THE CHRISTIAN IN Compleat Armour Or a TREATISE OF THE Saints War against the Devil wherein a Discovery is made of that grand enemy of God and his People in his Policies Power Seat of his Empire Wickednesse and chief design he hath against the Saints A Magazin open'd FROM Whence the Christian is furnished with Spiritual Armes for the battel help't on with his Armour and taught the use of his Weapon together with the happy issue of the whole Warre The First Part. By William Gurnall Minister of the Gospel at Lavenham Imprimatur EDMUND CALAMY LONDON Printed for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhill near the Royall Exchange 1655. Gurnalls CHRISTIAN ARMOVR I. P. To my Dearly Beloved Friends and Neighbours the Inhabitants of LAVENHAM My Dear Friends SOlomon saith The desire of a man is his kindenesse and a poor man is better then a liar Prov. 19.22 If you be of his minde I dare promise these Notes which I here devote to your service a kinde acceptance at your hands You will finde me to be the poor man by the mite I present you with but the hearty desire of your eternal happinesse from which it comes will I hope clear me from being the liar I never could be so serviceable to you as many Ministers are to their people having been with you in much weaknesse and still it is the good pleasure of God I should be staked down to a short tedder of strength and other abilities I have reason therefore that I may though not recompence that want yet expresse my deep sense thereof to croud the more love into the little I can do for you And truly my heart is enlarged to you and to God for you If any thing makes me loath to be gone into another world which my dropping house bids me above many prepare for it is not the least to think I shall leave no more of you walking in the way to eternal life and you who are on your way thither in no closer Gospel-order for your mutual help and comfort in your journey yea while I am among you little do you think how much of your poor Ministers life lies at your mercy If I should measure my life by the joy of it as indeed who doth not Then in some uprightnesse I can say with Paul I live as I see any of you stand fast in the Lord and die as I see others stand fast in their sins not to be moved with all the entreaties of the Gospel which have wooed you And why my dear friends should not the life of your soules be much more precious in your own sight then mine But I forbear I would not willingly be thought as some husbands are to be kinder to you abroad before strangers then I am at home What I present you with in this Treatise is a dish from your own table and so I hope will go down the better You cannot despise it though the fare be mean except you will blame your selves who chose the Cook I cannot be earnest with others to bestow so much time as to read over these plain Sermons lest it should be to their losse it were but to call them from gathering sheaves in the more fruitful labours of others to glean a few eares and those but thin also in mine yet with you my people I may be a little bold Physicians say the mothers milk though not so weighty as anothers if no noxious humour be tasted in it because natural is more proper for the childe then a strangers And I think it would not be an errour if I should say it held in the milk which the Minister gives to his flock A people conscienciously lying at the breasts of their own Minister if the milk he gives be wholesome may expect the blessing of God for their nourishment though it has not so much lusciousnesse to please the curious taster as some others Well whatever these Sermons were some of those few spirits which you found in hearing will be missing in the reading of them It is as easie to paint fire with the heat as with pen and ink to commit that to paper which occurres in preaching There is as much difference between a Sermon in the Pulpit and printed in a book as between milk in the warme breast and in a sucking bottle yet what it loseth in the lively taste is recompenced by the convenience of it The book may be at hand when the Preacher cannot and truly that 's the chief end of printing that as the bottle and spoon is used when the mother is sick or out of the way so the book to quiet the Christian and stay his stomack in the absence of the Ordinance He that readeth Sermons and good bookes at home to save his paines of going to hear is a thief to his soul in a religious habit he consults for his ease but not for his profit he eats cold meat when he may have hot He hazards the losing the benefit of both by contemning of one If the Spouse could have had her beloved at home she needed not to have coursed the streets and waited on the publick O what need we offer sacriledge for sacrifice rob God of one duty to pay him another He hath laid our work in better order one wheele would not interfere with another if we did more regularly A chief part of Davids Arithmetick of numbring our dayes lies in that which we call division as to cast the account of this our short life so as to divide the little whole summe thereof into the several portions of time due for the performing of every duty in An Instrument is not in tune except it have all the strings and those will not make good musick if the Musician hath not wisdome to cause every string to speak in its due time The Christian is not in tune except he takes in all the duties of his place and calling neither will the performance of them be harmonious in Gods eare if every one be not done in its proper season O my friends labour not only to do the duty of your place but that duty in its own place also Heare when you should hear Know your rime for closet and time for shop and when your retiring houre comes a few minutes now and then spent in taking a repetition of what formerly you heard shall not I hope another day be reckoned with your lost time The Subject of the Treatise is solemn A War between the Saint and Satan and that so bloody a one that the cruellest which ever was fought by men will be found but sport and childes play to this Alas what is the killing of bodies to destroying of soules 'T is a sad meditation indeed to think how many thousands have been sent to the grave in a few late yeares among us by the sword of man But far more astonishing to consider how many of those may be sent to hell by the sword of Gods wrath 'T is
enlarged in duty most assisted in his Christian course Remember Christian when thou hast thy best suit on who made it who paid for it Thy grace thy comfort is neither the work of thy own hands nor the price of thy own desert be not for shame proud of anothers cost That assistance will not long stay which becomes a nurse to thy pride thou art not Lord of that assistance thou hast Thy Father is wise who when he alloweth thee most for thy spiritual maintenance even then keeps the Law in his own hands and can soon curb thee if thou growest wanton with his grace Walk humbly therefore before thy God and husband well that strength thou hast remembring that it is borrowed strength Nemo prodiget quod mendicat Who will waste what he begs or who will give that beggar that spends idly his almes when thou hast most thou canst not be long from thy God his door And how canst thou look him on the face for more who hast imbezell'd what thou hast received CHAP. III. Of acting our faith on the Almighty Power of God THe third Branch followeth which contains an encouraging Amplification annexed to the exhortation in these words And in the Power of his might where a twofold enquiry is requisite for the explication of the phrase First what these words import The Power of his might Secondly what it is to be strong in the Power of his might For the first the Power of his might It is an Hebraism imports nothing but his mighty Power like that phrase Eph. 1.6 To the praise of the glory of his grace that is to the praise of his glorious grace And his mighty Power imports no lesse then his Almighty Power sometimes the Lord is stiled mighty and strong as Ps 24.8 sometimes most mighty sometimes Almighty no lesse is meant in all then Gods infinite Almighty Power For the second to be strong in the mighty Power or Power of the Lords might implies these two acts of faith First a setled firme perswasion that the Lord is Almighty in Power Be strong in the Power of his might that is be strongly rooted in your faith concerning this one foundation-truth that God is Almighty Secondly it implies a further act of faith not only to believe that God is Almighty but also that this Almighty Power of God is engaged for its defence so as to bear up in the midst of all trials and temptations undauntedly leaning on the arme of God Almighty as if it were his own strength for that is the Apostles drift as to beat us off from leaning on our own strength so to encourage the Christian to make use of Gods Almighty Power as freely as if it were his own when ever assaulted by Satan in any kinde As a man set upon by a thief stirs up all the force and strength he hath in his whole body to defend himself and offend his adversary so the Apostle bids the Christian be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his might that is Soul away to thy God whose mighty Power is all intended and devoted by God himself for thy succour and defence Go strengthen and entrench thy selfe in it by a stedfast faith as that which shall be laid out to the utmost for thy good From whence these two Notes I conceive will draw out the fatnesse of the words 1. That it should be the Christians great care and endeavour in all temptations and trials to strengthen his faith on the Almighty Power of God 2. The Christians duty and care is not only to believe that God is Almighty but strongly by faith to rest on this Almighty Power of God as engaged for his help and succour in all his trials and temptations First it should be the Christians great care in all temptations and trials to strengthen his faith on the Almighty Power of God When God holds forth himselfe as an object of the souls trust and confidence in any great strait or undertaking commonly this attribute of his Almighty power is presented in the promise as the surest hold fast for faith to lay hold on as a Father in rugged way gives his childe his arme to lay hold by so doth God usually reach forth his Almighty power for his Saints to exercise their faith on Abraham Isaac and Jacob whose faith God tried above most of his Saints before or since for not one of those great things which were promised to them did they live to see performed in their dayes and how doth God make known himself to them for their support but by displaying this Attribute Exod. 6.3 I appeared unto Abraham Isaac and Jacob by the Name of God Almighty This was all they had to keep house with all their dayes with which they lived comfortably and died triumphantly bequeathing the promise to their children not doubting because God Almighty had promised of the performance Thus Isa 26. where great mercies are promised to Judah and a Song penn'd before-hand to be sung on that gaudie day of their salvation yet because there was a sharp Winter of Captivity to come between the Promise and the Spring-time of the promise therefore to keep their faith alive in this space the Prophet calls them up to act their faith on God Almighty v. 4. Trust ye in the Lord Jehovah for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength So when his Saints are going into the furnace of persecution what now doth he direct their faith to carry to prison to stake with them but this Almighty power 1 Pet. 4.19 Let them that suffer commit the keeping of their souls to him as to a faithful Creatour Creatour is a name of Almighty Power we shall now give some Reasons of the Point Reas 1 First because it is no easie work to make use of this truth how plain and clear soever it now appears in great plunges of temptation that God is Almighty To vindicate this Name of God from those evil reports which Satan and carnal Reason raise against it requires a strong faith indeed I confesse this principle is a piece of natural divinity That light which finds out a Deity will evince if followed close this God to be Almighty yet in a carnal heart it is like a rusty sword hardly drawn out of the scabbard and so of little or no use Such truths are so imprisoned in natural conscience that they seldome get a faire hearing in the sinners bosome till God gives them a Goal-delivery and brings them out of their house of bondage where they are shut up in unrighteousnesse with a high hand of his convincing Spirit Then and not till then the soule will believe God is holy merciful Almighty nay some of Gods peculiar people and not the meanest for grace amongst them have had their faith for a time set in this slough much ado to get over those difficulties and improbabilities which sense and Reason have objected so as to relie on the Almighty Power of
blesse God thou hast life Doest thou through feeblenesse often faile in duty and fall into temptation Mourne in the sense of these yet blesse God that thou doest not live in a total neglect of duty out of a prophane contempt thereof and that in stead of falling through weakness thou doest not lie in the mire of sin through the wickednesse of thy heart The unthankful soul may thank it self it thrives not better Thirdly art thou humble under the assistance and strength God hath given thee pride stops the conduit if the heart begin to swell it is time for God to hold his hand and turne the cock for all that is poured on such a soule runs over into self-applauding and so is as water spilt in regard of any good it doth the creature or any glory it brings to God A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful Now beside the common wayes that pride discovers it self as by under-valuing others and over-valuing it selfe and such like you shall observe two other symptomes of it First it appears in bold adventures when a person runs into the mouth of temptation bearing himself up on the confidence of his grace receiv'd This was Peters sin by which he was drawn to engage further then became an humble faith running into the devils-quarters and so became his prisoner for a while The good man when in his right temper had thoughts low enough of himself as when he ask't his Master Is it I but he that feared at one time lest he might be the traitour at another cannot think so ill of himself as to suspect he should be the denyer of his Master What he No though all the rest should forsake him yet he would stand to his colours Is this thy case Christian Possibly God hath given thee much of his minde thou art skilful in the Word of life and therefore thou darest venture to breath in corrupt aire as if only the weak spirits of lesse knowing Christians exposed them to be infected with the contagion of errour and heresie Thou hast a large portion of grace or at least thou thinkest so and venturest to go where an humble-minded Christian would fear his heels should slip under him Truly now thou temptest God to suffer thy lock to be cut when thou art so bold to lay thy head in the lap of a temptation Secondly pride appears in the neglect of those means whereby the Saints graces and comforts are to be fed when strongest May be Christian when thou art under feares and doubts then God hath thy company thou art oft with thy pitcher at his door but when thou hast got any measure of peace there growes presently some strangenesse between God and thee thy pitcher walks not as it was wont to these Wells of salvation No wonder if thou though rich in grace and comfort goest behinde-hand seeing thou spendest on the old stock and drivest no trade at present to bring in more Or if thou doest not thus neglect duty yet may be thou doest not perform it with that humility which formerly beautified the same then thou prayedst in the sense of thy weaknesse to get strength now thou prayest to shew thy strength that others may admire thee And if once like Hezekiah we call in Spectators to see our treasure and applaud us for our gifts and comfort then it is high time for God if he indeed love us to send some messengers to carry these away from us which carry our hearts from him Fourthly if thy heart doth not smite thee from what hath been said but thou hast sincerely waited on God and yet hast not received the strength thou desirest yet let it be thy resolution to live and die waiting on him God doth not tell us his time of coming and it were boldnesse to set on of our own heads Go saith Christ to his disciples Luke 24.49 Stay ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with Power from on High Thus he saith to thee stay at Jerusalem wait on him in the means he hath appointed till thou beest endued with further power to mortifie thy corruptions c. And for thy comfort know First thy thus persevering to wait on God will be an evidence of strong grace in thee the lesse encouragement thou hast to duty the more thy faith and obedience to bear thee up in duty He that can trade when times are so dead that all his ware lies upon his hand and yet drawes not in his hand but rather trades more and more sure his stock is great What no comfort in hearing no ease to thy spirit in praying and yet more greedy to heare and more-frequent in prayer O soul great is thy faith and patience Secondly assure thy self when thou art at the greatest pinch strength shall come They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength when the last handful of meale was dressing then is the Prophet sent to keep the Widows house When temptation is strong thy little strength even spent and thou ready to yield into the hands of thine enemies then expect succours from heaven to enable thee to hold out under the temptation Thus to Paul My grace is sufficient or power from heaven to raise the siege and drive away the tempter thus to Job when Satan had him at an advantage then God takes him off Like a wise Moderatour when the Respondent is hard put to it by a subtile Opponent takes him off when he would else run him down James 5.11 Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy EPHESIANS 6.11 Put on the whole Armour of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil THis verse is a Key to the former wherein the Apostle had exhorted believers to encourage and bear up their fainting spirits on the Lord and the power of his might Now in these words he explains himself and shewes how he would have them do this not presumptuously come into the field without that armour which God hath appointed to be worne by all his souldiers and yet with a bravado to trust in the power of God to save them That soule is sure to fall short of home heaven I mean who hath nothing but a carnal confidence on the Name of God blowen up by the ignorance of God and himself No he that would have his confidence duly placed on the Power of God must conscienciously use the means appointed for his defence and not rush naked into the battel like that fanatick spirit at Munster who would needs go forth and chase away the whole army then besieging that city with no other cannon then a few words charged with the Name of The Lord of hostes which he blasphemously made bold to use saying In the Name of the Lord of hostes depart But himself soon perished to learne others wisdom by what he paid for his folly What foolish
can a proud soul look on God Suppose one left an Executor to pay Legacies and this man should pay them not as Legacies of another but gifts of his own Christ at his ascension gave gifts that his children should receive thou hast some in thy hand now a proud soul gives out all not as the Legacy of Christ but as his own he assumes all to himselfe O how abominable is this to entitle our selves to Christs honour Fourthly thy gifts commend thee not to God Man may be taken with thy expression and notion in prayer but these are all pared off when thy prayer comes before God O woman saith Christ great is thy faith not compt and flourishing thy language It were good after our duties to sort the Ingredients of which they are made up what grace contributed and what gifts and what pride and when all the heterogeneal stuffe is sever'd you shall see in what a little compasse the actings of grace in our duties will lie Fifthly consider while thou art priding in thy gifts thou art dwindling and withering in thy grace Such are like corne that runs up much into straw whose eare commonly is but light and thin Grace is too much neglected where gifts are too highly prized we are commanded to be clothed with humility Our garments cover the shame of our bodies humility the beauty of the soul and as a tender body cannot live without cloathes so neither can grace without this cloathing of humility It kills the Spirit of praise when thou shouldest blesse God thou art applauding thy self It destroys Christian love and stabs our fellowship with the Saints to the heart A proud man hath not room enough to walk in company because the gifts of others he thinks stand in his way Pride so distempers the palate that it can relish nothing that is drawen from anothers vessel Sixthly it is the fore-runner of some great sin or some great affliction God will not suffer such a weed as pride to grow in his garden without taking some course or other to root it up may be he will let thee fall into some great sinne and that shall bring thee home with shame God useth sometimes a thorn in the flesh to prick the bladder of pride in the Spirit or at least some great affliction the very end whereof is to hide pride from man As you do with your hot-metall'd horses ride them over plowed lands to tame them and then you can sit safely on their back If Gods honour be in danger through thy pride then expect a rod and most likely the affliction shall be in that which will be most grievous to thee in the thing thou art proud of Hezekiah boasted of his treasure God sends the Chaldeans to plunder him Jonah fond of his gourd and that is smitten and if thy Spirit be blown up with pride of gifts thou art in danger of having them blasted at least in the opinion of others whose breath of applause possibly was a means to overset thy unballast spirit SECT III. Quest But how would you direct us against this Answ Arguments you have had before I shall only therefore point to two or three doors where your enemy comes forth upon you and surely the very sight thereof if thou beest loyal to Christ will stirre thee up to fall upon it First pride discovers it self in dwelling upon the thoughts of our gifts with a secret kinde of content to see our own face till at last we fall in love with it We read of some whose eyes are full of the adulteresse and cannot cease from sinne a proud heart is full of himself his own abilities cast their shadow before him they are in his eye wherever he goes the great subject and theam of his thoughts is what he is and what he hath above others applauding himself as Bernard confesseth that when one would think he had little leisure for such thoughts even in preaching pride would be whispering in his eare Bene fecisti Bernarde O well done Bernard Now have a care Christian of chatting with such company Run from such thoughts as from a Beare If the devil can get thee to stand on this pinacle while he presents thee with the glory of thy spiritual attainments and endowments for thee to gaze on them thy weak head wâ—ll soon turn round in pride and therefore labour to keep the sense of thy own infirmities lively in thy soule to divert the temptation As those who are subject to some kinde of fits carry about them things proper for the disease that when the fit is coming which oft is occasioned with a sweet perfume they may use them for their help Sweet sents are not more dangerous for them then any thing that may applaud thee is to thy soul Have a care therefore not only of wearing such thoughts in thy own bosome but also of sitting by others that bring the sweet sent of thy perfections to thee by their flattery Secondly this kinde of pride appears in a forwardnesse to expose it self to view Davids brethren were mistaken in him in deed but oft the pride and naughtinesse of the heart breaks out at this door Christs carnal friends bid Christ shew himselfe pride loves to climbe up not as Zaecheus to see Christ but to be seen himself The fool Solomon tells us hath no delight in understanding but that his heart may discover it self Prov. 18.2 Pride would be some body and therefore comes abroad to court the multitude whereas humility delights in privacy as the leaves do cover and shade the fruits that some hand must gently lift up them before they can see the fruit so should humility and a holy modesty conceal the perfections of the soule till a hand of Providence by some call invites them out There is a pride in naked gifts as well as in naked breasts and backs humility is a necessary veile to all other graces and therefore first Christian look whenever thou comest forth to publike duty that thou hast a call it is obedience to be ready to answer when God calls thee forth but it 's pride to run before God speaks Secondly when call'd earnestly implore divine strength against this enemy shun not a duty for feare of pride thou mayest shew it in the very seeming to escape it but go in the strength of God against it there is more hope of overcoming it by obedience then disobedience Thirdly in envying the gifts of others when they seeme to blinde our own that they are not so faire a prospect as we desire This is a weed may grow too rank in a good soile Aaron and Miriam could not bear Moses his honour Numb 12.1 that was the businesse though they pick a quarrel with him about his wife because an Ethiopian as appears plainly v. 2. Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses hath he not spoken also by us They thought Moses went away with too much of the honour and did repine that God
on the sweet priviledges thou art interessed in by thy marriage to him Doest thou not bewray some of this spiritual pride working in thee O if thou couldest pray without wandering walk without limping believe without wavering then thou couldest rejoyce and walk chearfully It seems soule thou stayest to bring the ground of thy comfort with thee and not to receive it purely from Christ O how much better were it if thou wouldest say with David Though my house my heart be not so with God yet he hath made with me a Covenant ordered in all things and sure and this is all my desire all my confidence Christ I oppose to all my sins Christ to all wants he is my all in all and all above all Indeed all those complaints of our wants and weaknesses so far as they withdraw our hearts from relying chearfully on Christ they are but the language of pride hankering after the Covenant of works O 't is hard to forget our mother-tongue which is so natural to us labour therefore to be sensible of it how grievous it is to the Spirit of Christ What would a husband say if his wife in stead of expressing her love to him and delight in him should day and night do nothing but weep and cry to think of her former husband that is dead The Law as a Covenant and Christ are compared to two husbands Rom. 7.4 Ye are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead Now thy sorrow for the defect of thy own righteousnesse when it hinders thy rejoycing in Christ is but a whining after thy other husband and this Christ cannot but take unkindely that thou art not as well pleased to lie in the bosome of Christ and have thy happinesse from him as with your old husband the Law Secondly a self applauding pride when the heart is secretly lift up so as to promise it self acceptation at Gods hands for any duty or act of obedience it performes and doth not when most assisted go out of his own actings to lay the weight of his expectation entirely upon Christ every such glance of the soules eye is adulterous yea idolatrous If thy heart Christian at any time he secretly enticed as Job saâ—th of another kinde of idolatry or thy mouth doth kisse thy hand that is dote so farre on thy own duties or righteousnesse as to give them this inward worship of thy confidence and trust this is a great iniquity indeed for in this thou deniest the God that is above who hath determined thy faith to another object Thou comest to open heaven-gate with the old key when God hath set on a new lock Doest thou not acknowledge tnat thy first entrance into thy justified state was of pure mercy thou wert justified freely by hit grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Rom. 7.24 And whom are thou beholden to now thou art reconciled for thy further acceptance in every duty or holy action to thy duty thy obedience thy self or Christ The same Apostle will tell you Rom. 5.2 By whom we have accesse by faith into this grace wherein we stand If Christ should not lead thee in and all thou doest thou art sure to finde the door shut upon thee there is no more place for desert now thou art gracious then when thou wert gracelesse Rom. 1.17 The righteousnesse of God is revealed from faith to faith for the just shall live by faith We are not only made alive by Christ but we live by Christ faith sucks in continual pardoning assisting comforting mercy from him as the lungs suck in the aire Heaven way is paved with grace and mercy to the end Be exhorted above all to watch against this play of Satan beware thou restest not in thy own righteousnesse thou standest under a tottering wall the very cracks thou seest in thy graces and duties when best bid thee stand off except thou wouldest have them fall on thy head the greatest step to heaven is out of our own doors over our own threshold It hath cost many a man his life when his house on fire a gripplenesse to save some of the stufte which venturing among the flames to preserve they have perished themselves more have lost their soules by thinking to carry some of their own stuffe with them to heaven Such a good work or duty while they like lingring Lot have been loath to leave in point of confidence have themselves perish't O Sirs come out come out leave what is your own in the fire flie to Christ naked he hath cloathing for you better then your own poor to Christ and he hath gold not like thine which will consume and be found drossy in the fire but such as hath in the fiery trial past in Gods righteous judgment for pure and full weight you cannot be found in two places at once choose whether you will be found in your own righteousnesse or in Christs Those who have had more to shew then thy selfe have thrown away all and gone a begging to Christ Reade Pauls Inventory Phil. 3. what he had what he did yet all drosse and losse give him Christ and take the rest who will So Job as holy a man as trod on earth God himself being witnesse yet saith Though I were perfect yet would I not know my own soule I would despise my life He had acknowledged his imperfection before now he makes a supposition indeed quod non est supponendum If I were perfect yet would I not know my own soule I would not entertain any such thoughts as should puffe me up into such a confidence of my holinesse as to make it my plea with God like to our common phrase We say Such a one hath excellent parts but he knows it that is he is proud of it Take heed of knowing thy own grace in this sense thou canst not give a greater wound both to thy grace and comfort then by thus priding thy self in it SECT III. First thy grace cannot thrive so long as thou thus restest on it A legal spirit is no friend to grace nay a bitter enemy against it as appeared by the Pharisees in Christs time Grace comes not by the Law but by Christ thou mayest stand long enough by it before thou gettest any life of grace into thy soule or further life into thy grace If thou wouldest have this thou must set thy self under Christs wings by faith from his Spirit in the Gospel alone comes this kindly natural heat to hatch thy soul to the life of holinesse and increase what thou hast and thou canst not come under Christs wings till thou comest from under the shadow of the other by renouncing all expectation from thy own works and services You know Reubens curse that he should not excel because he went up into his fathers bed when other tribes encreased he stood at a little number By trusting in
faithful Creatour Secondly improve this Almighty power of God and thy interest therein in temptations to sin when thou art over-powered and fliest before the face of thy strong corruption or fearest thou shalt one day fall by it make bold to take hold of this attribute and re-inforce thy self from it again to resist and in resisting to believe a timely victory over it The Almighty God stands in sight of thee while thou art in the valley fighting and stayes but for a call from thee when distressed in battel and then he will come to thy rescue Jehoshaphat cried when in the throng of his enemies and the Lord helped him much more mayest thou promise thy self his succour in thy soul-combates Betake thy self to the throne of grace with that promise Sin shall not have dominion over you and before thou urgest it the more to help thy faith comfort thy self with this that though this word Almighty is not exprest yet it is implied in this and every promise and thou mayest without adding a title to the Word of God read it in thy soul sin shall not have dominion over you saith the Almighty God for this and all his attributes are the constant seale to all his promises Now soule put the bond in suit fear not the recovery 't is debt and so due He is able whom thou suest and so there is no feare of losing the charge of the suit and he that was so gracious to binde himself when he was free will be so faithful being able to perform now he is bound only while thou expectest the performance of the promise and the assistance of this Almighty power against thy corruptions take heed that thou keep under the shadow of this attribute and condition of this promise The shadow will not cool except in it what good to have the shadow though of a mighty rock when we sit in the open Sun To have Almighty power engaged for us and we to throw our selves out of the protection thereof by bold salleys into the mouth of temptation The Saints falls have been when they run out of their trench and hold for like the conies they are a weak people in themselves and their strength lies in the rock of Gods Almightinesse which is their habitation Thirdly Christian improve this when opprest with the weight of any duty and service which in thy place and calling lies upon thee Perhaps thou findest the duty of thy calling too heavy for thy weak shoulders make bold by faith to lay the heaviest end of thy burden on Gods shoulder which is thine if a believer as sure as God can make it by promise When at any time thou art sick of thy work and ready to think with Jonas to run from it encourage thy selfe with that of God to Gideon whom he call'd from the flaile to thresh the mountains Go in this thy might hath not God call'd thee fall to the work God sets thee about and thou engagest his strength for thee The way of the Lord is strength Run from thy work and thou engagest Gods strength against thee he 'll send some storme or other after thee to bring home his runaway servant How oft hath the Coward been kill'd in a ditch or under some hedge when the valiant souldier that stood his ground and kept his place got off with safety and honour Art thou call'd to suffer flinch not because thou art afraid thou shalt never be able to bear the crosse God can lay it so even thou shalt not feel it though thou shouldest finde no succour till thou comest to the prison-door yea till thou hast one foot on the ladder or thy neck on the block despair not In the Mount will the Lord be seen And in that houre he can give thee such a look of his sweet face as shall make the blood come in the gastly face of a cruel death and appear lovely in thy eye for his sake He can give thee so much comfort in hand as thou shalt acknowledge God is aforehand with thee for all thy shame pain thou canst endure for him And if it should not amount to this yet so much as will bear all thy charges thou canst be put to in the way lies ready told in that promise 1 Cor. 10.13 Thou shalt have it at sight and this may satisfie a Christian especially if he considers though he doth not carry so much of heavens joy about him to heaven as others yet he shall meet it as soon as he comes to his Fathers house where it is reserved for him In a word Christian relie upon thy God and make thy daily applications to the throne of grace for continual supplies of strength you little think how kindly he takes it that you will make use of him the oftner the better and the more you come for the more welcome else why would Christ have told his disciples Hitherto ye have ask't nothing but to expresse his large heart in giving loath to put his hand to his purse for a little and therefore by a familiar kind of Rhetorick puts them to rise higher in asking as Naaman when Gehazi asks one talent entreats him to take two such a bountiful heart thy God hath while thou art asking a little peace and joy he bids thee open thy mouth wide and hee 'l fill it Go and ransack thy heart Christian from one end to the other finde out thy wants acquaint thy selfe with all thy weaknesses and set them before the Almighty as the Widow her empty vessels before the Prophet hadst thou more then thou canst bring thou mayest have them all fill'd God hath strength enough to give but he hath no strength to deny here the Almighty himselfe with reverence be it spoken is weak even a childe the weakest in grace of his family that can but say Father is able to overcome him and therefore let not the weaknesse of thy faith encourage thee No greater motive to the bowels of mercy to stir up Almighty power to relieve thee then thy weaknesse when pleaded in the sense of it The pale face and thin cheeks I hope move more with us then the canting language of a stout sturdy beggar Thus that soule that comes laden in the sense of his weak faith love patience the very weaknesse of them carries an argument along with them for succour CHAP. V. Wherein is answered a grand Objection that some disconsolate soules may raise against the former Discourse Object O But saith some disconsolate Christian I have prayed again and again for strength against such a corruption and to this day my hands are weak and these sons of Zerviah are so strong that I am ready to say all the Preachers do but flatter me that do poure their oyle of comfort upon my head and tell me I shall at last get the Conquest of these mine enemies and see that joyful day wherein with David I shall sing to the Lord for delivering me out of the
hands of all mine enemies I have prayed for strength for such a duty and finde it come off as weakly and dead-heartedly as before If God be with me by his mighty power to help me why then is all this befailen me Answ 1 First look once again poor heart into thy own bosom and see whether thou findest not some strength sent into thee which thou didst over-look before this may be yea is very ordinary in this case when God answers our prayer not in the letter or when the thing itselfe is sent but it comes in at the back door while we are expecting it at the fore and truly thus the friend thou art looking for may be in thine house and thou not know it Is not this thy case poor soul thou hast been praying for strength against such a lust and now thou wouldest have God presently put forth his power to knock it on the head and lay it for dead that it should never stir more in thy bosome is not this the doore thou hast stood looking for God to come in at and no sight or newes of thy God his coming that way thy corruption yet stirs it may be is more troublesom then before now thou askest where is the strength promised to thy relief let me intreat thee before thou layest down this sad Conclusion against thy God or self see whether he hath not conveyed in some strength by another door Perhaps thou hast not strength to conquer it so soon as thou desirest but hath he not given further praying strength against it Thou prayedst before but now more earnestly all the powers of thy soul are up to plead with God Before thou wast more favourable and moderate in thy request now thou hast a zeal thou canst take no denial yea welcome any thing in the room of thy corruption Would God but take thy sin and send a crosse thou wouldest blesse him Now poor soule is this nothing no strength Had not thy God re-inforced thee thy sin would have weakened thy spirit of prayer and not increased it David began to recover himself when he began to recover his Spirit of prayer The stronger the cry the stronger the childe I warrant you Jacob wrestled and this is called his strength Hos 12. It appeared there was much of God in him that he could take such hold of the Almighty as to keep it though God seemed to shake him off If thus thou art enabled soule to deal with the God of heaven no feare but thou shalt be much more able to deal with sin and Satan If God hath given thee so much strength to wrestle with him above and against denials thou hast prevailed with the stronger of the two overcome God and he 'll overcome the other for thee Again perhaps thou hast been praying for further strength to be communicated to thee in duty that thou mightest be more spiritual vigorous united sincere and the like therein and yet thou findest thy old distempers hanging about thee as if thou hadst never acquainted God with thy aile Well soule look once again into thy bosome with an unprejudiced eye though thou doest not find the assisting strength thou prayedst for yet hast thou no more self-abasing strength perhaps the annoyance thou hast from these remaining distempers in duty occasion thee to have a meaner opinion of all thy duties then ever yea they make thee abhor thy selfe in the sense of these as if thou hadst so many loathsom vermein about thee Jobs condition on the dunghil with all his botches and running sores on his body appears desirable to thee in comparison of thine whose soul thou complainest is worse then his body O this afflicts thy soul deeply doth it not that thou shouldest appear before the Lord with such a dead divided heart and do his work worst that deserves best at thy hands and is all this nothing Surely Christian thine eyes are held as much as Hagars or else thou wouldest see the streamings forth of divine grace in this frame of thy heart surely others will think God hath done a mighty work in thy soule What harder and more against the haire then to bring our proud hearts to take shame for that whereof they naturally boast and glory And is it nothing for thee to tread on the very neck of thy duties and count them matter of thy humiliation and abasing which others make the matter of their confidence and self-rejoycing Good store of vertue hath gone from Christ to dry this issue of pride in thy heart which sometimes in gracious ones runs through and through their duties that it is seen or may be by those that have lesse grace then themselves Answ 2 Secondly Christian candidly interpret Gods dealings with thee Suppose it be as thou sayest thou hast pleaded the promise and waited on the means and yet findest no strength from all these receits either in thy grace or comfort now take heed of charging God foolishly as if God were not what he promiseth this were to give that to Satan which he is all this while gaping for It is more becoming the dutiful disposition of a childe when he hath not presently what he writes for to his father to say my father is wiser then I his wisdom will prompt him what and when to send to me and his fatherly affections to me his childe will neither suffer him to deny any thing that is good or slip the time that is seasonable Christian thy heavenly Father hath gracious ends that hold his hand at present or else thou hadst ere this heard from him First God may deny further degrees of strength to put thee on the exercise of that thou hast more carefully As a mother doth by her childe that is learning to go she sets it down and stands some distance from it and bids it come to her the childe feels its legs weak and cries for the mothers help but the mother steps back on purpose that the childe should put forth all its little strength in making after her When a poor soul comes and prayes against such a sin God seems to step back and stand at a distance the temptation increaseth and no visible succour appears on purpose that the Christian though weak should exercise that strength he hath Indeed we shall finde the sense of a soules weaknesse is an especial meanes to excite it into a further care and diligence One that knowes his weaknesse how prone he is in company to forget himself in passion how apt he is to flie out if there be a principle of true grace this will excite him to be more fearful and watchful then another that hath obtained greater strength against such great temptations As a childe that writes for money to his father none comes presently this makes him husband that little he hath the better not a penny now shall be laid out idly Thus when a Christian hath prayed against such a sin again and again and yet finds himself
sinners such shall finde least mercy false friends shall speed worse then open enemies Secondly they use not the Armour of God as God hath appointed who put a carnal confidence therein We must not confide in the Armour of God but in the God of this Armour because all our weapons are only mighty through God 2 Cor. 10. The Ark was the meanes of the Jewes safety but carnally applauded and gloried in hastened their overthrow so duties and Ordinances gifts and graces in their place are means for the souls defence Satan trembles as much as the Philistines at the Ark to see a soule diligent in the use of duty and exercise of grace but when the creature confides in them this is dangerous As some when they have prayed think they please God for all day though they take little heed to their steps Others have so good an opinion of their faith sincerity knowledge thut you may assoon make them believe they are dogs as that they may ever be taken in such an errour or sinful practice Others when assisted in duty are prone to stroak their own head with a Bene fecisti Bernarde and so promise themselves to speed because they have done their errand so well What speak such passages in the hearts of men but a carnal confidence in their armour to their ruine Many soules we may safely say do not only perish praying repenting and believing after a sort but they perish by their praying and repenting c. while they carnally trust in these As it falls out sometimes that the souldier in battel loseth his life by means of his own Armour it is so heavy he cannot flie with it and so close buckled to him that he cannot get it off to flie for his life without it If we be saved we must come naked to Christ for all our duties we will not flie to Christ while confiding in them and some are so lock't into them that they cannot come without them and so in a day of temptation are trampled under the feet of Gods wrath and Satans fury The poor Publican throwes down his armes that is all confidence in himself cries for quarter at the hands of mercy God be merciful unto me a sinner and he comes off with his life he went away justified but the Pharisee loaden with his righteousnesse and conceited of it stands to it and is lost Thirdly they do not use the Armour of God as such who in the performing of divine duties eye not God through them and this makes them all weak and uneffectual Then the Word is mighty when read as the Word of God then the Gospel preach't powerful to convince the conscience and revive the drooping spirit when heard as the appointment of the great God and not the exercise of a mean creature Now it will appear in three things whether we eye divine appointment in the meanes First when we engage in a duty and look not up to God for his blessing Didst thou eye Gods appointment in the means thou wouldest say Soul if there come any good of thy present service it must drop from heaven for it is Gods appointment not mans And can I profit whether God will or no or think to finde and bring away any soul-enriching treasure from his Ordinance without his leave had I not best look up to him by whose blessing I live more then by my bread Again Secondly it appears we look not at Gods appointment when we have low thoughts of the means What is Jordan that I should wash in it what is this preaching that I should attend on it where I heare nothing but I knew before what these beggarly elements of water and bread and wine Are not these the reasonings of a soul that forgets who appoints these Didst thou remember who commands thou wouldest not question what the command is what though it be clay let Christ use it and it shall open the eyes though in it self more like to put them out Hadst thou thy eye on God thou wouldest silence thy carnal reason with this 'T is God sends me to such a duty whatsoever he saith unto me I will do it though he should send me as Christ them to draw wine out of pots fill'd with water Thirdly when a soule leaves off a duty because he hath not in it what he expected from it O saith the soul I see it is in vain to follow the means as I have done still Satan foiles me I will even give over Doest thou remember soule 't is Gods appointment surely then thou wouldest persevere in the midst of discouragements He that bids thee pray bids thee pray without ceasing He that bids thee hear bids thee wait at the posts of wisdom thou wouldest reason thus God hath set me on duty and here I 'le stand till God takes me off and bids me leave praying CHAP. III. Sheweth that the Armour we use for our defence against Satan must not only be divine by Institution but constitution also SEcondly the Christians Armour must be Armour of God in regard of its make and constitution My meaning is 't is not only God that must appoint the weapons and armes the Christian useth for his defence but he must also be the efficient of them he must work all their work in them and for them Prayer is an appointment of God yet this is not armour of proof except it be a Prayer of God flowing from his Spirit Hope that is the helmet the Saint by command is to wear but this hope must be Gods creature who hath begotten us to a lively hope Faith that 's another principal piece in the Christians furniture but it must be the faith of Gods Elect. He is to take righteousnesse and holinesse for his breast-plate but it must be true holinesse Eph. 4.24 Put on the new man which after God is created in righteousnesse and true holinesse Thus you see it is not armour as armour but as armour of God that makes the soul impregnable That which is borne of God overcometh the world A faith borne of God a hope borne of God but the spurious adulterous brood of duties and graces being begot of mortal seed cannot be immortal Must the soules armour be of Gods make be exhorted then to look narrowly whether the armour ye weare be the workmanship of God or no. There is abundance of false ware put off now adayes little good armour worne by the multitude of Professours 't is Satans after-game he playes if he cannot please the sinner with his naked state of prophanenesse then to put him off with something like grace some slighty stuffe that shall neither do him good nor Satan hurt thus many like children that cry for a knife or dagger and are pleas'd as well with a bone knife and wooden dagger as with the best of all so they have some armour it matters not what Pray they must but little care how it be performed Beleeve in
Apostle Peter in his second Epistle chap. 1. ver 5 6 7. presseth the Christian to a joynt endeavour to encrease the whole body of grace indeed that is health when the whole body thrives Adde saith he to your faith vertue Faith is the file-leading grace Well hast thou faith adde vertue True faith is of a working stirring nature without good works it is dead or dying Fides pinguescit operibus Luther 'T is kept in plight and heart by a holy life as the flesh which plaisters over the frame of mans body though it receives its heat from the vitals within yet helps to preserve the very life of those vitals thus good works and gracious actions have their life from faith yet are necessary helps to preserve the life of faith thus we see sometimes the childe nursing the Parent that bare it and therein performes but his duty Thou art fruitful in good works yet thou art not out of the devils shot except thou addest to thy vertue knowledge This is the candle without which faith cannot see to do its work Art thou going to give an almes if it be not oculata charitas if charity hath not this eye of knowledge to direct when how what and to whom thou art to give thou mayest at once wrong God the person thou relievest and thy self Art thou humbling thy selfe for thy sin for want of knowledge in the tenour of the Gospel Satan may play upon thy ignorance and either perswade thee thou art not humbled enough when God knowes thou art almost quackled with thy teares and even carried down by the impetuous torrent of thy sorrow into despair or else shewing thee thy blubber'd face may flatter thee into a carnal confidence of thy humiliation Perhaps thou seest the Name of God dishonoured in the place where thou livest and thy spirit is stirred within thee as Pauls at Athens now if knowledge sits not in the saddle to reine and bridle in thy zeal thou wilt be soon carried over hedge and ditch till thou fallest into some precipice or other by thy irregular acting Neither is knowledge enough except thou beest arm'd with Temperance which here I conceive is that grace whereby the Christian as Master of his own house so orders his affections like servants to reason and faith that they do not irregularly move or inordinately lash out into desires of cares for or joy in the creature-comforts of this life without which Satan will be too hard for thee The Historian tells us that in one of the famous battels between the English and French that which lost the French the day was a shower of English arrowes which did so gall their horse as put the whole army into disorder their horse knowing no ranks did tread down their own men The affections are but as the horse to the Rider on which knowledge should be mounted if Satans barbed arrows light on them so that thy desires of the creature prove unruly and justle with thy desires of Christ thy care to keepe thy credit or estate put thy care to keep a good conscience to disorder and thy carnal joy in wife and childe trample down or get before thy joy in the Lord judge on which side victory is like to fal Well suppose thou marchest provided thus far in goodly array towards heaven while thou art swimming in prosperity most thou not also prepare for foule way and weather I mean an afflicted estate Satan will line the hedges with a thousand temptations when thou comest into the narrow lanes of adversity where thou canst not run from this sort of temptation as in the Champaigne of prosperity Possibly thou that didst escape the snare of an alluring world mayest be dismounted by the same when it frownes though temperance kept thee from being drunk with the sweet wines of those pleasures yet for want of patience thou mayest be drunk with the wine of astonishment which is in afflictions hand therefore saith the Apostle to temperance adde patience either possesse thy self in patience or else some raving devil of discontent will possesse thee An impatient soule in affliction is a bedlam in chains yea too like the devil in his chaines that rageth against God while he is fettered by him Well hast thou patience an excellent grace indeed but not enough thou must be a pious man as well as a patient Therefore saith the Apostle to patience adde godlinesse There is an atheistical stupid patience and there is a godly Christian patience Satan numbs the conscience of the one and no wonder he complains not that feels not but the Spirit of Christ sweetly calmes the other not by taking away the sense of paine but by overcoming it with the sense of his love Now godlinesse comprehends the whole worship of God inward and outward If thou beest never so exact in thy morals and not a worshipper of God then thou art an Atheist If thou doest worship God and that devoutly but not by Scripture-rule thou art an idolater If according to the rule but not in Spirit and truth then thou art an hypocrite and so fallest into the devils mouth Or if thou doest give God one piece of his worship and denyest another still Satan comes to his market Prov. 28.9 He that turneth back his eare from hearing the Law his prayer is an abomination to the Lord. Yet Christian all thy Armour is not on Thy godlinesse indeed would suffice wert thou to live in a world by thy self or hadst nothing to do but immediate communion with God But Christian thou must not always dwell on this mount of immediate worship and when thou descendest thou hast many brethren and servants to thy Father who live with thee in the same family and thou must comport thy self becomingly or else thy Father will be angry First thou hast brethren heires of the same promise with thee therefore you must adde to godlinesse brotherly kindnesse If Satan can set you at odds he gives a deep wound to your godlinesse You will hardly joyne hearts in a duty that cannot joyne hands in love Secondly there are not only brethren but servants a multitude of profane carnal ones who though they never had the names of sons and daughters yet retain to Gods family and thy heavenly Father will have thee walk unblameably yea winningly to those that are without which that thou mayest do thou must adde to brotherly kindnesse charity by which grace thou shalt be willing to do good to the worst of men when they curse thee thou must pray for them yea pray for no lesse then a Christ a heaven for them Father forgive them said Christ while they were raking in his side for his heart-blood And truly I am perswaded the want of this last piece of armour hath given Satan great advantage in these our times We are so afraid our charity should be too broad whereas in this sense if it be not as wide as the world it is too strait for the
command which bids us do good to all May not we Ministers be charged with the want of this when the straine of our preaching is solely directed to the Saints and no paines taken in rescuing poor captived soules yet uncall'd out of the devils clutches who may hale them to hell without any disturbance while we are comforting the Saints and preaching their priviledges but in the mean time let the ignorant be ignorant still and the profane profane still for want of a compassionate charity to their soules which would excite us to the reproving and exhorting of them that they might also be brought in to the way of life as well as the Saints encouraged who are walking therein We are stewards to provide bread for the Lords house the greatest part of our hearers cannot must not have the childrens bread and shall we therefore give them no portion at all Christs charity pitied the multitude to whom in his publike preaching he made special application as in that famous Sermon most part of which is spent in rowsing up the sleepy consciences of the hypocritical Pharisees by those thunderclaps of woes and curses so often denounced against them Mat. 23. Again how great advantage hath Satan from the want of this charity in our families Is it not observ'd how little care is taken by professing Governours of such Societies for the instructing their youth Nay 't is a principle which some have drunk in that 't is not their duty O where is their charity in the mean time when they can see Satan come within their own walls and let him drive a childe a servant in their ignorance and profanenesse to hell and not so much as sally out upon this enemy by a word of reproof or instruction to rescue these silly souls out of the murtherers hand We must leave them to their liberty forsooth and that is as faire play as we can give the devil give but corrupt nature enough of this rope and it will soon strangle the very principles of God and Religion in their tender yeares SECT III. Thirdly the entirenesse of the Saints armour may be taken not only for every part and piece of the Saints furniture but for the compleatnesse and perfection of every piece As the Christian is to endeavour after every grace so is he to presse after the advance and increase of every grace even to perfection itself as he is to adde to his faith vertue so he is to adde faith to faith he is ever to be compleating of his grace It is that which is frequently prest upon believers Mat. 5.48 Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect And purifie your selves as God is pure Where we have an exact copy set not as if we could equallize that purity and perfection which is in God but to make us strive the more when we shall see how infinitely short we fall of our copy when we write the fairest hand So James 1.3 Let patience have its perfect work that you may be entire wanting nothing or wanting in nothing Thou who makest a hard shift to carry a little burden with thy little patience wouldest sink under a greater therefore there is need that patience should be ever perfecting lest at last we meet a burden too heavy for our weak shoulders Take a few reasons why the Christian should thus be compleating of his grace First because grace is subject to decayes and therefore ever needs compleating as in an army especially which often engageth in battel their armes are batter'd and broken one man hath his helmet bent another his sword gap't a third his pistol unfix't and therefore recruits are ever necessary In one temptation the Christian hath his helmet of hope beaten off his head in another his patience hard put to it The Christian had need have an Armourers shop at hand to make up his losse and that speedily for Satan is most like to fall on when the Christian is least prepared to receive his charge Simon Simon Satan hath desired to sift you he knew they were at that time weakly provided Christ their Captain now to be taken from the head of their troop discontents among themselves striving who should be greatest and their recruits of stronger grace which the Spirit was to bring not yet come Now he hath a design to surprise them and therefore Christ carefully to prevent him promiseth speedily to dispatch his Spirit for their supply and in the mean time sends them to Jerusalem to stand as it were in a body in their joynt supplications upon their guard while he comes to their relief shewing us in the weaknesse of our graces what to do and whither to go for supply Secondly because Satan is compleating his skill and wrath 'T is not for nought that he is call'd the old Serpent subtil by nature but more by experience wrathful by nature yet every day more and more enraged like a bull the longer he is baited the more fury he shewes And therefore we who are to grapple with him now his time is so short had need come well appointed into the field Thirdly it is the end of all Gods dispensations to compleat his Saints in their graces and comforts Wherefore doth he lop and prune by afflictions but to purge that they may bring forth more fruit that is fuller and fairer Tribulation works patience 'T is Gods appointment for that end It works that is it encreaseth the Saints patience it enrageth indeed the wicked but meekens the Saints 'T is his design in the Gospel preached to carry on his Saints from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 And accordingly he hath furnished his Church with instruments and those with gifts for the perfecting of the Saints and for the edifying of the body of Christ Eph. 4.14 Wherefore doth the Scaffold stand and the Workman on it if the building go not up For us not to advance under such means is to make void the counsel of God Therefore the Apostle blames the Christian Jewes Heb. 5.12 for their non-proficiency in the School of Christ When for the time ye ought to be teachers ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the Oracles of God O how few are there who endeavour thus to promove in their spiritual state and labour to perfect what is yet lacking in their knowledge patience and the rest First tell some of adding faith to faith one degree of grace to another and you shall finde they have more minde to joyne house to house and lay field to field their souls are athirst ever gaping for more but of what not of Christ or Heaven It is earth earth they never think they have enough of till death comes and stops their mouth with a shovel-full digg'd out of their own grave What a tormenting life must they needs have who are alwayes crying for more weight and yet cannot presse their covetous desires to death O Sirs the only way if
thus watch and observe Christ from time to time doth it not behove thee to look about thee lest he take thy grace at one time or other napping what he misseth now by thy watchfulnesse he may gain anon by thy negligence Indeed he hopes thou wilt be tired out with continual duty Surely saith Satan when he sees the Christian up and servent in duty this will not hold long When he findes him tender of conscience and scrupulous of occasions to sin This is but for a while ere long I shall have him unbend his bowe and unbuckle his armour and then have at him Satan knows what orders thou keepest in thy house and closet and though he hath not a key to thy heart yet he can stand in the next room to it and lightly hear what is whispered there He hunts the Christian by the sent of his own feet and if once he doth but smell which way thy heart enclines he knows how to take the him if but one door be unbolted one work unmann'd one grace of its carriage here is advantage enough Thirdly because it is so awky a businesse and hard a work to recover the activity of grace once lost and to revive a duty in disuse I have put off my coat saith the Spouse Cant. 5.3 She had given way to a lazy distemper was laid upon her bed of sloth and how hard is it to raise her her beloved is at the door beseeching her by all the names of love which might bring to her remembrance the near relation between them My Sister my Love my Dove open to me and yet she riseth not he tells her his locks are filled with the drops of the night yet she stirs not What is the matter her coat was off and she is loath to put it on she had given way to her sloth and now she knows not how to shake it off she could have been glad to have her Beloveds company if himself would have opened the door and he desired as much hers if she would rise to let him in and upon these termes they part The longer a soule hath neglected duty the more ado there is to get it taken up partly through shame the soul having played the truant now knows not how to look God on the face and partly from the difficulty of the work being double to what another findes that walks in the exercise of his grace here is all out of order It requires more time and pains for him to tune his instrument then for another to play the lesson He goes to duty as to a new work as a Scholar that hath not look't on his book some while his lesson is almost out of his head whereas another that was but even now conning it over hath it ad unguem Perhaps 't is an affliction thou art called to bear and thy patience unexercised little or no thoughts thou hast had for such a time while thou wert frisking in a full pasture and now thou kickest and flingest eeven as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke Jer. 31.18 whereas another goes meekly and patiently under the like crosse because he had been stirring up his patience and fitting the yoke to his neck You know what a confusion there is in a town at some sudden alarm in the dead of the night the enemie at the gates and they asleep within O what a cry is there heard one wants his clothes another his sword a third knows not what to do for powder thus in a fright they run up and down which would not be if the enemie did finde them upon their guard orderly waiting for his approath Such a hubbub there is in a soule that keeps not his armour on this piece and that will be to seek when he should use it Fourthly we must keep grace in exercise in respect of others our fellow-souldiers Paul had this in his eye when he was exercising himself to keep a good conscience that he might not be a scandal to others The Cowardise of one may make others run the ignorance of one souldier that hath not skill to handle his armes may do mischief to his fellow-souldiers about him some have shot their friends for their enemies the unwise walking of one Professor makes many other faire the worse But say thou doest not fall so far as to become a scandal yet thou canst not be so helpful to thy fellow-brethren as thou shouldest God commanded the Reubenites and Gadites to go before their brethren ready armed until the land was conquered Thus Christian thou art to be helpful to thy fellow-brethren who have not it may be that settlement of Peace in their spirit as thy self not that measure of grace or comfort Thou art to help such weak ones and go before them as it were arm'd for their defence now if thy grace be not exercised thou art so far unserviceable to thy weak brother Perhaps thou art a Master or a Parent who hast a family under thy wing they fare as thou thrivest if thy heart be in a holy frame they fare the better in the duties thou performest if thy heart be dead and down they are losers by the hand So that as the Nurse eats the more for the Babes sake she suckles so shouldest thou for their sake who are under thy tuition be more careful to exercise thy own grace and cherish it SECT 2. Object O but may some say this is hard work indeed our armour never off our grace alwayes in exercise Did God ever mean Religion should be such a toilsome businesse as this would make it Answ Thou speakest like one of the foolish world and shewest thy self a meer stranger to the Christians life that speakest thus a burden to exercise grace why it is no burden to exercise the acts of nature to eat to drink to walk all delightful to us in our right temper if any of these be otherwise nature is opprest as if stuff't then dfficult to breath if sick then the meat offensive we eate so take a Saint in his right temper 't is his joy to be employed in the exercise of his grace in this or that duty Ps 122.1 I was glad when they said unto me Let us go into the house of the Lord. His heart leap't at the motion When any occasion diverts him from communion with God though he likes it never so well yet it is unwelcome and unpleasing to him as you who are used to be in your shops from morning to night how tedious is it for you to be abroad some days though among good friends because you are not where your work and calling lies A Christian in duty is one in his calling as it were in his shop where he should be yea where he would be and therefore far from being tedious Religion is burdensom to none as to those who are infrequent in the exercise of it Use makes heavy things light we hardly feel the weight of our clothes because fitted to us
if he cannot trip up so as to hinder his arrival in heaven yet at least to bruise it that he may go with more pain thither CHAP. II. Satans subtilty in managing his temptations where several stratagems used by him to deceive the Christian are laid down THe second way wherein Satan shews his tempting subtilty is in those stratagems he useth to deceive the Christian in the act of temptation First he hangs out false colours and comes up to the Christian in the disguise of a friend so that the gates are opened to him and his motions received with applause before either be discovered therfore he is said to transform himself into an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11.14 Of all plots 't is most dangerous when he appears in Samuels mantle and silvers his foul tongue with faire language Thus in point of errour he corrupts some in their judgements by commending his notions for precious Gospel-truths and like a cunning Chapman puts off his old ware errours I mean that have layen long upon his hand only turkening them a little after the mode of the times and they go for new light under the skirt of Christian liberty he conveys in Libertinisme by crying up the Spirit he decries and vilifies the Scripture by magnifying faith he labours to undermine repentance and blow up good works by bewailing the corruption of the Church in its administrations he drawes unstable souls from it and amuseth them till at last they fall into a vertigo and can see no Church at all in being And he prevails no lesse on the hearts and lives of men by this wile then on their judgements Under the notion of zeal he kindles sometimes a dangerous flame of passion and wrath in the heart which like a rash fire makes the Christians spirit boile over into unchristian desires of and prayers for revenge where he should forgive of which we have an instance in the disciples Luke 9.55 where two holy men are desiring that fire may come down from heaven Little did they think from whence they had their coal that did so heat them till Christ told them Ye know not what Spirit you are of Sometimes he pretends pity and natural affection which in some cases may be good counsel and all the while he desires to promote cowardise and sinful self-love whereby the Christian may be brought to flie from his colours shrink from the truth or decline some necessary duty of his calling this his wile Christ soon spied when he got Peter to be his spokesman saying Master pity thy self who stop't his mouth with that sharp rebuke Get thee behinde me Satan O what need have we to study the Scriptures our hearts and Satans wiles that we may not bid this enemy welcome and all the while think it's Christ that is our guest A second policie he useth is to get intelligence of the Saints affairs This is one great wheele in the Politicians clock to have Spies in all places by whom they are acquainted with the counsels and motions of their enemies and this gives them advantage as to disappoint their designes so more safely to compasse their own 'T is no hard matter for him to play his game well that sees his enemies hand David knew how the squares went at Court Jonathans arrowes carried him the newes and accordingly he removed his quarters and was too hard for his great enemy Saul Satan is the greatest Intelligencer in the world he makes it his businesse to enquire into the inclinations thoughts affections purposes of the creature that finding which humour abounds he may apply himself accordingly which way the stream goes that he may open the passage of temptation and cut the channel to the fall of the creatures affections and not force it against the torrent of nature Now if we consider but the piercing apprehension of the Angelical nature how quick he is to take the sent which way the game goes by a word drop't the cast of an eye or such a small matter signal enough to give him the alarm his experience in heart-anatomy having inspected and as it were dissected so many in his long practice whereby his knowledge is much perfected as also his great diligence to adde to both these being as close a Student as ever considering the Saints and studying how he may do them a mischief as we see in Jobs case whom he had so observed that he was able to give an answer ex tempore to God what Jobs state and present posture was and what might be the most probable means of obtaining his will of him and besides all this the correspondence that he hath with those in and about the Christian from whom he learnes much of his state as David by Hushai in Absaloms counsel all these considered 't is almost impossible for the creature to stir out of the closet of his heart but it will be known whither he enclines some corrupt passion or other will bewray the soule to him as they did David to Saul who told him where he might finde him in the wildernesse of Engedi Thus will these give intelligence to Satan and say If thou wouldest surprize such a one he is gone that way you shall have him in the wood of worldly employments over head and eares in the desires and cares of this life see where another sits under such a bower delighting himself in this childe or that gift endowment of mind or the like lay but the lime-twig there and you shall soon have him in it Now Satan having this intelligence lets him alone to act his part he sure cannot be at a losse himself when his scholars the Jesuites I mean have such agility of minde to wreath and cast themselves into any forme becoming the persons they would seduce Is ambition the lust the heart favours O the pleasing projects that he will put such upon how easily having first blown them up with vain hopes doth he draw them into horrid sins Thus Human that he may have a monopoly of his Princes favour is hurried into that bloody plot fatal at last to himself against the Jewes Is uncleannesse the lust after which the creatures eye wanders Now he 'll be the Pander to bring him and his Minion together Thus he finding Amnon sick of this disease sends Jonadah a deep-pated fellow to put this fine device into his head of feigning himself sick whereby his Sister fell into his snare Thirdly in his gradual approaches to the soul When he comes to tempt he is modest asks but a little he knows he may get that at many times which he should be denied if lie ask't all at once A few are let into a city when an army coming in a body would be shut out and therefore that he may beget no suspition he presents may be a few general propositions which do not discover the depth of his plot these like Scouts goe before while his whole body lies hid as it were in
sinners know who that God is they fight against this were enough to breed a mutiny in the devils camp Silly soules they are drawn into the field by a false report of God and his wayes and are kept there together with lies and faire tales but Christ is not afraid to shew his Saints their enemy in all his Power and Principality the Weaknesse of God being stronger then the powers of hell CHAP. I. Sheweth the Christians life here to be a continual wrestling with sin and Satan and the paucity of those who are true Wrestlers as also how the true Wrestlers should manage their combate THe words contain a lively description of a bloody and lasting war between the Christian and his implacable enemy in which we may observe First the Christians state in this life set out by this word wrestling Secondly the Assailants that appear in armes against the Christian who are described First Negatively Not flesh and blood Or rather comparatively not chiefly flesh and blood Secondly Positively but against Principalities Powers c. SECT I. First for the first the wrestling or conflicting state of a Christian in this life is rendered observable here by a threefold circumstance First the kinde of combate which the Christians state is here set out by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which though it be used sometimes for a wrestling of sport and recreation yet here to set out the sharpnesse of the Christians encounter there are two things in wrestling that render it a sharper combate then others First wrestling is not properly fighting against a multitude but when one enemy singles out another and enters the list with him each exerting their whole force and strength against one another as David and Goliah when the whole Armies stood as it were in a ring to behold the bloody issue of that duel Now this is more fierce then to fight in an army where though the battel be sharp and long the souldier is not alwayes engaged but falls off when he hath discharged and takes breath a while yea possibly may escape without hurt or stroak because there the enemies aime is not at this or that man but at the whole heap but in wrestling one cannot scape so he being the particular object of the enemies fury must needs be shaked and tried to purpose Indeed the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies such a strife as makes the body shake again quia corpus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Satan hath not only a general malice against the army of Saints but a spite against thee John thee Joane he 'll single thee out for his enemy We finde Jacob when alone a man wrestled with him As God delights to have private communion with his single Saints so the devil to try it hand to hand with the Christian when he gets him alone As we lose much comfort when we do not apply the Promise and Providence of God to our particular persons and conditions God loves me pardons me takes care of me the water at the town-conduit doth me no good if I want a pipe to empty it into my cisterne so it obstructs our care and watchfulnesse when we conceive of Satans wrath and fury as bent in general against the Saints and not against me in particular O how careful would a soule be in duty if as going to Church or Closet he had such a serious meditation as this Now Satan is at my heels to hinder me in my work if my God help me not Secondly 't is a close combate Armies fight at some distance Wrestlers grapple hand to hand An arrow shot from afar may be seen and shunn'd but when the enemy hath hold of one there is no declining but either he must resist manfully or fall shamefully at his enemies foot Satan comes close up and gets within the Christian takes his hold of his very flesh and corrupt nature and by this shakes him Secondly the universality of the combate We wrestle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which comprehends all on purpose you may perceive the Apostle changeth the pronoune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the former verse into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this that he may include himself as well as them as if he had said the quarrel is with every Saint Satan neither feares to assault the Minister nor despiseth to wrestle with the meanest Saint in the Congregation great and small Minister and people all must wrestle Not one part of Christs Army in the field and the other at ease in their quarters where no enemy comes here are enemies enough to engage all at onee Thirdly the permanency or duration of this combate and that lies in the tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not our wrestling was at first Conversion but now over and we past the pikes not we shall wrestle when sicknesse comes and death comes but our wrestling is the enemy is ever in sight of us yea in fight with us there is an evil of every dayes temptation which like Pauls bonds abides us wherever we become So that these particulars summ'd up will amount to this Point SECT II. The Christians life is a continual wrestling He is as Jeremy said of himself borne a man of strife or what the Prophet to Asa may be said to every Christian From hence thou shalt have wars from thy spiritual birth to thy natural death from the houre when thou first diddest set thy face to heaven till thou shalt set thy foot in heaven Israels march out of Egypt was in Gospel-sense our taking the field against sin and Satan and when had they peace not till they lodged their colours in Canaan No condition wherein the Christian is here below is quiet Is it prosperity or adversity here is work for both hands to keep pride and security down in the one faith and patience up in the other no place which the Christian can call priviledg'd ground Lot in Sodom wrestled with the wicked inhabitants thereof his righteous soule being vexed with their unclean conversation And how fares he at Zoar do not his own daughters bring a spark of Sodoms fire into his own bed whereby he is inflamed with lust Some have thought if they were but in such a family under such a Ministery out of such occasions O then they should never be tempted as now they are I confesse change of aire is a great help to weak nature and these forenamed as vantage-ground against Satan but think'st thou to flie from Satans presence thus No though thou should'st take the wings of the morning he would flie after thee these may make him change his method in tempting but not lay down his designe so long as his old friend is alive within he will be knocking at thy door without No duty can be performed without wrestling The Christian needs his sword as much as his trowel He wrestles with a body of flesh this to the Christian in duty is as the beast to the traveller he cannot go his journey
without it and much ado to go with it If the flesh be kept high and lusty then 't is wanton and will not obey if low then it 's weak and soon tires Thus the Christian rids but little ground because he must go his weak bodies pace He wrestles with a body of sin as well as of flesh this mutters and murmures when the soule is taking up any duty Sometimes it keeps the Christian from duty so that he cannot do what he would As Paul said I would have come once and again but Satan hindred me I would have prayed may the Christian say at such a time and meditated on the Word I heard the mercies I received at another but this enemy hindred 'T is true indeed grace swayes the Scepter in such a soule yet as School-boyes taking their time when their Master is abroad do shut him out and for a while lord it in misrule though they are whip't for it afterwards thus the unregenerate part takes advantage when grace is not on its watch to disturb its government and shut it out from duty though this at last makes the soul more severe in mortifying yet it costs some scuffle before it can recover its throne and when it cannot shut from duty yet then is the Christian wofully yok't with it in duty it cannot do what it doth as it would many a letter in its copy doth this enemy spoil while he joggs him with impertinent thoughts when the Christian is a praying then Satan and the flesh are a prating he cries and they louder to put him out or drown his cry Thus we see the Christian is assail'd on every side by his enemy and how can it be other when the seeds of war are laid deep in the natures of both which can never be rooted up till the devil cease to be a devil sin to be sin and the Saint to be a Saint Though wolves may snarle at one another yet soon are quiet again because the quarrel is not in their nature but the Wolfe and the Lamb can never be made friends Sin will lust against grace and grace draw upon sin whenever they meet SECT III. Vse 1 First this may reprove such as wrestle but against whom against God not against sin and Satan These are bold men indeed who dare try a fall with the Almighty yet such there are and a Wo pronounced against them Isa 45.9 Wo unto him that striveth with his Maker 'T is easie to tell which of these will be worsted What can he do but break his shins that dasheth them against a rock A goodly battel there is like to be when thorns contest with fire and stubble with flame But where live those giants that dare enter the list with the great God what are their names that we may know them and brand them for creatures above all other unworthy to live Take heed O thou who askest that the wretched man whom thou seemest so to defie be not found in thy own clothes it self Iudas was the Traitour though he would not answer to his name but put it off with a Master is it I and so mayest thou be the fighter against God The heart is deceitful Even holy David for all his anger was so hot against the rich man that took away the poor mans ewe-Lamb that he bound it with an oath the man should not live who had done it yet proves at last to be himself the man as the Prophet told him 2 Sam. 12. Now there are two wayes wherein men wrestle against God First when they wrestle against his Spirit Secondly when they wrestle against his Providence First when they wrestle against his Spirit We reade of the Spirits striving with the creature Gen. 6.3 My spirit shall not alwayes strive with man Where the striving is not in anger and wrath to destroy them that God could do without any stir or scuffle but a loving strife and contest with man The old world was running with such a cariere headlong into their ruine he sends his Spirit to interpose and by his counsels and reproofes to offer as it were to stop them and reclaim them As if one seeing another ready to offer violence on himself should strive to get the knife out of his hand with which he would do the mischief Or one that hath a purse of gold in his hand to give should follow another by all manner of entreaties striving with him to accept and take it Such a kinde of strife is this of the Spirits with men They are the lusts of men those bloody instruments of death with which sinners are mischieving themselves that the holy Spirit strives by his sweet counsels and entreaties to get out of our hands They are Christs his grace and eternal life he strives to make us accept at the hands of Gods mercy and for repulsing the Spirit thus striving with them sinners are justly counted fighters against God Ye stiffe-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears ye do alwayes resist the Holy Ghost Now there is a twofold striving of the Spirit and so of our wrestling against it First the Spirit strives in his messengers with sinners They coming on his errand and not their owne he voucheth the faithful counsels reproofs and exhortations which they give as his own act Noah that Preacher of righteousnesse what he said to the old world is call'd the Preaching of the Spirit 1 Pet. 3.19 The pains that Moses Aaron and other servants of God took in instructing Israel is call'd the instruction of the Spirit Nehem. 9.20 so that when the Word which Gods Ministers bring in his Name is rejected the faithful counsels they give are thrown at sinners heels and made light of then do they strive with the Spirit and wrestle against Christ as really as if he visibly in his own person had been in the Pulpit and preached the same Sermon to them When God comes to reckon with sinners it will prove so then God will rub up your memories and minde you of his striving with you and your unkinde resisting him They whether they will heare or whether they will forbear shall know they had a Prophet among them Now men soon forget whom and what they hear ask them what was prest upon their conscience in such a Sermon they have forgot what were the precious truthes laid out in another and they are lost well were it for them if their memories were no better in another world it would ease their torments more then a little But then they shall know they had a Prophet among them and what a price they had with him in their hands though it was in fooles keeping They shall know what he was and what he said though a thousand years past as fresh as if it were done but last night The more zealous and compassionate the more painful and powerful he was in his place the greater shall their sin be found to break from such holy violence offered
flowing from the same enlargement in duty and the like which Satan may for a time disturb yea deprive thee of but he cannot come to the rolls to blot thy name out of the book of life he cannot null thy faith make void thy relation dry up thy comfort in the Spring though dam up the stream nor hinder thee a happy issue of thy whole war with sinne though worst thee in a private skirmish these all are kept in Heaven among Gods own Crown-Jewels who is said to keep us by his power through faith unto salvation SECT III. The third boundary of the devils Principality is in regard of his subjects and they are described here to be the darknesse of this world that is such who are in darknesse This word is used sometimes to expresse the desolate condition of a creature in some great distresse Isa 150. He that walks in darknesse and sees no light sometimes to expresse the nature of all sin so Eph. 5.1 sin is called the work of darknesse sometimes the particular sin of ignorance often set out by the darknesse of the night blindnesse of the eye all these I conceive may be mean't but chiefly the latter for though Satan makes a foule stir in the soule that is in the dark of sorrow whether it be from outward crosses or inward desertions yet if the creature be not in the darknesse of sinne at the same time though he may disturb his peace as an enemy yet cannot be said to rule as a Prince Sin only sets Satan in the Throne so that I shall take the words in the two latter Interpretations First for the darknesse of sin in general Secondly for the darknesse of ignorance in special and the sense will be that the devils rule is over those that are in a state of sin and ignorance not over those who are sinful or ignorant so he would take hold of Saints as well as others but over those who are in a state of sin which is set out by the abstract Ruler of the darknesse the more to expresse the fulnesse of the sin and ignorance that possesseth Satans slaves and the Notes will be two First Every soul in a state of sin is under the rule of Satan Secondly Ignorance above other sins enslaves a soul to Satan and therefore all sins are set out by that which chiefly expresseth this viz. darknesse Every soule in a state of sin is under the rule of Satan under which point these two things must be enquired First the reason why sin is set out by darknesse Secondly how every one in such a state appears to be under the devils rule For the first First sin may be called darknesse because the spring and common cause of sin in man is darknesse The external cause Satan who is the great promoter of it he is a cursed spirit held in chaines of darknesse The internal is the blindnesse and darknesse of the soule we may say when any one sins he doth he knowes not what as Christ said of his murtherers Did the creature know the true worth of the soul which he now sells for a song the glorious amiable nature of God and his holy wayes the matchlesse love of God in Christ the poisonfull nature of sin and all these not by a sudden beam darted into the window at a Sermon and gone again like a flash of lightning but by an abiding light this would spoile the devils market and poor creatures would not readily take this toad into their bosomes sin goes in a disguise and so is welcome Secondly it is darknesse because it brings darknesse into the soul and that naturally and judicially First Naturally There is a noxious quality in sin offensive to the understanding which is to the soule what the eye and palate are to the body It discernes of things and distinguisheth true from false as the eye white from black It tryeth words as the mouth tasteth meats Now as there are some things bad for the sight and others bad for the palate vitiating it so that it shall not know sweet from bitter so here sin besots the creature and makes it injudicious that he who could see such a practice absurd and base in others before when once he hath drunk of this inchanting cup himself as one that hath for done his understanding is mad of it himself not able now to see the evil of it or use his reason against it Thus Saul before he had debauch't his conscience thinks the Witch worthy of death but after he had trodden his conscience hard with other foule sins goes to ask counsel of one himself Again sin brings darknesse judiciously such have been threatened whose eare God hath been trying to open and instruct and have run out of Gods school into the devils by rebelling against light that they shall die without knowledge Iob 36.10 12. What should the candle burn wast when the creature hath more minde to play then work Thirdly Sinne runs into darknesse Impostors bring in their damnable Heresies privily like those who sell bad ware loath to come to the Market where the Standard tries all but put it off in secret so in moral wickednesse sinners like beasts go out in the night for their prey loath to be seen afraid to come where they should be found out Nothing more terrible to sinners then light of truth John 3.19 because their deeds are evil Felix was so netled with what Paul spake that he could not sit out the Sermon but flings away in haste and adjourns the hearing of Paul till a convenient season but he never could finde one The Sun is not more troublesome in hot Countreys then truth is to those who sit under the powerful preaching of it and therefore as those seldome come abroad in the heat of the day and when they must have their devices over their heads to skreene them from the Sun so sinners shun as much as may be the preaching of the Word but if they must go to keep in with their relations or for other carnal advantages they if possible will keep off the power of truth either by sleeping the Sermon away or prating it away with any foolish imagination which Satan sends to beare them company and chat with them at such a time or by choosing such a coole Preacher to sit under whose toothlesse discourse shall rather flatter then trouble rather tickle their fancy then prick their consciences and then their sore eyes can look upon the light Froreseentem amant veritatem qui non redarguentem they dare handle and look on the sword with delight when in a rich scabbard who would run away to see it drawn Fourthly Sinne is darknesse for its uncomfortab'enesse and that in a threefold respect First Darknesse is uncomfortable as it shuts out of all imployment What could the Egyptians do under the plague of darknesse but sit still and this to an active spirit is trouble enough Thus in a state of sinne
man is an unserviceable creature he can do his God no service acceptably spoiles everything he takes in hand like one running up and down in a shop when windows shut doth nothing right It maybe writ on the grave of every sinner who lives and dies in that state Here lies the man that never did God an hours work in all his life Secondly Darknesse is uncomfortable in point of enjoyment be there never such rare pictures in the roome if dark who the better A soul in a state of sinne may possesse much but enjoyes nothing this is a sore evil and little thought of One thought of its state of enmity to God would drop bitternesse into every cup all he hath smells of hell fire and a man at a rich feast would enjoy it sure but little if he smelt fire ready to burn his house and himself in it Thirdly Darknesse fills with terrours fears in the night are most dreadfull a state of sin is a state of fear Men that owe much have no quiet but when they are asleep and not then neither the cares and fears of the day sink so deep as makes their rest troublesome and unquiet in the night The wicked hath no peace but when his conscience sleeps and that sleeps but brokenly awaking often with sick fits of terrour when he hath most prosperity he is scared like a flock of birds in a corn-field at every piece going off He eats in fear and drinks in fear when afflicted he expects worse behinde and knows not what this cloud may spread to and where it may lay him whether in hell or not he knows not and therefore trembles as one in the dark not knowing but his next step may be into the pit Fifthly sin leads to utter darknesse utter darknesse is darknesse to the utmost Sin in its full height and wrath in its full heat together both universal both eternal Here 's some mixture peace and trouble paine and ease sin and thoughts of repenting sin and hopes of pardon there the fire of wrath shall burn without slacking and sin run parallel with torment hell-birds are no changelings their torment makes them sin and their sin feeds their torment both unquenchable one being fuel to another Secondly let us see how it appears that such as are under a state of sin are under the rule of Satan Sinners are call'd the children of the devil 1 John 3.10 and who rules the childe but the Father they are slaves who rules the slave but the Master they are the very mansion-house of the devil where hath a man command but in his own house I will go to my house Mat. 12.44 As if the devil had said I have walk't among the Saints of God to and fro knocking at this door and that and none will bid me welcome I can finde no rest well I know where I may be bold I 'le even go to my own house and there I am sure to rule the roste without controul and when he comes he findes it empty swept and garnished that is all ready for his entertainment Servants make the house trim and handsom against their Master come home especially when he brings guests with him as here the devil brings seven more Look to the sinner there is nothing he is or hath but the devil hath dominion over it He rules the whole man their mindes blinding them All the sinners apprehension of things are shaped by Satan he looks on sin with the devils spectacles he reads the Word with the devils comment he sees nothing in its native colours but is under a continual delusion The very wisdome of a wicked man is said to be devillish James 3.15 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or devil-like because taught by the devil and also such as the devils is wise only to do evil He commands their Wills though not to force them yet effectually to draw them His work saith Christ ye will do You are resolved on your way the devil hath got your hearts and him you will obey and therefore when Christ comes to recover his throne he findes the soule in an uproare as Ephesus at Pauls Sermon crying him down and Diana up We will not have this man reigne over us what is the Almighty that we should serve him He rules over all their members they are call'd weapons of unrighteousness all at the devils service as all the armes of a Kingdome to defend the Prince against any that shall invade The head to plot the hand to act the feet swift to carry the body up and down about his service He rules over all he hath Let God come in a poor member and beseech him to lend him a penny or bestow a morsel to refresh his craving bowels and the covetous wretch his hand of charity is withered that he cannot stretch it forth but let Satan call and his purse flies open and heart also Nabal that could not spare a few fragments for David and his followers this churle could make a feast like a Prince to satiate his own lust of gluttony and drunkennesse He commands their time when God calls to duty to pray to hear no time all the week to be spared for that but if the sinner hears there is a merry meeting a knot of good fellows at the Ale-house all is thrown aside to wait on his Lord and Master calling left at six and sevens yea wife and children crying may be starving while the wretch is pouring out their very blood in wasting their livelihood at the foot of his lust The sinner is in the bond of iniquity and being bound he must obey He is said to go after his lust as the fool to the stocks Prov. 7.22 The pinion'd malefactour can assoon untie his own armes and legs and so run from his Keeper as he from his lusts They are servants and their members instruments of sin even as the Workman takes up his axe and it resists not so doth Satan dispose of them except God saith nay See here the deplored condition of every one in a state of sin He is under the rule of Satan and government of hell What tongue can utter what heart can conceive the misery of this state It was a dismal day which Christ foretold Matth. 24. When the abomination of desolation should be seen standing in the Holy place then saith Christ let him that is in Judea flee into the mountains But what was that to this they were but men though abominable these devils They did but stand in the material Temple defile and deface that but these display their banners in the soules of men pollute that throne which is more glorious then the material heaven it self made for God alone to sit in They exercised their cruelties at furthest on the bodies of men killing and torturing them here the precious soules of men are destroyed When David would curse to purpose the enemies of God he prayes that Satan may be at their right hand 'T
Christians that are not instructed in the grounds of Christianity The want of this is the cause why many are so unstedfast First of this way and then of that blown like glasses into any shape as false Teachers please to breath Alas they have no center to draw their lines from think it no disgrace you who have runne into error and lost your selves in the labyrinths of deep points which now are the great discourse of the weakest professors to be set back to learn the first principles of the Oracles of God better too many are as Tertullian saith in another case pudoris magìs memores quà m salutis more tender of their reputation then their salvation who are more ashamed to be thought ignorant then careful to have it cured Fifthly If thou wouldst attain to divine knowledge wait on the Ministery of the Word As for those who neglect this and come not where the Word is Preacht they do like one that should turn his back on the Sunne that he may see it if thou wouldst know God come where he hath appointed thee to learn Indeed where the meanes is not God hath extraordinary wayes as a Father if no School in Town will teach his childe at home but if there be a publick School thither he sends him God maketh manifest saith Paul the savour of his knowledge by us in every place 2 Cor. 2.14 Let men talk of the Spirit what they please He will at last be found a quencher of the Spirit that is a despiser of Prophecy they both stand close together 1 Thes 5.19 20. Quench not the Spirit Despise not Prophesying But it is not enough to sit under the meanes Wofull experience teacheth us this there are some no Sun will tan they keep their old complexion under the most shining and burning light of the Word preached as ignorant and prophane as those that never saw Gospel-day and therefore if thou wilt receive any spirituall advantage by the Word take heed how thou hearest First Look thou beest a wakefull hearer Is it any wonder he should go away from the Sermon no wiser then he came that sleeps the greatest part of it away or heares betwixt sleeping and waking It must be in a dreame sure if God reveales any thing of his mind to him So indeed God did to the Fathers of old but it was not as they prophanely slept under an Ordinance O take heed of such irreverence He that composeth himselfe to sleep as some do at such a time or he that is not humbled for it and that deeply both of them betray a base and low esteeme they have of the Ordinance Surely thou thinkest but meanly of what is delivered if it will not keep thee awake yea of God himselfe whose message it is See how thou art reproved by the awfull carriage of a Heathen and that a King Ehud did but say to Eglon I have a message from God unto thee And he arose out of his seate Judge 3.20 And thou clapest downe on thy seat to sleep O how darest thou put such an affront upon the great God How oft did you fall asleep at dinner or telling your money And is not the Word of God worth more then these I should wonder if such Sermon-sleepers do dreame of any thing but hell-fire 'T is dangerous you know to fall asleep with a candle burning by our side some have been so burnt in their beds but more dangerous to sleep while the candle of the Word is shining so neare us What if you should sinke downe dead like Eatychus here is no Paul to raise you as he had and that you shall not where is your security Secondly Thou must be an attentive hearer He that is awake but wanders with his eye or heart what doth he but sleep with his eyes open It were as good the servants should be asleep in his bed as when up not to minde his Masters businesse When God intends a soul good by the Word he drawes such a one to listen and hearken heedfully to what is delivered as we see in Lydia who 't is said attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul And those Luke 1948. The people were attentive to heare him They did hang on him as you shall see Bees on some sweet flower or as young birds on the bills of their dammes as they feed them that is the soul which shall get light and life by the Word Heare ye children and attend to know understanding Prov. 4.1 Labour therefore in hearing the Word to fixe thy quicksilver-minde and set thy selfe to heare as 't is said Jehosaphat did to pray and that thou maiest before thou goest get thy heart into some deep sense of thy spirituall wants especially of thy ignorance of the things of God and thy deplored condition by reason of it till the heart be toucht the minde will not be fixt Therefore you may observe 't is said God open'd the heart of Lydia that she attended Acts 16.14 The Minde goes of the Wils errand we spend our thoughts upon what our hearts propose If the heart hath no sense of its ignorance or no desires after God no wonder such a one listens not what the Preacher saith his heart sends his mind another way They sit before thee as my people saith God but their heart goeth after their covetousnesse They do not come out of such an intent or desire to heare for any good to their soules then they would apply themselves wholly to the work no it is their covetousnesse hath their hearts and therefore as some idle servant when he hath waited on his Master brought him to his pew then he goes out to his good fellowes at the Alehouse and comes no more till Sermon be almost done so do the thoughts of most when they go to the Ordinance they slip out in the street market or shop you may finde them any where but about the duty before them and all because these have their hearts more then God and his Word Thirdly Thou must be a retentive hearer without this the worke will ever be to begin againe Truths to a forgetfull hearer are as a seale set on water the impression lasts no longer then the seale is on the Sermon once done and all is undone be therefore very carefull to fasten what thou hearest on thy memory which that thou maiest do First receive the truth in the love of it An affectionate hearer will not be a forgetfull hearer Love helpes the memory Can a woman forget her childe or a maide her ornaments or a bride her attire No they love them too well Were the truths of God thus precious to thee thou wouldest with David think of them day and night Even when the Christian through weaknesse of memory cannot remember the very words he heares to repeate them yee then he keeps the power and savour of them in his spirit as when sugar is dissolved in wine you cannot see it but you may taste it
Ezek. 36.31 ye shall remember your wayes and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight c. And when shall this be but when God would save them from all their uncleannesses as appears v. 25. yet notwithstanding this there remain such dregs of corruption unpurged out of the best that Satan findes it not impossible to make the manifestations of Gods love an occasion of pride to the Christian and truly God lets us see our pronenesse to this sin in the short stay he makes when he comes with any greater discoveries of his love The Comforter 't is true abides for ever in the Saints bosome but his joyes they come and are gone again quickly They are as exceedings with which he feasts the believer but the cloth is soon drawn and why so but because we cannot bear them for our every day food A short interview of heaven and a vision of love now and then upon the mount of an ordinance or affliction cheeres the spirits of drooping Christians who might they have leave to build Tabernacles there and dwell under a constant shine of such manifestations would be prone to forget themselves and think they were Lords of their own comforts If holy Paul was in danger of falling into this distemper of pride from his short rapture to prevent which God saw it needful to let him blood with a thorne in the flesh would not our blood much more grow too rank and we too crank and wanton if we should feed long on such luscious food And therefore if ever Christian thou hadst need to watch then is the time when comforts abound and God dandles thee most on the knee of his love when his face shines with clearest manifestations lest this sin of pride as a thief in the candle should swaile out thy joy To prevent which thou shouldest do well First to look that thou measurest not thy grace by thy comfort lest so thou beest led into a false opinion that thy grace is strong because thy comforts are so Satan will be ready to help forward such thoughts as a fit medium to life thee up and slacken thy care in duty for the future Such discoveries do indeed bear witnesse to the truth of thy grace but not to the decree and measure of it the weak childe may be yea is oftner in the lap then the strong Secondly do not so much applaud thy self in thy present comfort as labour to improve it for the glory of God Vp and eate saith the Angel to the Prophet because the journey is too great for thee The manifestations of Gods love are to fit us for our work It is one thing to rejoyce in the light of our comfort and another to go forth in the power of the Spirit comforting us as Giants refreshed with this wine to run our race of duty and obedience with more strength and alacrity He shews his pride that spends his time in telling his money meerly to see how rich he is but he his wisdom that layes out his money and trades with it The boaster of his comforts will lose what he hath when he that improves his comforts in a fuller trade of duty shall adde more to what he hath Thirdly remember thou dependest on God for the continuance of thy comfort They are not the smiles thou hadst yesterday can make thee joyous to day any more then the bread thou didst then eate can make thee strong without more thou needest new discoveries for new comforts let God hide his face and thou wilt soon lose the sight and forget the taste of what thou even now hadst It is beyond our skill or power to preserve those impressions of joy and comfortable apprehensions of Gods favour on our spirits which sometimes we finde as Gods presence brings those so when he goes he carries them away with him as the setting-Sun doth the day We would laugh heartily at him who when the Sun shines in at his window should think by shutting that to imprison the Sun-beams in his chamber and doest thou not shew as much folly who thinkest because thou now hast comfort thou therefore shalt never be in darknesse of Spirit more The believers comfort is like Israels Manna 't is not like our ordinary bread and provision we buy at market and lock up in our Cupboards where we can go to it when we will no it is rained as that was from heaven Indeed God provided for them after this sort to humble them Deut. 8.16 Who fed thee in the wildernesse with Manna which thy fathers knew not that he might humble thee It was not because such mean food that God is said to humble them for it was delicious food therefore call'd Angels food Psal 78.25 Such as if Angels did eate might serve them But the manner of the dispensing it from hand to mouth every day their portion and no more so that God kept the key of their Cupboard they stood to his immediate allowance and thus God communicates our spiritual comforts for the same end to humble us So much for this second sort of spiritual wickednesse I had thought to have instanced in some other as hypocrisie unbelief formality but possibly the subject being general what I have already said may be thought but a digression and that too long I shall therefore conclude this branch of spiritual wickednesse in a word to those who are yet in a natural and unsanctified state which is to stir them up from what I have said concerning Satans assaulting beleevers with such temptations to consider seriously how that Satans chief designe against them also lies in the same sins These are the wickednesses he labours to ingulph you in above all others If ever you perish it will be by the hand of these sins 'T is your feared conscience blinde minde and dedolent impenitent heart will be your undoing if you miscarry finally Other sins the devil knowes are preparatory to these and therefore he drawes thee into them to bring thee into these Two wayes they prepare a way to spiritual sins First as they naturally dispose the sinner to them 't is the nature of sin to blinde the minde stupifie the conscience harden the heart as is implied Heb. 3.13 Lest your heart be hardened through the deceitfulnesse of sin As the feet of Travellers beat the high way hard so does walking in carnal grosse sins the heart they benumbe the conscience so that in time the sinner loses his feeling and can carry his lusts in his heart as Bedlams their pins in their very flesh without pain and remorse Secondly as they do provoke God by a judiciary act to give them up to these sins Lam. 3.65 Give them obstinacy of heart so 't is in your margin thy curse unto them and when the devil hath got sinners at this passe then he hath them under lock and key They are the fore-runners of damnation if God leave thy heart hard and unbroken
a Tradesman out of his shop now and then but he is as a fish out of the water never in his element till he be in his calling again Thus when the Christian is about the world and the worldling about heavenly matters both are men out of their way not right girt till they get into their employment again Now this heavenly trade is that which Satan doth in an especial manner labour to stop Could the Christian enjoy but a free trade with heaven a few years without molestation he would soon grow a rich man too rich indeed for earth but what with losses sustained by the hands of this Pyrate Satan and also the wrong he receives by the treachery of some in his own bosome that like unfaithful servants hold correspondence with this robber he is kept but low in this life and much of his gaines are lost Now the Christians heavenly trade lies either within doors or abroad he can be free in neither Satan is at his heels in both First within doores This I may call his home-trade which is spent in secret between God and his own soule here the Christian drives an unknown trade he is at heaven and home again richly laden in his thoughts with heavenly meditations before the world knows where he hath been Every creature he sees is a text for his heart to raise some spiritual matter and observations from Every Sermon he heares cuts him out work to make up and enlarge upon when he gets alone Every Providence is as winde to his sailes and sets his heart a moving in some heavenly affection or other suitable to the occasion One while he is wrap't up with joy in the consideration of mercy another while melted into godly sorrow from the sense of his sins Sometimes exalting God in his praises anon abusing himself before God for his own vilenesse One while he is at the breast of the Covenant milking out the consolations of the Promises at another time working his heart into a holy awe and feare of the threatenings Thus the Christian walks aloft while the base worldling is licking the dust below One of these heavenly pearles which the Christian trades for is more worth then the worldling gets with all his sweat and travel in his whole life The Christians feet stand where other mens heads are he treads on the Moon and is clothed with the Sun he looks down on earthly men as one from a high hill doth upon those that live in some fenne or moore and sees them buried in a fog of carnal pleasures and profits while he breaths in a pure heavenly aire but yet not so high as to be free from all stormes and tempests many a sad gust he hath from sin and Satan without What else mean those sad complaints and groans which come from the children of God that their hearts are so dead and dull their thoughts so roving and unfixt in duty yea many times so wicked and filthy that they dare hardly tell what they are for feare of staining their own lips and offending the eares of others by naming them Surely the Christian findes it in his heart to will and desire he could meditate pray heare and live after another sort then this doth he not yes I durst be his surety he doth But so long as there is a devil tempts and we continue within his walk it will be thus more or lesse as fast as we labour to clear the spring of our hearts he will be labouring to royle or stop it again so that we have two works to do at once to performe a duty and watch him that opposeth us trowel and sword both in our hands They had need work hard indeed who have others continually endeavouring to pull down as they are labouring to rear up the building Secondly that part of the Christians trade which lies abroad is heavenly also Take a Christian in his relations calling neighbourhood he is a heavenly trader in all the great businesse of his life is to be doing or receiving some good that company is not for him that will neither give nor take this What should a Merchant be where there is no buying nor selling Every one labours as his calling is to seat himself where trade is quickest and he is likest to have most takings The Christian where he may choose takes such in relations near to himself husband wife servants as may suite with his heavenly trade and not such as will be a pull-back to him he falls in with the holiest persons as his dearest acquaintance if there be a Saint in the town where he lives he 'll finde him out and this shall be the man he will consort with and in his conversation with these and all else his chief work is for heaven his heavenly principle within inclines him to it Now this alarums hell What not contented to go to heaven himself but by his holy example gracious speeches sweet counsels seasonable reproofs will he be trading with others and labour to carry them along with him also This brings the Lion fell and mad out of his den such to be sure shall finde the devil in their way to oppose them I would have come saith Paul but Sacan hindered me He that will vouch God and let it appear by the tenure of his conversation that he trades for him shall have enemies enough if the devil can help him to such Thirdly the Christians hopes are all heavenly he lots not upon any thing the world hath to give him Indeed he would think himself the most miserable man of all others if here were all he could make of his Religion No 't is heaven and eternal life that he expects and though he be so poor as not to be able to make a Will of a groat yet he counts himself a greater heire then if he were childe to the greatest Prince on earth This inheritance he sees by faith and can rejoyce in the hope of the glory which it will bring him The masquery and cheating glory of the great ones of this world moves him not to envy their fanciful pomp but when on the dunghil himself he can forget his own present sorrowes to pity them in all their bravery knowing that within a few dayes the crosse will be off his back and the crowns off their heads together their portion will be spent when he shall be to receive all his These things entertain him with such joy that they will not suffer him to acknowledge himself miserable when others think him and the devil tells him he is such This this torments the very soule of the devil to see the Christian under saile for heaven fill'd with the sweet hope of his joyful entertainment when he comes there and therefore he raiseth what stormes and tempests he can either to hinder his arrival in that blessed Port which he most desires and doth not wholly despair of or at least to make it a troublesome winter-voyage such as
ch 4. v. 2 3 4. who had a minde to his Kinsman Elimelechs land and would have paid for the purchase but he liked not to have it by marrying Ruth and so missed of it Some seem very forward to have heaven and salvation if their own righteousnesse could procure the same all the good they do and duties they performe they lay up for this purchase but at last perish because they close not with Christ and take not heaven in his right A third sort are content to have it by Christ but their desires are so impotent and listlesse that they put them upon no vigourous use of means to obtain him and so like the sluggard they starve because they will not pull their hands out of their bosome of sloth to reach their food that is before them for the world they have mettal enough and too much they trudge far and near for that and when they have run themselves out of breath can stand and pant after the dust of the earth as the Prophet phraseth it Amos 2.7 But for Christ and obtaining interest in him O how key-cold are they there is a kinde of cramp invades all the powers of their soules when they should pray hear examine their hearts draw out their affections in hungrings and thirstings after his grace and Spirit 'T is strange to see how they even now went full soop to the world are suddenly becalm'd not a breath of winde stirring to any purpose in their soules after these things and is it any wonder that Christ and Heaven should be denied to them that have no more mind to them Lastly some have zeal enough to have Christ Heaven but it is when the Master of the house is risen and hath shut to the door and truly then they may stand long enough rapping before any come to let them in There is no Gospel preached in another world but as for thee poor soul who art perswaded to renounce thy lusts throw away the conceit of thy own righteousnesse that thou mayest run with more speed to Christ and art so possest with the excellency of Christ thy own present need of him and salvation by him that thou pantest after him more then life it self In Gods Name go on and speed be of good comfort he calls thee by name to come unto him that thou mayest have rest for thy soul There is an office in the Word where thou mayest have thy soule and its eternal happinesse ensured to thee Those that come to him as he will himself in no wise cast away so not suffer any other to pluck them away This day saith Christ to Zaccheus salvation is come to thy house Luke 19.9 Salvation comes to thee poore soul that openest thy heart to receive Christ thou hast eternal life already as sure as if thou wert a glorified Saint now walking in that heavenly City O Sirs if there were a free trade proclaimed to the Indies enough gold for all that went and a certainty of making a safe voyage who would stay at home But alas this can never be had all this and infinitely more may be said for heaven and yet how few leave their uncertain hopes of the world to trade for it what account can be gi-given for this but the desperate atheisme of mens hearts they are not yet fully perswaded whether the Scripture speaks true or not whether they may relie upon the discovery that God makes in his Word of this new-found land and those mines of spiritual treasure there to be had as certain God open the eyes of the unbelieving world as he did the Prophets servants that they may see these things to be realities and not fictions 't is faith only that gives a being to these things in our hearts By faith Moses saw him that was invisible Thirdly earthly things when we have them we are not sure of them like birds they hop up and down now on this hedge and anon upon that none can call them his own rich to day and poor to morrow In health when we lie down and arrested with pangs of death before midnight Joyful Parents one while solacing our selves with the hopes of our budding posterity and may be ere long knocks one of Jobs messengers at our door to tell us they are all dead now in honour but who knows whether we shall not live to see that butied in scorn and reproach The Scripture compares the multitude of people to waters the great ones of the world sit upon these waters as the ship floates upon the waves so do their honours upon the breath and favour of the multitude and bow long is he like to sit that is carried upon a wave one while they are mounted up to heaven as David speaks of the ship and then down again they fall into the deep We have ten parts in the King say the men of Israel 2 Sam. 19.45 and in the very next verse Sheba doth but sound a trumpet of sedition saying We have no part in David no inheritance in the son of Jesse and the winde is in another corner presently for it 's said Every man of Israel went up from after David and followed Sheba Thus was David cried up and down and that almost in the same breath Unhappy man he that hath no surer portion then what this variable world will afford him The time of mourning for the departure of all earthly enjoyments is at hand we shall see them as Eglons servants did their Lord fallen down dead before us and weep because they are not What folly then is it to dandle this vaine world in our affections whose joy like the childes laughter on the mothers knee is sure to end in a cry at last and neglect heaven and heavenly things which endure for ever O remember Dives stirring up his pillow and composing himself to rest how he was call'd up with the tydings of death before he was warme in this his bed of ease and laid with sorrow on another which God had made for him in flames from whence we hear him roaring in the anguish of his conscience O soule couldest thou get but an interest in the heavenly things we are speaking of these would not thus slip from under thee heaven is a Kingdom that cannot be shaken Christ an abiding portion his graces and comforts sure waters that faile not but spring up unto eternal life The quailes that were food for the Israelites lust soon ceased but the rock that was drink to their faith followed them this rock is Christ make sure of him and he will make sure of thee he 'll follow thee to thy sick-bed and lie in thy bosome chearing thy heart with his sweet comforts when worldly joyes lie cold upon thee as Davids cloathes on him and no warmth of comfort to be got from them When thy outward senses are lock't up that thou canst neither see the face of thy dear friends nor hear the counsel and comfort they would give
without any such a burden that therefore he was grown weaker you would soon tell him where his mistake lies Temptation lies not in the same heavinesse alway upon the Christians shoulder observe therefore whether Satan is not more then ordinary let loose to assault thee whether thy temptations come not with more force and violence then ever possibly though thou doest not with the same facility overcome these as thou hast done lesse yet grace may act stronger in conflicting with the greater then in overcoming the lesse The same ship that when lightly ballasted and favoured with the winde goes mounting at another time deeply laden and going against winde and tide may move with a slow pace and yet they in the ship take more pains to make it sail thus then they did when it went faster Secondly positively how thou mayest conclude that grace is declining and that in a threefold respect First in reference to temptations to sin Secondly in reference to the duties of Gods worship Thirdly the frame of thy heart in worldly employments First in reference to sin and that is threefold First when thou art not so wakeful to discover the encroachings of sin upon thee as formerly at one time we finde Davids heart smote him when he but rent the skirt of Sauls garment at another time when his eye glanced on Bathsheba he takes no such notice of the snare Satan had him in and so is led from one sin to another which plainly shewed that grace in him was heavy-eyed and his heart not in so holy a frame as it had been If an enemy comes up to the gates and the sentinel not so much as give an alarm to the City of his approach it shewes he is off his guard either fallen asleep or worse If grace were awake and thy conscience had not contracted some hardnesse it would do its office Secondly when a temptation to sin is discovered and thou findest thy heart shut up that thou doest not pray against it or not with that zeal and holy indignation as formerly upon such occasions it is a bad signe that lust hath got an advantage of thy grace that thou canst not readily betake thy selfe to thy armes Thy affections are bribed and this makes thee so cold a Suitour at the throne of grace for helpe against thine enemy Thirdly when the arguments prevailing most with thee to resist temptations to sin or to mourn for sin committed are more carnal and lesse Evangelical then formerly may be thou remembrest when thy love to Christ would have spit fire on the face of Satan tempting thee to such a sin but now that holy fire is so abated that if there were not some other carnal motives to make the vote full it would hazard to be carried for it rather then against it and so in mourning for a sin there is possibly now some slavish arguments like an onion in the eye which makes thee weep rather then pure ingenuity arising from love to God whom thou hast offended this speaks a sad decay and the more mixture there is of such carnal arguments either in the resisting of or mourning for sin the greater the declination of grace is Davids natural heat sure was much decayed when he needed so many cloathes to be laid on him and he yet feel so little heat the time was he would have sweat with fewer I am afraid many their love to Christ will be found in these declining times to have lost so much of its youthful vigour that what would formerly have put them into a holy fury and burning zeal against some sins such as Sabbath-breaking pride of apparel neglect of family-duties c. hath now much ado to keep any heat at all in them against the same Secondly in point of duties of worship First if thy heart doth not prompt thee with that forwardnesse and readinesse as formerly to hold communion with God in any duty possibly thou knowest the time when thy heart echoed back to the motions of Gods Spirit bidding thee Seek his face Thy face Lord will I seek yea thou didst long as much till a Sabbath or Sermon-season came as the carnal wretch doth till it be gone but now thy pulse doth not beat so quick a march to the Ordinances publick or secret nature cannot but decay if appetite to food go away a craving soule is the thriving soule such a childe that will not let his mother rest but is frequently crying for the breast Secondly when thou declinest in thy care to performe duties in a spiritual sort and to preserve the sense of those more inward failings which in duty none but thy self can check thee of It is not frequency of duty but spirituality in duty causeth thriving and therefore neglect in this point soon brings grace into a consumptive posture Possibly soul the time was thou wert not satisfied with praying but thou didst watch thy heart strictly as a man would every piece in a summe of money he payes lest he should wrong his friend with any brasse or uncurrant coin thou wouldest have God not only have duty but duty stamp't with that faith which makes it currant have that zeal and sincerity which makes it Gospel-weight but now thou art more careless and formal O look to it poor soul thou wilt if thou continue thus carelesse melt in thy spiritual estate apace Such dealings will spoil thy trade with heaven God will not take off these slighty duties at thy hands Thirdly when a Christian gets little spiritual nourishment from communion with God to what it hath done The time hath been may be thou couldest shew what came of thy praying hearing and fasting but now the case is altered There is a double strength communion with God imparts to a soule in a healthful disposition strength to faith and strength for our obediential walking doest thou hear and pray and get no more strength to hold by a promise no more power over or brokennesse of heart under thy usual corruptions what come down the Mount and break the Tables of Gods Law assoon as thou art off the place as deep in thy passion as uneven in thy course as before there is a sure decay of that inward heat which should and would if in its right temper suck some nourishment from these Thirdly by thy behaviour in thy worldly employments First when thy worldly occasions do not leave thee in so free and spiritual a disposition to return into the presence of God as formerly may be thou couldest have come from thy shop and family-employments to thy closet and finde that they have kept thee in frame yea may be delivered thee up in a better frame for those duties but now 't is otherwise thou canst not so shake them off but they cleave to thy spirit and give an earthly savour to thy praying and hearing thou hast reason to bewail it when nature decayes men go more stooping and 't is a signe some such decay is in thee