grounds of comfort and when they cannot raise their souls to any high and passionate joys they yet walk in a settled peace of soul and in such competent comforts as make their lives to be easie and delightful being well pleased and contented with the happy condition that Christ hath brought them to and thankful that he left them not in those foolish vain pernicious pleasures which were the way to endless sorrows 3. But the seeming Christian seeketh and taketh up his chief contentment in some carnal thing If he be so poor and miserable as to have nothing in possession that can much delight him he will hope for better dayes hereafter and that hope shall be his chief delight or if he have no such hope he will be without delight and shew his love to the world and flesh by mourning for that which he cannot have as others do in rejoycing in what they do possess and he will in such a desperate case of misery be such to the world as the weak Christian is to God who hath a mourning and desiring love when he cannot reach to an enjoying and delighting Love His carnal mind most savoureth the things of the flesh and therefore in them he findeth or seeketh his chief delights Though yet he may have also a delight in his superficiall kind of Religion his hearing and reading praying in his ill-grounded hopes of life eternal But all this is but subordinate to his chiefest earthly pleasure Isai. 58.2 Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my waies as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinances of their God they ask of me the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching unto God And yet all this was subjected to a covetous oppressing mind Mat. 13.20 He that received the seed into stony places the same is he that heareth the word and anon with joy receiveth it yet hath he not root in himself but dureth for a while for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word by and by he is offended Whereby it appeareth that his love to the word was subjected to his love to the world Obj. But there are two sorts of people that seem to have no fleshly delights at all and yet are not in the way to salvation viz. the Quakers and Behmenists that live in great austerity and some of the Religious orders of the Papists who afflict their flesh Answ. Some of them undergo their fastings and pennance for a day that they may sin the more quietly all the week after And some of them proudly comfort themselves with the fancies and conceit of being and appearing more excellent in austerity than others And all these take up with a carnal sort of pleasure As proud persons are pleased with their own or others conceits of their beauty or witt or worldly greatness so prouder persons are pleased with their own and others conceits of their holiness And verily they have their reward Mat. 6.2 But those of them that place their chiefest happiness in the love of God and the eternal fruition of him in heaven and seek this sincerely according to their helps and power though they are mislead into some superstitious errors I hope I may number with those that are sincere for all their errors and the ill effects of them XXIV 1. A confirmed Christian doth ordinarily discern the sincerity of his own heart and consequently hath some well grounded assurance of the pardon of his sins and of the favour of God and of his everlasting happiness And therefore no wonder if he live a peaceable and joyfull life For his grace is not so small as to be undiscernable nor is it as a sleepy buried seed or principle but it is almost in continual act And they that have a great degree of grace and also keep it in lively exercise do seldom doubt of it Besides that they blot not their Evidence by so many infirmities and falls They are more in the light and have more acquaintance with themselves and more sense of the abundant love of God and of his exceeding mercies than weak Christians have and therefore must needs have more assurance They have boldness of access to the throne of grace without unreverent contempt Eph. 3.12 2.18 They have more of the spirit of Adoption and therefore more child-like confidence in God and can call him Father with greater freedom and comfort than any others can Rom. 8.15 16. Gal. 4.6 Eph. 1.6 1 Joh. 5.19 20. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lyeth in wickedness c. 2. But the weak Christian hath so small a degree of grace and so much corruption and his grace is so little in act and his sin so much that he seldom if ever attaineth to any well-grounded assurance till he attain to a greater measure of grace He differeth so little from the seeming Christian that neither himself nor others do certainly discern the difference When he searcheth after the truth of his faith and love and heavenly mindedness he findeth so much unbelief and aversness from God and earthly mindedness that he cannot be certain which of them is predominant and whether the interest of this world or that to come do bear the sway So that he is often in perplexities and fears and more often in a dull uncertainty And if he seem at any time to have assurance it is usually but an ill-grounded perswasion of the truth though it be true which he apprehendeth when he taketh himself to be the child of God yet it is upon unfound reasons that he judgeth so or else upon sound reasons weakly and uncertainly discerned so that there is commonly much of security presumption fancie or mistake in his greatest comforts He is not yet in a condition fit for full assurance till his love and obedience be more full 3. But the seeming Christian cannot possibly in that estate have either certainty or good probability that he is a child of God because it is not true His seeming certainty is meerly self-deceit and his greatest confidence is but presumption because the spirit of Christ is not within him and therefore he is certainly none of his Rom. 8.9 XXV 1. The Assurance of a confirmed Christian doth increase his alacrity and diligence in duty and is alwayes seen in his more obedient holy fruitful life The sense of the love and mercy of God is as the rain upon the tender grass He is never so fruitful so thankful so heavenly as when he hath the greatest certainty that he shall be saved The Love of God is then shed abroad upon his heart by the Holy Ghost which maketh him abound in love to God Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. He is the more stedfast unmoveable and alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord when he is most certain that his labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 2. But the weak Christian is unfit
Christians though their Worship hath errors and faults repugnant to the right order and manner of Worship so be it you joyn not in that Worship which is substantially evil and such as God doth utterly disown Or that you commit no actual sin your selves or that you approve not of the errors and faults of the Worshippers and justifie not their smallest evil Or that you prefer not defective faulty Worship before that which is more pure and agreeable to the Will of God For while all the Worshippers are faulty and imperfect all their Worship will be so too And if your actual sin when you Pray or Preach defectively your selves doth not signify that you approve your faultiness much less will your presence prove that you allow of the faultiness of others The business that you come upon is to joyn with a Christian Congregation in the use of those Ordinances which God hath appointed supposing that the Ministers and Worshippers will all be sinfully defective in method order words or circumstances And to bear with that which God doth bear with and not to refuse that which is Gods for the adherent faults of men no more than you will refuse every dish of meat which is unhansomly Cooked as long as there is no poyson in it and you prefer it not before better 1 Cor. 1.10 and 3.1 2 3. with 11.17 18 21. Rom. 15.1 2. DIRECT XIV Keep up a constant Government over your Thoughts and Tongues especially against those particular sins which you are stronglyest tempted to and which you see other Christians most overtaken with KEep your Thoughts imployed upon somthing that is good and profitable either about some useful Truths or about some duty to God or man of your general or particular Calling yea about all these in their several seasons Learn how to watch your thoughts and stop them at their first excursions and how to quicken them and make them serviceable to every grace and every duty You can never improve your solitary hours if you have not the Government of your Thoughts And as the Thoughts must be governed because they are the first and intimate actings of good or evil so the Tongue must be Governed as the first expresser of the mind and the first instrument of good or hurt to others Especially take heed of these sins which the faultiness of most Professors of Religion doth warn you to avoid 1. An ordinary course of vain jesting and unprofitable talk 2. Provoking passionate inconsiderate words that tend to kindle wrath in others 3. Backbiting censuring and speaking evil of others without any just call when it is either upon uncertain reports or uncharitable suspition or tendeth more to hurt than good 4. A forward venting of our own conceits and a confident pleading for our uncertain unproved Opinions in Religion and a contentious wrangling for them as if the Kingdom of God lay in them And a forwardness in all company to be the Speakers rather than the Hearers and to talk in a Magisterial Teaching way as if we took our selves to be the wisest and others to have need to learn of us But especially take heed of speaking evil of those that have wronged you or of those that differ from you in some tollerable Opinions in Religion And hate that devilish uncharitable vice which maketh many ready to believe any thing or say any thing be it never so false of those that are against their Sect yea of whole parties of men that differ from them when there is not one of a thousand of all the party that ever they were acquainted with or ever could prove the thing by of which they are accused By the means of these bold uncharitable reports the Devil hath unspeakably gained against Christ and the Kingdom of malice hath won upon the Kingdom of Love and most Christians are easier known to be factious by hating or slandering one another than they can be known to be Christs Disciples by loving one another And while every Sect without remorse doth speak reproachfully and hatefully of the rest they learn hereby to hate one another and harden the Infidel and ungodly world in hating and speaking evil of them all So that a Turk or Heathen need no other witness of the odiousness of all Christians than the venemous words which they speak against each other And as foul words in quarrels prepare for blows so these malicious invectives upon differences in Religion prepare for the cruellest persecutions From my own observation which with a grieved soul I have made in this Generation I hereby give warning to this and all succeeding Ages that if they have any regard to Truth or Charity they take heed how they believe any factious partial Historian or Divine in any evil that he saith of the party which he is against For though there be good and credible persons of most parties yet you shall find that passion and partiality prevaileth against Conscience Truth and Charity in most that are sick of this Disease And that the envious zeal which is described Jam. 3. doth make them think they do God service first in believing false reports and then in verting them against those that their zeal or laction doth call the enemies of truth so that there is little credit to be given to their reproaches farther than some better evidence is brought to prove the thing Nay it would astonish a man to read the impudent lies which I have often read obtruded upon the World with such confidence that the Reader will be tempted to think Surely all this cannot be false Yea about publick words or actions where you would think that the multitude of Witnesses would deter them from speaking it if it were not true and yet all as false as tongue can speak Therefore believe not Pride or Faction or Malice in any evil that it saith unless you have better evidence of the truth Most Christian is that advice of Dr. H. More that all Parties of Christians would mark all the Good which is in other Parties and be more forward to speak of that than of the Evil And this would promote the work of Charity in the Church and the interest of Christianity in the World whereas the overlooking of all that 's good and aggravating all the evil and falsly seigning more than is true is the work of greatest service to the Devil and of greatest enmity to Christianity and Love that I know commonly practised in the World Keep your tongues from all such hellish work as this DIRECT XV. Let every state of life and Relation that you are in be sanctifyed unto God and conscionably used And to that end understand the advantages and duties of every condition and Relation and the sins and hinderances and dangers which you are most lyable to THe duties of our Relations are a great part of the work of a Christians life As Magistrates and Subjects Pastors and Flocks Parents and Children Husband and Wife Masters and
things present do carry away his heart and have the greatest power and interest with him and are most regarded and sought after in this life For he is purblind not seeing a farr off as it is said 2 Pet. 1.9 He wanteth that faith which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen Heb. 11.1 Things promised in another world seem to him too uncertain or too farr off to be preferred before all the happiness of this world he is resolved to make his best of that which he hath in hand and to prefer possession before such hopes Little doth his heart perceive what a change is neer and how the face of all things will be altered How sin will look and how the minds of sinners will be changed and what all the riches and pleasures and honours of the world will appear at the latter end He foreseeth not the day when the slothful and the worldly and the fleshly and the proud and the enemies of godliness shall all wish in vain O that we had laid up our treasure in heaven and laboured for the food that perisheth not and had set less by all the vanities of the world and had imitated the holiest and most mortified believers Though the hypocrite can himself foretell all this and talk of it to others yet his belief of it is so dead and his sensuality so strong that he liveth by sense and not by that belief and present things are practically preferred by him and bear the sway so that he needeth those warnings of God as well as the profane Deut. 32. O that they were wise that they understood this and that they would consider their latter end And he is one of the foolish ones Mat. 25.8 11. who are seeking oyl for their lamps when it is too late and are crying out Lord Lord open to us when the door is shut and will not know the time of their visitation nor know effectually in this their day the things which belong to their everlasting peace XX. 1. The Christian indeed is one that liveth upon God alone His faith is Divine his love and obedience and confidence are Divine his chiefest converse is Divine his hopes and comforts are Divine As it is God that he dependeth on and trusteth to and studieth to please above all the world so it is Gods approbation that he taketh up with for his justification and reward He took him for his absolute Governour and judge and full felicity in the day when he took him for his God He can live in peace without mans approbation If men are never acquainted with his sincerity or vertues or good deeds it doth not discourage him nor hinder him from his holy course he is therefore the same in secret as in publick because no place is secret from God If men turn his greatest vertues or duties to his reproach and slander him and make him odious to men and represent him as they did Paul a pestilent fellow a mover of sedition and the ringleader of a sect and make him as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things this changeth him not for it changeth not his felicity nor doth he miss of his reward 1 Cor. 4.9 10 11 12 13 14. Read the words in the text Though he hath so much suspition of his own understanding and reverence for wiser mens that he will be glad to learn and will hear reason from any one yet praise and dispraise are matters of very small regard with him and as to himself he accounteth it but a small thing to be judged of men whether they justifie or condemn him because they are fallible and have not the power of determining any thing to his great commodity or detriment nor is it their judgement to which he stands or falls 1 Cor. 4.3.4 He hath a more dreadful or comfortable judgement to prepare for man is of small account with him in comparison of God Rom. 8.33 34 35 36. 2. And though with the weakest true Christian it is so also as to the predominancie of Gods esteem and interest in him yet is his weakness daily visible in the culpable effects Though God have the chiefest place in his esteem yet man hath much more than his due The thoughts and words of men seem to such of far greater importance than they should Praise and dispraise favours and injuries are things which affect their hearts too much they bear not the contempts and wrongs of men with so quiet and satisfied a mind as beseemeth those that live upon God They have so small experience of the comforts of God in Christ that they are tasting the deeper of other delights and spare them not so easily as they ought to do God without friends or house or land or maintenance or esteem in the world doth not fully quiet them but there is a deal of pievish impatience left in their minds though it doth not drive them away from God 3. But the seeming Christian can better take up with the world alone than with God alone God is not so much missed by him as the world He alwayes breaks with Christ when it cometh to forsaking all He is godly notionally and professedly and therefore may easily say that God is his portion and enough for those that put their trust in him But his heart never consented truly to reduce these words to practise When it comes to the trial the praise or dispraise of man and the prosperity or matters of the world do signifie more with him than the favour or displeasure of God and can do more with him Christ and riches and esteem he could be content with but he cannot away with a naked Christ alone Therefore he is indeed a practical Atheist even when he seemeth most religious For if he had ever taken God for his God indeed he had certainly taken him as his portion felicity and all and therefore as enough for him without the creature Luk. 18.23 XXI 1. For all this it followeth that A Christian indeed hath with himself devoted all that he hath to God and so all that he hath is sanctified he is only in doubt oft times in particular cases what God would have him do with himself and his estate but never in doubt whether they are to be wholly employed for God in obedience to his will so far as he can know it and therefore doth estimate every creature and condition purely as it relateth unto God and life eternal HOLINES TO THE LORD is written upon all that he hath and doth he taketh it as sent from God and useth it as his Masters goods and talents not chiefly for himself but for his Masters ends and will God appeareth to him in the creature and is the life and sweetness and glory of the creature to him his first question in every business he undertaketh or every place or condition that he chooseth is how it conduceth to the Pleasing of God and
is made to shine upon the world he could not be content to live idly or to labour unprofitably or to get never so much to himself and live in never so much plenty himself unless he some way contribute to the good of others Not that he grudgeth at the smallness of his talents and lowness or obscurity of his place for he knoweth that God may dispose his creatures and talents as he please and that where much is given much is required Mat. 25. Luk. 12.48 19.23 But what his Lord hath entrusted him with he is loth to hide and willing to improve to his Masters use He is so far from thinking that God is beholden to him for his good works that he taketh it for one of his greatest mercies in the world that God will use him in doing any good And he would take it for a very great suffering to be deprived of such opportunities or turned out of service or called to less of that kind of duty If he were a Physitian and denied liberty to practice or a minister and denied liberty to preach it would far more trouble him that he is hindered from doing good than that he is deprived of any profits or honours to himself He doth not only comfort himself with the foresight of the reward but in the very doing of good he findeth so much pleasure as makeeth him think it the delightfullest life in the world And he looketh for most of his receivings from God in a way of duty Joh. 5.29 Gal. 6.10 Heb. 13.16 1 Pet. 3.11 2. But the weak Christian though he have the same disposition is far less profitable in the world He is more for himself and less able to do good to others He wanteth either parts or prudence or zeal or strength Yea he is oft like the infants and sick persons of a family that are not helpful but troublesome to the rest They find work for the stronger Christians to bear their infirmities and watch them and support and help them Indeed as an infant is a comfort to the mother through the power of her own love even when she endureth the trouble of its crying and uncleaness so weak Christians are a comfort to charitable ministers and people we are glad that they are alive but sadded often by their distempers Rom. 14.1 15.12 3. The seeming Christian liveth to himself and all his good works are done but for himself to keep up his credit or quiet his guilty conscience and deceive himself with the false hopes of a reward for that which his falseheartedness maketh to be his sin If he be a man of learning and good parts he may be very serviceable to the Church But the thanks of that is due to God and little to him who seeketh himself more than God or the good of others in all that he doth Mat. 25 24 25 26. XLII 1. A Christian indeed doth truly love his neighbour as himself He is not all for his own commodity His neighbours profit or good name is as his own He feeleth himself hurt when his neighbours is hurt And if his neighbour prosper he rejoyceth as if he prospered himself Though his neighbour be not united to him in the nearest bonds of Christianity or Piety yet he is not disregardfull of the common Vnity of Humanity Love is the very soul of life Lev. 19.18 Mat. 19.19 22.39 Rom. 13.9 Gal. 5.14 Jam. 2.8 Mark 10.21 1 Joh. 4.10 2. But the Love that is in weaker Christians though it be sincere is weak as they are and mixed with too much selfishness and with too much sowerness and wrath Little matters cause differences and fallings out When it cometh to MINE and THINE and their neighbours cross their interest or commodity or stand in their way when they are seeking any preferment or profit to themselves you shall see too easily by their sowreness and contention how weak their love is Mat. 24.12 1 Tim. 6.10 Luke 22.24 3. But in the seeming Christian selfishness is so predominant that he loveth none but for himself with any considerable love All his kindness is from self-love because men love him or highly value him or praise him or have done him some good turn or may do him good hereafter or the like If he hath any love to any for his own worth yet self-love can turn all that to hatred â—f they seem against him or cross him in his way For no man that is a Lover of the world and flesh and carnall self can ever be a true friend to any other For he loveth them but for his own ends and any cross Interest will shew the falshood of his love 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4. Mat. 5.46 XLIII 1. A Christian indeed hath a special Love to all the Godly such as endeareth his heart unto them and such as will enable him to visit them and relieve them in their wants to his own loss and hazzard according to his ability and opportunity For the image of God is beautifull and honourable in his eyes He loveth not them so much as God in them Christ in them the Holy Spirit in them He foreseeth the day when he shall meet them in Heaven and there rejoyce in God with them to Eternity He loveth their company and converse and delighteth in their gracious words and lives And the converse of ungodly empty men is a weariness to him unless in a way of duty or when he can do them good In his eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 Other men grieve his soul with their iniquities while he is delighted with the appearances of God in his holy ones even the excellent ones on earth Psal. 16.3 2 Pet. 2.7 8. Yea the infirmities of Believers destroy not his Love for he hath learned of God himself to difference between their abhorred frailties and their predominant Grace and to love the very Infants in the Family of Christ. Yea though they wrong him or quarrel with him or censure him in their weakness he can honour their sincerity and love them still And if some of them prove scandalous and some seeming Christians fall away or fall into the most odious crimes he loveth Religion never the less but continueth as high an esteem of piety and of all that are upright as he had before 1 Joh. 4.7 8 10. Joh. 13.34 35. 1 Thess. 4.9 1 Joh. 3.11 14 23. Matth. 25.39 40 c. 2. The weak Christian sincerely loveth all that bear his Fathers image But it is with a Love so weak even when it is most passionate as will sooner be abated or interrupted by any tempting differences He is usually quarrelsome and froward with his Brethen and apter to confine his love to those that are of his own opinion or party And because God hath taught him to love all that are sincere the Devil tempteth him to censure them as not sincere that so he may justifie himself in the
to the possession of Holy Delight and Love And when those Affections which are rather Profound than very sensible immediately towards God himself are sensible towards his Word his Servants his Graces and his wayes and against all sin Theâ— are the Affections and so the man in a confirmed State 4. When our selves our time and all that we have are taken to be Gods and not our own and are entirely and unreservedly resigned to him and used for him When we study our duty and trust him for our reward When we live as those that have much more to do for Heaven than for earth and with God than with Man or any Creature When our Consciences are absolutely subjected to the Authority and Laws of God and bow not to Competitors When we are habitually disposed as his Servants to be constantly imployed in his Works and make it our Calling and business in the world as judging that we have nothing to do on earth but with God or for God When we keep not up any secret desires and hopes of a Worldly felicity nor purvey for the pleasure of the Flesh under the cloak of Faith and Piety but subdue the Flesh as our most dangerous enemy and can easily deny its appetite and concupiscence When we guard all our senses and keep our passions thoughts and tongues in obedience to the holy Law When we do not inordinately set up our selves in our esteem or desire above or against our Neighbour and his welfare but love him as our selves and seek his good and resist his hurt as heartily as our own and love the godly with a love of Complacence and the ungodly with a love of Benevolence though they be our enemies When we are faithful in all our Relations and have judgment to discern our duty that we run not into extreams and skill and readiness and pleasure in performing it and patience under all our sufferings this is the Life of a confirmed Christian in various degrees as their strength is various And now I shall proceed to perswade such to value and seek this confirmation lest with dull unprepared minds my following Directions should be lost and then I shall give you the Directions themselves which are the part that is principally intended And first for the Motives 1. Consider that your first entrance into Christianity is an engagement to proceed your Receiving Christ obligeth you to walk and grow up in him A fourfold obligation you very Christianity layeth upon you to grow stronger and to persevere 1. The first is from the very nature of it even from the Office of Christ and the use and ends to which we do receive him You receive Christ as a Physician of your diseased Souls and doth not this engage you to go on to use his Medicines till you are cured What do men choose a Physician for but to heal them It were but a foolish patient that would say Though my disease be deadly yet now I have chosen the best Physician I have no more to do I doubt not of recovery You took Christ for a Saviour which engageth you to use his saving means and submit to his saving works You took him for your Teacher and Master and gave up your selves to be his Disciples and what sense was in all this if you did not mean to proceed in learning of him It s a silly conceit for any man to think that he is a good Schollar meerly because he hath chosen a good Master or Tutor without any further learning of him When Christ sent out his Apostles it was for these two works first to Disciple Nations and Baptise them and then to go on in Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them Matth. 28 19 20. Christ is the way to the Father but to what purpose did you come into this way if you meant not to travel on in it 2. Moreover when you became Christians you entered a solemn Covenant with Christ and bound your selves by a vow to be faithful to him to the death And this Vow is upon you It is better not to Vow than to Vow and not perform Eccles. 5.5 In taking him to be the Captain of your Salvation and listing your selves under him and taking this Oath of fidelity to him you did engage your selves to fight as faithful Souldiers under his conduct and command to your lives end And as its a foolish Souldier that thinks that he hath no more to do but list himself and take Colours and need not fight so it is a foolish and ungodly Covenanter that thinks he hath nothing to do but to Promise and may be excused from performance because that Promising was enough when the Promise was purposely to bind him to perform 3. Moreover when you became Christians you put your selves under the Laws of Christ and these Laws require you to go further till you are confirmed so that you must go on or renounce your obedience to Christ. 4. Lastly when you became Christians you received such exceeding Mercies as do oblige you to go much higher in your affections and much further in your obedience to God A man that is newly snatcht as from the jaws of Hell and hath received the free forgiveness of his sins and is put into such a state of blessedness as we are must needs feel abundance of obligations upon him to proceed to stronger resolutions and affections and not to stop in those low beginnings So that if you lay these four things together you will perceive that the very purpose of your Receiving Christ was that you might walk in him and be confirmed and built up 2. Consider also that your Conversion is not sound if you are not heartily desirous to encrease Grace is not true if there be not a desire after more yea if you desire not perfection it self An Infant is not born to continue an Infant for that were to be a Monster but to grow up unto Manhood As the Kingdom of Christ in the Word is likened by him to a little Leaven and to a grain of Mustard-seed in the beginning which afterward makes a wonderful increase so his Kingdom in the Soul is of the same nature too If you are contented with that measure of holiness that you have you have none at all but a shadow and conceit of it Let those men think of this that stint themselves in Holiness and plead for a Moderation in it as if it were intemperance or fury to love God or fear him or seek him or obey him any more than they do or as if we were in danger of excess in these If ever these men had feelingly and by experience known what Holiness is they would never have been possessed with such conceits as these 3. Consider What abundance of labour hath been lost and what hopes have been frustrate for want of proceeding to a Rooted Confirmation I say not that such were truly sanctified but I say they were in a very hopeful
way and went far and by going further might have attained to Salvation The heart of many a Minister hath been glad to see their Hearers humbled and bewailing sin and changing their minds and lives and becoming forward Professors of Godliness when a few years time hath turned all this joy into sorrow and one of our hopeful seeming Converts doth grow cold and lose his former forwardness another falls to desperate sensuality and turns Drunkard or Fornicator or Gamester another turns worldling and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of Riches and the cares of this life and another if not many to one is deluded by some deceiver and infected with some deadly errors and casts off duty and sets himself like a hired instrument of Hell to divide the Church oppose the Gospel and reproach and slander and rail at the Ministers and Professors of it and to weaken the hands of the Builders and strengthen the ungodly and serve the secret enemies of the truth Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their Conversion do break our hearts by their Apostacy and subversion and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ and greater Plagues to the Church of God that those that never professed to be Religious Those that were wont to joyn with us in holy worship and went up with us to the house of God as our companions do afterwards despise both Worshippers and Worship Whereas if these men had been rooted and confirmed you should never have seen them fall into this misery O how many Prayers and Confessions and Duties do these men lose How many years have some of them seemed to be Religious and after all have proved Apostate miscreants and the World and the Flesh and Pride and Error swallow up all See then what need you have to be rooted confirmed and built up in Christ. 4. Consider also How much of the Work of your Salvation is yet to do when you are Converted You have happily begun but you have not finished You have hit of the right way but you have your Journey yet to go you have chosen the best Commander and fellow Souldiers but you have many a Battle yet to fight If you are Christians indeed you know your selves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer and many a temptation yet to overcome and many a necessary work to do And there is a necessity of these after-works as well as of the first For these are the use and end of your conversion that you may live soberly righteously and godly in this present World denying ungodliness and wordly lusts Tit. 2.11 12. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 And how can Infants go through all these works Which of you would desire an Infant or Criple to be your servant But though God be in this more merciful than man yet he may well expect that you should not be still Infants What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition O pittiful blindness that any man that knows that he hath a Soul to save should think an Infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting Life In the matters of this Life you feel the need and worth of strength you will not think an Infant fit to Plow or Sow or Reap or Mow or Travel or play the Souldier and yet will you rest satisfied with an Infant-strength to do those great and matchless works which your Salvation lyeth on 5. Moreover the weak unconfirmed Souls are usually full of trouble and live without that assurance of Gods love and that spiritual peace and comfort which others do possess One would think no other Argument should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and Diseases than the pain and trouble that alwayes attendeth them It s more pain to a sick man to travel a mile than to a sound man to go ten To the lame or feeble every step hath pain and all that they do is grievous to them when far more would be a recreation to one that is in health O therefore delight not in your own languishings Choose not to live in pain and sorrow But strive after Confirmation and growth in Grace that overgrowing your infirmities you may overcome your sad complaints and groans and may be acquainted with the comfortable life of the Confirmed O how roundly and cheerfully would you go through your work how easy and sweet and profitable would it prove to you if once you were strong confirmed Christians Alas the Souls of those that are not confirmed lye open to every temptation of the malicious enemy of their peace and how small a matter will disquiet and unsettle them every passage in Scripture which they understand not and which seems to make against them will disturb them A Minister cannot Preach so plainly or so cautelously but somewhat which they understand not will be matter of their disquiet Providences will trouble them because they understand them not Afflictions will be bitter to the mind as well as the body and will immoderately perplex them because they understand them not or have not strength to bear them and improve them The sweeter mercies of prosperity will much lose their sweetness for want of holy Wisdom and strength to digest them And what man would choose such a weak and languishing state as this before a confirmed healthful state Will you run up and down for Physick when you are sick and will you no more regard the health and stability and spiritual peace and vigour of your souls 6. Moreover it is the strong confirmed Christian that hath the true use and benefit of all Gods ordinances Meat is digested by the healthful stomack and it s seen upon them and we use to say It is not lost It is sweet to them and doth them good and they are strengthened more by it And so is the confirmed Christian by Gods Ordinances But to the weak unconfirmed Soul how much of the means of Grace is even as lost How little sweetness do they find in means and how little good can they say they get by them I deny not but some good they get and that they must use them still for though the sick have little relish of his meat yet he cannot long live without it and though it breed not strength or health yet it maintaineth that languishing life but this is all or almost all What a sad thing is this to your selves and unto us when Ministers that are as the Nurses of the Church or Stewards of the Houshold to give them all their meat in due season must see that all that ever they can do for you will do no more than keep you alive Yea how often are you quarrelling with your food and you do not like it or you cannot get it down somthing still ails
purified and zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 He called you a chosen Generation a Royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light ye are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2.5 9. You are born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible 1 Pet. 1.23 and are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light God hath delivered you from the power of darkness and translated you into the Kingdom of his dear Son in whom you have redemption through his bloud the remission of sins Col. 1.12 13 14. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and joynt Heirs with Christ Rom. 8.16 17. All things shall work together for your good He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Vers. 28.32 Nothing but the illuminated Soul can discern the riches of the glory of Gods inheritance in the Saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the work of his mighty power Eph. 1.18 19. When we were dead in sins he hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ. He hath brough us nigh that were far off so that by one spirit we have access to the Father by Christ and are now no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God Eph. 2.5 6 7 13 17 18 19. We are members of the body of Christ we are come to Mount Zion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. 12.22 23 24. Brethren shall the Lord speak all this and more than this in the Scripture of your Glory and will you not prove your selves glorious and study to make good this precious word Doth he say The righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12.26 and will you not study to shew your selves more excellent indeed Shall all these high things be spoken of you and will you live so far below them all What a hainous wrong is this to God He sticks not in boasting of you to call you his jewells Mal. 3.17 and tells the world he will make them one day discern the difference between the Righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not verse 18. He tells the World that his coming in Judgment will be to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in them that believe 2 Thess. 1.10 It 's openly Professed by the Apostle John We know that we are of God and the whole World lyeth in wickedâ—â—â—â— 1 John 5.19 He challengeth any to condemn you or lay any thing to your charge professing that it is he that justifieth you casting the Saints into admiration by his love What shall we say to these things if God be for us who can be against us Rom. 8.31 He challengeth Tribulation Distress Persecution Famine or Nakedness Peril or Sword to separate you if they can from the Love of God He challengeth Death and Life Angels Principalities and Powers things present and things to come height and depth or any other Creature to separate you if they are able from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 37 38 39. Shall the Lord of Heaven thus make his boast of you to all the World and will you not make good his boasting Yea I must tell you he will see that it be made good to a word and if you be not careful of it your selves and it be not made good in you then you are not the people that God thus boasteth of He tells the greatest Persecutors to their faces that the meek the humble little ones of his Flock have their Angels beholding the face of God in Heaven Matth. 18.10 and that at the great and dreadful day of Judgment they shall be set at his right hand as his Sheep with a Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom when others are set at his left hand as Goats with a Go ye cursed into everlasting Fire Matth. 25. He tells the world that he that receiveth a Converted man that is become as a little Child receiveth Christ himself and that whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in him it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.3 4 5 6. Mark 9.42 Luke 17.2 O Sirs must God be thus wonderfully tender of you and will you not now be very tender of his interest and your duty Shall he thus difference you from all the rest of the world and will you not study to declare the difference The ungodly even gnash the teeth at Ministers and Scriptures and Christ himself for making such a difference between them and you and will you not let them see that it is not without cause I intreat you I require you in the Name of God see that you answer these high commendations and shew us that God hath not boasted of you beyond your worth 9. Consider this as the highest Motive of all God doth not only magnify you and boast of you but also he hath made you the living Images of his blessed self his Son Jesus Christ his Spirit and his holy Word and so he hath exposed himself his Son his Spirit and his Word to be censured by the World according to your lives The express Image of the Fathers person is the Son Heb. 1.3 The Son is declared to the World by the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost hath endited the Holy Scriptures which therefore bear the Image of Father Son and Holy Ghost This holy Word both Law and Promise is written on your hearts and put into your inner parts by the sâ—me spirit 2 Cor. 3.3 Heb. 8.13 and 10.16 So that as God hath imprinted his holy nature in the Scripture so hath he made this word the Seal to imprint again his Image on your hearts And you know that common eyes can better discern the Image in the Wax than on the Seal Though I know that the hardness of the Wax or somthing lying between or the imperfect application may cause an imperfection in the Image on the
same estimation and resolution But when it comes to practice as his will is less confirmed and more corrupted and divided so little impediments and difficulties are great temptations to him and stop him more in the way of his obedience All his duty is much more tedious to him and all his sufferings are much more burthensome to him than to confirmed Christians And therefore he is easier tempted into omissions and impatiency and walketh not so evenly or comfortably with God When the spirit is willing it yieldeth oft to the weakness of the flesh because it is willing in too remiss a degree Mat. 26.41 Gal. 2.14 3. But the seeming Christian though notionally and generally he may approve of strictness yet secretly at the heart hath alwaies this reserve that he will not serve God at too dear a rate His worldly felicity he cannot part with for all the hopes of the life to come And yet he will not he dare not renounce and give up those hopes And therefore he maketh himself a Religion of the easiest and cheapest parts of Christianity among which sometimes the strictest opinions may fall out to be one part so be it they be separated from the strictest practice And this easie cheap Religion he will needs believe to be true Christianity and Godliness and so will hope to be saved upon these terms And though he cannot but know that it is the certain character of a hypocrite to have any thing nearer and dearer to his heart than God yet he hopeth that it is not so with him because his convinced judgement can say that God is best and the world is vanity while yet his heart and affections so much contradict his opinion as almost to say There is no God For his heart knoweth and loveth no God as God that is above his worldly happiness He is resolved to do so much in religion as he findeth necessary to delude his conscience and make himself believe that he is godly and shall be saved but when he cometh to forsake all and take up the Cross and practise the costlyest parts of duty then you shall see that Mammon was better loved than God and he will go away sorrowful and hope to be saved upon easier terms Luke 18.23 For he was never resigned absolutely to God XV. 1. A confirmed Christian is one that taketh selfdenial for the one half of his Religion and therefore hath bestowed one half of his endeavours to attain and exercise it He knoweth that the fall of man was a turning to himself from God And that selfishness and want of Love to God are the summ of all corruption and ungodliness And that the Love of God and selfdenial are the summ of all religion And that conversion is nothing but the turning of the heart from carnal self to God by Christ And therefore on this hath his care and labour been so succesfully laid out that he hath truly and practically found out something that is much better than himself and to be loved and preferred before himself and which is to be his chiefest ultimate end He maketh not a God of himself any more but useth himself for God to fulfill his will as a creature of his own that hath no other end and use He no more preferreth himself above all the world but esteemeth himself a poor and despicable part of the world And highlier valueth the honour of God and the welfare of the church and the good of many than any interest of his own Though God in nature hath taught him to regard his own felicity and to love himself and not to seek the glory of God and the good of many souls in opposition to his own yet hath he taught him to prefer them though in conjunction much before his own For reason telleth him that man is nothing in comparison of God and that we are made by him and for him and that the welfare of the Church or publick societies is better in order to the highest ends than the welfare of some one Selfishness in the unregenerate is like an inflammation or apposteme which draweth the humours from other parts of the body to it self The interest of God and man are all swallowed up in the regard that men have to self-interest And the Love of God and our neighbour are turned into self-love But self is as annihilated in the confirmed Christian so that it ruleth not his Judgement his affections or his choice And he that lived in and to himself as if God and all the world were but for him doth now live to God as one that is good for nothing else and findeth himself in seeking him that is infinitely above himself Luk. 14.31 32 33. Phil. 2.4 21. 2. And the weak Christian hath attained to so much selfdenial that self is not predominant in him against the Love of God and his neighbour But yet above all other sins too great a measure of selfishness still remaineth in him These words own and mine and self are too significant with him every thing of his own is regarded inordinately with partiality and too much selfishness A word against himself or an injury to himself is more to him than worse against his brother He is too little mindfull of the glory of God and of the publick good and the souls of others and even when he is mindful of his own soul he is too regardless of the souls of many that by prayer or exhortation or other means he ought to help As a small candle lighteth but a little way and a small fire heateth not farr off so is his Love so much confined that it reacheth not farr from him He valueth his friends too much upon their respect to please himself and loveth men too much as they are partiall for him and too little upon the pure account of grace and their love to Christ and servisableness to the Church He easily overvalueth his own abilities and is too confident of his own understanding and apt to have too high conceits of any opinions that are his own he is too apt to be tempted unto uncharitableness against those that cross him in his interest or way he is apt to be too negligent in the work of God when any selfinterest doth stand against it and too much to seek himself his own esteem or his own commodity when he should devote himself to the good of souls and give up himself to the work of God Though he is not like the hypocrite that preferreth himself before the will of God and the common good yet selfishness greatly stoppeth interrupteth and hindreth him in Gods work and any great danger or loss or shame or other concernment of his own doth seem a greater matter to him and oftner turn him out of the way than it will with a confirmed Christian They were not all hypocrites that Paul speaketh of in that sad complaint Phil. 2.20 21. For I have no man like minded to Timothy who will naturally
because indeed there are a sort of persons that tythe mint and cummin while they pass by the greatest matters of the Law and that are causelesly scrupulous and make that to be sin which indeed is no sin And when such a scrupulous people are noted by their weakness and under dishonour among wiser men the Hypocrite hath a very plausible pretence for his hypocrisie in seeming only to avoid this ignorant scrupulosity and taking all for such who judge not his sin to be a thing indifferent Another great shelter to the credit and conscience of this Hypocrite is the Charity of the best sincerest Christians who alwayes judge rigedly of themselves and gently of others They would rather die than willfully choose to commit the smallest sin themselves but if they see another commit it they judge as favourably of it as the case will bear and hope that he did it not knowingly or willfully For they are bound to hope the best till the worst be evident This being the upright Christians case the hypocrite knoweth that he shall still have a place in the esteem and love of those charitable Christians whose integrity and moderation maketh their judgements most valuable And then for the judgement of God he will venture on it and for the censures of weaker persons who themselves are censured by the best for their censoriousness he can easily bear them And another covert for the hypocrite in this case is the different judgements of learned and religious men who make a controversie of the matter And what duty or sin is there that is not become a controversie Yea and among men otherwise well esteemed of except in the essentials of religion And if once it be a controversie whether it be a sin or not the hypocrite can say I am of the judgement of such and such good learned men they are very judicious excellent persons and we must not judge one another in controverted cases though we differ in judgement we must not differ in affection And thus because he hath a shelter for his reputation from the censures of men by the countenance of such as accompany him in his sin he is as quiet as if he were secured from the censures of the Almighty XL. 1. A Christian indeed is one that highly valueth time He abhorreth Idleness and all diversions which would rob him of his Time and hinder him from his work He knoweth how much work he hath to do and of what unspeakable consequence to his soul if not also to others He knoweth that he hath a soul to save or lose a heaven to win a hell to scape a death and judgement to prepare for many a sin to mortifie and many graces to get and exercise and increase and many enemies and temptations to overcome and that he shall never have more time of trial but what is now undone must be undone for ever He knoweth how short and hasty time is and also how uncertain and how short many hundred years is to prepare for an everlasting state if all were spent in greatest diligence And therefore he wondereth at those miserable souls that have time to spare and wast in those fooleries which they call pastimes even in stage-plaies cards and dice and long and tedious feastings delights complements idleness and overlong or needless visits or recreations He marvelleth at the distraction or sottishness of those persons that can play and prate and loyter and feast away precious hours as if their poor unprepared souls had nothing to do while they stand at the very brink of a dreadful eternity and are so fearfully unready as they are He taketh that person who would cheat him of his time by any of these forenamed baites to be worse to him than a thief that would take his purse from him by the high way O precious time how highly doth he value it when he thinks of his everlasting state and thinks what hast his death is makeing and what reckoning he must make for every moment what abundance of work hath he for every hour which he is grieved that he cannot do He hath a calling to follow and he hath a heart to search and watch and study and a God to seek and faithfully serve and many to do good to and abundance of particular duties to perform in order to every one of these But alas time doth make such hast away that many things are left undone and he is afraid left death will find him very much behind hand And therefore he is up and doing as one that hath use for every minute and worketh while it is day because he knoweth that the night is coming when none can work Joh. 9.4 Redeeming Time is much of his wisdom and his work Eph. 5.16 Col. 4.5 He had rather labour in the house of correction than live the swinish life of idle and voluptuous Gentleman or Beggers that live to no higher end than to live or to please their flesh or to live as worldlings that lose all their lives in the service of a perishing world He knoweth how precious time will be ere long in the eyes of those that now make light of it and trifle it away as a contemned thing as if they had too much 2. The weak Christian is of the same mind in the main But when it cometh to particular practice he is like a weak or weary traveller that goeth but slowly and maketh many a stop Though his face is still Heaven-wards he goeth but a little way in a day He is too easily tempted to idle or talk or feast or play away an hour unlawfully so it be not his ordinary course and he do it but seldome He taketh not the loss of an hour for so great a loss as the confirmed Christian doth He could sooner be perswaded to live though not an idle and unprofitable yet an easier less-profitable life The world and the flesh have farr more of his hours than they ought to have Though his weakness tell him that he hath most need of diligence 3. But the Time of a seeming Christian is most at the service of his fleshly interest and for that it is principally employed And for that he can Redeem it and grudge if it be lost But as he liveth not to God so he cannot redeem his time for God He loseth it even when he seemeth to employ it best when he is praying or otherwise worshipping God and doing that good which feedeth his false hopes he is not redeeming his time in all this While he is sleeping in security and deluding his soul with a few formal words and an image of Religion and his time passeth on and he is hurried away to the dreadful day and his damnation slumbreth not 2 Pet. 2.3 Pro. 20.4 Mat. 25.6 7 8. XLI 1. A Christian indeed is one whose very heart is set upon doing good As one that is made to be profitable to others according to his ability and place even as the Sun
power to make restitution and saith as Zacheus Luk. 19.8 If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation I restore him four-fold Though flesh and blood perswade him to the contrary and though it leave him in want he will pay his debts and make restitution of that which is ill gotten as being none of his own He will not sell for as much as he can get but for as much as it is truly worth He will not take advantage of the weakness or ignorance or necessity of his neighbour He knoweth that a false ballance is abomination to the Lord but a just weight is his delight Prov. 11.1 He is afraid of believing ill reports and rebuketh the backbiter Prov. 25.23 He is apt to take part with any man behind his back who is not notoriously inexcusable not to justifie any evil but to shew his charity and his hatred of evil speaking especially where it can do no good He will not believe evil of another till the evidence do compell him to believe it If he have wronged any by incautelous words he readily confesseth his fault to him and asketh him forgiveness and is ready to make any just satisfaction for any wrong that he hath done He borroweth not when he seeth not a great probability that he is like to pay it Nor will remain in debt by retaining that which is another mans against his will without an absolute necessity Rom. 13.8 Owe no man any thing but to love one another For to borrow when he cannot pay is but to steal Begging is better than borrowing for such Psal. 37.21 The wicked borroweth and payeth not 2. And the weak Christian maketh conscience of Justice as well as acts of piety as knowing that God hath no need of our Sacrifices but loveth to see us do that which is good for humane society and which we have need of from each other But yet he hath more selfishness and partiality than the confirmed Christian hath and therefore is often overcome by temptations to unrighteous things As to stretch his Conscience for his commodity in buying or selling and concealing the faults of what he selleth and sometimes over-reaching others Especially he is ordinarily too censorious of others and apt to be credulous of evil reports and to be overbold and forward in speaking ill of men behind their backs and without a call especially against persons that differ from him in matters of Religion where he is usually most unjust and apt to go beyond his bounds Jam. 3.15 16. Tit. 3.2 Eph. 4.31 1 Pet. 2.1 3. The seeming Christian may have a seeming Justice But really he hath none but what must give place to his fleshly interest and if his honour and commodity and safety require it he will not stick to be unjust And that Justice which wanteth but a strong temptation to overturn it is almost as bad as none If he will not seize on Naboths Vineyard nor make himself odious by oppression or deceit yet if he can raise or enrich himself by secret consenage and get so fair a pretence for his injustice as shall cloak the matter from the fight of men he seldom sticketh at it It is an easie matter to make an Achan think that he doth no harm or a Gebazi think that he wrongeth no man in taking that which was offered and due Covetousness will not confess its name but will find some Reasonings to make good all the injustice which it doth 1 Tim. 6.5 2 King 5.19 20. XLVI 1. A Christian indeed is faithfull and laborious in his particular calling and that not out of a covetous minde but in obedience to God and that he may maintain his Family and be able to do good to others For God hath said In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread Gen. 3.19 And six dayes shalt thou labour Exod. 20.10 And with quietness men must work and eat their own bread and if any will not work neither should he eat 2 Thess. 3.10 11 12. Abraham and Noah and Adam laboured in a constant course of imployment He knoweth that a sanctified calling and labour is a help and not a hinderance to devotion and that the body must have work as well as the soul and that Religion must not be pretended for slothfull idleness nor against obedience to our Masters will Prov. 31. 2. The weak Christian is here more easily deceived and made believe that Religion will excuse a man from bodily labour and under the colour of devotion to live idly 2 Thess. 3.8 1 Tim. 5.13 They learn to be idle wandering about from house to house and not only idle but tatlers also and busie-bodies speaking things which they ought not Slothfulness is a sin much condemned in the Scriptures Ezek. 16.49 Prov. 24.30 18.9 21.25 Mat. 25.26 Rom. 12.11 3. The seeming Christian in his labour is ruled chiefly by his flesh If he be rich and it incline him most to sloth he maketh small conscience of living in idleness under the pretence of his Gentility or wealth But if the flesh incline him more to Covetousness he will be laborious enough but it shall not be to please God by obedience but to increase his Estate and enrich himself and his Posterity whatever better reason he pretend XLVII 1. A Christian indeed is exactly conscionable in the dutyes of his relation to others in the family and place of his abode If he be a husband he is loving and patient and faithfull to his wife If he be a father he is carefull of the holy education of his children If he be a Master he is just and mercifull to his servants and carefull for the saving of their souls If he be a childe or servant he is obedient trusty diligent and carefull as well behind his Parents or his Masters back as before his face He dare not lie nor steal nor deceive nor neglect his duty nor speak dishonourably of his Superiors though he were sure he could conceal it all For he knoweth that the fifth Commandement is enforced with a special Promise Eph. 6.2.5.9 And that a bad Childe or a bad Servant a bad Husband or Wife a bad Parent or Master cannot be a good Christian Col. 3.18 19 c. 4.1 1 Pet. 2.18 2. But weak Christians though sincere are ordinarily weak in this part of their duty and apt to yield to temptations and carry themselves proudly stubbornly idly disobediently as eye-servants that are good in sight or to be unmercifull to inferiours and neglecters of their souls And to excuse all this from the faults of those that they have to do with and lay all upon others as if the fault of husband wife parent master or servant would justifie them in theirs and passion and partiality would serve for innocency 3. And the Hypocrite ordinarily sheweth his hypocrisies by being false in his relations to man while he pretendeth to be pious and obedient unto God He is a bad master
excellency and necessity of the holiness and spirituality of the soul in worship yet withall he is more judicious and charitable than the pievish and passionate infant Christians who think that God doth judge as they do and seeth no grace where they see none and taketh all to be superstitious or fanatical that differ from their opinions or manner of worship or that he is as ready to call every error in the method or the words of prayer Idolatry or Wilworship as those are that speak not what they they know but what they have heard some Teachers whom they reverence say before them He that dwelleth in Love doth dwell in God and God in him and he that dwelleth in God is liker to be best acquainted with his mind concerning his children and his worship than he that dwelleth in wrath and pride and partiality 2. But the weak Christian though so far as he hath grace he is of the same mind and abhorreth discord and division among the flock of Christ yet being more dark and selfish and distempered he is much more prone to unwarrantable separations and divisions than the stronger Christian is He is narrower fighted and looketh little further than his own acquaintance and the Country where he liveth and mindeth not sufficiently the general state of the Churches through the world nor understandeth well the interest of Christ and Christianity in the earth His knowledge and experience being small his charity also is but small and a little thing tempteth him to condemn another and aggravate his faults and think him unworthy of the communion of the Saints He is much more sensible of the judgement and affections and concernments of those few with whom he doth converse and that are of his opinion than of the judgement and practice and concernments of the universal Church He knoweth not how to prefer the judgements and holiness of some that he thinketh more excellent than the rest without much undervaluing and censuring of all others that are not of their opinion He cannot chuse the actual local communion of the best society without some unjust contempt of others or separation from them He hath not so much knowledge as may sufficiently acquaint him with his ignorance And therefore he is apt to be unreasonably confident of his present apprehensions and to think verily that all his own conceptions are the certain truth and to think them ignorant or ungodly or very weak at least that differ from him For he hath not throughly and impartially studied all that may be said on the other side The Authority of his chosen Teacher and sect is greater with him if he fall into that way than the Authority of all the most wise and holy persons in the world besides What the Scripture speaketh of the unbelieving world he is apt to apply to all those of the Church of Christ that are not of his mind and party And when Christ commandeth us to come out of the world he is prone to understand it of coming out from the Church into some stricter and narrower society and is apt with the Papists to appropriate the name and priviledges of the Church to his party alone and to condemn all others Especially if the Church-Governours be carnal and self-seeking or otherwise very culpable and if Discipline be neglected and if prophaneness be not sufficiently discountenanced and godliness promoted he thinketh that such a Church is no Church but a prophane society God hath taught him by repentance to see the mischief of ungodliness but he yet wanteth that experience which is needfull to make him know the mischiefs of Church-divisions He had too much experience himself of the evil of prophaneness before his conversion but he hath not tryed the evil of Schism and without some sad experience of its fruits in himself or others he will hardly know it as it should be known Because it is the custome of some malignant enemies of godliness to call the godly Hereticks Schismaticks factious Sectaries c. therefore the very names do come into credit with him and he thinks there are no such persons in the world or that there is no danger of any such crimes Till he be taught by sad experience that the professors of sincerity are in as much danger on that side as on the other and that the Church as well as Christ doth suffer between two thieves the Prophane and the Dividers Paul was unjustly called the ring-leader of a Sect Acts 24.5 and Christianity called a Heresie and a Sect every where spoken against Acts 28.22 24.14 But for all that Heresie is a fruit of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and some of them called damnable 2 Pet. 2.1 and they are the tryal of the Church to difference the approved members from the chaff 1 Cor. 11.19 And an obstinate Heretick is to be avoided by true Believers Titus 3.10 And the Pharisees and Sadduces are well reputed to be several Sects Acts 5.17 15.5 26.5 And dividers and divisions are justly branded in Scripture as aforesaid There must be no Schism in the body of Christ 1 Cor. 12.25 The following of selected Teachers in a way of division from the rest or opposition to them doth shew that men are carnal in too great a measure though it be not in predominancy as in the prophane 2 Cor. 3.1 2 3. And I Brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal as unto babes in Christ I have fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are ye able For ye are yet carnal For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo are ye not carnal How much more when he that is for Paul doth censure and rail at Cephas and Apollo He that hath seen the course of men professing godliness in England in this age may easily and sadly know how prone weak Christians are to unjust separations and divisions and what are the effects He that had heard many zealous in prayer and other duties and the next year see them turning Quakers and railing in the open Congregations at the ablest holiest self-denying Ministers of Christ and at their flocks with a Come down thou deceiver thou hireling thou wolf ye are all greedy doggs c. and shall see how yet poor souls run into that reviling and irrational Sect to say nothing of all other Sects among us will no longer doubt whether the weak be inclinable to Schism but will rather lament the dangerousness of their station and know that all is not done when a sinner is converted from an ungodly state Study the reason of those three texts Ephes. 4.13 14 15 16. For the edifying the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
as Christ did of himself Joh. 10.32 Many good works have I shewed you from my Father for which of these works do ye stone me Many heavenly graces are in the sanctified Believer For which of these do you hate and injure him I know that Goodness is so far in credit with humane nature that you will answer as the Jews did v. 33. For a good work we stone thee not but for blasphemy We hate them not for Godliness but for Hypocrisie and Sin But if it be so indeed 1. Speak not against Godliness it self nor against the strictest performance of our duty 2. Yea plead for Godliness and countenance and promote it while you speak against Hypocrisie and Sin 3. And chuse out the Hypocrite whose Character is here truly set before you and let him be the object of your enmity and distaste Let it fall on those that are worldlings and time-servers and will stretch their consciences to their carnal interest and can do any thing to save their skin and being false to Christ can hardly be true to any of their superiours but only in subordination to themselves As it is said of Constantius that he commanded that all his servants should be turned out of their places that would not renounce Christianity And when he had thereby tryed them he turned out all the Apostates and kept in the sincere and told them They could not be true to him that were not true to their God and Saviour 4. And see that you be not Hypocrites your selves You profess your selves Christians and what is it to be a Christian indeed you may here perceive If any that fall under the character of Hypocrites or worse shall vilifie or hate the sincere Christians as Hypocrites what a horrid aggravation of their Hypocrisie will it be Indeed it is the best and strongest Christians that have most of the hatred both of the Vnbelieving and the Hypocritical world And for my own part I must confess that the very observation of the universal implacable enmity which is undeniably seen throughout the world between the womans and the serpents seed being such as is not found among any other sorts of men on other occasions doth not a little confirm my belief of the holy Scriptures and seemeth to be an argument not well to be answered by any enemy of the Christian cause That it should begin between the two first Brothers that ever were born into the world and stop in nothing lower than shedding the righteous blood of Abel for no other cause but because the works of Cain were evil and his Brothers righteous 1 Joh. 3.12 13. And that it should go down to the Prophets and Christ and the Apostles and Primitive Saints and continue to this day throughout the earth and that the profession of the same Religion doth not alter it but rather enrage the enmity of Hypocrites against all that are serious and sincere in the Religion which they themselves profess These are things that no good account can be given of save only from the predictions and verities of the word of God V. Also you may hence perceive how exceedingly injurious Hypocrites and scandalous Christians are to the Name of Christ and Cause of Christianity and Godliness in the world The blind malicious enemies of Faith and Godliness instead of judging of them by the sacred Rule do look only to the Professors and think of Religion as they think of them If they see the Professors of Christianity to be covetous proud usurpers time-servers self-exalters cruel schismatical rebellious they presently charge all this upon their Religion and Godliness must bear the blame when all comes but for want of Godliness and Religion And all the world hath not done so much against these and all other sins as Christ hath done What if Christs Disciples strive who shall be the greatest Is it long of him who girdeth himself to wash and wipe their feet and telleth them that except they be converted and become as little children they shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Mat. 18.3 and telleth them that though the Kings of the Gentiles do exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise authority upon them are called Benefactors yet ye shall not be so Luk. 22.25 26. Is it long of him that hath said to the Elders Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind neither as being Lords over Gods heritage but being examples to the flock Who hath set the Elders such a lesson as you find in Acts 20. 2 Tim. 4.1 2 3. 1 Tim. 5.17 If any called Christians shall be truly schismatical factious or turbulent is it long of him that hath prayed the Father that they may all be One Joh. 17.21 22 23. and hath so vehemently intreated them that they speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among them and that they be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement 1 Cor. 7.10 and hath charged them to mark them that cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had learned and to avoid them Rom. 16.16 17. If any called Christians shall be seditious or rebellious or as the Papists believe that the Clergy are from under the Jurisdiction of Kings and that the Pope hath power to excommunicate Princes and absolve their subjects from their allegiance and give their dominions to others as it is decreed in the General Council at the Lateran under Innocent the third Can. 3. Is all this long of Christ who hath paid tribute to Caesar and hath commanded that every soul be subject to the higher Powers and not resist and this for conscience sake Rom. 13 1 2 3. and hath bid his Disciples rather to turn the other cheek than to seek revenge Luk. 6.29 and hath told them that they that use the sword of rebellion or revenge or cruelty shall perish by the sword Joh. 18.11 If any Christians will under pretence of Religion set up a cruel Inquisition or kill men to convert them or become self-lovers covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankfull unholy without natural affection truce-breakers false-accusers incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good c. Is this long of him that hath forbid all this 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4 5. If for their own domination lust or covetousness men called Christians will be worse than Heathens and Wolves to one another is this long of him that hath made it his sheep-mark by which we must be known to all men to be his Disciples that we love one another Joh. 13.35 and hath told them that if they bite and devour one another they shall be devoured one of another Gal. 5.15 and hath blessed the merciful as those that shall find mercy Mat. 5.7 and hath told men that what they do to his little ones shall be taken as if it