reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
fleshly Pleasures tend He that by faith hath seen both Heav'n and Hell And what sin costeth at the last can tell He that hath try'd and tasted Better things And felt that love from which all pleasure springs They that still watch and for Christs coming wait Can turn away from or despise the bait Flesh Must I be made the foot-ball of disdain And call'd a precise fool or Puritane Spirit Remember him that did despise the shame And for thy sake bore undeserved blame Thy journey 's of small moment if thou stay Because dogs bark or stones lie in the way If life lay on it wouldst thou turn again For the winds blowing or a little rain Is this thy greatest love to thy dear Lord That canst not for his sake bear a foul word Wilt thou not bear for him a scorners breath That underwent for thee a cursed death Is not Heav'n worth the bearing of a flout Then blame not Justice when it shuts thee out Will these deriders stand to what they say And own their words at the great dreadful day Then they 'd be glad when wrath shall overtake them To eat their wrrds and say they never spake them Flesh How Forsake all Ne're mention it more to me I 'le be of no Religion to undo me Spirit Is it not thine more in thy Fathers hand Than when it is laid out at sins command And is that sav'd that 's spent upon thy lust Or which must be a prey to thieves or rust And wouldst thou have thy riches in thy way Where thou art passing on and canst not stay And is that lost that 's sent to Heav'n before Hadst thou not rather have thy friends and store Where thou may dwell for ever in the light Of that long glorious day that fears no night Flesh But who can willingly submit to Death Which will bereave us of our life and breath That laies our flesh to rot in loathsome graves Where brains and eyes were leaves but ugly caves Spirit So nature breaks and casts away the shell Where the now beauteous singing bird did dwell The secundine that once the infant cloath'd After the birth is cast away and loath'd Thus Roses drop their sweet leaves under-foot But the Spring shews that life was in the root Souls are the Roots of Bodies Christ the Head Is Root of both and will revive the dead Our Sun still shineth when with us it's night When he returns we shall shine in his light Souls that behold and praise God with the Just Mourn not because their bodies are but dust Graves are but beds where flesh till morning sleep's Or Chests where God a while our garments keep 's Our folly thinks he spoils them in the keeping Which causeth our excessive fears and Weeping But God that doth our rising day foresee Pittie 's not rotting flesh so much as we The birth of Nature was deform'd by sin The birth of Grace did our repair begin The birth of Glory at the Resurrection Finisheth all and brings both to persection Why should not fruit when it is mellow fall Why would we linger here when God doth call Flesh The things and persons in this world I see But after death I know not what will be Spirit Know'st thou not that which God himself hath spoken Thou hast his promise which was never broken Reason proclaims that noble heav'n-born souls Are made for higher things than worms and moles God hath not made such faculties in vain Nor made his service a deluding pain But faith resolves all doubts and hears the Lord Telling us plainly by his Holy Word That uncloath'd souls shall with their Saviour dwell Triumphing over sin and death and hell And by the power of Almighty Love Stars shall arise from graves to shine above There we shall see the Glorious face of God His blessed presence shall be our abode The face that banisheth all doubts and fears Shuts out all sins and dryeth up all tears That face which darkeneth the Suns bright rayes Shall shine us into everlasting joyes Where Saints and Angels shall make up one Chore To praise the Great Jehovah evermore Flesh Reason not with me against sight and sense I doubt all this is but a vain pretence Words against nature are not worth a rush One bird in hand is worth two in the bush If God will give me Heav'n at last I 'le take it But for my Pleasure here I 'le not forsake it Spirit And wilt thou keep it bruitsh flesh how long Wilt thou not shortly sing another song When Conscience is awakened keep thy mirth When Sickness and Death comes hold fast this earth Live if thou canst when God saith come away Try whether all thy friends can cause thy stay Wilt thou tell death and God thou wilt not die And wilt thou the consuming fire defie Art thou not sure to let go what thou hast And doth not Reason bid thee then forecast And value the least hope of endless joyes Before known vanities and dying toyes And can the Lord that is most just and wise Found all mans duty in deceit and lies GET thee behind me Satan thou dost savour The things of flesh and not his dearest favour Who is my Life and Light and Love and All And so shall be whatever shall befall It is not thou but I that must discern And must Resolve It 's I that hold the stern Be silent Flesh speak not against my God Or else hee 'l teach thee better by the rod. I am resolved thou shalt live and die A servant or a conquered enemy LOrd charge not on me what this rebel sayes That alwaies was against me and thy wayes Now stop its mouth by Grace that shortly must Through just but gainful death be stopt with dust The thoughts and words of Flesh are none of mine Let Flesh say what it will I will be thine Whatever this rebellious Flesh shall prate Let me but serve the Lord at any rate Use me on earth as seemeth good to thee So I in Heav'n thy Glorious face may see Take down my Pride let me dwell at thy feet The humble are for earth and heav'n most meet Renouncing Flesh I Vow my self to thee With all the Talents thou hast lent to me Let me not stick at honour wealth or blood Let all my dayes be spent in doing good Let me not trifle out more precious hours But serve thee now with all my strength and powers If Flesh would tempt me to deny my hand Lord these are the Resolves to which I stand Richard Baxter October 29. 1659. The laâ—e Lord Chief Justice Oliver St. John See my Reasons of the Christ â—â—â—g since written I may with Tertullian call all our enemies to search their Court Records and â—ce how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality but for obeying Conscience against the interest or wills of some who think that Conscience should give place to their Commands Read the two or three last Chapters in Dr. Holden's Analâ—fidei Read Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Rogers books against me and the souldiers openly thâ—â— calumaiâ—â—ed me and thâ—e in eâ— my death as the said Authors â—eâ—red them to call me to a trâ—al even for speaking and writing against their casting dow the Government of the Land â—â—ing 〈◊〉 themselves and aâ—â—â—pting at once to Vo e out all the â—arâ—â—h 〈◊〉 I know that it hardneâ—h thousands in impenitency to say that Others have done worse and Is the matter mended with you And will it also eâ—se men in heâ—l to think that some others suffer more The Quuakers and other Self-esteemers are reverthemore reconcil'd to us now we have been eleven years turned out of all So common it is for selfish meâ— to make their gain sayers as odious as they can devise that I conâ—eâ—s I wondred that I me with no more of this dealing my self from Papists Anabaptists or any that have turned their stiâ—e against me And at last Mr. Pierce hath answered my expectation and from my own confession not knowing me himself hath drawn my picture that I am Proâ—â—i Lazie False an Hypocrite uâ—just a Reader c. And from this Bolsecks credit I make no doubt but the Papists will think they may warrantably descrâ—bâ— me if I be thought worthy their reâ—embrance in all following Ageâ— though now I have nothing from them but good wordâ— But it is a small thing to be judged by man especially when our â—â—uâ—â— enjoy the Lord. They way-laid the Messengers that I sent Letters by to friends took them from the â— by force seâ—â— them to 〈…〉 to the Council of State to the trouble of those I wrote to though nothing was found but â—â—noâ—ency And this was by my old 〈…〉 who differed from â—â—â— in nothing but â—â—tant 〈…〉 Changes of our Government and yet 〈…〉
greatness doth Experience telleth us that most men are best in a low estate insomuch that a bad man in sickness will speak better and seem more penitent and mortified than many better men in health It 's a wonderful hard thing to live like a Christian in a full prosperity and to be above this world and have lively apprehensions of the invisible things and live a heavenly conversation in Health and Wealth when our flesh hath so much provision at hand to accommodate and please it Prosperity doth powerfully corrupt the mind It breedeth many dangerous errors and vices and it maketh useless that knowledge which men have so that though such men can speak the same words as another about the matters of the life to come it is but dreamingly and without life Their Knowledge hath but little power on their hearts and lives The world is so Great with them which is as nothing that God and everlasting life are as nothing to them which are All. They are so full of the creature that they have no room for Christ and so busie about Earth that they have but little time for Heaven and taste so much sweetness in their present pomp that they cannot relish the true and durable delights They know their Morals as they know some Astronomical or Geometrical verities by an opinion or uneffectual Knowledge so that indeed they Know not what they Know Pausanias in his prosperity desiring to hear some secrets of Philosophy had no more from Simonides but Remember that thou art a man He contemned this at the present as a ridiculous Memento of that which no man could forget But when he was reduced to an extremity he then remembred the Philosophers Lesson and perceived there was more in it than he understood when he contemned it How little is there in a prosperous state that should seem desirable in a wise mans eyes why is it that great Travellers and Statesmen and all that have most tryed the world desire to withdraw from it toward the evening of their Age and to retire themselves into a private life that they may there look towards eternal things and cry out of the Vanity and Vexation which they have here found Must we not conceive them wiser after much experience than before and therefore wiser in their recess than in their aspirings and therefore that it's folly to be ambitious and wisdom to contemn the world why else do dying men most contemn it Dear friend you 'l think of these things more understandingly and more feelingly one of these dayes when you come to die than you can do now I would not for all the world have been without the advantages of looking death so often in the face as I have done since you first knew me If I have been but a while without this sight and have but conceited that yet I have many years to live alas how it hath enervated my Knowledge and my Meditations So that twenty times thinking the same holy thoughts will not do so much as once will do when I seem to be nearer my everlasting state And what doth worldly greatness add to your real worth in the eyes of God or of wise men Magistracy as a thing Divine I honour But James hath taught me not to be partial to the rich as rich and call up the man with the Gold Ring and gay attire and say to the poor Sit there at my footstool As to be proud of fine cloaths is a childish or womanish piece of folly below a man so to be proud of Victories and Dignities and wealth and worldly honours is the vanity of an Infidel or Atheist and below a Christian that hath the hopes of heaven If a man be holy he is above his worldly greatness and beareth it as his burden and feareth it as his snare And if he be Carnal he is the faster in his misery and golden fetters are stronger than any others A pebble-stone on the top of Atlas is but a pebble and a Pearl is a Pearl in the bottom of the Sea A nettle on the top of a mountain is but a nettle and a Cedar in the lowest valley is a Cedar If God dwell with the contrite and have respect to him that is poor and humble and trembleth at his word it seems they are most to be respected and are the most honourable if God can put more honour upon us by his approbation than man God will not ask us where we have grown in order to our Justification but what fruit we have born nor whether we were Rich or poor but whether we were Holy or unholy nor what was our station but How we behaved our selves in it Prosperity usually breedeth a tenderness and sickly frame of soul so that we can scarce look out of door but our affections take cold and can scarce feed on the most wholsome food but we receive it with some loathing or turn it to the matter of some disease But to worldly vanities it brâ—â—ds a Canine appetite so that ambitious wretches are like Dogs that greedily swallow the morsel that you cast them and presently gape for more But wholesome poverty hardeneth us against such tenderness and infirmities and breedeth not such diseases in the soul A poor mans rod when thou dost ride is both a weapon and a guide saith our serious Poet. I sleep most sweetly when I have travelled in the cold frost and snow are friends to the seed though they are enemies to the flower Adversity indeed is contrary to Glory but it befriendeth Grace Plutarch tells us that when Caesar past by a smoaky nasty Village at the foot of the Alpes some of his Commanders merrily askt him Whether there was such a stir for Commands and Dignities and Honours among those Cottages as there was at Rome The answer 's easie Do you think that an Antony a Mark a Hierom or such other of the antient retired Christians were not wiser and happier men than a Nero or a Caligula yea or a Julius or Augustus Caesar Is it a desirable thing to be a Lord or Ruler before we turn to common earth and as Marius that was one day made Emperour and reigned the next and was slain by a Souldier the next so to be worshipped to day and laid in the dust if not in Hell to morrow It was the saying of the Emperour Severus Omnia sui sed nihil expedit And of King David I have seen an end of all perfection O value these things but as they deserve Speak impartially Are not those that are striving to get up the Ladder foolish and ridiculous when those that are at the top have attained but danger trouble and envy and those that fall down are accounted miserable Sed nulla aconita bibuntur Fictilibus Juven There are more draughts of poyson given in Golden than in earthen Vessels saith the Poet. The Scythian therefore was no fool that when the Emperour Mich. Paleologus sent him precious Ornaments and
for our selves and not as duly subordinate to God The soul having unfaithfully and rebelliously withdrawn it self from God in point of Love and subjection it become its own Idol and looks no higher than it self and Loveth God and all things but for it self and principally for its carnal pleasure And the Propensity to this with the Privation of the souls Inclination to God is Original sin the Disposition suited to the actual sin that caused it which was a retiring from God to self He that feeleth not this evil in himself hath no true knowledge of Original sin And it 's the want of the sense of this great evil and so the want of being acquainted with their hearts that causeth so many to turn Pelagians and to deny the being of Orignal sin 2. Both selfishness and the want of a true discerning of it doth breed and feed abundance of errours and teach men to corrupt the whole body of Practical Divinity and to subvert many Articles of faith which stand in their way How comes the world to be all in a flame about the Universal Reign of the Pope of Rome but from the dominion of selfishness Whence is it that the Nations of the earth have been so troubled for Patriarchs Metropolitans and Diocesans that must do their work by others and for many things that at best can pretend to be but humane indifferent changeable forms but from the prevalency of Self Whence is it that mens consciences have been ensnared and the Churches troubled by so many Ceremonies of mens invention and the Church must rather lose her faithfullest Pastors than they be permitted to worship God as Peter and Paul did Hath not selfishness and Pride done this It is self that hath taught some to plead too much for their own sufficiency and to deny the need of special Grace And so far hath it prevailed with some of late as to lead them Doctrinally to deny that God is the Ultimate End of man and to be Loved for himself and above our selves and all things but only they say he is our finis cujus vel rei to be loved amore concupiscentiae In a word it is this woful principle that hath corrupted Doctrine Discipline and Worship in so many of the Churches 3. We shall never have Peace in Church or Common-wealth while selfishness bears sway Every mans Interest will be preferred before the publick Interest and rise against it as oft which will be oft as they seem inconsistent This is the Vice that informeth Tyranny whether it be Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy when selfish interest is preferred before the Common Interest This makes our people think themselves too wise or too good to learn or to be guided by their Pastors and every man of this strain seems wise enough to lead off a party of the Church into a mutiny against the Pastors and the rest This makes the labours of Reconcilers unsuccessful while selfishness engageth so many wits and tongues and pens and parties against the most necessary equal terms and endeavours of such as would Reconcile Were it not for these selfish men how soon would all our rents be healed how soon would all our wars be ended and all our heart-burnings and malicious oppositions be turned into charitable consultations for an holy peace If once men were carryed above themselves they would meet in God the Center of Unity 4. It is for want of self denial that we undergo so many disappointments and suffer so much disquietment and vexation Were our wills more entirely subjected to the will of God so that his will were preferred before our own we should Rest in his will and have no contradictory desires to be disappointed and no mâ—tâ—er left for self-vexation Had we no disease we should feel no pain and it is our self-will rebelling against the will of God that is our disease Self-denial removeth all the venom from our hearts Persecution and poverty and sickness may touch our fleâ—h but the heart is fortified so far as we have his Grace O how happily doth it quiet and calm the mind when things befall us that would even distract a selfish man O happy man where God is All and Self is Nothing There Duty and Love and Joy are all and trouble and distress is nothing These are not our matters now Partly because we are above them and partly because they belong not to our care but to his Povidence Let us do our Duty and adhere to him and let him dispose of us as he sees meet Who would much fear a Tyrant or any other enemy that saw God and Glory which faith can see Did we see the glorious Throne of Christ we should be so far from trembling at the bar of Persecutors that we should scarce so much regard them as to answer them the infinite Glory would so potently divert our minds As we scarce hearken to our childreâ—s impertinent babblings when we are taken up with great Affairs so if a Tyrant talk to us of â—â—â—â—ging or imprisonment we should scarce hearkeâ— to such trivial impertinencies were we so far above our selves as Faith and Love should advance the soul I have further shewed you in the following Treatise how self-denial disableth all Temptations how it conduceth to all eminent works of Charity but especially to the secret works of the sincere It is of absolute necessity to salvation It is thething that hypocrites are condemned for want of It is the wisdom of the soul as being the only way to our own security And it is the holiness and justice of the soul as it is conjunct with the Love of God in that it restoreth to God his own The excellency of Grace is manifested in self-denial To do or suffer such little things as self is not much against is nothing But to be Nothing in our selves and God to be our All and to close with our first and blessed End this is the nature of Sanctification Alas poor England and more than England even all the Christian world into what confusion and misery hath selfishness plunged thee Into how many pieces art thou broken because that every hypocrite hath a self to be his principle and end and forsakes the true Universal End How vain are our words to Rulers to Souldiers to Rich and Poor while we call upon them to Deny themselves And must we lose our labour and must the Nation lose its peace and hopes Is there no remedy but selfishness must undo all If so be it known to you the principal loss shall be your own ☞ and in seeking your safety liberty wealth and glory you shall lose them all and fall into misery slavery and disdain Deny your selves or save your selves if you can God is not engaged to take care of you or preserve you if you will be your own and will be reserving or saving your selves from him ☞ And though you may seem to prosper in self-seeking waies they will end yea shortly end
were in Gods hands than his own and would not undertake the charge if it were offered him Alas thinks he I am almost below a man and am I fit to make a God of I come off so lamely in the duty of a Creature as deserves damnation and am I fit to arrogate the work of the Creator 8. Moreover it is the high Prerogative of God to be the Soveraign Ruler of the world to make Laws for them which must be obeyed and to reward the obedient and punish the disobedient God is King of all the earth even King of Kings and Lord of Lords and all shall obey him or be judged by him for their disobedience But sin turned man into a Rebel against Heaven and a Traitor to his Maker so that now the selfish unsanctified man disliketh Gods Government at least in the particulars and would Govern himself The Law of God contained in his Word and Works he murmurs at as too obscure or too precise and strict for him He finds that it crosseth his Carnal interest and speaks not good of him but evil and therefore he is against it as supposing it to be against him and his pleasure profit and honour in the world If men had but the Government of themselves what a difference would there be between their way and Gods If corrupt unsanctified selfish man might make a Law for himself in stead of the Word of God what a Law would it be and how much of the Law of God should be repealed If sinners might make a Scripture you should find in it no such passages as these Except a man be Converted or born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven without Holiness none shall see God If self might make Laws you should not read in them If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if by the Spirit ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Nor should you there find that the Gate is strait and the way is narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it or that the righteous are scarcely saved As all the Scripture is now for Holiness and against Prophaneness Ungodliness and Sensuality if self had the framing of it it should all be changed and it should at least speak peace to fleshly-minded men All those true and dreadful passages that speak fire and brimstone against the unsanctified and threatned everlasting torments should be razed out and you shall find no talk of damnation in the Scripture for such as they no talk of the worm that never dyeth or the fire that is never quenched or of Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity I know you not or that the way of the ungodly shall perish or that God doth laugh at them because he seeth that their day is coming Abundance of the Bible would be wiped out if Carnal self had but the altering of it Nay it would be quite made new and made a contrary thing the Articles of our Creed would be changed the Petitions of our Rule for Prayer would be most altered every one of the ten Commandments would be altered as I shall after shew Idolatry should be no sin but the principal Law for self would be set up as the Idol of the world will-worship would be no sin men would he held guiltless that take the name of God in vain The Lords day should be a day of mirth and carnal pleasure every Subject would be the Soveraign and every Inferiour the Superior Revenge would be made lawful for themselves though not for others Fornication and Adultery would be no mortal sin Stealing would be made tolerable to themselves it should be lawful to them to do any wrong to the name and reputation of another in a word every man would do what he list and his will should be his Law and himself should be his own Judge a gentle tender Judge no doubt Thus would self Rule But sanctification brings men to Deny this self and to lay down the Arms of Rebellion against God and to see how unfit we are to Rule our selves that we are too foolish and sinful and partial to make Laws and too partial also and tender to execute them and that as we were made to obey so obey we must and come again into our ranks and willingly subject our selves to the Soveraign of the world Self denyal teacheth a man to have his own Carnal wisdom and reasonings that rise up against the Laws of God and to Love them the worse because they are thus his own and to love the Laws of God the better because they are God's and because they are against his Carnal self The stamps of God on them doth make them currant with him when if they had but the private stamps of self he would disown them as counterfeit or treasonable He hath indeed a flesh that is restrained by Gods Laws and striveth against them but he thinks never the worse of the Law for that but approveth and liketh it in the inner man and if he might have his choice he would not blot out one Commandment nor one Direction nor one Article of Faith nor a tittle of the Law because that self is not the Chooser in him but he hath learned to submit to the will and wisdom of the Lord. And though he love himself and have a nature that is unwilling of suffering and feareth the displeasure of God and the threatnings of his holy Law yet doth he unfeignedly justifie the Law and acknowledge it to be holy and just and good and would not have the very threatnings of it to be repealed and blotted out if he had his choice for he knows that the Determinations of God are the best and that none but he is fit to govern and therefore he desires that he himself may be taught better to obey and not that he may rule and wisheth that he were more conformed to the Law and not that the Law were conformed to him and fain he would have his own will brought up to Gods but wisheth not Gods will to be crookened and brought down to his As far as men have self-denyal this is so 9. Moreover as it is Gods Prerogative to be the Soveraign Ruler of our selves so also of all others as well as us But when sin had set up self man would not only Rule himself but would rule all others An eager desire there is in the unsanctified selfish heart that he might be Ruler of Town and Country and all might be brought to do his will And hence it is that there is such resisting and grudging at good Governors and that men are so ambitious and fain would be highest because they would have their own wills fulfilled by all and therefore would have power to force men to it Hence it is that there is such a stir in the world for Crowns and Kingdoms and few men have ever been heard of that have refused a Scepter when it was offered
it and if I should not taste it why should I touch it or be medling with it and if I may not meddle with it why should I look upon it or hearken to them that would entice me to it so that the Denying of your senses and your Appetite is the sure and easie way to prevent those dreadful gripes that else may follow 3. Moreover if you deny not your sensitive appetites you will never be acquainted with heavenly delights The soul cannot move two contrary ways at once towards earth and towards heaven When you gaze upon this world and feed your appetites with fleshly delights you have no heart nor mind to the delights above It is the soul that retires from creatures and sensual objects that is free for God and ready to entertain the motions of Grace Not that I would have you turn Hermits and Monks and forsake the company of men all worldly business No it is an higher and nobler course that I propound to you even in the midst of the world to live as without the world as if there were nothing before you for sensuality to seed upon To live so fully to God in the world that you may see God in all the creatures and converse with him in those same objects by which the sensual are turned from him and to live in the greatest fulness of all things as if there were nothing but penury to your flesh and seeing God in all and using all for God and denying self where you have opportunity to please it this is the most noble life on earth But if you find that you cannot attain to this and that you cannot deny your selves the delights of earth unless you withdraw from the sight of the objects do so and spare not so far as may consist with your serviceableness to God and humane Society But still you shall find that whether earthly delights are present or absent your minds must retire from that which doth allure and gratifie the flesh if ever you would enjoy Communion with God and taste of the delights of an heavenly conversation 4. And by pleasing your senses you will increase their vitious inordinate desires The more you gratifie them the more they 'l crave you feed your disease by yielding to such desires but never think to quiet it by contenting it The more the flesh hath the more it would have The only way to abate the rage of sensual desires is to deny them and use them constantly to that denial The safest food and raiment is that which best strengthneth and furnisheth us for Gods service with the least content and pleasure to our sensual appetites and desires And the same I must say of house and lands and labours and friends and all the Creatures that 's the best state of life in which God is served and pleased best with the least content and pleasure to the flesh Carnal delights and spiritual are so contrary the one so drossie and sordid and the other so sublime and pure that they will not well consist together but the delights of the flesh do corrupt or weaken the spiritual delights 5. Lastly Consider what a base unmanly thing it is for a man to be a slave to his sensitive appetite As truly as the horse was made to be ruled by the rider and all the bruits to be under man so was the appetite all the senses made to be ruled by reason no sense should be pleased till Reason do consent a beast hath no rule for his eating drinking but his appetite and therefore mans reason is to moderate him But a man hath a better guide than appetite or sense to follow you should not eat a bit or drink a drop meerly because the appetite would have it but Reason must be advised with and God must give advice to Reason A Swine that will drink whey till he burst his belly is blameless because he knew not the danger and had not Reason to restrain him But a man that hath Reason and yet will eat and drink and sleep and use the Creatures meerly to please the appetite of his flesh is utterly unexcusable What must the light of Reason be put out or put under the cover of sensual concupiscence must a nature that is kin to Angels be enslaved to that which is kin to beasts Unworthy is he of the honour or glory of a Saint that casteth away the honour of his manhood and makes himself a very beast What else doth that wretch that when he seeth a dish before him that he loves doth never ask whether it be wholesom or unwholesom bute eats it as an Horse doth his provender meerly because his appetite would have it Yea perhaps though he know or be told that it is unwholesom yet as long as it pleases his taste he cares not And what else doth that wretch that when he sees the cup must needs be tasting he loves it and that 's reason enough with him What a base unmanly thing is it much more unchristian to be a Slave to a fleâ—â—ly appetite Would one of these Gentlemen-gluttons Drunkards or Whoremongers or any of our voluptuous Epicures that must needs have that they love be contented to become a servant to a Beast would you take a Dog or a Swine for your Master and serve them and obey them and do what your brutish Master would have you why what 's the matter that many of our worshipful and honourable Beasts do not see that they do as bad What is your own fleshly sensual Appetite any better than that of a Beast A Dog hath as good a scent as you and a Swine hath as good a taste or sight as you and also as strong a lust as you What great difference is there betwixt the serving your own flesh and anothers your own brutish part or any other brute that lives about you Wonderful if the favour of God be nothing with you and if damnation be nothing with you that yet you are insensible of your honour in the world and that you that cannot put up a disgraceful word or blow can yet put up at your own hands such a bestial indignity as the subjecting of a Rational immortal soul to that bruitish flesh which was made to be its servant CHAP. XIX Self-interest And 1. Pleasure And 1. Of the Taste to be denied 2. I Have told you what the selfish Disposition is that must be mortified and denied and now I must tell you what is the selfish Interest that must be denied Having described self-denial from the Faculties I must now describe it by its Objects The selfish Interest consisteth in this Trinity of Objects Pleasure Profit and Honour not spiritual but carnal not heavenly but worldly Pleasure Profit and Honour sometime all these are comprehended in the word Pleasure alone and then it is taken more comprehensively and not only for sensual Pleasure called voluptuousness as it is here in this distribution And
not principally to please your own fancy and carnal mind but for the enabling you the better and more chearfully to serve God Nothing but God may be loved for it self When the Pleasing of the flesh and fancy is the utmost thing we look at in any of our desires they are wicked and idolatrous Our houses therefore must be fitted to Necessary uses and not to inordinate delights Our Gardens Orchards Walks and such like must be first suited to Necessity and then to so much Delight as is useful to us for the promoting of our holiness but not to any useless tempting Delight But worldlings and sensual persons will not be tied to these Christian Rules Alas it 's the furthest matter from their minds to make Heaven the End of all their earthly possessions and accommodations They may hypocritically talk of God and of serving him by their estates but really it is the pleasing of a fleshly mind that is the thing which they intend They have more delight in their houses and gardens and lands and cattle than in God and the hopes of life everlasting They desire fair houses that they may be thought to be no mean persons in the world and that they may please their humours that run after creatures for felicity and content I would desire such men to consider these things 1. All these are but the baits of Satan to delight you and entangle your desires and find you work in seeking after them while you neglect far greater matters Can you have while to look so much after superfluities and delights in the world when you have Necessaries yet to look after for your souls Have you not greater things to mind than these which these occasion you to neglect 2. Do you really find that they conduce to your main end even to make you more holy or more serviceable to God Nay do not your own Consciences tell you that they hinder you and cross those ends And yet will go against your experience 3. If you are humble conscionable Christians you feel cause enough already to lament that your love to God and delight in him is no more And yet are you preparing snares for your souls to steal away that little remnant of your affections which you seemed to reserve for God 4. If you have any spark of Grace in you you know that the flesh and the world are your dangerous enemies and you know that the way that the world doth undo men is by ticing them to over-value it over-love it that those that love it most are deepest in a state of condemnation and the less men love it the less they are hurt or endangered by it And do you not know that you are liker to over-love a sumptuous house with gardens orchards and such accommodations than a mean habitation Why should you be such enemies to your own salvation as to make temptations for your selves Have you not temptations enough already Do you deal with those you have so well and overcome them so easily and so constantly as that you have reason to desire more If Christ your General send you upon a hotter service you may go on with courage and expect his help But if you will so glory in your own strength as to run into the hotter battle and call for more and stronger enemies it 's easie to conjecture how you will come off If you are Christians know your selves you know that in the meanest state you are too prone to over-love the world and that under all Gods medicinal afflictions you cannot be so weaned from it as you ought Are you not daily constrained to groan and complain to God under the burden of too much Love of the world and too much delight in worldly things If this be not your case I see not how you can have any sincerity of saving grace And if it be your case will you be so sottiâ—â— and hypocritical as to complain daily to God of your sin in the mean time to love and cherish it to groan under your disease and wilfully eat and drink that which you know doth increase it What will you think of a man that will pray to God to save him from uncleanness and yet will dwell no where but in a Brothel-house What do you better that must needs have the world in the loveliest garb and must needs have house and grounds and all things in that plight as are fittest to entice the heart and then will complain to God that you over-love the world and love him too little To your shame you may speak it when you do it so willfully and cherish the sin which you thus complain of If God call you into a state of fulness and temptations watch the more narrowly over your affections and your practices and use no more of the creatures for your self if you have ten thousand pound a year than if you had but an hundred but do not seek and long for temptations With not for danger unless you were better able to pass through it 4. Remember when your fancies desire such things not only that it is an enemy that desireth them and to please your enemy is not safe for you but also that it 's the way that most have perished by to have the world before them in too pleasing and lovely a condition Remember Nebuchadnezzar's case Dan. 4. 30. that for glorying in his pompous buildings was turned as a mad man among the Beasts Remember the rich mans sad example Luke 12. 20. 16. and think whether it be safe to imitate them If men must perish for loving the creature more than God methinks you should long most for that condition in which the creature appeareth least lovely or is least likely to steal your love from God and in which you may love him and enjoy him most 5. And bethink you how unsuitable it is to your condition to desire sumptuous buildings and enticing accommodations to your flesh Have you not taken God for your portion and Heaven for your home and are you not strangers and pilgrims here and is not God and everlasting glory sufficient for you You profess all this if you profess to be Christians and if you be not you should not profess that you are And what do you begin to repent of your choice must you yet turn to the pomp and vanity of the world again and will you quit your hopes of God and glory Ah poor souls what little need have you of such great matters on earth you have but a little to do with them and but a little while to stay with them and will not a mean habitation and shorter accommodations serve you for so short a time Stay but a while and your souls shall have house-room enough in heaven or hell and a narrow grave of seven foot long will serve your bodies till the resurrection And cannot you make shift with an ordinary habitation and with small common things till then
against Nature to consent to die but when it is for him that is the Lord and end of life it is agreeable to Nature that is though it be against our natural inclination as we are Animate and Sensitive yet is it agreeable to our true nature as reasonable And therefore lay all together it is to be said to be agreeable to Nature simply in such a case because it is agreeable to the Principal part in nature which should be predominant It is agreeable to nature also that Reason should dispose of the inferiour powers of the soul Object But when you have said all that you can as long as you plead against my nature I cannot consent to what you say words are but wind To perswade me to consent to die is as much as to perswade me not to feel when I am hurt or to be hungry or thirsty or sleepy which are not in my power because these things are Natural Answ 1. Though hunger and thirst and other natural and sensitive appetites or passions be not in your power yet a consent of the will to deny these is in your power As natural as it is to hunger and thirst your superiour faculty of Reason can prevail with you to suffer hunger and thirst in a Siege or sickness when the suffering of it will save your life You will be ruled by your Physician to forbear not only many a dish but many a meal which your appetite desireth And your Reason can perswade you to suffer the opening of a vein and the drawing out of your own blood yea or the cutting off a member when it is to save your life for all that feeling and self-love is natural to you And you are not acquainted with the nature of Friendship if you would not suffer much for a friend nor with humane affections if you would not suffer much for parents or children or your Country so that your will is free though your sense be not free nor your natural appetite Though you cannot choose but feel when you are hurt you might consent to that feeling for a greater good 2. And according to the tenour of this Objection you may as wisely and honestly plead for most of the wickedness of the world and say It is natural to me to lust and therefore I may play the Adulterer and fulfil it It is natural to me to desire meat and drink and therefore I may eat and drink as long as I desire it It is natural to me to seek to hurt those that I am much angry with or hate and therefore I may beat or kill them If you must deny the Passions and sensitive appetite and the inferiour faculties of nature in one thing why not in another These lower powers were made to be ruled by reason as beasts are made to be ruled by men and more And therfore seeing this Argument from Nature is but from the bruitish part of Nature it is but a brutish Argument And if yet you say that for all these words Death is so great an enemy to you that you cannot choose it I answer that is because your reason is not illuminated and elevated by faith to see the Necessity of choosing it and to see those higher and better things which by this means you may obtain Had you that heavenly life of faith and love which the spirit worketh in the Saints it would carry you above this present life and take you up with higher matters and shew you that and so shew it you as should procure your own consent to die But because this is the great point that Christ doth purposely here try our self-denial by and a point of such great necessity to be look'd after I shall stay a little longer on it while I give you first some Reasons to move you and 2. Some Directions to assist you to get a self-denying submission to Death when Christ requireth it The many lamentable defects in grace which the inordinate fear of death doth intimate I have already opened in the fourth part of the Saints Rest and therefore may not now repeat them but shall add some few Considerations more CHAP. XXXVIII Twenty Reasons for denying Life 1. COnsider that Our Lives are not our Own but God that doth require them is the Absolute Lord of them More truly than you are owner of any thing that you have in the world is he the Owner of your lives and you And therefore both in Reason and Justice we should be content that he dispose of his own If he may notfreely dispose of you your lives you may as well deny him the dispose of any thing and so deny him to be God for he hath the same right to you as to any thing else and the same power over you And therefore if you consent that he shall be God for which he needs not your consent you must consent that he be the Owner and Disposer of all and of you as well as all things else Otherwise he is not God 2. You can be content that the lives of others yea that all the world be at Gods dispose In reason you cannot wish it should be otherwise You are content that the lives of Emperors and Kings that are greater than you should be at his Dispose And is there not the same Reason that he dispose of your life as of theirs Are you better than they or more your own or hath the world more need of you than them or rather is it not unreasonable selfishness that makes so unreasonable a difference with you If Reason might serve the case is plain 3. You are contented that far greater matters than your lives should be at Gods dispose The Sun in its course the frame of nature Heaven and Earth and all therein are at his dispose and would you wish it otherwise Days and Nights and Summer and Winter and times and seasons are at his dispose and you dare not murmur that all the year is not Summer or day-light and that there is any Night or Winter The Angels of Heaven are at his dispose to do his will and are content to be used on earth for your service and they desire not to be from under his dispose And should you desire it or rather desire that his will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven If you would not have the Crowns and Kingdoms of the world at his Dispose and Heaven and Earth are at his Dispose you would not have him to be God But if you would have these greatest things at his dispose what are you then that your lives should be excepted 4. Whom would you have to be the Disposer of mens Lives but God Is any other fit for the undertaking No other can give life but he And no other can preserve and continue it but he If your life had been in any creatures hand you had been dead long ago For no creature is able to uphold it self much less another also Is
How loth soever you are you are sure to die You may turn you every way and look about you on the right hand and the left to all the friends and means in the world and you will never find a medicine that will here procure immortality nor ever scape the hands of death It is appointed to all men once to die and after that the Judgement Heb. 9. 27. And no man can change the Decrees of Heaven And seeing all your turnings and unwillingness cannot avoid it is it not better to submit to it willingly than unwillingly God doth impose it on you as a necessity Your willingness may make a vertue of Necessity and out of Necessity extract a reward but your unwillingness may turn your suffering into your sin and a Necessary death unto an unnecessary misery now and hereafter if you be not true believers as Paul saith of his Ministerial labours 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. If I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation is committed to me for necessity is laid upon me So I may say in the present case If you give up your lives willingly in the love of God you have a Reward but if you do not Necessity is upon you and die you must whether you will or no. You may scape the Reward by your unwillingness but death you cannot escape And me thinks you should see that it 's little thanks to you to give up that life which you cannot keep And yet this is all that God requireth Perhaps you think that though you cannot keep it still yet somewhat longer you may keep it But you be not sure of that The next hour may God deprive you of it And O what a dreadful thing it were if as soon as you have denied God your lives he should snatch them from you in his fury and cast you into Hell and if he should distrain for his own as soon as you have denied it him and you should die as enemies that would not die as Martyrs and as his Friends And in this sence hath my Text been many a time fulfilled He that will save his Life shall lose it 8. Consider also that it is upon terms of the highest advantage imaginable to your selves that God calls you to resign and lay down your lives It is not indeed to lose them but to save them as my Text doth promise you He that loseth his life shall save it No more than you lose your cloaths which you put off at Night and put on again in the Morning Or rather no more than you lose your lousie rotten rags when you put them off at Night and are to have in the Morning a Suit of Princely attire in their stead Will any man say these rags are lost At least they will not say that the man is a loser by the change That is not lost that is committed to God upon the ground of a promise Nor that which is laid out in his Servive at his command Reason will tell us that no man can be a loser by a course of submissive Obedience to God You cannot be at so much cost for him or offer him so dear a service which he is not able and willing to satisfie you for a thousand fold God will not be beholden to any man You cannot bring him in your debt beyond what he doth by his bountiful promise But if you could he would not continue in your debt You 'l make nothing of your death if you do not either undergo it for Christ or bear it submissively by the power of heavenly love constraining you Meerly to die whether you will or no as a fruit of sin is common to the most ungodly men But if the love of God can make you voluntarily submit to death whether natural or violent from persecutors what a glorious advantage may you make of it You will 1. Put your salvation more out of doubt â—han any other course in this world could do For whosoever perisheth it 's most certain that such as these all be saved 2. And therefore you may die with the greatest confidence and joy as having seen the matter of your doubts removed and dying in the very exercise of those graces that have the promise of salvation and in such a 〈…〉 as hath the fullest and most frequent promises in the Gospel 3. And then the Crown of Martyrdom is the most glorious Crown You will not have an ordinary place in heaven These are that part of the Heavenly Host that si and nearest to the Throne of God and that praise him with the highest joys who hath brought them through tribulations and redeemed them by his blood If a man should make a motion to you to exchange your cottage for a Palace and a Kingdom you would not stick at it as if it were against you because you must leave your ancient home And how much less should you be against it when you are but moved to step out of your ruinous cottage into glory when it would shortly fall upon your heads and you must leave it whether you will or no for nothing 9. What reason have you to be so tender of the flesh Is it the greatness of its suffering that you stick at Why you put poor Beasts and Birds to as much and so do the Butchers daily for your use and they must suffer it And why should the body be so dear to you for the matter of it what is it but earth and wherein is it more excellent than the beasts that perish I think God hath purposely clothed your soul with so poor a dress that you should be the less unwilling to be unclothed and might learn to set more by your souls than by your bodies and to make more carefully provision for them It seems he hath purposely lodged you in so poor a cottage that you should not be at too much care for it nor be too loth to leave it You have its daily Necessities and Infirmities and pains and somewhat of its filth and lothsomeness to tell you of its meanness And why should you be so loth that so poor a cottage so frail a body should be turned to dust Dust it is and to dust it is sentenced When the soul hath left it but a week men can scarce endure to see it or smell it And should the breaking of such an earthen Vessel be so unpleasing a thing to you And for its usesulness though so far as it is obedient it was serviceable to your souls and God yet was it so refractory ill disposed and disobedient that it proved no better than your enemy Many a temptation it hath entertained and cherished and many a sin hath it drawn you to commit Those senses have let in a world of vanity Those wandring eyes have called in covetousness and pride and lust Those greedy appetites have been so eager on the bait that they have too oft born down your faith and
And from each of them we partake of an answerable Nature As is the Earthy such are they that are earthy even all of us in our fleshly state having earthy bodies from an earthy Adam and natural bodies from the natural Adam And as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly for Christ makes men like himself even first gracious and then glorious as Adam begets us like himself that is natural and sinful And therefore all those that have followed Christ in the Regeneration shall follow him into Glory and having conquered by him shall reign by him and with him and having received the holy nature here which is the seed of glory they shall receive the glorious nature there which is the perfection of that Grace And so as Christ hath an heavenly spiritual body and â—â—â— an earthy natural body so shall his Members have that they may be like him And as we have here born the image of the earthy in having first a natural fleshly body we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam in having a spiritual body that is not fleâ—â— Now lest any doubt of it saith the Spirit of God this I say that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth Corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15. 42. to 51. Object If there were but as much likelihood of a Resurrection as there is of the Reviving of the plants in the Spring I could believe it for there is a life remaining in the Root or Seed but the body of man hath neither Root nor seed of life and therefore it 's contrary to nature that it should revive Answ 1. If it be above nature that is all it is not contrary to it Or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of and can assign a natural cause of what did Nature in the creation of nature It was not certainly any cause of it self If Christ rose without a natural cause even so shall we 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living Root as truly as the plants in winter The soul is the Root of the body and the soul is still alive And Christ is the Root of the soul and he is still alive For though we are dead yet our Life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear at the Spring of Resurrection then we shall also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 3 4. And though there be no Physical contact between this living soul and the body yet there is a Relative Union and a deep rooted Love of the soul to its body and inclination to it so that it is mindful of it and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body It is not incredible that a silly snail should by its natural life and power make for it self a beautiful habitation Or that the life of a Rose-tree that was buried in the root should fabricate a sweet and beauteous Rose by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world In how small a room doth the life of a silk-worm lie of which I spoke before in the winter That little grain or seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder yet doth it form it self a larger body and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance and in that house it self in a husk and take to it self another shape and thence become a winged Fly and so generate more But nearer us in the generation of man the vital principle in the seed doth quickly with concurrent causes form it self a body The warmth of the body of the Hen or other Bird can turn the egge into a Chicken Why then may not the living sâ—ul that is the Root and life of the body in the dust be the instrument of God to reform its own body as certainly it will be the principle that shall reinform it But you say the body being dead hath no natural root nor way of recess to life again because the privation is total To which I answer First the Relative union between the soul and it and the souls disposition to the Return into its body is as potent a cause of its reviving as the natural union of the Root and branches if withal you consider that Christ is the Root of the soul Rational agents if perfect will work as certainly as Natural For natural causes do nothing but by a Power communicated to them from an Intellectual cause even God himself Why should Nature do any of these things but because God that makes and ruleth all will have it to be so Now Jesus Christ is the Political Head of the Church The body in the grave hath its own Relation to him Christ is still living and resolved and engaged by promise and enclined by Love to revive that body And as Christ is the life of the soul so the soul is the life of the body and this soul as I said is waiting to be sent again into it And when the hour comes what can hinder The Love of the soul to its body and its desire to be reunited is a kind of natural cause of the Resurrection A candle not lighted is as far from light and as much without it as a dead body is without life And yet one touch of a lighted candle will light that which never was lighted before And so may one touch of the living soul that 's now with Christ put life into the body that lieth in the dust And as the lighted candle makes the other like it and communicateth of its own nature to it so doth the glorified soul communicate a new kind of excellency to the body which it never had before even to be a spiritual glorious incorruptible and immortal body In the first creating of man the new formed body as to the matter of it was no better than the body of a Beast or any common piece of earth But the soul made the difference when a Rational Soul was breathed into that Body it advanced the very body to a dignity beyond the bodies of brutes even such as the natural body of man had before sin When Christ was about to repair faln man it was the spirit of Christ informing the soul that caused the renewed soul to communicate again a dignity to the bodies of sanctified men above other bodies And so when the body was dead because of sin having the root of sin and death within it and being mortal therefore yet the spirit was life because of Righteousness being the Root of holy and Righteous dispositions and the new life in man himself Rom. 8. 10. For Christ the principal root of life and the spirit and holiness are first in order of nature in the soul and but by
communication and secondarily in the Body But contrarily sin made its entrance first by the Body and hath its Root and Seat first in order of nature in the body it is so communicated to the soul Thus sin comes in at the back-door even at the wrong end and by the baser part But Grace comes in the right way by the Nobler part sin hath its Root in the viler part but Christ hath his seat first in the better part And yet I must add 1. That sin is not ripe till it reach the will though it enter by the flesh and senses it is not formed nor to be called sin till it reach the will and as there it is scituated but yet the thing it self is first in and by the flesh 2. And the will is truly the seat of Original sin it self as well as the sensitive part but not the first Root of the corruption Though sin be Worst in the Rational part because the corruption of the best is the worst yet it is not first there But Holiness is first also in the soul and so communicated to the body And so also Glory it self will be And therefore take notice of the wise and gracious providence of God that taketh the soul to heaven before-hand that it may be first Glorified and so may be fit to communicate glory to the body And so as the Natural Soul dignified the Natural Body and the Sanctified Soul did Sanctifie the body so the Glorified Soul by reunion with the body shall communicate its Nature to the body at the Resurrection and so it will be made spiritual immortal and incorruptible by the soul and soul and body are made such by Christ So that by this time you may see that there is more Reason for the Resurrection for all the body is turned to earth than there is Reason that a Candle that 's gone out should be lighted again by another or than there is Reason that I should put on my cloaths in the morning which I put off at night It 's true those cloaths have no power to put on themselves nor is there any natural necessitating cause of it but yet there is a Free cause in me that will infallibly if I live and be able produce it For nature disposeth me to abhor nakedness and desire my cloaths and therefore in the morning I will put them on And so nature teacheth the separated soul to desire a reunion with its body and therefore when the Resurrection morning comes it will gladly take the word from Christ and give that vital touch to the body that shall revive it and so put on its ancient garment but wonderfully changed from fleshly to spiritual from dishonourable into glorious And now I hope you see that you may put off these cloths with patience and submission and that it is no wrong to the flesh it self to be put off but tendeth to its highest advancement at the last Though the first cause of sin and the nest of sin shall be so broken first that it shall first be seen what sin hath done before it be seen what Grace will do and the fruit of our own wayes must first be tasted before we shall fully feed and live upon the blessed fruit of the grace of Christ 11. Moreover as there is a Resurrection for the body it self and that to a more perfect estate than it can here attain so the whole nature shall be perfected beyond our present comprehension This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection but the preparation for it As the fruit is far from ripeness in the first appearance or the flower while it is but in the husk or bud or the Oak when it is but an acorn or any plant when it is but in the seed no more is the very nature of man on earth As the Infant is not perfect in the Womb nor the Chicken in the shell no more are our natures perfect in this world Methinks for the sake of the body it self much more of the soul if we are believers we should submit contentedly to death While you are here you know that creatures will fail you enemies will hate you friends will grieve you neighbours will wrong you Satan will tempt you and molest you the world is changeable and will deceive you all your comforts are mixed with discomforts the body carrieth about with it calamities enough of its own to weary it What daily pains must it be at for the sustentation of its self in its present state and yet what grief and sorrow must it undergo Every member hath either its disease or a disposition thereto What abundance of passages can pain and sickness find to enter at and how many rooms that are ready to receive them As every member hath its use so every one is capable of sorrow and the sorrow of one is at least as much communicated to the whole as the usefulness is The pain of the simplest member even of a tooth can make the whole body a weary of it self What is the daily condition of our flesh but weakness and suffering with care and labour to prevent much worse which yet we know cannot long be avoided The sorrow of many a mans life hath made him wish he had never been born and why then should he not wish as much to die which doth ten thousand fold more for him if he be a Christian than to be unborn would have done Not a Relation so comfortable but hath its discomforts Not a friend so suitable but hath some discordancy nor any so amiable and sweet but hath somewhat loathsome troublesome and bitter Not a place so pleasant and commodious but hath its unfitness discommodities Not a Society so good and regular but hath its corruptions and irregularities And should we be so loth to leave whether naturally or violently such a life as this When the fruit is ripe should it not be gathered When the corn is ripe would you have it grow there and not be cut When the spirit hath hatched us for heaven should we be so loth to leave the shell or nest When we are begotten again to the hopes of immortality should we be so desirous to stay in the womb O Sirs it is another kind of life that we shall have with God They are purer comforts that stay for us above But if you will not have the Grapes to be gathered and prest how can you expect to have the Wine Me thinks our fleâ—h should have enough e're this time of sickness and pain and want and crosses and should be content to lie down in hope of the day when these shall be no more Little would an unbeliever think what a Body God will make of this that now is corruptible flesh and blood It shall then be loathsome and troublesome no more It shall be hungry or thirsty or weary or cold or pained no more As the stars of heaven do differ from a clod of
earth or from a carrion in a ditch so will our glorified immortal bodies differ from this mortal corruptible flesh If a skilful workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent glasses as we daily see and if a little seed that bears no shew of such a thing can produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth and if a little acorn can bring forth the greatest Oak why should we once doubt whether the seed of everlasting life and glory which is now in the blessed souls with Christ can by him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its elements There 's no true beauty but that which is there received from the face of God And if a glympse made Moses face to shine what glory will Gods glory communicate to us when we have the fullest endless intuition of it There only is the strength and there 's the riches and there 's the honour and there 's the pleasure and here are but the shadows and dreams and names and images of these precious things And the perfection of the soul that 's now imperfect will be such as cannot now be known The very nature and manner of Intellection Memory Volition and Affections will be unconceivably altered and elevated even as the soul it self will be and much more because of the change on the corruptible body which in these acts it now makes use of But of these things I have spoke so much in the Saints Rest that I shall say no more of them now but this that in a Believer that expects this blessed change and knows that he shall never till then be perfect there is much unreasonableness in the inordinate unwillingness and fears of death 12. You know that fears and unwillingness can do no good but much increase your suffering and make your death a double death If it be bitter naturally make it not more bitter wilfully I speak this of a violent death for Christ as well as of a natural death For as the one cannot be avoided if we would so the other cannot be avoided when Christ calleth us to it without the loss of our Salvation and therefore it may be called Necessary as well as the other Necessary suffering and death is enough without thâ— addition of unnecessary fears 13. Nay were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death even death it self should be the less fearful to us These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul and should we not desire to be past them As a woman with Child is in fear of the pain danger of her travel but joyful when it 's over so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour but death puts an end to all those fears Is it the pain that you fear Why how soon will it be over Is it the strangeness of your souls to God and the place that you are passing to This also will be quickly over and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God and the Celestial inhabitants and the world in which you are to live that you will find your self no stranger there but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend The Infant in the Womb is a stranger to this lighter open world and all the inhabitants of it and yet it is nor best stay there You can fail for commodity to a Country that you never saw and why cannot you pass with peace and joy to a God a Christ a Heaven that you never saw But yet you are not wholly a stranger there Is it not that God that you have loved and that hath first loved you Have you not been brought into the world by him and lived by him and been preserved and provided for by him and do you not know him Is it not your Father and he that hath given you his Son and his Spirit have you not found an inclination towards him desires after him and some taste of his love and communion with him and yet are you wholly unacquainted with him Know ye not him whom you have loved above all in whom you have trusted and whom you have daily served in the world Who have you lived to but him for whom else have you laid out your time and labour and yet do you not know him And know you not that Christ that hath purposely come down into flesh that you might know him and that hath shewed himself to you in a holy life and bitter death and in abundant precious Gospel mercies and in Sacramental representations that so he might entertain a familiarity with you and infinite distance might not leave you too strange to God Know you not that Spirit that hath made so many a motion to your soul that hath sanctified you and formed the image of God upon you and hath dwelt in you so long and made your hearts his very work-house where he hath been daily doing somewhat for God It is not possible that you should be utterly strange to him that you Live to and Live from and Live in and not know him by whom you know your selves and all things nor see that Light by which you see whatever you see O but you say you never saw him and have no distinct apprehension of his essence Answ What! Would you make a Creature of him that can be limited comprehended or seen with fleshly mortal eyes Take heed of such imaginations It is the understanding that must see him You know that he is most Wise and Good and Great and that he is the Creator and Sustainer and Ruler of the world and that he is your Reconciled Father in Christ and is this no knowledg of him And then the Heaven that you are to go to is it that you are an Heir of where you have laid up your treasure and where your hearts and conversation hath so long been and yet do you not know it You have had many a thought of it and bestowed many a days labour for it and yet do you not know it O but you never saw it for all this Answ It is a spiritual blessedness that flesh and blood can neither enjoy nor see But by the eye of the mind you have often seen at least some glimpse of it You know that it is the present intuition and full fruition of God himself and your glorified Redeemer with his blessed Angels and Saints in perfect Love and Joy and Praise And if you know this you are not altogether strangers to heaven And for the Saints and heavenly Inhabitants you are not wholly strangers to them Some of them you have known in the flesh and others of them you have known in the spirit You are fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and therefore cannot be utterly unacquainted with them But me thinks the stranger you are to God and to Heaven and to the Saints
down to be familiar with us and to bring us into a state of friendship and holy boldness with God himself And yet shall we draw back 17. I would put this question to you for your serious answer Can you be contented yea do you desire to have no more of God than here you have Is this much of the knowledge of him and his will and works sufficient for you Would you be no nearer him and enjoy no more of him What ever your flesh say sure the love of God in your hearts will not suffer you considerately to say so Consult with your new nature with the holy principle that is in you Me thinks you should not be content to remain for ever at such a distance from God as you are If you can I blame you not to be afraid of death If not Why then are you loth to go to him 18. And I would ask you also Whether you are content with the measure of sanctification which you have or which is to be attained in this life Are you content to live for ever with no more knowledge or love of God No more faith or love to Christ No more sense of the worth of Grace No more righteousness or peace or joy in the Holy Ghost No more meekness humility or heavenly mindedness Are you contented rather to live for ever under all the pride and ignorance and passion and selfishness and lust and worldliness and all other sins that here beset you rather than to remove to the place of perfection and yield that death shall break the vessel and nest of your corruptions If you care so little for the grace of God and see so little beauty in his image and see so little odiousness in sin that you had rather keep it for ever than go to God by the passage of death I blame you not to be afraid to die But if otherwise Why do you desire perfection and deliverance and yet be so loth to come and receive it When you know that it is not to be had on earth 19. Moreover are you contented to remain for ever as unserviceable to God as here you are Alas how little do you for him how much do you to displease him lay together all the service of your lives and how small and poor a matter is it And would you still live at these rates Will this content you Me thinks it should not if you have grace in your hearts Why then do you not desire to depart and to be with Christ There you shall be perfectly fitted for his service and therefore perfectly perform it What other service God will have for us we cannot yet tell but Love and Praise we are sure will be the chief and the rest will be good and holy and honourable what ever it be If you are Christians me thinks the sense of your unprofitableness and of your unpleasing frame of heart and life should be your daily grief and therefore you should desire the state where you may be more serviceable and not be so unwilling of it 20. Lastly I would ask you Are you contented to attain no other end of all your life and labours and sufferings than here you do attain What is it that you pray for and seek and strive for is it for no more than is to be had on earth If you have no higher design intentions or desires I cannot much blame you to be loth to die But if you have me thinks no man should be unwilling to attain his end What have you done and suffered so much for heaven and now would you not go to it Had you rather all your labour were lost Do you desire to be happy or do you not If you do as certainly you do would you not go where happiness it to be had when you are sure that it is not not to be had on earth What say you is there not plain reason in all this that I propound to you It is a sad case when men seek not God and Heaven as their felicity but only as a lesser evil than hell which they would endure rather than enjoy when they can keep no longer this earthly life which they account their felicity where this is the case it 's a sad case And were not this a common case there would not be so much unwillingness to depart And now Christian Reader I beseech thee weigh these foregoing Considerations and judge whether it be not a contradiction to thy profession and unseemly for a believer to be unwilling to die when God shall call him Much more to cast away evelasting life for the saving of his temporal life but a little longer O learn the needful lesson of self-denial especially in this point of denying your lives He that can do this can do all and may be sure that he is mortified indeed And he that can do all the rest and sticks but at this and could part with any thing for Christ save his life doth indeed do nothing nor is it esteemed self-denying It is a lesson therefore that is exceeding necessary to be learn'd and worthy all your time and diligence even to deny your Lives for the love of Christ Perhaps you will say We live in days of peace and liberty and therefore are not like to be called to Martyrdom What need then have we to learn this lesson I answer 1. You are uncertain what changes you may see but if you never suffer yet you must be sure that you have a heart that would suffer if God did call you to it For though you may be saved without suffering where you are not called to it yet you cannot be saved without a heart that would suffer if you were put upon it 2. And if you cannot deny your lives for Christ you will not sincerely deny your pleasures or profits or honours for him If you would not suffer death for him if he called you to it you will not sincerely suffer losses and wrongs and reproaches for him which almost every Christian must expect So that to try your own sincerity you should look after it 3. And it is certain that death will shortly come and then if you have not learnt this lesson to deny your selves even in case of life you will die unwillingly and uncomfortably At least me thinks I might reason thus with any man of you good or bad Either death is indeed terrible or not If it be not why do you so fear it when it comes If it be why do you not as well fear it before it comes even in your youth and health For you are sure then that you must die as if it were upon you A wonderful thing it is that mans heart should be so unreasonably insensible and that there should be so great a difference in the affections of most in regard of death It 's no matter of doubt or controversie whether they shall die He is a block and not a man that knoweth it
the burdens that are here upon you which should make you long to be with God One would think the feeling of them should force you to consideration and weariness of them and make the thoughts of rest to be sweet to you Have you yet not sin enough and sorrow and fear and trouble enough Or must God lay a greater load on you to make you desire to be disburdened Every hour you spend and every creature you have to do with afford you some occasion of renewing your desires to depart from these and be with Christ Direct 7. Observe and magnifie that of God which is here revealed to you in his word and works Study him and admire him in Scripture study and admire him in the frame of nature And when you look towards Sun or Moon or Sea or Land and perceive how little it is that you know and how desirable it is to know them perfectly think then of that estate where you shall know them all in God himself who is more than all Study and admire him in the course of Providences study and admire him in the person of Christ in the frame of his holy life in the work of Redemption in the holy frame of his Laws and Covenants study and admire him in his Saints and the frame of his holy Image on their souls This life of studying and admiring God and dwelling upon him with all our souls will exceedingly dispose us to be willing to come to him and to submit to death Direct 8. Live also in the daily exercise of holy Joy and Praise to God which is the heavenly Employment For if you use your selves to this heavenly life it will much incline you to desire to be there Exercise fear and godly sorrow and care in their places but especially after Faith and Love be sure to live in holy Joy and Praise Be much in the consideration of all that Riches of grace in Christ communicated and to be communicated to you And be much in Thanks to God for his mercies and chearing and comforting your soul in the Lord your God And thus the Joy of Grace will much dispose you to the Joys of glory the Peace which the Kingdom of God consisteth in will incline you to the peace of the everlasting Kingdom and the chearful Praising of God on Earth in Psalms or other ways of Praise will prepare and dispose you to the heavenly Praises And therefore Christians exceedingly wrong their souls and hinder themselves from a willingness to be with God in spending all their days in drooping or doubting or worldly dulness and laying by so much the Joy of the Saints and the Praises of God Direct 9. Dwell on the believing fore-thoughts of the everlasting glory which you must possess Think what it is that others are enjoying while you are here and what you must be and possess and do for ever Daily think of the Certainty Perfection and Perperuity of your Blessedness What a life it will be to see the blessed God in his Glory and taste of the fulness of his love and to see the glorified Son of God and with a perfected soul and body to be perfectly taken up in the Love and Joy and Praises of the Lord among all his holy Saints and Angels in the heavenly Jerusalem You must by the exercise of Faith and Love in holy Meditation and Prayer even dwell in the Spirit and converse in Heaven while your bodies are on earth if you would entertain the news of death as beseems a Christian But of this at large elsewhere Direct 10. Lastly if you would be willing to submit to death resign up your own understandings and wills to the wisdom and the will of God and Know not good and evil for your carnal selves but wholly trust your lives and souls to the Wisdom and Love of your dearest Lord. Must you be carking and caring for your selves when you have an Infinite God engaged to care for you O saith self I am not able to bear the terrors and pangs of death O saith Faith My Lord is easily able to support me and it is his undertaken work to do it My work is but to Please him and it 's his work to take care of me in life and death and therefore though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil O saith Self I am utterly a stranger to another world I know not what I shall see nor what I shall be nor whither I shall go the next minute after death None come from the dead to satisfie us of these things O but saith Faith My blessed Father and Redeemer is not a stranger to the place that I must go to He knows it though I do not He knows what I shall be and do and whither I shall go and all is in his power And seeing it belongs not to me but to him to dispose of me and give me the promised reward it is meet that I rest in his understanding And it is better for me that his Infinite Wisdom dispose of my departing soul than my shallow insufficient knowledge I may much more acquiesce in his knowledge than my own O but saith self I fear it may prove a change of darkness and confusion to my soul what will become of me I cannot tell O but saith Faith I am sure I am in the hands of Love and such Love as is Omnipotent and engaged for my good and how can it then go ill with me If I had my own will I should not fear And how much less should I fear when I am at the will of God even of most Wise Almighty Love There is no true Centre for the soul to Rest in but the Will of God It is our business to Obey and Please his Will as dutiful Children and to commit our selves contentedly to his Will for the absolute disposal of us It is not possible that the Will of an Heavenly Father should be against his Children whose desire and sincere endeavour hath been to Obey and Please his Will And therefore learn this as your great and necessary Lesson with Joyful Confidence to Commit your selves and your departing souls to your Fathers Will as knowing that your Death is but the execution of that Will which is engaged to cause all things to work together for your good Rom. 8. 28. And say with Paul I suffer but am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 10. Therefore we labour and suffer because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe say therefore as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Or rather as Christ Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. If the hands and Will of the Father was the Rock and
That if God deny you even that honour which in the lawfullest manner you desire that you submit to his pleasure and take it patiently and in these two respects you must here deny your selves Above all others these sorts of persons following are in danger of this odious Pride in desiring for themselves an extended and surviving Name 1. Princes and Souldiers that have the management of the great affairs of the world Fain would they be Renowned to Posterity And hence are their aspiring ambitious designs For this are their Wars and Conquests that they may be famous when they are dead as well as while they live And thus they make their Noble Conquests to be but Murders of the vilest sort and worse than any Cut-throats and Robbers by the high way while they intend them but for themselves and their own vain-glory and better might they seek honour by whoredom drunkenness or theft which are far smaller sins Whereas if their wars had been undertaken for God and managed according to his Will they had made them truly honourable and renowned And from this odious Pride it is that Absaloms Pillars must be erected and Monuments must be built to perpetuate their names and tell the world what need they have of means to keep alive their memories and how destitute they are of nobler means when Marbles and Monuments must be the great preservers of their fame Yea it were well if this Pride and selfishness did not corrupt the noblest of their works and turn them into deadly sins if they did not build their Hospitals Colledges or Churches and endow them with Revenues to perpetuate their own Names rather than to do good Though the works themselves are so good and so rare that I would not cast any dishonour upon them seeing all that can be said is too little to provoke men to do the like yet am I bound in duty to tell them that if self should be the End instead of God and Pride the cause instead of charity Hell would be the Reward instead of Heaven so great a matter it is to have an honest heart and right intentions in the most excellent and noble works In so much that a poor man that hath a heart to build a Colledge or an Hospital if he had but means shall be Rewarded by God as if he had done it if God were the End and Charity the Principle when a rich man that doth the work it self shall have but a poor and temporary reward if self be the End and Pride the Principle 2. Another sort that are specially in danger of this sin are all Rich men who would be the great in the world and perpetuate their names and memory in their houses lands and posterity and therefore they would purchase Towns and Lordships that their Houses may be famous when they are gone For it seems a kind of life to them if their Greatness do but live in their posterity Psal 49. 11 12. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own names This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings Hence also is that ostentation of Escucheons and Arms and of Ancient Gentility or Nobility and much more such proud and selfish vanity 3. Another sort that are in danger of this sin are Divines and Learned men in all Professions who make their Writings but a means to perpetuate their own Names to Posterity Temptations to this sin may be offered to the best and too much entertainment they may have with our natures because of the remnants of selfishness and Pride But yet they do not prevail with the sanctified so far as to aim more at their own honour than at Gods The Labours that in themselves are excellent and a blessing to the Church are lost to him that was the Author of them if self be the End and Pride the fountain And exceeding great need have the godliest men to watch their hearts in this particular for they are very deceitsul and selfishness will too often interpose where nothing but God and publick good is discerned And now because that the sin is very great and dangerous I shall here annex a few Considerations which by opening the evil of it may help you to abhor it 1. These Proud desires of a great and surviving Name do shew that you lamentably overlook the true eternal honour of the Saints Must you have Honour choose that which lieth in the esteem of God Must you be great and glorious why you may be so and God would have you be so if you will but know where Greatness and Glory is to be had even in that blessedness that Christ hath purchased Must you have your greatness and honour perpeuated why you may have that which will never have an end And when God hath set before you such an endless glory are you looking after a Name among mortal men to leave behind you on the Earth Do you think to be saved indeed or not If you do what need have you of the smoak of mans applause when you are with God what unworthythoughts have you of heaven if you think when you are there you shall have need of mens good thoughts or words on earth But it 's a dangerous sign that you are indeed unbelievers and lay not up your treasure in heaven when you are so careful to perpetuate your names and shaddows here with men The true reliâ—h of Heavenly honour would put you out of love with this 2. And do you not plainly see in your own desires the vanity of all these Earthly things when you are put at last to take up with such a shaddow such a Nothing as is a surviving name Is this all that the world can do for you And do you not see here the wonderous deceitfulness of the world and the foolishness of unsanctified men that they will dâ—â—s stick to the world for very nothing when they know that they shall have no more from it they are contriving for a name when they are dead Wonderful blindness that experience and the approach and thoughts of death should no more open your eyes surely if this be all that the world will do for you at the last you should even renounce it and use it accordingly at the first 3. You cannot but know that when you are dead and gone the Honour of the world is none of yours nor can it do you any good any further than it relateth to your eternal blessedness and your honour is serviceable to the honor of God What good will it do you to be magnified by men when you neither know nor feel it what the better is a Tree or House if men commend it And for your souls if they be with God they will be far above the praise of men 4. Nay as such a design is a dangerous sign of your Damnation so I beseech you think what