to and fairly represent to our selves all the Difficulties and Temptations wherewith we must ingage and as much as in us lies render them actual and present to us by supposing our selves already ingaged in our Spiritual Warfare and surrounded with all the Temptations both from within and without that we can reasonably expect will oppose themselves against us and having thus placed our selves in the midst of the Difficulties of Religion we must never cease urging our selves with the great Arguments and Motives of it till we have throughly persuaded our stubborn Wills and obtained of them an explicit Consent to every Duty that calls for our Consent and Resolution III. TO our good Beginning of the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we be deeply and throughly convinced of our great need of a Mediator to make a Propitiation for our Sins and render us acceptable to God For 't is to convince us of this necessary Truth that the Scripture doth so expresly declare that as there is one God so there is one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5 that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and that he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world and that 't is for his name sake that our sins are forgiven 1 John ii 1 2 12. that we have redemption through his blood Eph. i. 7 and that without the shedding his blood there is no remission and that 't was by the sacrifice of himself that Christ put away sin Heb. ix 22 26. that we are accepted of God through his beloved Son Eph. i. 6 that Christ is entred into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us Heb. ix 24 and that there he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. vii 25 that 't is through him that we have access unto the Father Eph. ii 18 and by him that we have admittance to his grace and favour Rom. v. 2 The design of all which is throughly to convince us of this great truth that by our Apostacy from God and Rebellion against him we have all rendred our selves so very obnoxious to his Vengeance that he would not pardon us upon any less Atonement than the precious Blood nor admit us into favour upon any less Motive than the powerful Intercession of his own Son that by the heinousness of our Guilt we have so highly incensed the Father of Mercies against us that no less consideration than the Death and Advocation of the greatest and dearest Person in the whole world will move him to admit of our Repentance and listen to our Supplications And certainly next to exacting the Punishment due to our sins at our own hands the most dreadful Severity he could have expressed was to resolve not to remit it upon any other consideration than that of his own Sons undergoing it in our stead by which he hath given us the greatest reason that Heaven and Earth could afford to tremble at his Justice even whilst we are inclosed in the Arms of his Mercy THIS therefore we ought to be deeply and throughly convinced of that our Sins have set us at such a distance from God that 't is nothing but the bloud of Christ will reconcile him to us and that though without our Repentance he will never be reconciled to us yet 't is not for the sake of that or any thing else we can do that he will be induced to receive us into favour but only for the sake of that precious Sacrifice which his eternal Son hath offered up for us The firm Persuasion and Consideration of which will mightily over-awe our minds and imprint upon them such gastly and horrible Apprehensions of sin as will scare us from all thoughts of Compliance with it the dreadful demonstration which God hath given us of his righteous severity against it in the very Reason of his pardoning it will effectually antidote us against all our sinful Securities and Confidences For this way of Gods pardoning us upon the Sacrifice of his Son guards his Mercy with such an awful Terror as is sufficient to dishearten the most desperate sinner from presuming upon it For he that dares presume to sin on upon a Mercy that cost the bloud of the Son of God hath courage enough to out-face the Flames of Hell and is not capable of any Mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his own Authority For what Mercy can be safe from that mans Abuse and Presumption that dares abuse a Mercy so guarded and secured as this is by being founded upon such a dreadful Consideration AND as a through Persuasion of the Necessity of Christs Sacrifice to the Forgiveness of our Sins will fill us with awful Apprehensions of the divine Severity and set before us a most dismal Prospect of the vast demerit of our Sin both which are necessary to ingage us to a through Reformation so a through conviction of the Necessity of his Intercession to render our Duties our Prayers and Persons acceptable to God will effectually humble and abase us in our own eyes which as I shall shew you by and by is highly conducive to a good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare For next to banishing us from his Presence for ever the most effectual course God could take to abase us was to exclude us from all immediate Intercourse with him and not to admit of any more Addresses or Supplications from us but only through the hands of a Mediator which is a plain Demonstration how infinitely pure he is and how base and vile our Sins have rendred us insomuch that he will not suffer a sinful Creature to come near him otherwise than by a Proxy that he will not accept of a Service from a guilty Hand nor listen to a Prayer from a sinful Mouth till 't is first hallowed and presented to him by a pure and holy Mediator So that unless we are strangely inconsiderate we cannot but be touched with a deep sense of our own Vileness when we think at what a distance the pure and holy God keeps us how he stands off at the Stench of our Abominations and notwithstanding all his Benignity towards us will neither hear us nor have any thing to do with us without the powerful Intercession of his own Son AND as our Conviction of the Necessity we have of Christs Sacrifice and Intercession is very apt to affect us with holy Sorrow and Fear both which are very powerful Instruments of our Reformation so our persuasion of the Reality and Excellency of his Mediation is no less apt to inspire us with a mighty Hope and Assurance of Acceptance with God if we reform and amend For it seems that upon propitiatory Sacrifices and interceding Spirits guilty Minds have been always inclined to place their Confidence of Acceptance with God Hence it was a Principle generally
is it to take so much pains as we do to recommend our selves to men to men that must stand at the same Tribunal and undergo the same Judgment with our selves For what will their good Opinion avail us if the Judg disaprove us in whose hands our Lives and Souls are If he think well of us we are safe though all the World should condemn us but if he condemn us though every Creature should acquit they cannot rescue us from his Sentence But alas how differently soever God and Men may think of us now yet when he comes to discover his Thoughts of us in his publick Judgment and Sentence all the World will be of his Mind and if we stand right in his Opinion we shall be applauded by the whole Universe howsoever we may be vilified now as on the contrary if he condemn us we shall be sure to be hissed at throughout all the Congregation of Spirits how gloriously soever we may be thought of at present And by how much the better we are esteemed of now by so much the more we shall be hissed at then when the Cheat is discovered and the hypocritical Vizor is pluckt from our Devils faces THIS if men duly considered and fixt it in their Minds would effectually cure them of all their Hypocrisie For alas what Hypocrisie can so cunningly disguise them as to render them Incognito to Omniscience If men will be wicked therefore they were e'en as good put on a bold Face and be wicked openly for 't is to very little purpose for them to sneak into Corners unless they could find one dark enough to conceal them from God and cover them from his All-seeing Eye For why should that man be ashamed or afraid to let a Boy or Neighbour be conscious to his Wickedness that never scruples to commit it in the open View of the dreadful Majesty of Heaven by whose final Sentence his everlasting Fate must be decided AND so on the other hand to what purpose should we study to be more devout and temperate sober and charitable in the view of the World than we are in our Retirements when we have no other Eye but God's upon us That which we are mainly concerned in is to approve our selves to him and if we can do this what great matter is it though our Closet be all our Stage and Heaven our only Spectator God hears the softest Whispers of our Souls and sees through all our honest Intentions and our most secret Vertues are as legible to his Eye as if they were written on our Foreheads with a Sun-beam We need no Trumpet to proclaim our Alms in his Ears for he knows by whom such a poor man was relieved such a starving family succoured though we should not superscribe our Names upon our Charity nor let our left hand know what our right hand hath done And if by the sincere Discharg of our Duty we have approved our selves to God what need we concern our selves any farther since 't is not from Men but from God that we expect the Recompence of our Obedience No doubtless did we but live under the constant sense of God Presence with and Inspection over us we should regard him much more in every good Action and the good Opinion of the World much less than we do and the more secret our good Deeds were the more we should rejoice in them because they would give us a stronger Testimony of our Simplicity and Sincerity For what should move us to be good when God only sees us but pure Respect to his Authority and an honest Intention of obeying him And if Obedience be our Design the more private our good Deeds are the more Pleasure they will afford us because those good Deeds have most of Obedience in them that have least of the Theatre VI. To prosper our Course and Progress in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently examin and review our own Actions For this our Religion injoins as a necessary Part of the militant Life of a Christian So 2 Cor. xiii 5 Examin your selves whether you be in the faith prove your own selves and particularly it is injoined as a proper Preparation to the Sacrament Let a man examin himself and so let him eat 1 Cor. xi 28 So also Gal. vi 4 Let a man prove or examin his own work where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in all these Texts we render to prove or examin hath two Significations First to call our selves to Account to try our past Actions by the Rule whether they be good or evil Secondly to take such a due Care of our Actions as that upon a strict Tryal of them we may be able to approve them to God and our own Consciences In the first of which Sences the New-Testament doth most commonly understand it namely to call our selves to Account and make a strict Survey of our Actions and pass an impartial Judgment upon them whether they are good or evil and accordingly 1 Cor. xi 31 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 28th Verse i. e. let a man examin himself the Apostle uses as a synonimous Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. if we judg our selves if we summon our past actions before the Tribunal of our Consciences and try and examin them by the Rule whether they are good or evil and according as we find them to approve or condemn our selves for them AND this is a Duty of great Necessity to the successful Prosecution of our Christian Warfare For unless we do frequently reflect upon our selves and take a strict Account of our past Actions and Behaviour we shall incur a thousand Errors and Immoralities in the Hurry of our secular Occasions without taking any Notice of them and those sins which we heedlesly commit and never think of afterwards though at first perhaps they may have little or no Malice in them do yet leave a malicious Infusion behind them and infect the will with bad Inclinations and insensibly dispose it to wilful and deliberate Sins For the Pleasure of one bad Action will be still inviting us to another and that to a third and so we shall be inconsiderately tolled on from Sin to Sin in the course of a heedless and unreflecting Life till before ever we are aware our Inclination to the Sin which we have so heedlesly repeated becomes too strong for our pious Resolution For when we have carelesly permitted one Sin to break through our Fence that will open a gap for another to follow and if this be not presently stopt by Repentance 't will make the Breach yet wider for others and those again for others till at last they have quite trodden down our good Resolution and made a Through-fare in our Wills for a Custom of sinning But if we frequently reflect upon and examin our selves 't is impossible our Faults should long escape our Discovery and we shall be sure to see them time
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.
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
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
Delay as soon as we had strayed from our Duty we might have soon recovered the Ground we had lost by it and by a little more Diligence have gotten as far onward as if we had never interrupted our Progress at all by deferring our Repentance we set our selves farther and farther back and shall every day be more and more indisposed to return For in the Course of our Religion there is no standing still but either we are progressive or retrograde going backward or forward as long as we live so that when once we are out of our Way we are still going farther out till such time as we return again and consequently the longer we are out the harder 't will be to return and the farther we shall have to the end of our Way For when I first sin and the Wound of my Innocence is yet green fresh it may easily be cured by the timely Application of a sorrowful Confession and new Resolution of Amendment but if I neglect it 't will rot and putrifie my Sense of it will be hardned and my Inclination to it grow every day more inveterate and then if it be not lanc'd and corroded by a sharp a long and a painful Repentance it will turn into an incureable Gangrene Hence the Apostle bids us exhort one another daily while it is called to day that is to repent while it is called to day lest any of us be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. iii. 13 So that when we have wilfully sin'd we run a mighty Hazard of our final perseverance if we don't repent immediatly For all the while we delay our Conscience grows more sear'd and our Lust grows more confirm'd and God knows where it will end but 't is fearfully to be suspected that that neglected Bruise which we got by our Fall will grow worse and worse and determine at last in final Impenitency Wherefore as we intend to persevere in wel-doing it concerns us in the first place to take all possible Care not to give way to any wilful Sin nor suffer our selves by any Hopes or Fears to be tempted from our good Resolution but if at any time our wicked Inclinations should prevail against it to betake our selves immediately to a serious Repentance to make a sorrowful Confession of it to our offended God and solemnly renew our Resolution against it that so we may stop the growing evil betime before it 's capable of indangering our final Apostacy III. TO our final perseverance it 's necessary 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 Temptations which were the Occasions of our Fall For thus we are strictly prohibited to set our affections upon things on the earth Col. iii. 21 to love the World and the things that are in the World Joh. i ii 15 to lay up for our selves treasures upon earth Mat. vi 19 and 't is the proper Character of a true Christian to be crucified to the World Gal. vi 14 and to converse as a Stranger and a Pilgrim in it Heb. xi 13 As on the contrary to mind earthly things and to be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God are made the proper Characters of Infidels and Apostates Phil. iii. 19 compared with Tim. ii 3.4 And so inconsistent is an inordinate Affection to the World with our perseverance in the Christian Warfare that St. James expresly tells us that the friendship of the World is enmity with God Jam. iv 4 and 't is to the Excess of our friendship to it that the Scripture frequently attributes our Apostacy Tim. ii 4.10 and the Apostle tells us that they that will be rich that is immoderately covet to be so fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition and destruction and that the love of money is the root of all evil 1 Tim. vi 9 10. From all which it 's apparent how necessary it is in the accounts of Christianity in order to our perseverance that we should indeavour to wean and abstract our selves from the World FOR this world is the Magazine of all those Temptations by which our Vertue and Innocence is importuned and assaulted and 't is either the Hope of some worldly Pleasure Profit or Honour that allures or the Fear of some of the contrary Evils which are incident to us in the Course of Religion that affrights us from our Duty Whilst therefore we immoderately love those Goods and Evils which are the Solicitours of Vice we are in very great danger of being conquered and led captive by it For 't is not for the sake of sinning that men sin but for the sake of those Goods or to avoid those Evils which are appendent to their sinning or not sinning and consequently the more a man loves those Goods which cling and adhere to a sinful Action the more propense he will be to the Commission of it and the more he dreads those Evils which he can most easily avoid by a sinful Action the more prone and inclinable he will be to it Wherefore to secure our perseverance in this Warfare against sin it is absolutely necessary that we rectifie our Opinion of the Goods and Evils of this World and moderate and abate our Affection towards them especially towards those that have been most prevalent with us For the Temptation that prevails upon us discovers the weak Side of our Nature and instructs the Devil what Good or Evil it is that is most apt to allure or affright us and to be sure that subtil Tempter who hath been so many thousand Years studying the Arts of seducing us will not fail to assault us again where he hath been already successful and therefore it concerns us to fortifie our selves there where we have so much reason to expect the Enemy will assault us and to rectifie our Opinions of and mortifie our Affections to those things which have already so much imposed upon our Virtue and Innocence For 't is our Imagination that gives Life and Efficacy to the Charms and Terrors of the World and renders them so successful against us we fancy that to be in them which is not and so are affected not so much with the things themselves as with the false Representations we make of them FOR it's plain the Goods of the World are beholden to our selves for the greatest part of those Beauties with which they tempt and allure us and 't is our Fancy that gives the Paint and Fucus with which they charm and inamour our Affections and so for the Evils of the World 't is our own Imagination that disguises them into such Bugs and Scare-crowes and puts those gastly Vizors on them with which they fright and amaze us If therefore we would but take care to rectifie our Opinions of them both and to strip them out of their imaginary
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
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
piercing sense of my Sins as may cause the floods of unfeigned Grief and Contrition to gush forth from it Cause me to bleed for my sins now that I may not bleed for them for ever and that having felt the Smart and Anguish of them I may utterly detest and abhor them and never be reconciled to them more Thus do thou assist me O good God in the Exercise of all these Duties till thou hast throughly conquered my Will by them and prepared it for a firm Resolution to forsake all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And now that I am going into the world among those very Temptations that have hitherto so miserably captivated and inslaved me O let thy blessed Spirit be present with me to keep my drousie Conscience awake and arm me against them with his holy Inspirations that so those good Thoughts and Desires which thou hast at present excited in me may stick fast upon my Soul in the midst of my worldly Occasions and never cease importuning my Conscience Will and Affections till they have produc'd in me the happy Effect of a serious and hearty Repentance All which I most earnestly beseech of thee even for pity sake to a poor perishing Soul and for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. In the Evening when you find your self most sit for serious Thoughts go into your Closet again and consider cooly with your self whether you are heartily willing to part with every Sin and particularly with your beloved Sin and to submit to every Duty and even to those that are most contrary to your vicious Inclination if you are not as it 's very probable you will not for some time or if you find the least reason to suspect you are not press your self anew with such divine Reasons as are most apt to affect you with the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell with the love of God and of your Saviour represent your Obstinacy to your self with all its Baseness and Disingenuity Madness and Folly till you find your self affected with a sorrowful Sense of it and then offer up this following Prayer O Father of Mercies and God of all Grace and Consolation who art a ready help in time of need look down upon me I beseech thee a miserable and forlorn Wretch that have wilfully sold my self Captive to the Devil and am now strugling to get loose from this my wretched Bondage into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God I know O Lord that I am striving for my immortal Life and accordingly as I succeed I expect to be happy or miserable for ever I have seriously considered the Reasons on both sides and am fully satisfied in my mind that there is infinitely more Force in thy Promises and Threats than in all the Difficulties of my Duty and the Pleasures of my sin But after all this I find a law in my Members warring against the law in my Mind a perverse Will that rejects the counsels of my Reason that makes obstinate Reservations of some beloved Sins and Exceptions to some particular Duties in despite of all the persuasion of my Reason and Religion So that after all my Endeavours I am still detain'd in Captivity to the law of sin that is in my Members and am not able to incline my self to an intire Resolution of Amendment O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death I know O Lord though I am weak and impotent and of my self unable to shake off the Chains and Fetters of my Lusts yet thy Grace is abundantly sufficient to rescue and deliver me from them and thou hast promised to assist with it my honest Endeavours and crown them with a blessed Success Wherefore for thy Truth and Mercies sake suffer not thy poor Creature who with pitiful and bemoaning Looks cries out for help to thee to spend himself in weary and fruitless Struglings against this violent Torrent of my sinful Nature which without thy aid will quickly overcome my poor Endeavours and drive me down into eternal Perdition My sole Dependence is upon thee my Hope of Success is wholly in thee help Lord help or else I perish stretch forth thy powerful Arm to my sinking Soul and let not this Deep swallow me up but do thou so quicken my faint Endeavours so strengthen my weak and doubting Faith so enliven my cold and languid Considerations so clear up my Convictions of my need of a Saviour and of the Danger and Odiousness of my Sins and thereby so increase my penitential Sorrows and Remorses as that by all these means together my obstinate Will may at last be conquered and effectually persuaded to part with every Sin be it never so dear to me and to comply with every Duty be it never so cross to my vile Inclinations Then shall I freely resign up my self unto thee and with a firm Resolution devote all my Powers to thy Service And that I may do so and by so doing be reconciled to thee O my offended God before I go hence and be no more seen receive me I beseech thee into thy protection this Night that I may yet see the light of another Day and have a longer space to finish my Repentance All which I humbly implore even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. If upon searching your own Heart you find that after you have fairly represented to your self what sinful Pleasures you must part with what Duties you must submit to and what Difficulties you must ingage with you are willing without any Reserve or Exception to submit your self to God beware you be not too hasty to form your Resolution but take some little time to try your self see whether you will continue to morrow of the same mind you are in now and if then you perceive you have reason to suspect your self try a little longer and at the present indeavour as much as in you lies to confirm and settle your self in the good Mind you are in by pressing and urging your self with all those Arguments of your Religion by which you have been thus far convinced and persuaded and while you are thus trying your self instead of the former let this be your Evening Prayer O Blessed Lord and most merciful Father thou art a God hearing Prayer and to thee shall all flesh come I admire thy Goodness I adore thy Grace that after so many heinous provocations I have given thee for which thou mightest have justly shut thine ears against me for ever thou hast heard my Cries and pitied my Misery and thus far contributed towards my Recovery I acknowledg 't is by thy Grace that I am what I am that this stubborn Heart begins at last to relent this perverse Will to bow and stoop these lewd Affections to hunger and thirst after
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
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
his Happiness For what greater torment can our Mind endure than to be an everlasting Spectator of the Bliss and Happiness of one whom it hates How then will it fret and gall our meagre and envious Spirits to see that blessed Being whom we cannot endure surrounded with an infinite Happiness with a Happiness so vast as that it can admit of no Increase and yet so secure as that it can never suffer a Diminution So that 't is impossible you see for the Mind of Man to live happily upon God in the other life unless it be inspired before-hand with an hearty Love and Affection to him AND hence it is that our holy Religion doth so strictly require us to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our mind Mat. xxii 37 to love him because he loved us first to delight our selves in the Lord Psal. xxxvii 4 and to rejoice in the Lord Phil. iii. 1 and to rejoice in the Lord always Phil. iv 4 i. e. to be habitually complacent or well pleased with the infinite Beauty Goodness and Perfection of the divine Nature Nay of such vast import is the Love of God in the account of the Gospel that 't is there recommended as the proper Principle of Christian Life For so Rom. xiii 10 we are told that love is the fulfilling of the law that is the adequate Principle of all Christian Obedience and Gal. v. 6 we are told that neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing in Christ Jesus but faith which worketh by love that is there is nothing of any account with Christ buch such a Belief of the Gospel as begets in us a hearty Love to God and doth thereby work and exert it self as by that which is the only genuine Principle of Christian Life and Action 'T is true beside this principle of Love the Gospel acts us both by our Fear and Hope exciting the one by Threatnings of the greatest Evils and animating the other with Promises of the greatest Goods but yet it is certain that neither these nor any other Principles of religious Action can be acceptable to God whilst they are totally separated from Love to him For there is no Principle of Obedience can be acceptable to God that is not a Principle of Universal Obedience but to love God being a great and main instance of Obedience that can be no principle of Universal Obedience which doth not effectually excite us to love him 'T IS true the Religion of most men begins upon the Principles of Hope and Fear and it cannot be denied but these are good Beginnings but yet till by these we are excited to love God as well as to do the other Parts of our Duty our Obedience is lame and partial and consequently unacceptable So that though Hope and Fear are good Ingredients to compound an acceptable Principle of Obedience yet without an Intermixture of Love they are by no means sufficient There may be indeed and at first there generally is much less of Love in this internal spring of our Obedience than of Hope or Fear whilst yet the whole Composition is truly pleasing and acceptable to God For the lowest degree of cordial Love intermixed with our Hope and Fear is sufficient to leaven and consecrate them into an acceptable Principle of Obedience but still the less of Love there is in it the more weak and languid and imperfect it is and in all its progresses towards Perfection its ripeness and maturity is to be measured by the degrees of Love that are in it And till our Love is arrived to that degree of Fervour and Ardency as to become the predominant Motive and Master Ingredient of this our compounded Principle of Obedience our state in Goodness is very low and imperfect So that in short the Principle that acts and moves us in Religion is still more and more perfect the more of Love there is in it and the less of Hope and Fear and when Hope and Fear are both swallowed up in Love and this is become the sole Spring of Action in us then 't is the Principle of Heaven the Soul that acts and animates the Religion of just men made perfect SO that if ever we design to grow up to their blessed State we must endeavour to kindle and blow up the Love of God in our Hearts And in order hereunto we must be frequently representing to our own Minds the infinite Reasons we have to love him and pressing our selves with the vast Obligations he hath laid upon us spreading them fairly before our Thoughts in all their endearing Circumstances We must ever and anon set our cold and frozen Souls before those melting Flames of his Love and Beauty and never leave chafing them at 'em urging and pressing them with the Consideration of them till we feel the heavenly Fire begin to kindle in our Bosoms And above all things we must take care by the constant Practice of what is agreeable to Gods Nature to reconcile our Minds and Tempers to him for till this is done we can never be habitually pleased or delighted in him but when once by the Practice of those eternal Rules of Goodness that are founded in his blessed Nature we have so far reconciled our Natures to him as that our Hearts and his stand bent the same way and are for the main alike inclined and disposed then we are prepared for and made proper and convenient Fuel to receive this heavenly Flame of Love to him and when this is once so throughly kindled in our Hearts as that we are habitually well pleased and delighted in him so as to rejoice in his Happiness acquiesce in his Will and meditate on his Beauty and Goodness with an unfeigned complacency of Soul we are then in the same State that is in Kind though not in Degree with the blessed People of Heaven And though in this Life we may not be able to raise our selves to that Height of Love as we desire and much less as that blessed Object deserves our present Knowlege being short our Thoughts unsteady and our Affections entangled in Sense and sensual things yet when we go from hence into the other World and are there admitted to a more intimate View of his Nature Works and Perfections our imperfect Love will be immediately improved into an high Seraphick Flame For now we shall not only know him better having him always in our View and continually shining full in our Eyes but we shall be removed from all other Objects that are apt to divert our Thoughts or divide our Affections from him So that now our Love being kindled and fed with the purest Light with the ever out-streaming Rays of the most perfect Beauty and Goodness will always exert its utmost Vigour and spend it self without Decay in one continued everlasting Rapture AND then how unconceivably happy will our State be when we shall always live in view of the most lovely
to force and extort it when those that are superiour in Might and Power do all rule with a fierce and tyrannical Will and will condescend to nothing that is beneficial for their Subjects and those that are inferiour do obey with a perverse and stubborn Heart and will submit to nothing but what they are forced and compelled to and 't is nothing but meer Power and Dread by which they rule and are ruled in a word when they all mutually hate and abominate each other and those that command are a Company of cruel and imperious Devils that impose nothing but Grievances and Plagues and those that obey are a Company of surly and untractable Slaves that submit to nothing but what they are driven to by Plagues so that Plagues and Grievances are both the Matter and the Motive of all their Obedience and Subjection when this I say is the State of their Society with one another how is it possible but that they should be all of them in a most wretched and miserable Condition For where all is transacted by Force and Compulsion as to be sure all is among such a Company of perverse and self-willed Spirits there every one must be supposed to be so far as he is able a Fury and a Devil to every one and those that do compel are like so many salvage Tyrants continually vexed and enraged with stubborn Oppositions and Resistances and those that are compelled like so many obstinate Gally-Slaves are continually lashed into an unsufferable obedience and forced by one Torment to submit to another and thus all their Society with one another is a perpetual Intercourse of mutual Outrage and Violence THIS being therefore the miserable Fate and Issue of a perverse and stubborn and untractable Temper the Gospel whose great design is to direct us to our Happiness doth industriously endeavour to root it out of our Minds and to plant in its room a gentle obsequious and condescending Disposition For hither tend all those Evangelical Precepts which require us to become weak to the weak that we may gain them 1 Cor. ix 22 to bear with their infirmities Rom. xv 1 and support them and be patient towards them 1 Thess. v. 14 And on the other hand to submit our selves to our Elders 1 Pet. v. 5 and to those that have the rule over us Heb. xiii 17 to obey our Magistrates our Parents and our Masters to be subject to Principalities and not speak evil of Dignities to honour Kings and submit to their laws and Governours 1 Pet. ii 13 14. in a word to honour all men as they deserve 1 Pet. ii 17 and to hold good men in reputation Phil. ii 19 and in honour to prefer one another Rom. xii 10 The sense of all which is to oblige us to treat all men as becomes us in the Rank and Station we are placed in to honour those that are our Superiours whether in Place or Vertue to give that modest Deference to their Judgments that Reverence to their Persons that Respect to their Virtues and Homage to their Desires or Commands which the Degree or Kind of their Superiority requires to condescend to those that are our Inferiours and treat them with all that Candour and Ingenuity Sweetness and Affability that the respective Distances of our State will allow to consult their Conveniencies and do them all good Offices and pity and bear with their Infirmities so far as they are safely and wisely tolerable By the constant Practice of which our minds will be gradually cured of all that Perverseness and Surliness of Temper which indisposes us to the respective Duties of our Relations of all that Contempt and Selfishness which renders us averse to the proper Duty of Superiours and of all that Self-Conceit and Impatience of Command which indisposes us to the duty of Inferiours And our Wills being once wrought into an easie pliableness either to Submission or Condescension we are in a forward Preparation of Mind to live under the Government of of Heaven where doubtless under God the supream Lord and Sovereign there are numberless Degrees of Superiority and Inferiority For so some are said to reap sparingly and some abundantly some to be Rulers of five Cities and some of ten some to be the least and some the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven all which implies that in that blessed State there is a great Variety of Degrees of Glory and Advancement And indeed it cannot be otherwise in the Nature of the thing for our Happiness consisting in the Perfection of our Natures the more or less perfect we are the more or less happy we must necessarily be for every farther Degree of Goodness we attain to is a widening and enlargement of our Souls for farther Degrees of Glory and Beatitude And accordingly when we arrive at Heaven which is the Element of Beatitude we shall all be filled according to the Content and Measure of our Capacities and drink in more or less of its Rivers of Pleasure as we are more or less enlarged to contain them So that according as we do more and more improve our selves in true Goodness we do naturally make more and more Room in our Souls for Heaven which doth always fill the Vessels of Glory of all sizes and pour in happiness upon them till they all overflow and can contain no more Since therefore they are all of them entirely resigned to and guided by right Reason there is no doubt but in these their different Degrees of Glory and Dignity they mutually behave themselves towards one another as is most fit and becoming and that since under God the Head and King of their Society there is from the highest to the lowest a most exact and regular Subordination of Members they do every one perform their Parts and Duties towards every one in all those different Stations of Glory they are placed in and consequently do submit and condescend to each other according as they are of a superiour or inferiour Class and Order So that if when we go from hence into the other world we carry along with us a submissive and condescending Frame of Spirit we shall be trained up and predisposed to live under the blessed Hierarchy of Heaven to yield a chearful Conformity to the Laws and Customs of it and to render all the Honours to those above and all the Condescensions to those beneath us in Glory which the Statutes of that Heavenly Regiment do require in doing whereof we shall all of us enjoy a most unspeakable Content and Felicity For though in the Kingdom of Heaven as well as the Kingdoms of the Earth there are numberless Degrees of Advancement and Dignity and one Star there as well as here differeth from another Star in Glory yet so freely and chearfully do they all condescend and submit to each other in these their respective differences of Rank and Station that in the widest Distances of their State and Degrees of Glory they all
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
which End it will be needful that we should read and impartially consider some of the Apologies for the Christian Religion of which we have sundry excellent ones in our own Language and if we will but take the pains to instruct our selves in the plain and easie Evidences of Christianity we shall quickly see abundant cause to assent to it and then our Faith being founded on a firm Basis of Reason will be able to bid defiance to the World and to out-stand the most furious Storms of Temptation II. TO our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should duly consider the Motives of our Religion and ballance them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo For thus our Saviour makes Consideration a necessary Introduction to our Christian Warfare Luke xiv 28 where he compares mens rushing headlong into the Difficulties of the Christian Life without Consideration to a mans resolving to build a Tower without computing the Charge of it or a Kings going to War without ever considering before-hand whether with his Army of ten Thousand he be able to encounter his Enemy with Twenty By both which Comparisons he intimates to us the unprosperous Issue of mens listing themselves under his Banner to combat the Devil the World and their own Lusts without ever considering before-hand either their own Strength or their Enemies the Arguments with which they must fight or the Difficulties that will trash and oppose them So that when they come to execute their rash Resolutions there start up so many Difficulties in their way which they never thought of and against which they took no care to fore-arm themselves that they have not the Heart and Courage to stand before them but after a few faint Attempts are presently sounding a cowardly Retreat FOR indeed Consideration is the Life and Soul of Faith that animates and actuates its Principles and elicits and draws forth all their natural Power and Energy And let the Truths we believe be never so weighty and momentous in themselves never so apt to spirit and invigorate us yet unless we seriously consider and apply them to our Wills and Affections and take the pains to extract out of them their native Vigour and Efficacy and to infuse it into our Faculties and Powers they will lie like so many dead Notions in our Minds and never impart to us the least Degree of spiritual Courage and Activity And accordingly our Saviour attributes the ill Success of Gods Word in the Hearts of men which he compares to the high-way the stony and thorny Ground either to their not considering it at all or to their not considering it deeply enough or to their not considering it long enough Either the divine Truths which they heard went no farther than their Ears and so lay openly exposed like so many loose corns upon the high-way to be picked up by the Fowls of the Air or if it entred into their Mind and Consideration it was so slightly and superficially that like corn sown in a rocky ground it had not Depth enough to take root to fasten and grow into their minds and digest into Principles of Action or if they at present received it into their deeper and more serious Consideration it was but for a little while for by and by they permit their worldly Cares and Pleasures like Thorns to spring up in their Thoughts and Choak it before it was arrived to any Maturity But that which rendred it so prosperous and fruitful in good and honest Hearts was that having heard the word they kept it i. e. retained it in their Thoughts and Consideration and so brought forth fruit with patience Luk. viii 12 13 14 15. So that to the making of a good Beginning in Religion it is not only necessary that we should ponder the Motives and Arguments of Religion and ballance them with the Difficulties of it but that we should revolve and repeat them on our minds till we have represented to our selves with the utmost Life and Reality whatsoever makes for and against our Entrance into the Christian Warfare and upon our having weighed them over and over in the Scales of an even and impartial Judgment we have brought the Debate to this Result and Conclusion that there is infinitely more Weight in the Arguments of Religion to persuade us to it than in all the Difficulties of it to dishearten us from it For unless we enter into Religion fore-armed with the Motives and forewarned of the difficulties of it we shall never be able to stand our Ground but finding more Opposition than we expected and having not a sufficient Strength of Argument to bear up against it we shall quickly repent of our rash Undertaking and be forced to retreat from it with Shame and Dishonour For this is usually the Issue of those rash and unsetled Purposes which men make in the heats of their Passion when they have been warmed by some pathetick Discourse or startled by some great Danger or chafed into a Displeasure against their Sins by the sense of some very dolorous Accident whereinto they have been betrayed by them in these or such like Cases its usual with men to make hasty Resolutions of Amendment without considering either the Matters which they resolve upon or the Motives which should support their Resolution and so finding when they come to Practice more Difficulty in the Matter than they were aware of and having not sufficient Motives to carry them through it their Resolution flags in the Execution and very often yields to the next Temptation which encounters them NOW though I do not deny but that those Heats of Passion are good Opportunities to begin our Religion in and if wisely improved will very much contribute to our Voyage heavenwards and like a brisk Gale of Wind render it much more expedite and easie yet if in these Heats we resolve too soon without a due Consideration of all Particulars and of the Difficulties on the one side and the Arguments on the other it is hardly possible that our Resolution should ever prove a lasting Principle of Goodness For when we resolve inconsiderately we resolve to do we know not what and our Resolution includes a thousand Particulars that we are not aware of most of which being repugnant to our vicious Inclinations will when we come to practise them be attended with such Difficulties as will easily startle our weak Resolution which having not a sufficient Foundation of Reason to support it will never be able to outstand those boisterous Storms of Temptation whereunto it will be continually exposed If therefore we mean our Resolution should hold out and commence a living Principle of Goodness we must found it in a through Consideration both of the Duties and Difficulties of Religion and of the Motives which should ingage us to embrace it we must set before our Minds all the Sins we must part with and all the Duties we must submit
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
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
are of great Use to us in the Course and Progress of our spiritual Warfare For as for the Lords Day it is instituted and ever since the Apostles Time hath been observed in the Christian Church as a Day of publick Worship and weekly Thanksgiving for our Saviours Resurrection in which the great Work of our Redemption was consummated And certainly it must needs be of vast Advantage to be one day in seven sequester'd from the World and imployed in divine Offices in solemn Prayers Praises and Thanksgivings and be obliged to assist and edifie one another by the mutual Example and Vnion of our Devotions to hear the Duties of our Religion explained the Sins against it reprehended and the Doctrins of it unfolded and reduced to plain and easie Principles of Practice what a mighty advantage might we reap from all these blessed Ministries if we would but attend to them with that Concern and Seriousness which the matter of them requires and deserves Especially if when the publick Offices are over we would not let loose our selves all the rest of the Day as we too frequently do to our secular Cares and Diversions and thereby choak those good Instructions we have heard and stifle those devout and pious Affections which have been raised and excited in us but instead of so doing we would devote at least some good Portion of it to the Instruction of our Families and to the private Exercise of our Religion to Meditation and Prayer to the Examination of our selves concerning our past Behaviour and the reinforcing our Resolution to behave our selves better for the future if I say we would thus spend our Lords Day we should doubtless find our selves better Men for it all the Week after we should go into the World again with much better Affections and stronger Resolutions with our Graces more vigorous and our bad Inclinations more reduced and tamed and whereas the Jews were to gather Manna enough on their sixth Day to feed their Bodies on the ensuing Sabbath we should gather Manna enough upon our Sabbath to feed and strengthen our Souls all the six days after BUT to this we must also add frequent Communions with one another in the Holy Sacrament which is an Ordinance instituted on purpose by our blessed Saviour for the improving and furthering us in our Christian Warfare For besides that herein we have one of the most puissant Arguments against Sin represented by visible Signs to our Sense viz. the bloody Sacrifice of our blessed Lord to expiate and make Atonement for it besides that those bleeding Wounds of his which are here represented by the breaking of the Bread and pouring out of the Wine do proclaim our Sins his Asassines and Murderers the thought of which if we had any ingenuity in us were enough to incense in us the most implacable Indignation against them besides that his Sufferings for our Sins of which this sacred Solemnity is a lively Picture do horribly remonstrate Gods Displeasure against them who would not be induced to pardon them upon any meaner Expiation than the Blood of his Son than which Hell it self is not a more dreadful Argument to scare and terrifie us from them in a word besides that his so freely submitting and offering up himself to be a Propitiation for us of which this holy Festival is a solemn Commemoration is an expression of Kindness sufficient to captivate the most ungrateful Souls and extort Obedience from them besides all this I say as it is a Feast upon the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood it is a Federal Rite whereby God and we by feasting together do accordingly to the antient Customs both of Jews and Heathens mutually oblige our selves to one another whereby God by giving us the mystical Bread and Wine and we by receiving them do mutually ingage our selves to one another upon those sacred Pledges of Christs Body and Blood that we faithfully perform each others Part of that everlasting Covenant which was purchased by him And what can be a greater Restraint to us when we are solicited to any Sin than the sense of being under such a dreadful Vow and Obligation With what face dare we listen to any Temptation to Evil when we remember lately we solemnly ingaged our selves to the contrary and took the Sacrament upon it And verily I doubt 't is this that lies at the bottom of that seeming modest Pretence of Vnworthiness which men are wont to urge in Excuse for their Neglect of the Sacrament namely that they love their Lusts and cannot resolve to part with them and therefore are afraid to make such a solemn Abjuration of them as the eating and drinking the consecrated Elements implies And I confess if this be their Reason they are unworthy indeed the more shame for them but 't is such an Vnworthiness as is so far from excusing that it only aggravates their Neglect For for any man to plead that he dares not receive the Sacrament because he is resolved to sin on is to make that which is his Fault his Apology and to excuse one Sin with another Wherefore if we are heartily resolved by the Grace of God to reform and amend let us abstain no longer from this great Federal Rite upon Pretence of Vnworthiness For 't is by the use of this among other Means that we are to improve and grow more and more worthy For the very Repetition of our Resolution as I have shewed above is a proper Means of strengthning and confirming it and certainly it must needs be much more so when 't is renewed and repeated with the Solemnity of a Sacrament And therefore it is worth observing how much Care our Lord hath taken in the very Constitution of our Religion to oblige us to a constant solemn Repetition of our good Resolutions For at our first Entrance into Covenant with him we are to be baptized in which Solemnity we do openly renounce the Devil and all his Works and religiously devote our selves to his service But because we are apt to forget this our baptismal Vow and the Matter of it is continually to be performed and more than one World depends upon it therefore he hath thought fit not to trust wholly to this first Engagement but hath so methodized our Religion as that we are ever and anon obliged to give him new Security For which End he hath instituted this other Sacrament which is not like that of Baptism to be received by us once for all but to be often reiterated and repeated that so upon the frequent Returns of it we might still be obliged to repeat over our old Vows of Obedience For he hath not only injoyned us that we should do this in remembrance of him Luk. xxii 19 i. e. that we should celebrate this sacred Festival in the Memory of his Passion but by thus doing the Apostle tells us we are to continue the Memorial of it to the end of the World or to shew his death till he
or an unreflecting one to Self-examination to raise up an earthly Mind to heavenly Thoughts and Expectations and confine a listless and regardless one to strict Watchfulness and Circumspection to confine a carnal mind to frequent Sacraments or an indevout and careless one to its daily and weekly periods of Devotion will at the first no doubt be very painful and tedious but after we have persisted in and for a while accustomed our selves to it we shall find it will quickly grow more natural and easie to us and from being grievous it will become tolerable from being tolerable easie and from being easie delightful For when once we come to feel the good Effects of those Duties in our Natures how fast our Lusts do decline our Dispositions mend and all our Graces improve in the Use of them the Sense of this will mightily indear and ingratiate them to us Just as it is with a Scholar when he first enters upon the Methods of Learning they are very tedious and irksome to him the Pains of reading observing and recollecting the Confinement to a Study and the racking his Brains with severe Reasoning and Discourse are things that he cannot easily away with till he hath been inured and accustomed to them a while and then they grow more natural and easie to him but when he comes to be sensible of the great Advantages he reaps by his Labour how it raises and improves his Understanding inlarges its prospect and furnishes its Conception with brave and useful Notions then do his Labours which were formerly so grievous become not only easie but delectable to him And even so it is with these spiritual Exercises of Religion which to unexperienced persons that are yet but newly enter'd upon them will be very painful and troublesome but if they have but Patience and Courage to hold on Custom will quickly render them more tolerable and when they have practised them so long as to find and perceive the blessed Effects of them how much they have contributed to the reforming their Tempers reducing their Inclinations filing and polishing their rough and mishapen Natures with what amiable Graces divine and godlike Dispositions they have adorned and beautified them their Sense and Feeling of this will convert them all into delightful Recreations Thus as the Custom of them will render them easie so the blessed Fruits of them will make them delectable the former will render them facil as Nature the later eligible as Reward And if so why should we be discouraged faint-hearted Creatures that we are at those little present Difficulties which our Diligence will soon wear off and convert into Ease and Pleasure VII CONSIDER that with the Difficulty of them there is a world of present Peace and Satisfaction intermingled If you fall back again to your old Lusts instead of these present Difficulties you start at you must expect to have the Trouble of a guilty Soul to contend with which if you have any sense of God and of Good and Evil will be much more grievous to you than they But if you go on you will carry with you a quiet and a satisfied Mind a Conscience that will entertain you all along with such sweet and calm Reflections as will abundantly compensate you for all the Hardships and Difficulties you encounter on the way that with innumerable Iterations will be always resounding to your honest Endeavours those best and sweetest Ecchoes Well done good and profitable servant how bravely hast thou acquitted thy self how manfully hast thou stood to thy Duty against all Oppositions and with what a Gallant Resolution hast thou repulsed those Temptations that bore up against thee Now for a man to have his own Mind continually applauding him and crowning his Actions with the Approbations of his Conscience is Encouragement enough to ballance a thousand Difficulties and the Sense that he hath done his Duty and that the God above and the Vice-god within him are both satisfied and pleased with him will give him such a grateful Relish of each Action of his Warfare that the Difficulty will only serve to inhance the Pleasure of it AND as he will have great Peace and Satisfaction whilst he is contending with these Difficulties so when he hath so far conquered them as that they are no longer able to curb and with-hold him from the free and vigorous Exercise of the heavenly Vertues but in despight of them he can easily moderate his Passions and Appetites by the Laws of his Reason and freely love adore and imitate submit to and confide in the ever blessed God and chearfully exert an unforced Plainess and Simplicity Good-will and Charity Submission and Condescension Peace and Concord towards all men when I say he hath so far surmounted the Difficulties of his Warfare as that with any Measure of Freedom and Vigor he can put forth all these heavenly Vertues he will find himself not only in a quiet but in a heavenly Condition For these heavenly Graces are the Palat by which the immortal Mind tasts and relishes its Heaven the blessed Organs and Sensories by which it feels and perceives the Joys of the World to come and without which it can no more relish and injoy them than the senseless Hive can the sweetness of the Honey that is in it And consequently the more quick and vivacious these heavenly Organs of the Mind are and the more they are disburthened of those carnal and devilish Lusts that blunt their Sense and Perception the more accurately they will taste the Joys and Pleasures of Heaven So that when by the constant Practice of the warfaring Duties of Religion we have conquered those bad Inclinations of our Natures which render the heavenly Vertues so difficult to us and do so clog and incumber us in the Exercise of them we shall find our selves in a Heaven upon Earth and each Act of Vertue will be Presention and Foretast of the Joys of a celestial Life And being arrived at this blessed State in which all heavenly Vertue is so connaturalized to us the sweet Experience we shall have of the unspeakable Joys and Pleasures it abounds with will cause us to look back with wondrous Content and Satisfaction upon all those Difficulties we contended with in our Way to it and bless those Prayers and Tears and Strivings with our selves those tedious Watchings and Self-exáminations c. by which we have now at last conquered and subdued them WHEREFORE since the Practice of these our warfaring Duties hath so much present Peace going along with it and since by its natural Drift and Tendency it's leading us forward to a State of so much Pleasure and Satisfaction what a Madness is it for a man to be beaten off from it by those present little Difficulties that attend it What man that consults his own Interest would ever desist from the prosecuting such a gainful Warfare in which to make him amends for the present Pains it puts him to he is not only
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
infests us all over with continual Anguish and Pain how when he hath tired and exhausted us with his continued Batteries and worn out our Strength with a succession of wearisom Nights to sorrowful Days he at last storms the Soul out of all the Out-works of Nature and forces it to retire into the Heart and how when he hath marked us for dead with a Baptism of clammy and fatal Sweats he summons our weeping Friends to assist him to grieve and vex us with their parting Kisses and sorrowful Adieus and how at length when he is weary of Tormenting us any more he rushes into our Hearts and with a few Mortal Pangs and Convulsions tears the Soul from thence and turns it out to seek its Fortune in the wide World of Spirits where 't is either seized on by Devils and carried away to their dark Prisons of Sorrow and Despair there to languish out its life in a dismal Expectation of that dreadful Day wherein it must change its bad Condition for a worse or be conducted by Angels to some blessed Abode there to remain in unspeakable Pleasure and Tranquillity till 't is Crown'd with a glorious Resurrection Now since 't is most certain that we must all one time or other experience these things but most uncertain how soon how much doth it concern us to think of them before-hand and to forecast such Provisions and Preparations for them as that whensoever they happen we may not be surprized For besides that the frequent Meditation of death will familiarize its Terrors to us so that whensoever it comes our Minds which have been so long accustomed to converse with it will be much less startled and amazed at it besides that it will wean us from the inordinate Desire and over-eager Prosecution of the things of this World which as I told you before are the Snares with which our Vices do too often intangle us besides all this I say it will put us upon laying in a Store of spiritual Provisions against that great day of Expence For he that often considers the dreadful Approaches the concomitant Terrors and the momentous Issues and Consequents of Death must be strangely stupified if he be not thereby vigorously excited to fore-arm and fortifie himself with all those Graces and Defences that are necessary to render it easie safe and prosperous VIII To our final perseverance in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that in order to the putting our selves into a good Posture to die we should discharge our Consciences of all the Reliques and Remains of our past guilt For so we are commanded to take care that our hearts be sprinkled from an evil conscience Heb. x. 22 and to hold faith and a good conscience 1 Tim. i. 19 and to make this our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world 2 Cor. i. 12 in a word to live in all good conscience Acts xxiii 1 and to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men Acts xxiv 16 Which though they are General Duties do necessarily imply this Particular that we should very nicely and curiously examin our Consciences those faithful Records and Registers of our Actions and where-ever we find the least Item of an uncancel'd Guilt immediately cross it out by a hearty Sorrow for and moral Revocation of it For notwithstanding we may have in the general repented of all our past Sins yet there are some Siins which notwithstanding we react no more do leave a lasting Guilt upon the Mind which nothing can cancel but our actual revoking and unsinning them As supposing that I have heretofore either by my bad Counsels or Example seduced other men into wicked Courses it is not sufficient for the Expiation of my Fault that I my self abstain from those wicked Courses for the future but I must indeavour to undo the Mischief which I have done to others by them and by a solemn Recantation of my past Follies by Persuasion and good Counsel and the Application of all other pious and prudent Means indeavour to reduce those whom I have formerly perverted For till I have done this I wilfully permit the mischievous Effect of my Sin to remain and if when I have wounded another I suffer him to perish without taking any care of his Cure I am guilty of his Murder though I never wound him more Suppose again that I have injured another by any malicious Slander or Calumny it is not enough to acquit me of the Guilt of it that I cease to scandalize him for the future but I must also indeavour by a free Retractation to vindicate his injur'd Name from the ill Surmises of those to whom I have asperst him for so long as his Reputation suffers through my not Retracting the Calumnies I have cast upon it I wilfully persist to defame and calumniate him and so long the Guilt of it must stick and abide upon my Conscience Once more suppose I have injur'd another in his Estate either by Theft or Fraud or Oppression it will not be sufficient to acquit me that for the future I forbear defrauding forcing or stealing from him any more but if it be in my Power I must make Restitution of all that I have wrongfully deprived him of and that to himself if he be living or if not to those that succeed him in his Rights and for want of such to the Poor who by Gods Donation have the Propriety of all such Wefts and Strays as have no other Owner surviving For it 's certain that my wrongful Seizure of what is another Mans doth not alienate his Right to it so that he hath the same Right to it while I keep it from him as he had at first when I took it from him and consequently till I restore it back to him I continue to wrong him of it and my detaining it is a continued Repetition of that Fraud or Theft or Oppression by which I wrongfully seized it and whilst I thus continue the Sin 't is impossible but the Guilt of it must still abide upon me In these Cases therefore it concerns us to be very nice and curious in examining our Accounts to see if there be any of these Scores yet uncancel'd any of these bad Effects of our Sin yet remaining For if any such matter appear in our Accounts it concerns us as much as our everlasting Interest amounts to to use all present Care and Diligence to discharge it that so before Death summons us to give up our Accounts to the great Auditor of the World all Scores between him and us may be even'd and adjusted And indeed if we would be safe it vastly imports us to leave as little as may be to do upon a Death-bed for that is most commonly a very improper State for religious Action since for all we know we may be distracted in it by a Feaver or stupified by an Apoplexy or deprived
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
and for evermore Amen After this Thanksgiving consider briefly with your self the indispensible Necessity of your Perseverance to the End and how not only vain and fruitless but also hurtful and mischievous to you all your past Labour in Religion will be without it and then conclude your morning Devotion with this Prayer for Perseverance O God who art unchangeably holy and blessed who art the same yesterday to day and for ever and dost never swerve or vary from the essential Goodness and Purity of thy own Nature look down I beseech thee upon me a fickle weak and mutable Creature whom thou hast redeemed to thy self and hitherto conducted by thy Grace and Spirit Thou knowest O Lord the Weakness of my Nature and how unable I am without thy Strength and Assistance to finish the Race which thou hast set before me thou knowest what Temptations I must struggle with and what Difficulties I must yet overcome before I am seiz'd of the blessed Prize I am contending for wherefore since thou hast hitherto been my constant Support and Defence forsake me not now for thy Names sake but as thou hast begun a good Work in me so I beseech thee to finish and compleat it to uphold my feeble Soul by thy free Spirit under all Temptations and Difficulties that so by patient continuance in well-doing I may seek for and at last obtain honour and glory immortality and eternal life For which end O Lord preserve me from being over-confident of my own Abilities and inspire me with a holy Jealousie of my self that whilst I stand I may take heed lest I fall And if at any time I should be so base and so unhappy as to offend thee wilfully which I beseech thee to prevent for thy Mercy and Compassion sake O suffer me not to sleep in my Sin but recal me instantly by the Checks of my Conscience and the Convictions of thy Spirit lest while I add Sin to Sin and one degree of Wickedness to another my Lusts should regain their Dominion over me and thou shouldest be angry with me and reject me from thy Covenant for ever And that I may every Day serve thee more freely and stedfastly wean me I beseech thee more and more from those Temptations to Sin that are round about me and give me such a true understanding of the Nature of all the Goods and Evils of this World as that neither the Flatteries of the one nor the Terrors of the other may ever be able to withdraw me from my Duty And lest while I am mortifying my old Sins I should carelesly permit new ones to spring up in my Nature good God do thou mind me to search and try my own Heart and take a severe Account even of the smallest Defects and Imperfections within me that so I may correct and reform them in time before they are improved into inveterate Habits And grant that I may be always so sensible of my own Imperfection as that I may never rest in any present Attainment but may still be pressing forward to the mark of my high calling in Jesus Christ. Suggest to me I beseech thee frequent Thoughts of my Mortality that so while I have Time and Opportunity I may be preparing for my Departure hence and making provision for a dying hour In order whereunto assist me O Lord I beseech thee strictly to examin and review my past sinful Courses that so if there be any remains of Guilt abiding upon my Conscience I may purge them away by proper Acts of Repentance before I go hence and be no more seen And grant that as I have formerly abounded in Sin so I may now redeem that precious Time I have lost by abounding in the contrary Vertues that so as far as in me lies I may revoke and undo the multitude of my past Sins by doing all the Good I am able for the future And that I may hold out and persevere to the end preserve and continue me in the Communion of thy Church and suffer me not to be led away by the errors of the wicked and to fall from my own stedfastness And finally I beseech thee to grant that in the use of these blessed Means I may so far prevail over the Infirmities and Corruptions of my Nature as that at last I may have a clear and certain Feeling of my own Integrity and Vprightness towards thee that so being from thence assur'd of thy Love and of my Title to eternal Happiness I may run the ways of thy commandments more chearfully and at last finish my Course with unspeakable joy And now O Lord I resign my self to thee take me I beseech thee into thy Care and Protection this Day preserve me from all Evil but especially from Sin and quicken me by thy Spirit unto every good work that so I may serve thee with a free and cheerful Mind and make it my meat and drink to do thy blessed will All which I humbly beg for Jesus Christ his sake in whose Name and Mediation I further pray Our Father c. In the Evening when you enter into your Closet consider what is the present Frame and Temper of your Mind and upon Enquiry you will perceive either that through the present Prevalency of your corrupt Nature you are averse to divine Offices or that through bodily Infirmity you are indisposed to them or that through Worldly-mindedness and Vanity of Spirit you are cold and apt to be distracted in them or lastly that your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards divine and heavenly things If upon Enquiry you find that through the present Prevalency of your corrupt Nature you are averse to divine Offices indeavour to affect your self with Shame and Sorrow for it by representing to your Mind the great Impiety and Baseness the monstrous Folly and Ingratitude of this your present Temper and then offer up this following Prayer O My most gracious God and most kind and merciful Father thou art the best Friend I have in all the World and hast shewn a thousand times more Love to me than ever I shew'd to my self but after all the vast and most indearing Obligations thou hast laid upon me this vile and ungrateful Heart of mine still retains some Dregs of its antient Enmity against thee Had I but the common Sense and Ingenuity of a Man in me how could I think of thee without Raptures of Love how could I draw neer unto thee without Transports of Delight and Complacency But vile and ungrateful that I am I can think of all thy Goodness with cold and frozen Affections and can come into thy Presence not only with Indifference but Reluctancy Good God what am I made of what an insensible Soul do I carry about me O I am asham'd of my self I am confounded with the sense of my own Baseness and yet woe is me I cannot help it I strive to shake off this Clog of my corrupt