us without a perfect Indolence and Insensibility of Pain it being impossible for us to have a perfect sense of any thing whilst we have the least touch or feeling of its Contrary But were Happiness nothing else but a non-perception of Misery it would have no positive Essence or Reality of its own which is directly contrary to all humane Experience For we plainly feel that our Happiness hath in it not only a Rest from Evil but a grateful Motion to Good and that as our Pain and Misery consists in an acute and sensible perception of such things as are most ungrateful to our Natures so Pleasure or Satisfaction consists in a vigorous perception of the contrary So that besides the not being miserable which is not so properly an Essential Part of Happiness as a necessary Disposition to it without which the Faculties of our Natures will be indisposed to relish and perceive it there is a positive Happiness which as I said before consists in a constant free and vigorous Exercise of the Faculties about such Objects as are most convenient and suitable to their Natures For Happiness in the general includes Perfection and Pleasure both which are necessarily included in such an Exercise of the Faculties For then the Faculties are Perfect when they are freely constantly and vigorously imployed about such objects as are most congruous to their several natures when they are recovered from all indispositions whether natural or moral to those proper motions and exercises for which they were framed and do freely constantly and without any clog or interruption direct all their courses towards such Objects as are their natural Centers And then the Faculties are most pleas'd and delighted too when they are most vigorously exercised about that which is most suitable to them when they are not only determined to such Objects as are most agreable to their Natures but do also act upon and exert themselves towards them with the greatest Sprightliness and Vigour THESE things I thought meet to premise concerning Happiness in the General as being very needful to the clearer resolution of the present Enquiry viz. Wherein consists the Heaven or Happiness of a Man In short therefore the proper Heaven and Happiness of a Man considered as a rational Being consists in the constant free and sprightful Exercise of his Faculties about such Objects as are most convenient to his rational Nature which consisting wholly of Vnderstanding and Will that is of a Faculty of Knowing and a Faculty of Chusing the most suitable Objects of it are such as are most worthy to be known and most worthy to be chosen When therefore the Vnderstanding is always vigorously exercised in seeing and contemplating the most glorious and excellent Truths and the Will is always vigorously employed in chusing and
the Law of Nature which seems to have been nothing else but only Right Reason dictating to us what is necessary to be done in order to an Earthly Happiness And accordingly the Duties of this Law were of a much lower strain than the Duties of Christianity they being intended for the Means and Instruments of a much lower Happiness For in this our Earthly and Animal State Right Reason could require nothing of us but what was subservient to our Earthly and Animal Felicity and nothing could be good for us but what tended thereunto nothing evil but what did obstruct and oppose it But now that our Happiness is placed in another World and in such vastly different Enjoyments from those of a Terrestrial Paradise we must proceed upon other Principles For now every Action is Good or Bad Wise or Foolish as it serves or hinders our Happiness in the World to come And therefore it is highly reasonable that now we should live at a different rate than what we were obliged to in that Animal state wherein we were first Created that we should submit our earthly to our heavenly Interest and renounce the Joyes and Pleasures of this Life whensoever they stand in competition with the spiritual Felicities of the Life to come Now we are no longer to look upon this World as our Native Countrey but as a Foreign Land and so we are to reckon our selves Strangers and Pilgrims upon Earth and accordingly to use the conveniencies of this Life as strangers do their Inns not to abide or take up our habitation in them but only to bait and away and refresh our selves that so we may be the better enabled to perform our Journey to the Eternal World For the scene of our Happiness being shifted from an Earthly Immortality to an Heavenly and consequently the Happiness it self being now much more sublime and pure and spiritual than it would have been had it continued Earthly it 's necessary that our Nature should be exalted with it and that we should be raised as high above the condion of mere Earthly Creatures as that is above the rank and quality of an Earthly Happiness otherwise it will be impossible for us to relish and enjoy it NOW every Agent hath need of more or fewer Means proportionably as he is farther off or nearer to the End he drives at As for instance the Husbandman that hath a fat and fruitful Soil to sow his Seed in is nearer to the attaining of a good Harvest than he that hath a barren or stony Ground to work upon and therefore hath much less to do For whereas the latter before he can plough and sow must manure his Ground and gather out the stones of it the former needs only plough up the fertile Earth and cast his Seed into it Or to come closer to the case in hand a man that is meerly ignorant is in a much nearer capacity of true Knowledge than he whose mind is altogether prejudiced with erroneous Principles and therefore needs much fewer Helps and Means to attain it For his mind being perfectly disengaged is like a fair Paper on which as there is nothing writ so there is nothing to be blotted out So that all that he hath to do is to inquire after and receive the Truth when it is fairly proposed to him But as for the Prejudiced man he hath a great deal to unlearn before he can be capable of Learning a great many false Principles to be expunged before ever the true Notions of Things can be imprinted on his Understanding IF therfore we would take a true account of all those Means that are necessary to our attaining of Heaven we must consider what a vast distance we are from it in this corrupt and degenerate state of our Nature If we were in a state of Indifference between Virtue and Vice we should be much nearer Heaven than we are For then as we should be without those Heavenly virtues in the free Exercise whereof the state of Heaven consists so we should be without all that Repugnance and Aversation to them which renders them so difficultly attainable and our Nature being already in an Aequilibrium would by the least over-weight of Motive be presently inclined to Virtue and Goodness But alas in this corrupt state whereinto we are sunk our Nature runs Evil-wards with a very strong and prevailing Biass and is not only void of virtue but averse to it And this sets us at a far greater distance from the blessed End of our Religion than otherwise we should be For every Degree of vicious Inclination that is in us is a Remove from Heaven a Descent from that Perfection of virtue wherein the Heavenly Blessedness consists And if so how remote from Heaven are the Generality of men in the Beginning of their Progress thither when to their natural Corruption they have superadded by their sinful Courses so many inordinate Inclinations and inveterate sinful Habits when by a long series of wicked Actions they have raised and blown up their Concupiscence into such raging flames of Lust as generally they do And being thus far gone back from our End there are sundry Means which otherwise would have been perfectly needless and superfluous that are now become absolutely necessary thereunto For had we begun our Progress towards Heaven from a state of Indifferency between virtue and vice we had had no more to do but to practise those several virtues of Religion of which the Heavenly Life and state consists to love and to contemplate to adore and to obey God and behave our selves justly and charitably towards one another all which would have been so easie that we should have had no occasion of any Instrumental Duties to facilitate them to us Whereas now starting Heaven-wards as we generally do from a most corrupt and degenerate State there are sundry other Means which we must use as Instruments that are necessary to our acquiring and persevering in the virtues of the Heavenly Life to our conquering the Difficulties of and killing the vicious Aversations of our Natures against them All which would have been needless at least in a great measure had not our Nature been so depraved and corrupt as it is SO that as the case now stands with us there are Two sorts of Means that are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven The first is the Practice of those Heavenly virtues in the Perfection whereof consists the state of Heaven the Second is the Practice of certain Instrumental Duties which are necessary to our acquiring those Heavenly virtues and overcoming the Difficulties of them The first sort of these are the proximate Means those which directly and immediatly respect the Great and Ultimate End The second the more remote Means which immediatly respect those Means that immediatly respect the End The first is like the Art of the Builder which immediatly respects the House The second like the Art of the Smith which immediately respects the Means
and Instruments of Building I. ONE sort of Means necessary to the obtaining of Heaven and that which more directly and immediately respects it is the Practice of those Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Heavenly Life consists For we find by experience that all Heavenly Virtues are to be acquired and perfected only by Practice That as all bad Dispositions are acquired and improved into Habits by bad Practices and Customs so are all the contrary virtuous ones by the contrary Practices For Religion proceeds in the methods of Nature and carries us on from the Acts to the Dispositions and from the Dispositions to the Habits of Virtue And by the same method the Divine Grace which accompanies Religion does ordinarily work its Effects upon the spirits of men not by an instantaneous Infusion of virtuous Habits into the Will but by persuading them to the Practice of those Virtues that are contrary to their vicious Habits and to persist in the practice of them till they have mortified those Habits and throughly habituated and inured them selves to these So that the Grace of God is like a Graff which though it is put into a Stock which is quite of another kind doth yet make use of the Faculties and Juices of the Stock and so by cooperating with them converts it by degrees into its own Nature And this is exactly agreeable to the common experience of men who in the beginning of their Reformation are so far from acting vertuously from Habit and Inclination that it goes against the very Grain of their Nature and they would much rather return to their vicious courses if they were not chased and pursued by the Terrours of an awakened Conscience and when afterwards they come to act upon a more ingenuous Principle yet still they find in themselves a great Averseness and Reluctancy to it and 't is a great while usually ere they arrive to a Habit or Facility of acting virtuously But then by perseverance in the practice of Virtue they are more and more inclined and disposed to it and so by degrees it becomes easie and natural to them If therefore we would ever arrive to that Perfection of Virtue which the Heavenly State implies it must be by the Practice of Virtue by a continual training and exercising our selves in all the parts of the Heavenly Life which by degrees will wear off the Difficulty of it and adapt and familiarize our Nature to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those things which they that learn ought to do they learn by doing them Thus we learn Devotion by Prayer Submission to God by Denying our selves Charity by giving Alms and Meekness by Forgiving Injuries And we may as reasonably expect to commence learned without study as virtuous without the Practice of Virtue Since therefore the Formal Happiness of our reasonable Natures consists in the Perfection of all the Heavenly virtues and 't is by these alone that we can rellish and enjoy the blissful Objects of Heaven it hence follows that the Practice of those virtues is the most direct and immediate Means to obtain the Blessed End of our Religion But then II. ANOTHER sort of Means necessary to our obtaining of Heaven consists of certain Instrumental Duties by which we are to acquire improve and perfect these Heavenly Virtues What these Means are will be hereafter largely shown All that I shall say of them at present is That they are such as are no farther good and useful than as they are the Means of Heavenly Virtue and do tend towards the acquiring improving and perfecting it For the whole Duty of Man may be distributed into these Two Generals viz. The Religion of the End and Religion of the Means The Religion of the End contains all that Heavenly Virtue wherein the Perfection and Happiness of Humane Nature consists and this the Apostle distributes into three particulars viz. Sobriety Righteousness and Godliness The Religion of the Means comprehends all that Duty which does either naturally or by Institution respect and drive at this Religion of the End and that all other Duty that is not it self a Natural Branch and Part of it doth respect and drive at it the Apostle assures us when he tells us that the Gospel or Grace of God was revealed from Heaven for this very purpose to teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world And if we do not use the Religion of the Means to this purpose it is altogether useless and insignificant For the purpose of all Religious Duties is either 1. To reconcile men to God and God to them or 2. To perfect the Humane Nature or 3. To intitle men to Heaven or 4. To qualifie and dispose them for the Heavenly Life To neither of which the Religion of the Means is any farther useful than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End For I. IT is no further useful towards the reconciling Us to God and God to Us. For there can be no hearty Reconciliation between adverse Parties without there be a mutual Likeness and Agreement of Natures Now the Carnal Mind which includes all that is repugnant to the Heavenly Virtues the Apostle tells us is Enmity against God Rom. vii 17 that is hath a natural Antipathy to the Purity and Goodness of the Divine Nature And this Antipathy the same Apostle tells us is founded in our wicked works Coloss. i. 21 So that though we should practise never so diligently all that is contained in the Religion of the Means though we should pray and hear and receive Sacraments c. with never so much Zeal and Constancy yet all this will be insignificant as to the reconciling our Natures to God unless it destroy in us that Carnal Mind and those wicked Works which render us so averse to his Goodness And though God bears a hearty good Will to all that are capable of Good and embraces his whole Creation with the out-stretched Arms of his Benevolence yet he cannot be supposed to be pleased with or delighted in any but such as resemble Him in those amiable Graces of Purity and Goodness for which he loves Himself For he loves not Himself meerly because he is Himself which would be a blind Instinct rather than a Reasonable Love but because He is Good and he loves Himself above all other things because he knows Himself to be the Highest and most Perfect Good and consequently He loves all other things proportionably as they approach and resemble Him in Goodness And indeed if He loved Vs for any other Reason besides that for which he loves Himself he would not have infinite Reason to love Himself because he would not have that Reason to love Himself for which he loves and takes delight in Vs. Since therefore there is nothing but our Resemblance of God can reconcile Him to Us and since our Resemblance of Him
Shame and Fear and when we endeavour the former our Appetite bridles us with Dislike and Aversation In this extremity therefore what is to be done that we may be free Why the case is plain we must resolve to conquer either our Reason or our Lusts if we conquer our Reason which we shall find by far the harder Task of the two we shall acquire the Freedom of Devils and Brutes the Freedom to do Mischief and wallow in the mire without Shame or Remorse but if we conquer our Lusts we acquire the Freedom of Men yea of Saints and of Angels the freedom to act reasonably without Reluctance or Aversation and this being much more easily to be acquired than the former I dare appeal to any mans Reason which of the two is in it self most eligible If therefore we would vindicate our rational Freedom we must resolve to shake off those slavish Fetters our brutish and our devilish Appetites that do so perpetually turmoil and incumber us in all our virtuous Attempts and rational Operations we must tie up our selves from executing their Commands and serving their wicked Wills and Pleasures and heartily resolve to act as it becomes us in the Capacity of rational Creatures related to God and one another And then though at first we must expect to find our selves confined and straitned by our vicious Aversations we shall be immediately released from all that Shame and Fear which did so continually curb us in the carreer of our Wickedness and even our vicious Aversation if we couragiously persist in our good Resolution will grow weaker and weaker and be every day less and less combersome to us till it is totally extinguished And then we shall feel our selves intirely restored into our own Power and be able without Check or Controle to dispose of our selves and all our Motions according as it shall seem to us most fit and reasonable then we shall act with the greatest Vigour and Freedom having no counter-striving Principles to restrain or retard us no vicious Aversations on the one side or guilty Shame or Fear on the other to counterpoize us in our rational Motions then we shall move without Check or Confinement in a large and noble Sphere for we shall be pleased with what is fit and wise and good without any Reserve or Exception and we shall do what we please without any Let or Hindrance So that by ingaging our selves in the heavenly Life we enter into a state of glorious Liberty and if we constantly persist in it and do still prevalently list to live as becomes us we shall be more and more free to live as we list till at last we are arrived into a perfect Liberty wherein we shall live without Restraint or Controul without check of Conscience or reluctance of Inclination which are the two main Bars that confine and straiten men in their Operations If therefore we would ever be free let us immediately come off from our vicious Courses to the Practice of this divine and heavenly Life wherein by degrees if we couragiously hold on we shall wear off those Shackles that do so miserably hamper and intangle us and then we shall be intirely free to do whatsoever our reason dictates to us then we shall run the ways of Gods commandments and like our blessed Brethren above be all Life and Spirit and Wing in the discharge of our Duty to him IV. CONSIDER the Pleasure of this heavenly Life 'T is true there is a sort of Pleasure that results from all the Acts of a sensual and earthly Conversation but we find by Experience that though in the pursuit it strangely allures and inchants us yet in the Fruition it always disappoints our Expectation and scarce performs in the Enjoyment one half of what it promised to our Hope and at the best 't is but a present and transient Satisfaction of our brutish Sense a Satisfaction that dims the Light sullies the Beauty impairs the Vigour and restrains the Activity of the Mind diverting it from better Operations and indisposing it to the fruition of purer Delights leaving no comfortable Rellish or gladsome Memory behind it but oftentimes going out in a stink and determining in Bitterness Regret and Disgrace But in each act of this divine and celestial Life there is something of the Pleasure of Heaven something of those divine Refreshments and Consolations upon which the good People of Heaven do live For the greatest part of their Heaven springs from within their own Bosoms even from the Conformity of their Souls to the heavenly State and the sprightful out-goings of their Minds and Affections towards the heavenly Objects from their contemplating and loving their praising and adoring the most high God from their Imitation of his Perfections their Subjection to his Will and Dependance on his Veracity all which Acts as I have already shewed have the most ravishing Pleasures appendant to them and are so necessary to the Felicity of rational Creatures that the Wit of Man cannot fancy a rational Heaven without them For the heaven of a rational Creature consisting in the most intense and vigorous Exercise of its rational Faculties about the most suitable and convenient Objects what Object can be more convenient to such Faculties than that Almighty Sovereign of Beings whose Power is the Spring of all Truth and whose Nature is the Pattern of all Goodness So that without a perfect Union of our Minds and Wills and Affections with God there can be no possible Idea of a perfect Heaven of rational Pleasures but in this blessed Union lies the very Soul and Quintessence of Heaven Since therefore in every Act of every Virtue of the divine Life there is at least an imperfect Union of the Soul with God it necessarily follows that there must be some degree of the Pleasure of Heaven in every one So that if we do not experience much greater Joy and Delight in the Acts of this divine Life than ever we did in the highest Epicurisms and Sensualities 't is not because there are not much greater in them but because we never exerted them with that Sprightliness and Vigour as we do our sensual Appetites and Perceptions because we are clogg'd in the Exercise of them either by false Principles or bodily Indispositions or sinful Aversations But if we would take the pains to inure and accustom our selves to these heavenly Acts we should find by degrees they would grow natural and easie to us and our Souls would be so habituated contempered and disposed to them that we should upon all Occasions exert them with great Fredom and Inlargement And then we should begin to feel and relish the Pleasure of them then we should perceive a Heaven of Delights springing up from within us and unfolding it self in each beatifical Act of our heavenly Conversation then we should find our selves under the central force of Heaven most sweetly drawn along and attracted thither by the powerful Magnetism of its Joys
Consideration of things with that Shame and Sorrow and those earnest Cries to Heaven for Aid and Assistance which are necessary to the founding of a strong and lasting Resolution is no so easie a matter For in all those preparatory Exercises we have a roving Mind a hard Heart and a perverse Nature to contend with and we shall find it a very hard matter to call in our wandering Thoughts and unite them together into a fixt and steady Consideration of the Evidences of the Truth of Religion and of the Duties and Motives and Difficulties of it And whilst we are entertaining them with this unwonted Argument there are a thousand Objects with which they are better acquainted that will be calling them away so that without a great deal of Violence to our selves we shall never be able to keep them together so long as is necessary to the forming a firm Assent to the Truth and the passing a true and impartial Judgment upon the Proposals of Religion And when we have fixt our Thoughts into a serious Consideration of the Evidences of Religion we shall find that our Lusts will object much more against them than our Reason that they will be casting mists before our Eyes and bribing and biassing our Understanding the other way and that thereupon 't will be more difficult than we are aware to convince our selves throughly of the truth of a Religion that is so diametrically opposite to our vicious Inclinations But when this is done and we proceed to consider the Duties of Religion and to ballance the Motives with the Difficulties of them in order to the obtaining of our selves a full and free Consent to them here again we shall find our selves at a mighty Plunge For though the Motives to our Duty are at first View infinitely greater and more considerable than the Difficulties of it though it be unspeakably more intolerable to lose the Joys of Heaven and incur the Pains of Hell than to endure the sharpest Brunts of this spiritual Warfare yet these being present and sensible have a more Immediate Access to us and consequently are apter to move us than either of those Motives which are both of them future and invisible So that unless we do earnestly press and urge our selves with those Motives and imprint them upon our minds in the most lively and real Characters we shall find our selves over-ruled in despight of them by these present and sensible Difficulties that are before us But when we have effectually convinced our selves that those Difficulties of our Duty are much less considerable than the Motives to them we shall find it a hard Task to persuade our Wills into a free and explicit Consent to all the Particulars of it For now we shall find a strong Aversation in our Natures to sundry of those Duties that call for our Approbation and there will be a mighty Counterstriving between our Reason and Inclinations Our darling Lusts those bosom Orators within us will now employ all their Rhetorick to dissuade us from parting with them they will clasp about our Souls like departing Lovers and use all their Charms and Allurements to hold us fast and reconcile themselves to us and under these Circumstances though we have all the reason in the world on our side we shall find it will be no such easie matter effectually to dispose our Wills to close with so many offensive Duties and part with so many beloved Sins But when this is done which to be sure will cost us many a violent Struggle and Contention with our selves there are other Difficulties to be mastered For now we must reflect upon our past ill Life and expose it to our own Eyes in all its natural Horror Turpitude and Infamy and never leave reproaching our selves with the Foulness and Disingenuity the Madness and Folly of it till we find our hearts affected with Shame and Sorrow for and Indignation against it And for us that have been so long used to cokes and flatter our selves to paint and varnish our Deformities and crown our Brows with forced and undeserved Applauses for us to condemn and upbraid our selves to strip our Actions of all their artificial Beauty and set our selves before our own Eyes in all our naked undisguised Ugliness and not look off till we have lookt our selves into Shame and Horror and Hatred of our selves will be at first especially a very ungrateful Employment and yet it may be a good while perhaps before our hard and unmalleable Hearts will yield to the impressions of godly Sorrow and Remorse But when this Difficulty is conquered our Work is not yet totally finished For now we must come off from our selves and all our presumptious Dependances upon our own Ability and Power and in a deep sense of our own most wretched Weakness and Impotency throw our selves wholly upon God and with earnest and importunate Outcries implore his gracious Aid and Assistance And let me tell ye to men that have been all along inured to such glorious Conceits of themselves such mighty Confidences in their own Abilities that have promised themselves from time to time that at such and such a time they would repent and amend as if without Gods Help 't were in their Power to repent when they pleased for such men as these I say to come out of themselves and their own self-confidences and wholly cast themselves upon a foreign Help so sensibly to feel and ingenuously to own their own Inability as to fly to God and confess themselves lost and undone without him is a much harder matter than we can well imagine till we come to make the Experiment And yet this all this must be done bfore we can be well prepared to resolve upon the Christian Warfare THIS I have the longer insisted on because I would deal plainly with you and shew you the worst of things For whether you are told of it or no you will find it if ever you make the Experiment that all your good Resolutions without these Preparations will soon unravel in the Execution and that after you have resolved a thousand times over you will be just where you are and not one step farther in Religion But for your Encouragement know that when with these necessary Preparations you have solemnized your Resolution you have won the main and toughest Victory in all your spiritual Warfare a Victory by which you have pulled down your Sin from its Throne and broken and disarrayed its Power and Forces so that now you are upon the pursuit of a flying Enemy and if you do but diligently follow your Blow and pursue your brave Resolution through all Temptations to the contrary and do not suffer your vanquished Enemy to rally and reinforce himself against ye you will sensibly perceive his Strength decay and those Lusts which seemed at first invincible will languish away by degrees from weak to weaker till at last they expire into the Habits of their contrary Virtues and so proportionably
and unite them in one Center and not to suffer himself to be tossed hither and thither by independent Designs and Intentions because this will unavoidably distract him in his prosecutions and so divide and weaken his Principles of Action that he will be able to do nothing to any Purpose God therefore being the great Object of Religion it is necessary in order to our progress therein that we should as much as in us lies respect and aim at him in the whole Course of our Actions that we should continually look up to him as to the directing Star by which we are to steer our Motions and conduct our whole Lives under a fixt Intention to obey his Will and imitate his Nature AND indeed unless we do this we are not good Men in the Sense and Judgment of Religion For Religion as such is a Rule of divine Worship and under this Notion the Christian Religion in particular enjoins all its Duties viz. of Homage and Worship to God For it requires us to do all as unto God Col. iii. 23 and to do all to the glory of God 1 Cor. x. 31 that is to do all in Obedience to him and Imitation of him from a sincere Acknowledgment of the Perfections of his Nature of his sovereign Authority over us and immutable Right to rule and command us Not that an actual explicite Intention of obeying or imitating God is necessary to every good Action for our Occasions of doing good being so infinite and so often occurring in our secular Affairs and our Minds being so incapable as they are of attending many things at once it is impossible for us actually to intend Obedience to God in every good thing we perform but that in the general we should heartily intend it is indispensibly necessary to the consecrating our best Actions and adopting them into the Family of Religion For that we must obey God is the fundamental Law of Religion from whence all the particular Commands and Prohibitions of it do receive their Force and Obligation So that unless we do what he commands with a general Intention of Mind to obey him we do not act upon a religious Obligation and consequently though our Actions should be materially good yet are they not formally religious NOW to the fixing and setling such a general Intention in our Minds it is necessary that in the particular Exercises of our Religion we should so far as we are able actually intend and aim at God that we should throw by all other Ends so far as we are able and refer our Actions directly and immediately to him in a word that we should formally devote and dedicate them to his blessed Will and Pleasure so as to be able to say this and this I do purely to please God with a single Intention of Soul to resemble and please him to transcribe his Nature and comply with his Will For which end we must take care as oft as we can to perform our religious Actions in such a manner as that no secular Ends may interpose between God and our Intentions to be as private and as modest as we can in our Religion and not expose it any more than needs must to the eye of the World lest Applause and Reputation should intrude themselves upon us and carry away our Intention from God For thus our Saviour advises in the Case of Charity and Prayer Mat. vi 1 7. that we should not do our alms before men to be seen of them nor sound a trumpet before them to make the Streets ring of our Charity nay if possible that we should not let our left hand know what our right hand doth but that our Alms should be secret and known only to God and our selves and that when we pray we should not affect to make a pompous shew of it in the Synagogues and corners of the streets but that we should enter into our closets and shut our door and in the most private manner unbosom our Souls to God the sense of all which is that should we endeavour so far as in us lies so to circumstantiate our Charity and Devotion as not to give any Opportunity to secular Ends and Aims to obtrude themselves upon us to mingle with our pious Intentions and deflower the Purity of them NOT that I think it unlawful for a man to intend any thing but God in the discharge of his Duty or that our Intention is bad when it immediately respects any worldly End such as Pleasure or Profit or Honour which are proposed by God himself as Arguments to persuade men to their Duty and what hurt can it be for men to aim at that in the discharge of their Duty which God hath proposed to them as an Encouragement to it 'T is true if worldly Advantage be the only or chief End we aim at our Intention is naught and so are all the Actions thence proceeding but if together with that we do so heartily intend and aim to please God and conform our selves to his blessed Will and Nature as to continue on in the path of our Duty to him not only when we have no prospect of outward Advantage to induce us to it but when outward Evils and Inconveniences lie in our way we need not doubt but our Intention is truly good and sincere notwithstanding those immediate Respects which it many times hath to secular Ends and Inducements But yet it is certain that the more it respects these the more imperfect it is and the more liable to be vanquished by outward Temptations For it 's a plain sign that 't is conscious of its own Weakness when it dares not stand alone but is fain to call in to it the Assistance of these worldly Ends to support and defend it and the less of worldly Aim there is in our religious Intention to be sure the more pure and simple it is and the more of substantial Piety there is in it and though it may be truly sincere notwithstanding its being compounded with secular Aims and Respects yet the more of these there is in it the weaker and more instable it must necessarily be For our Mind being finite cannot possibly intend many things with equal Strength and Vigour as it can do one and when its Intention is dispersed among various Objects it must necessarily be more languid than when 't is collected united and fixt upon one and consequently the more a mans Intention respects the World the less in proportion it must respect God and so on the contrary And then the less a man respects God in his Duty and the more he respects the World the more liable he will be to the Temptations of worldly Loss or Advantage For when those Advantages which he so much respects lie on the opposite side to his Duty to be sure he will be so much the more inclined to desert it and as often as Fortune shifts sides and carries with it the Advantages of Pleasure Profit or Honour
enough to correct and amend them before they are too deeply rooted in our Natures and have wound themselves too far into our Inclinations and a wound in our Innocence as well as our Bodies may be easily cured if it be taken in time but if it be neglected too long it will rancle by Degrees into an incureable Gangreen AND as frequent Self-Examination is a great Bridle to our Sin so it is also an effectual Spur to our Vertue For as when a man reflects upon his Sins and Miscarriages and considers how and where he hath done amiss his Conscience will be presently urging and exciting him to Repentance and Amendment so when he reflects upon his own Vertue and Sincerity his conscience will smile upon and crown him with Applauses and give him such a sweet and grateful Relish of his own Actions as will mightily incourage him to persevere in Well-doing For in all our Self-examinations we taste the difference between Good and Evil the Sweetness of that and the Bitterness of this and consequently the oftner we do so the more we shall be sure to like and approve of the one and to dislike and nauseate the other WHEREFORE to secure a good success to this our Christian Warfare as it is necessary especially at first that we should every Morning before we go into the World repeat and inforce our good Resolution so it is no less requisite especially till we have made some considerable Progress that we should every Night when we are withdrawn from the World strictly examin the performances of the Day whether they are such as do comport with our solemn Engagements And if upon an impartial Survey it appear that they do though as yet it be but weakly and imperfectly let us attend to the Sense of our own Minds to that silent Melody that resounds from our Consciences to our Actions and so lye down in Peace blessing and adoring that Grace by which we have been assisted and preserved Or if it appear that we have been unwarily faulty for want of due Care and Watchfulness let us resolve to take more Care for the future and thereby to put a timely Stop to our Sin before it hath too far insinuated into our Will and Inclinations but if we are conscious of any wilful Breach upon our Morning Vows of Obedience let us lament and bewail it with Shame and Indignation What have I done O wretched Traitor that I am to God and my own Soul I have falsified my Vows to Heaven and broke those Sacred Bands by which I was tyed up from my Lusts and my Ruin What can I plead for my self base and unworthy that I am with what Face can I go into his dreadful Presence whom I have so often mocked with my treacherous Promises of Amendment Yet go I will though I am all ashamed and confounded and confess and bewail mine Iniquity before him IF we would but take care thus to call our selves to Account every Night and impartialy to censure the Actions of the day it is not to be imagined how fast 't would set us forward in our Christian Warfare how much the Reflection on a well-spent Day would chear and enliven us how the grateful Sense of it would spirit our Faculties and encourage us to go on against all Oppositions how much the Review of the Sins of the Day would contribute to make our Reason more vigilant and our Consciences more tender for the future how much the Pleasure of our Sins would be allayed and abated by the stinging Reflections we should make upon them and how much the Dread of having the same Reflections repeated to us at Night would secure us against the Temptations of the Day VII TO prosper the Course of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should be very watchful and circumspect For this also is one of those militant Duties which the Gospel injoins us Thus Matt. xxvi 41 Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation and Mark xiii 37 What I say unto you I say unto all watch so also 1 Cor. xvi 13 Watch ye stand fast in the faith quit your selves like men and 1 Thes. v. 6 Wherefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober where the Nature of the Duty is plainly discovered by its Opposite or Contrary let us not sleep but watch i. e. do not behave your selves like men that are asleep that take no Notice or Regard of what is done by to or about them but be sure you exercise a suitful prudent and constant Care over your own Actions and those manifold Temptations that assault and surround you And therefore elsewhere 't is exprest by walking circumspectly Eph. v. 15 i. e. looking round about you weighing the nature and circumstances of your Actions and using all honest Care either to prevent the Temptations that threaten you or to provide against them so that in short the sense of this Duty is this that we carefully avoid acting rashly and precipitantly without considering before-hand the Nature of our Action whether it be good or evil that in all doubtful and suspicious Cases we impartially consult our Rule and Conscience and look before we leap and take care to satisfie our selves of the Goodness of our Designs before we put them into Execution in a word that we do not carelesly run our selves into Temptations but if possible to avoid them if not to be sure to arm our selves against them and keep as far off from all sin especially from that we are most inclined to as is consistent with our necessary Occasions or in fewer words 't is to be always well advised in what we do whether it be good or evil and if it be evil to remove so far as we can from all Occasions that lead to it and provide our selves with Considerations against it and to keep them always awake in our Minds that we may not be surprized by it unawares WHICH is a Duty indispensably necessary for us in the whole Course of our Christian Warfare For whilst we accustom our selves to act rashly and inconsiderately without bethinking before-hand what we say or do we wander like blind men in a Field that is full of Pits and Quagmires and are every moment in Danger of stumbling into one Mischief or other and shall certainly plunge our selves into many an evil Custom before ever we have bethought our selves of the evil of it and so instead of conquering our old Sins we shall be ever and anon running our selves into new ones and while we are running away from one evil shall many times stumble into another and to avoid the Defects of Vertue leap head-long into the Excesses of it For in most moral Actions the Transition from the utmost of what is lawful into the nearmost of what is sinful is indiscernible and that line which parts this Vertue from that neighbouring Vice is generally so small that 't is hard to distinguish
where they are separated and to fix the just Boundary whitherto we may go and no farther But then considering that almost every Vertue lies in the Middle between two sinful Extremes neither of which are separated from it by any plain or visible Land-mark how is it possible for us without great Care of our Steps to keep on stedfastly in the right Path when there are so many wrong ones bordering upon it For when we perceive we have wandred too far towards either Extreme and are indeavouring to retrieve our selves if we do not take great Care of our Steps we shall be apt to wander as far the other way and so stumble out of one Extreme into another For he who lives heedlesly and incuriously regards not how near he approaches to any sin provided he doth but keep himself out of it and when once a man takes the Liberty to go as near to any Sin as he thinks he lawfully may it is a thousand to one but he will be transported by his Inclination a great deal further than he should So true is that of Clem. Alex. Paedag. lib. 2. c. 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. they who will do all things that are lawful will quickly be induced to do what is unlawful especially if they be strongly inclined to it because the very Nearness of what a man loves doth always render it more tempting and alluring to him Thus he that hath a strong inclination to Lying can never be safe so long as he allows himself to be excessively talkative he that is vehemently propense to fleshly Lust must needs indanger his Innocence if he come too near the farthermost Limits of a modest Freedom and he whose nature is prone to Malice and Revenge cannot but run a mighty Hazard if he indulge to himself the utmost Degree of a just and lawful Resentment For bad Inclinations are never so impatient of Restraint as when they are within Prospect of their proper Satisfactions and the objects which attract them are near and easie to be injoyed Upon which Account it must needs be a very dangerous thing for such as are ingaged in the Christian Warfare to live within Sight of the Temptations they are most inclined to because the nearer they are to them the more they will court and importune them and while a man comes near a beloved Lust and doth not enjoy it he doth but Tantalize himself and inrage his Appetite after those vicious Satisfactions whose alluring Relishes he had almost forgotten If therefore he would obtain a perfect Victory over his Lust he must not only forbear to act but also to approach it at least till he hath so far weaned his Inclination from it as that its Nearness ceases to be a Temptation to him For Inclination like all other Motion is always swiftest when it is nearest its Center and when once 't is within the Reach and Attraction of it it hurries towards it with Fury and Impatience and if in this its violent Rage it happen to break out to its beloved Sin and to tast the forbidden Pleasure of it 't will thereby immediately recover all its impaired Strength and become as headstrong and outragious as ever and so all that Ground which we get in a Months Abstinence from our sin we shall lose in a Moments Injoyment of it Upon this account therefore it highly concerns us if we would succeed in our Christian Warfare to be very watchful and circumspect to look well to our Steps and not approach too near to any Sin but especially to any that we are strongly inclined to VIII TO give us good Success in this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we be diligent and industrious in our particular Callings This is one of those instrumental Duties which our Religion prescribes throughout the whole Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare Thus 1 Thes. 4. x 2. We beseech you brethren that you increase more and more and that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business and work with your own hands as we commanded ye and this 2 Thes. iii. 10 he backs with another that if any would not work they should not eat i. e. that they should not be maintain'd in their Sloth and Idleness and like Drones be permitted to dwell at ease in the Hive and devour the Labours of the more industrious Bees and this verse xi he calls walking disorderly and v. viii and ix he tells us that 't was for this cause that he rather chose to work with his own hands for his Livelihood than to be maintained by them as he might justly have demanded that he might make himself an Example of Diligence for them to follow So also Eph. iv 28 Let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labour working with his hands the thing which is good i. e. imploying himself in some honest Calling that he may have to give to him that needs the sense of all which is to oblige us to ingage our selves in some honest Calling or Employment and to be diligent and industrious in it AND how necessary this is to secure us in the whole Course and Progress of our Religion appears from hence that we are naturally a sort of very active Beings that must be imployed one way or other that we have a Mind within us that will be always in Motion that being a spiritual subsistence and as such of a quite different Nature from dull and sluggish Matter will never admit of Rest and Inactivity that derives all its Pleasures from Action and hath nothing to live upon but the grateful relish of its own Motions And this being the state of that active Principle within us that constitutes us Men we had need take great care to keep it honestly busied and imployed For it being naturally such an exceeding busie thing 't will be sure to find something or other to work upon and if it be not constantly imployed about honest and lawful things 't will quickly divert the current of its Motion another way and exert its Activity upon dishonest and unlawful ones And hence it is that since the Apostacy of humane Nature God hath placed the generality of Men in such Circumstances wherein some honest Calling and their Diligence and Industry therein is indispensibly necessary to their comfortable Subsistence For he wisely considered that such was the Indisposition of our degenerate Natures to the divine and spiritual Exercises of Religion that 't would be impossible for us in this imperfect State to keep our Minds always intent upon them to fix our thoughts continually upon him and exert our Powers without any Pause or Interruption in perpetual Acts of Love Adoration and Imitation of him that there is such a Repugnance in our tempers to these blessed Operations that if we had nothing else to do they would soon grow irksome and intolerable to us and therefore lest being quite tired out with these spiritual Acts of
comes 1 Cor. xi 26 And that this doth not like the Precept of Baptism oblige us for once only and no more is evident from the foregoing words of this last recited Text as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup which plainly shews that these sacramental Elements are to be more than once received by us 'T is true how often 't is to be done neither Christ nor his Apostles have any where defined but if we consult primitive Example which in the Absence of express Precept is the best Rule to determine our selves by we shall find that it was very frequently received For from some Passages in the Acts of the Apostles it seems probable that Christians did then communicate every Day as particularly Acts ii 46 where they are said to continue daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the house that is as it seems probable in some upper room of the Temple though perhaps this daily may refer only to the Lords Day agreeably to that Acts xx 7 on the first day of the week when the Disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them But it 's certain that whensoever they assembled to the publick Worship they closed it with the Lords Supper which they did for a great while in the Western Churches every day in the Week and in the Eastern as St. Basil tells us Epist. 289. four times a Week besides Festivals So that allowing for our Declensions from the primitive Zeal and Devotion one would think that to communicate now once in four Weeks should be a very moderate Proportion But as for those that wholly neglect this sacred Institution for my own part I see not how they can excuse themselves from being guilty of a wilful Rebellion against their Saviour or with what Confidence they can expect either that he should assist them with his Grace on the Way or crown them with his Salvation in the End when they so perversly turn their backs upon an Ordinance which he hath solemnly instituted for a Conveyance of the one and a Seal of the other BUT would we take that Care that becomes us to prepare our selves for and frequent this holy Institution there is no doubt but we should find it of mighty Advantage to us in the whole Course of our Religion For till we are arived to a confirmed State of Good our holy Fervours will be very apt to cool our good Purposes to slacken and unwind and our vertuous Endeavours to languish and tire and therefore unless we take care frequently to revive our Religion with this spiritual Repast and Restorative and still to add new Fewel to it as the Flame decays it will quickly pine away and expire But if upon the solemn Returns of this sacred Festival we would constantly come with due Preparation to our masters Table and here renew our Vows re-invigorate our Resolutions repair our Decays and put our sluggish Graces into a new Fermentation we should find our Religion not only live but thrive and be still acquiring new Degrees of Strength and Activity But because this Argument hath been already so fully handled in our Practical Treatises particularly by the Reverend Dr. Patrick in his Mensa Mystica and Christian Sacrifice I shall refer the Reader thither for the farther Consideration of it And thus with all the Brevity I could I have indeavoured to give an Account of those Duties which are necessary in the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare SECT IV. Containing certain Motives to animate men against the Difficulty of these Duties which appertain to the Course of our Christian Warfare HOW necessary and useful to us those aforenamed Duties are in the Course of our Christian Warfare hath been sufficiently shewn So that now there is nothing that our Sloth and Vnwillingness can object against them but only this that they are very difficult and do require more of our Time and Care and Pains than we can conveniently spare from our other necessary Occasions that the Practice of them is so unpleasant and severe and attended with so much Cumber and Trouble that we very much doubt we shall never be able to go through with them And therefore to remove this Objection out of mens way and to excite them to the Practice of these necessary Duties I shall for a Conclusion of this Argument add to what hath been said of it these following Considerations 1. That whatsoever Difficulty there is in the Practice of them we may thank our selves for it 2. That in the Course of our Sin there is a great deal of Difficulty as well as in our Warfare against it 3. That how difficult soever this Warfare may be it must be indured or that which is a great deal worse 4. That though it be difficult yet there is nothing in it but what the Grace of God will render possible to us if we be not wanting to our selves 5. That the Practice of these Duties is not so difficult but that it is fairly consistent with all our other necessary Occasions and Diversions 6. That the Difficulty of them is such as will certainly abate and wear off by Degrees if we constantly practice them 7. That with the difficulty of them there is a World of present Peace and Satisfaction intermingled 8. That their Difficulty is abundantly compensated by the final Reward of them I. CONSIDER that whatsoever Difficulty there is in the Practice of them we may thank our selves for it For if we had betaken our selves to the Practice of Religion as soon as we were capable of it before we had entered our selves into sinful Courses and had therein contracted sinful Habits and Inclinations we might have prevented those Difficulties which we now complain of For our Religion was made for and adapted to our Nature and would have sweetly accorded with all its Affections and Propensions had we not vitiated them by our own wilful Sin and clapt a preternatural Biass upon them But though the Light be naturally congruous to the Eye yet if through a Distillation of ill Humours into it the Eye grow sore and weak there is nothing more grievous and offensive to it And so it is with Religion which to the pure and uncontaminated Nature of a Man is the most grateful and aggreeable thing in the World but if by our own ill Government we disease our Nature and deprave its primitive Constitution it is no wonder that Religion which was so well proportioned to it in its Purity should sit hard and uneasie upon it in its Apostacy and Corruption For to a man that is in a Feaver every thing is bitter even Honey which when he is well is exceeding sweet and grateful but the Bitterness which he tasts is not in the Honey but in the Gall which overflows his own Palate and so to a Nature that is diseased with any unnatural Lust that which is most congruous to it self will be
are able do you but your Part which is only what you can and then doubt not but God will do his put forth but your honest hearty Endeavour and earnestly implore his Aid and Assistance and if then you miscarry let Heaven answer for it But if upon a Pretence that your Work is too difficult and your Enemies too mighty for you you lay down your Arms and resolve to contend with them no longer let Heaven and Earth judg between God and you which is to be charged with your ruine God that so graciously offer'd you his Help that stretch'd out his Hand to raise ye up tenderd you his spirit to guard and conduct ye through all Oppositions to eternal Happiness or you that would not be persuaded to do any thing for your selves but rather chose to perish with Ease than take any Pains to be saved V. CONSIDER that the Practice of these Duties is not so difficult but that it is fairly consistent with all your other necessary Occasions When men are told how many Duties are necessary to their successful Progress in Religion what Patience and Constancy what frequent Examinations and Tryals of themselves what lively Thoughts and Expectations of Heaven c. they are apt to conclude that if they should ingage to do all this they must resolve to do nothing else but even shake hands with all their secular Business and Diversions and Cloister up themselves from all other Affairs Which is a very great Mistake proceeding either from their not considering or not understanding the nature of these religious Exercises the greatest part of which are such as are to be wholly transacted in the Mind whose Motions and Operations are much more nimble and expedite than those of the Body and so may be very well intermixt with our secular Employments withour any Let or Hindrance to them For what great Time is there required for a man now and then to revolve a few wise and useful Thoughts in his Mind to consider the Nature of an Action when it occurs and reflect upon an Error when it 's past and hath escap'd him I can consider a Temptation when it 's approaching me and with a Thought or two of Heaven or Hell arm my Resolution against it in the twinkling of an eye I can look up to Heaven with an eye of earnest Expectance and send my Soul thither in a short Ejaculation without interrupting my Business and yet these and such as these do make up a great Part of those religious Exercises wherein the proper Duty of our Christian Warfare consists And though to the due performance of these Duties it will be sometimes necessary that our Minds should dwell longer upon them yet it is to be considered that when once we are entered upon the Practice of them our Mind will be much more at Leisure to attend to them for then 't will be in a great measure taken off from its wild and unreasonable Vagaries from its sinful Designs and lewd Contrivances from its Phantastick Complacencies in the Pleasures of Sin and anxious Reflections on the Guilt and Danger of it and when all this Rubbish is thrown out of the Mind there will be Room enough for good Thoughts to dwell in it without interfering with any of our necessary Cares and Diversions For would we but give these our religious Exercises as much Room in our Minds as we did heretofore freely allow to our Sins they would ask no more but leave us as much at Leisure for our other Affairs as ever I confess there are some of these Duties that exact of us their fixt and stated Portions of Time such as our Morning Consideration and Prayer our Evening Examination and Prayer our religious Observation of the Lords Day and our preparing for and receiving the Holy Sacrament but all this may be very well spared without any Prejudice to any of our lawful Occasions For what great matter of Time doth it ask for a man to think over a few good Thoughts in the Morning and fore-arm his Mind with them against the Temptations of the Day to recommend himself to God in a short pithy and affectionate Prayer and repeat his Purpose and Resolution of Obedience what an easie matter were it for you to borrow so many Moments as would suffice for this Purpose from your Bed and your Comb and Looking-glass And as for the Evening when your Business is over it 's a very hard case if you cannot spare so much time either from your Company or Refreshments as to make a short Review of the Actions of the Day to confess and beg Pardon for the Evils you have faln into or to bless God for the Good you have done and the Evils you have avoided and then to recommend your selves to his Grace and Protection for the future And as for your religious Observation of the Lords Day it is only the seventh Part of your Time and can you think much to devote that or at least the greatest Part of that to him who gives you your Being and Duration And lastly as for your receiving the Lords Supper 't is at most but once a Month that you are invited to it and 't is a hard Case if out of so great a proportion of Time you cannot afford a few Hours to examine your Defects and to quicken your Graces and to dress and prePare your selves for that blessed Commemoration Alass how easie were all this to a willing Mind and if we had but half that Concern for our Souls and everlasting Interest that we have for our Bodies we should count such things as these not worth our mentioning How disingenuous therefore is it for men to make such tragical Out-cries as they do of the Hardship and Difficulty of this spiritual Warfare when there is nothing at all in it that intrenches either on their secular Callings or necessary Diversions when they may be going onward to Heaven while they are doing their Business and mortifying their Lusts even in the Enjoyment of their Recreations and so take their Pleasure both here and hereafter VI. CONSIDER that the Difficulty of these Duties is such as will certainly abate and wear off by Degrees if we constantly practise them For in all Undertakings whatsoever it is Vse that makes Perfectness and that which is exceeding hard to us at first either through want of Skill to manage or Inclination to practise it will by degrees grow easier and easier as we are more and more accustomed and familiarized to it And this we shall find by Experience if we constantly exercise our selves in these progressive Duties of our Religion which to a Mind that hath been altogether unacquainted with them will at first be very difficult 'T will go against the grain of a wild and ungoverned Nature to be confined from its extravagant Ranges by the strict Ties of a religious Discipline and to reduce a roving Mind to severe Consideration or a fickle one to Constancy and Resolution
Terrors and Allurements we should thereby disarm them of their main Strength and render them much less able to seduce us for the future And this methinks we might easily do if we would but fairly represent to our selves the present State and Posture of our Affairs For we are a sort of Beings that are every Moment travailing from hence to an eternal World where an unexpressible Happiness or Misery attends us and all that we enjoy or suffer in this Life is only the Convenience or Inconvenience of a short Journey to a long Home but can have no other Influence upon our everlasting Condition than as it is the Occasion either of our Virtue or Vice which are the only Goods and Evils that will accompany us to Eternity and make us happy or miserable there for ever But as for Poverty or Riches Pain or Pleasure Disgrace or Reputation they are things which probably within these ten or twenty Years will be as perfectly indifferent to us as our last Nights Dream was when we awoke in the Morning And this methinks duly considered were enough to render us very unconcerned at any Good or Evil that can happen to us here For what a mighty Matter is it whether I fare well or ill for twenty or thirty Years who when that is expired must be happy or miserable for Millions of Millions of Ages and what will these little Goods or Evils signifie to me when my Body is in the Grave and my Soul in Eternity When I am stript into a naked Spirit and set ashore upon the invisible World then all these things will be as if they never were and in the twinkling of an Eye I shall lose Sight of them for ever and of all that I enjoyed or suffered in this Life I shall have nothing remaining but my Virtue or Vice whose Issues will prove my eternal Happiness or Misery Doubtless would we but accustom our Minds to such Reflections as these they would effectually restrain us from the immoderate Love or Fear of the things of this World and reduce us to a constant and efficacious Persuasion that there is no Good in this World comparable to that of doing our Duty nor any Evil incident to us in this Life that is not infinitely less formidable than Sin And when once our Affection to this World and our Opinion of the Goods and Evils of it are thus moderated and rectified the Temptations to Sin will quite lose their hold of us and be no more able to fasten upon our Resolution So that now we may pass safely through them whilst they are sparkling about us there being no Tinder in our Breasts for them to catch fire and kindle upon Now they will be no longer capable to allure or affright us those bosom Orators being silenced that were wont to contend for them and to magnifie their Charms and Terrors and when we neither immoderately love nor fear them 't will be no hard matter to defend our Virtue and Innocence against all their Assaults and Importunities IV. TO our final Perseverance it is necessary that we should more curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our reforming and correcting them Hence we are commanded to hate even the garments spotted by the flesh Jude 23. i. e. to take care of the Beginnings of Sin of any thing that hath the least Spot or Infection of it and accordingly we are obliged not only to take care to rub out the greater Stains of our Nature but to be diligent that we may be found of our Lord in peace without spot and blameless 2 Pet. iii. 14 i. e. to indeavour to reform those smaller and more indiscernable Defects of our Nature which though they do not totally stain yet very much spot and blemish it that so at the coming of our Lord we may be found not only sincere and upright but as near as may be innocent and blameless For so Phil. ii 15 we are bid to be blameless harmless and without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation i. e. to endeavour so to demean our selves in this World as that we may appear not only honest for the main but so near as is possible spotless and unreproveable And indeed there is nothing doth more frequently occasion mens final Miscarriage in Religion than their not being careful and diligent in this matter When they first enter into the Christian Warfare they very industriously set themselves against that Course of wilful Sin in which they formerly lived and this were wondrous well if they did not stop here and go no farther but alas in the mean time while they are thus industriously busied in subduing their old Sins there are a great many lesser Flaws and Defects in their Nature which by a timely Care and Inspection they might easily correct but these they take no Notice of but quietly permit them to grow and increase till at last they become as hurtful dangerous to them as their old Sins were against which they have all this while so zealously contended As for Instance when they first entered upon a Resolution of Amendment they were profane it may be or sensual or vehemently adicted to Fraud and Oppression and against these they opposed themselves with great Zeal and Animosity and so far they did well but in the mean time perhaps there was Pride and Ostentation Envy and Peevishness Self-will and Censoriousness secretly budding and sprouting up in their Natures all which they might have easily cured by timely Applications but alas in the Heat of their Contest against their other Sins they never so much as minded or regarded these but e'en left them alone till they grew up into obstinate and inveterate Habits and became every whit as fatal and destructive to their Souls as those were which they have been all this while subduing and mortifying So that after all they have only changed their Sins and have been conjuring up one Devil while they have been laying another and whilst the Tide of their Wickedness hath been ebbing on this Shore it hath been flowing on the contrary and as it hath sunk in Sensuality it hath swelled into Devilishness Perhaps whilst you are zealously carrying on your Warfare against your old Sins you may find your selves too apt to be tickled with Applause and puff'd with vain Ostentation have a Care now that while you are starving one Vice you do not pamper another For if you do not correct this little Irregularity of your Nature betimes 't will soon be as dangerous and mischievous to you as ever any of those Vices were against which you are contending 't will by degrees so insinuate into your good Intentions and so sophisticate the Purity of them that at last you will intend nothing else but Applause and so your whole Religion will be converted into dead Shew and empty Pageantry and your spiritual Warfare will prove only a passage out of Profaneness
against the Dissuasions of thy Grace the Checks of my Conscience and the fairest Warnings of my Danger Had I done it Ignorantly or unawares or under a Surprize it had been pittiable but O my Guilt my Guilt 't was knowingly wilfully basely and maliciously that I did this evil in thy sight whereby I have forfeited my Soul my Innocence and thy Love and have got nothing in exchange but the Pleasure of a Minute and a lasting Shame and Repentance O vile Wretch O desperate Fool that I am what have I done whither am I fallen I have grieved thy Spirit contemn'd thy Authority trampled on thy Goodness and wounded my own Conscience and by one base Act have thrown my self headlong from all those glorious Hopes whereunto thou hadst raised me And now O God what can I say in my own behalf my Sin being so great my Folly so utterly inexcusable O I am asham'd I am asham'd of my self I lament and abhor the Madness and Wickedness of my own Choice and O that it were in my power to recall it But woe is me it is past into Act and by that Act my Innocence is already stained my Soul forfeited and it is no more in my Power to undo what I have done than to recall the Hours of yesterday What then shall I do or whether shall I turn my self 'T is against thee O Lord against thee I have sinned and now I have none but thee to flee to I have nothing of my own to plead in my own behalf my Conscience condemns me and my Sin my Sin cries aloud against me so that unless thou wilt be pleased to listen to the interceding Blood of thy Son and to consult thine own Bowels and Compassions and from thence to fetch Arguments of Mercy I am undone for ever by my own Folly Wherefore for Jesus Christ his sake for thy own Goodness and Mercies sake have pity have pity upon me heal my Soul for I have sin'd against thee be merciful to my Sin for it is great Thou hast promised to receive returning Sinners to blot out their Iniquities and to heal their Backslidings I desire O Lord to return unto thee I hate and renounce my Sin and do here abhor my self for it in Dust and Ashes before thee Wherefore for thy Praise sake O try me this once more and do not presently cast me away from thy Presence nor take thy holy Spirit from me but restrain me by his Grace from all presumptuous Sins and suffer them not to have Dominion over me And quicken me O Lord for thy Names sake that for the future I may watch more carefully resist more vigorously and walk more circumspectly than I have hitherto done And that from henceforth I may be intirely devoted to thee and serve thee without Interruption do thou so confirm me by thy Grace in my holy Resolution as that I may choose rather to die than to offend thee any more And now O Lord though by my Rebellion against thee this Day I have rendered my self most unworthy of thy fatherly Care and Protection yet I beseech thee to watch over me this Night for good and give me a safe Repose in the Arms of thy Providence that I may have yet a farther Space to repent of mine Iniquity And grant I beseech thee that when I awake in the Morning I may be warn'd by the woful Remembrance of this Days Fall to take more Care of my Steps and to shun or refuse those Snares and Temptations that lie all around me All which I do most humbly and earnestly beg of thee even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in the state of our Progress and Improvement in the Christian Life with Forms of private Devotion fitted for this State When you enter into your Closet in the Morning indeavour to affect your self with Gratitude and Thankfulness to God for his Grace by representing to your self the Danger and Misery of that sinful State out of which you are recovered and the great Incapacity you were in to recover without his Assistance and then make this thankful Acknowledgment to him O Most gracious and most merciful Father thou art a liberal Benefactor to thy Creation a never-failing Friend to Mankind and a most tender Lover of Souls for whose everlasting Welfare thou hast been always consulting and hast left no method of Love unattempted to rescue them from Sin and Misery O blessed for ever blessed be thy great Name for the Experience I have had of this thy fatherly Goodness I am a monument of thy Goodness a living Instance and Wonder of thy Mercy for me hast thou quickned who was dead in Trespasses and Sins and who had long ago perish'd in mine Iniquities hadst thou not been infinitely patient and long suffering I had forfeited my Soul to thee and thou mightest justly have cut me off and given me my Portion with Hypocrites and considering how I provok'd thee to it by my daily Rebellions I cannot but admire thy Forbearance towards me But that thou shouldest not only forbear me but follow me with thy Kindness and never cease importuning me to return to my Duty and Happiness till thou hadst conquered me by thy Gracious Persuasions O incomparable Love O amazing Goodness never to be sufficiently admired and adored Wherefore praised for ever praised be thy Grace which hath redeemed my Life from eternal Death and my Soul from the neathermost Hell which hath rescued me from the Snare of the Devil and the pernicious Bondage of my Lusts and implanted in my Nature these heavenly Graces and Dispositions and hitherto improv'd and advanc'd them towards my eternal Happiness This O my God all this I owe to thy free and undeserved Goodness that I that was dead am now alive that I that was lost am found that I that was a slave to my Lusts am made free from Sin and translated into the glorious Liberty of the sons of God is purely the Effect of thy free Grace and to be intirely ascribed to thy all-powerful Goodness Go on O Lord go on I beseech thee and perfect thine own Work that so the Glory of it may be for ever redounding to thee and that as I have been hitherto a signal Instance of thy Goodness so I may be an happy Instrument of thy Praise to eternal Ages And grant I beseech thee that the sense of thy unspeakble Kindness towards me may so captivate my Soul and all my Faculties as that I may be most intirely thine as that my Reason and Will my Fear and Hope and Love and Desire may from henceforth be all resign'd up to thee and for ever devoted to the Honour and Worship of thy infinite Glories and Perfections and this I most humbly beg for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with thy self and thy eternal Spirit be rendred all Honour Glory and Power from this time forth
upon it by putting in practice these Initial Duties of it You who have been hitherto warring against God and striving against your Duty and your Happiness be at last persuaded to make a Stand for a while and to listen to the voice of Reason and Religion which do both call aloud to you to face about to desert the Party wherein you are ingaged and come over to the Side of Virtue And that I may if possible prevail I do here earnestly beseech you even by all that is dear and precious to you by the Love of God and by the Lives of your Souls and by all your Hopes of Happiness in the world to come seriously to consider with me these following Motives 1. That there is a vast Necessity of beginning this our Spiritual Warfare one time or other 2. That 't is unspeakably most secure and advantagious for us to begin it now 3. That the final Success of it doth very much depend upon the well Beginning of it 4. That when once we have well begun it the main Difficulty of it is conquered I. CONSIDER the vast Necessity there is of beginning this Spiritual Warfare one time or other For that which is necessary for us to accomplish at last is necessary to be undertaken by us one time or other Now it is as necessary for us to oppose and vanquish the Temptations of the World and the Corruptions of our own Nature as it is not to go to Hell or not to miss of Heaven For in this great Battel the everlasting Fate of our Souls is to be decided and if we come off Victors we are made if vanquished we are undone to eternity So that in this spiritual Warfare we do not contend like the Warriors of this World for a Triumphal Wreath that will wither upon our Brows or for Fame and Renown which is nothing but the Breath of a company of talking People or for the enlarging of our Empire over the next handful of a Turf but we are contending with Enemies that are pursuing us to Hell and binding us in Chains of everlasting Darkness We are to fight for our Immortality for all our hopes of Happiness and Well-being in a never-ending Life a nd when so much depends upon the Success of our Conflict and we must conquer and be crowned or die win the Field and Heaven or yield our selves captive to eternal Misery I leave you to judge whether we are not obliged under the vastest Necessity one time or other to begin And if we must begin one time or other why not now as well as hereafter and to what purpose should we defer entring upon that Work which we all confess we must at last not only begin but accomplish For to have accomplished a necessary Work especially when it is difficult and important is a great Satisfaction to the Mind and whereas while it is yet to do the prospect of the pain and labour of it creates in us a great deal of Trouble and Anxiety when once it is done or the main Difficulty of it is over every Reflection on our past pains sweetens our present Repose and crowns it with Joy and Triumph And thus it is in our Entrance into the Christian Life which we all confess to be both necessary and difficult and it being so what do we else by our delaying it but only prolong the pain and trouble of it And whereas by one brave Attempt we might ease our selves and set our Souls at Rest for ever we languish away our life in misery and are sick with the Fear of our Remedy Just like poor men that are under the torment of the Stone they know they must be cut or die but out of a frightful Apprehension of their Remedy they put it off from time to time they promise they will endure it rather than lose their Lives but when they come to the Trial their Hearts fail and they must needs have a little longer Respit but all the while they endure not only the pain of their Disease but also the Apprehensions of their Cure which at last they must also actually endure or Death which is much more terrible to them Whereas had they been cut at first they might have saved themselves all that Torment and Fear of farther Torment which they endured in the time of their Delay And just thus it is with those who defer their Repentance which had they begun at first when they fell into their sinful Courses their Hearts might have been at Ease a great while ago and they might have saved themselves all those Gripes and Twinges of Conscience and all those painful Apprehensions of the Smart and Difficulty of repenting at last which they have been forced to endure in the several periods of their Delay But alas Repentance is a sad Remedy Well be it never so sad you know you must endure it or that which is a thousand times worse Why then you will endure it that you are resolved upon but fain you would have a little longer Respite Ah foolish Souls why will you prolong your Misery and linger out your Lives in Torment when as by enduring now what you must endure at last you might be presently at Ease not only from the Pain of your past Guilt but from the Fear of your future Repentance II. CONSIDER that 't is unspeakably most secure and advantagious for us to begin our Christian Warfare now For this Life is the only time of our Trial and Probation the Field in which our spiritual Warfare is to be fought and from which we must all go off triumphing Conquerors or eternal Slaves And alas such a slippery and uncertain thing is this our present Existence that there is no one part of it we can call our own but what is present For all our Futurity is in Gods Hand and Disposal and how he will shorten or prolong it we are not able to prognosticate So that for ought we know the next moment may finally determine our everlasting Fate and the Hopes of eternity which are now in our hands may slip through our fingers before to morrow morning and leave us desperate for ever What a dreadful Venture therefore do those men run that delay from time to time the securing their Salvation by a timely Repentance When 't is now in their own Power would they but lay hold on the present Opportunity to secure their Victory and Crown they rather chuse to go to cross or pile for them and to stake them upon a Contingency that is not in their Power to dispose of BUT suppose they could secure that hereafter to themselves to which they do so venturously defer their Repentance yet still there is another Venture of which they can never be secure and that is whether when that hereafter comes God will not out of a just Resentment of their present Despite to and Contempt of his Grace withdraw it from them Which if he should they would be left in as