most notorious sect and grand dividers of the Church and condemners of the justified shall know one day that Ambition was not true Religion and that the name of unity and universality and Antiquity were unmeet instruments to be used to the destruction of Unity and contradiction of Universality and Antiquity and that God hath set apart himself the man that is Godly though the Accuser of the Brethren would cast such out Psal 4. 3. And who shall condemn when it is Christ that justifieth Rom. 8. 33. You may see now that Godliness is not any meer external act or worship External worship there must be and that with all decencie and reverent behaviour but it is hypocrisie if there be nothing but the Corps without the Internal Godliness which is the life and soul Bodily exercise is here by the Apostle distinct from Godliness 4. You may now see that Godliness is not the meer forbearance of the outward acts or practice of any sin For else a sleep or a prison might make a man Godly by restraining him from the acts of sin He is ungodly that had rather live in the sin which through some restraint he doth forbear If you would do it you have done it in Gods account 5. You may see also that whatsoever Religiousness Obedience or Endeavours subject Christ to the flesh and world and make him give place to them and come behind do not deserve the name of Godliness You are not Godly how far soever else you goe if God and your Salvation take not place before all the honours profits and pleasures of the world As he is not God that hath any Greater Wiser or Better then himself so that is not Godliness which giveth the precedency practically to any thing but God that pretendeth never so highly to Honour him and yet more esteemeth their own Honour with the world or that professeth Love and Obedience to him and yet Loveth and obeyeth a Lust before him and sets more by Love and Obedience to themselves then by their own or other mens Love or Obedience to God All these are the cheating counterfeits of Godliness 6. And if none of these be Godliness much less doth it consist in any sin in superstition Idolatry or in cruelty blood and persecution through a carnal zeal in a bringing all others by violence to our proud impious wills in murmuring sedition rebellion or resisting lawful Powers under pretence of propagating religion Godliness consisteth not in Jesuitical contrivances and undermining others and equivocations and pious frands in disturbing Kingdoms killing Kings blowing up Parliaments absolving subjects from allegiance and giving away the Dominions of Temporal Lords if they will not obey the Pope in exterminating their Hereticks as is Decreed to be done in the Approved General Council at the Laterane under Innocent 3. Can. 3. nor doth it consist in murdering thirty thousand or fourty thousand treacherously in a few weeks as in France or much above twice as many in Ireland nor in butchering Christians by hundreds or thousands as they did long agoe by the Waldenses and Albigenses and Bohemians Nor in racking and tormenting them by Inquisition nor in frying them in the flames of fagots as in Queen Marics days and frequently elsewhere This is the Religion of the father of malice that thirsts for blood and not of the Merciful Prince of Peace Godliness is not the running to arms and pulling down Governments to set up the proud self-conceited actors under pretence of setting up Christ and preparing for his Kingdom snatching in their dream at Crowns and Kingdoms and finding when they awake that they have catcht agallows When the Fryers had spawned the turbulent people among us in England that thought they must do any thing and overturn the Governments of the world to make Christ the fifth Monarch and bring him from heaven to Reign visibly on earth before he is willing to come I must confess lâ—oft thought that their cunning was much more wonderful to keep these people from being undeceived then at first to deceive them To keep them in despight of all our discoveries and warnings in such furious blindness as to goe on and do their fathers work and rage against these that told them their original and whither they were going The poor seduced people never read such Books as Fryar Campanella's de Regno Dei sacerdotio Christi c. wherein he brings up all the Prophetical Texts in Isaiah Daniel c. which these men use and laboureth to shew what a golden Age is coming in which divisions shall cease and unity become the strength and beauty of the world and this by the Universal reign of Christ and what a happy people the Saints will be and how they shall then judge and rule the world and O the comfort the time is near and just such words he useth for his fifth most glorious universal Monarchy as others now do But when all comes to all the mysterie unveiled is but this that Christ must reign by the Pope his Deputy and that all Princes and Nations must submit and stoop and their Kingdoms must all become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ to be governed by his Deputy the Pope and the power falsly called spiritual being first well-settled the other Key or Sword also the temporal must for unity sake be put into the same hand The Heavens therefore should rejoyce and the earth be glad for the Lord thus cometh to judge the world The fifth Monarchy is at hand The Universal holy reign of Christ not by prophane Princes but by his Holiness the Pope and by the Saints the Fryars Jesuites Monks and Clergy that shall judge the world to whom ere long all knees shall bow But you will say We are so far from joyning with these Fryars that we hate the Pope much more then you do I answer You have received their frame of doctrine of the Universal fifth Monarchy that is at hand there is but one thing to do and you are theirs which is to convince you that Christ is not to come and reign here personally but by his Great Vicegerent And they that could bring you to believe things more improbable may more easily easily bring you to them from your unreasonable conceit Pardon this Digression I thought meet to tell you that Godliness lyeth not in breaking the Law of God nor in obeying Pride nor being the enemies of Government and order in the world nor in an impatient striving by right or wrong to break away from the yoak of suffering that God for our sin or for his cause shall lay upon us And now I have fully and distinctly told you What Godliness is and What it is not And now go thy way malicious soul and say if thou dare as the Devils informers frequently do that it is sedition or faction or schism or disobedience that we draw the people to under the name of Godliness Hold on if thou wilt a
say that this One thing is needless for which thou hast all things Thou mayest then say that God made the world in vain and preserveth and governeth it in vain For all this is but for his service which thou callest vain Quest 11. Doth not Reason tell thee that the place in which thou must live for ever should be more diligently minded and prepared for then this in which thou must continue but for a while Alas it is so short a time that we must be here that it makes all the matters of this world as such to be inconsiderable things as dreams and shadows What great matter is it for so short a time whether we be rich or poor well or sick in credit or in contempt whether we laugh or weep When our part will be so quickly acted and we must go naked out of the world as we came into it For so short a time a poor habitation may serve the turn as well as the most splendid Palace A painful obscure afflicted life may do as well as the most plentiful provisions and the greatest ease and worldly honours The purple and fine linnen the silks and bravery will be soon forgotten and the soul in Hell will be no more the better for them then the rotten carkase in the grave The taste of the delicious meats and drinks will quickly be forgotten and sportful youth will be turned into cold and languid age and the most confirmed health into dolorous sickness and mirth and laughter into mournful groans And is such a transitory life as this more worthy of your care and greatest diligence then life eternal O one would think that the world that you must be ever ever in should never never be forgotten There is the company that you must live with for ever There is the state that you shall never change There is the Joy or Torment that shall have no end and while you forget it you are posting to it and are almost there And can you be too careful for eternity Quest 12. Consider also but the infinite Joyes of Heaven and tell me Whether thou dost think they are not worthy the greatest cost or pains that thou canst be at to get them Dost thou think that Heaven is not worthy of the labour that is bestowed for it by the holyest Saints on earth Will it not requite them to the full Will any that comes thither repent that they obtained it at so dear a rate If now thou couldst speak with one of those Believers mentioned in Heb. 11. that lived as strangers and pilgrims on earth as seeking a better even a heavenly Countrey that preferred the reproach of Christ before the treasure of the world and chose affliction with the people of God before the pleasures of sin for a season that were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might receive a better resurrection that had tryal of cruel mâ—â—kings and scourgings and of bonds and imprisonments and were sâ—oned sawn asunder tempted slain with the sword wandred about in sheep-skins and goat-skins being destitute afflicted and tormented though men of whom the world was not worthy Would any one of these now tell you that they did or suffered too much for Heaven Or that it was not worth ten thousand times more If thy tongue dare say that Heaven is not worth the cost or trouble of a holy life or if thy life say so though thy tongue dare not thou judgest thy self unworthy of it and sentencest thy self unto damnation Quest 13. And are the torments of Hell so small and tolerable that thou thinkest a holy life too dear a means for to prevent them Dost thou believe the threatnings of the Lord that he will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 1. 8 9. and yet canst thou say What needs all this ado to scape such endless misery Thou wilt take any medicine to cure but the gowt or stone if once thou have felt them Thou wilt draw out a tooth to prevent the pain of it And is Holiness so hateful or grievous a thing to thee that thou wilt venture on Hell it self to avoid it If so much of Hell be in thy heart already blame none but thy self if thou have thy choice Quest 14. Why wast thou baptized into the Covenant of holiness to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost if thou think it nâ—â—dless to perform thy Covenant A holy life is no more then in Baptism thou wast solemnly engaged too There didst thou renounce the flesh the world and the Devil and tookest God for thy portion and absolute Lord and gavest up thy self to be ruled by him and saved by Christ and sanctified by the holy Spirit and dost thou now say What needs all this ado Are we all by our Baptismal Vow engaged to a needless thing I tell thee there is not the holyest man on earth that doth any more then what he is bound to by the Covenant-Relations which he undertook in Baptism Quest 15. Moreover What an Hypocrite art thou to profess thy self a member of the Holy Catholick Church if Holiness which is the life of the Church seem needless to thee Why dost thou profess to believe and desire the Communion of Saints if the life of Saints seem needless to thee and thou wilt not have Communion with them in their sanctity Dost thou not plainly renounce thy Covenant and faith and duty when thou renouncest a holy life as a thing unnecessary Quest 16. Dost thou think or darest thou say that the bloody death and holy life of Jesus Christ were more then needs in order to thy salvation Unless thou be a prosessed Infidel I know thou darest not say so And if thy soul were worth the sufferings of the Lord of Life is it not worth all the cost and labour of thy duty Christ lived a life of perfect holiness he never sinned he fulfilled all righteousness he prayed all night and with greatest fervency preaching and doing good was his employment Though he hated Pharisaical superstition and the teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men and serving God according to mens traditions yet was there never so holy and pure and precise and strict and heavenly a life as Jesus Christ's And this was for our redemption and our example And darest thou say that this was needless Should we not endeavour to imitate our pattern Are they better that are likest Christ or they that are most unlike him And which dost thou think is liker Christ the holy or the unholy Sure we that fall so short of the example that Christ hath given us are far from being more diligent then needs when Christ went not too far nor was too strict that went so very far beyond us Quest 17. Look upon all the institutions of
you speak falsly because you make the most barbarous Heathens to be most happy and the worst of men to be the best If it be best where there is least Religion and least Teaching or meddling with holy things then are the naked Indians the best and the Cannibals that live on the flesh of men These be they that are least troubled with Preaching and Religion And if you think that these miserable souls are best and happyest I pray you go to them and be happy with them And by my consent the Magistrate shall promote your happiness and send you thither 17. And would you have us believe you when you contradict your selves Out of your own mouthes will we silence or condemn you It is Christ that teacheth us to be Holy And do you not pretend your selves to believe in Christ That which you dislike as a troublesom or needless thing is nothing but serious Christianity it self And do you not say your selves that you are Christians Do not you profess the Articles of the Christian Belief And what do we but practice that which you profess We do but obey that God whom you say you believe in as the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and all things We do but love the Lord our Saviour whom you say you believe in as your Saviour We do but obey the Holy-Ghost that sanctifieth all that God will save whom you also profess to believe in your selves We practise that Communion of Saints which you deride and yet profess that you believe We seek after the remission of sin and that life everlasting which you take on you to believe your selves And will you profess to Believe these things and yet say they are naught or that it was never a good world since they were regarded and practised And do you not profess to take the ten Commandments for the Law of God which all men should obey And what do we but endeavour to obey them All that which you hate as too much preciseness is nothing but the obeying of these ten Commandments And O that we could do it better And do you not use in the saying of the Lords Prayer to pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed and his Kingdom come and his Will be done yea even as it is done in Heaven And yet 〈◊〉 you say with the same mouth that it was never a good world since Gods name was Hallowed and since his Kingdom was â—â—vanced and his Laws so much regarded and his Will obeyed O hypocrites Is this your praying and do you look such prayers should be accepted which you hate and speak against your selves You pray that you may not be led into Temptation but delivered from evil and yet you run into temptation and take that Evil to be Good How oft have I heard men when the Commandments have been repeated which require us to take the Lord only for our God and not to take his Name in vain and to Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day to joyn to it as their prayer Lord have mercy upon us and encline our hearts to keep this Law and when they come home revile those people that are willing to keep it and that will not take Gods Name in vain and forbear the keeping holy of his day as they do themselves Either give over professing the Christian Belief and using the Lords Prayer and praying that you may keep the Commandments of God or else give over reviling those that do it Either say plainly that you are Heathens and no Christians or else never say that a Christian Life is hurtful to the world nor make it the matter of your reproach 18. And I must needs say that I am the more assured that your words against Religion are false because I know that they please the Devil who is the Father of lyes and are just such as he would have you speak and would speak himself if he had but liberty and his appearance would not marr hâ—â— cause When thou art railing at Godliness and saying that this Religion is the trouble of the world and that the servants of Christ are but a company of busie hypocrites just so would the Devil have thee speak I can prove it fully from the Scriptures and from his Nature and designs You could not speak more agreeably to his mind If he had hired you and written down every word which he would have you speak you could not more punctually obey him Do you plead against Holiness and for a careless and ungodly life Do you despise the righteous and justifie the wicked Just so would the Devil have you do If he stood by you and prompted you as indeed he doth though you do not know it those are the very words that he would have you say Indeed when he is compelled the Devil himself speaketh better then you as in Acts 16. 17. he saith These men are the servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation These are better words then yours But when he is left to himself and speaketh of his own he speaketh just as you do and shall we believe you when the Devil sets you on and you speak the words of the lying spirit 19. And I the less believe you when you say that the world is the worse for Preaching and Religiousness because I know from whence this comes You take that to be the best that is the worst and that to be the worst that is indeed the best You judge after the flesh and take those for the best times when you have most prosperity and may sin with least contradiction and molestation and be least troubled in your sensual course These are your good daies which wise men know to be your slavery and misery It is never a good world with you when your consciences are troubled and your sores are lanced and Satan cannot keep his garrison in peace and when you cannot be permitted to drink and swear and game and revell without controll And if this be your good world I had rather have a prison or a pair of stocks with Christ and the Gospel which you despise and with the means and hopes of the world to come then to have your good world which is but thee quietest passage to damnation You are not yet to be believed stay till you see the end and what comes of it and then tell us which was the good world 20. Lastly if all this will not serve I will silence you and shame you if you have any shame left If Religion and so much serving of God do make the world worse and those be the worst times where there is most of these then Heaven would be worse then Earth or Hell even the worst place in all the world For no place hath so much Holiness as Heaven Nowhere is there so much ado about the Praise and Service of God as there is in Heaven There they do nothing else but that which
but meer delusions and irrational like the laughter of a mad man that is no comfort to the standers by who know that it is but the fruit of his distemper and maketh him an object of more compassion What wisdom is it to look high and carry it gallantly in the world when you know not but vengeance may overtake you the next hour Alas man thou hast to do with God Though thou see him not it is he that upholds thee and observeth thee and looketh for Love and Duty from thee and will be Glorified by thee or thou shalt dearly answer it God will not be neglected and abused at so cheap a rate as sottish Infidels imagine He despiseth thee if thou despise him 1 Sam. 2. 30. and thou despisest him if thou despise his Messengers and Word and Wayes Luke 10. 16. 1 Thes 4. 8. And if God despise thee what honour is it to thee to be stout-hearted and high in thy own conceit and to live applauded by thy self and others Think of your selves as well as you will God counteth you worse then the basest brutes as long as you make your selves so by neglecting the One thing for which you have your reason When you swagger it out in the world you do but gingle your fetters and glory in your shame Phil. 3. 18 19. While fools admire you God abhorreth you he langheth you to scorn and hath you in derision as he expresseth himself after the manner of men Prov. 1. 26. 27 28. Psalm 2. 4. When you are proud of your riches or honour with such as your selves you are but proud of the bonds of your captivity 2 Tim. 2. 26. Though you live as carelesly and merrily and laugh as heartily and sport your selves as fearlesly as if all were safe and nothing ailed you yet your mirth is but your madness Eccles 7. 4 6. and 2. 2. and God seeth that your day a woful day is coming Psalm 37. 13. and you know not but you may the next hour be tormented in hell that this hour are so pleasant and confident on earth And is this a desirable or rational kind of mirth Did you but now foresee the end did you see what you must see or feel a little of what you must feel you would presently be far from mirth or laughter it would spoil your sport and turn your tune to doleful lamentations O short unsatisfactory pleasure O endless easeless woe how quickly wilt thou surprize them that little dream of such a change You say Religion is a Melancholy thing but verily your condition is so much worse then melancholy that it may make a man melancholy to think of men in so sad a case If any thing in the world will make a man melancholy methinks it should be to stand in your unhappy state and thence to look into eternity and to think of your enmity to heaven and that you have no part in Christ no title to his Kingdom and to think what haste you are making to your infernal home and how fast the wheels of night and day do hurry your unprepared souls to Judgement and that your judgement lingreth not and your damnation slumbreth not as the Holy Ghost speaketh 2 Pet. 2. 3. Whether you sleep or wake be sure it sleepeth not In a word to neglect the One thing needful is to neglect Heaven it self and your salvation to neglect Heaven is to lose it and lose Heaven and lose all And what comfort can the fore-thoughts of life everlasting afford a soul in a state of sin that is passing to everlasting misery And what comfort can any thing in this transitory life afford that man that hath no matter of comfort in the life to come yea that must there live in endless sorrows O let me not taste of that frantick and unreasonable mirth that tendeth to such heaviness and driveth away those wise recovering thoughts that are necessary to prevent it For the Lords sake and for your souls sake all you that neglect the One thing needful will you but search the Scripture and soberly consider whether all this be not certain truth and if it be how it should affect you and what a change in reason it should make upon you I have done with this Use If you have taken a survey of your own hearts and lives will you next for the exercising of your compassion look a little further Use 2. IF One thing be Needful and the neglect of this be so unreasonable so unmanly and so dangerous as we have seen it proved then what an object of compassion and lamentation is the distracted world Look upon this text of Scripture and look also upon the course of the earth and consider of the disagreement and whether it be not still as before the flood that all the imaginations of mans heart are evil continually Gen. 6 5. were it but possible for a man to see the affections and motions of all the world at once as God seeth them what a pâ—â—tisul sight would it be What a stir do they make alas poor souls for they know not what while they forget or slight or hate the One thing necessary What a heap of gadding ants should we see that do nothing but gather sticks and straw Look among persons of every rank in Citie and Countrey and look into the families about you and see what trade it is that they are most busily driving on whether it be for Heaven or earth and whether you can discern by their care and labours that they understand what is the One thing necessary They are as busie as bees but not for honey but in spinning such a spiders web as the beesome of death will presently sweep down Job 8. 14 They labour hard but for what for the food that perisheth and not for that which will endure to everlasting life John 6. 27. They are diligent seekers but for what Not â—â—st for God his Kingdom and Righteousness but for that which they might have had as an addition to their blessedness Matth. 6. 33. They are still doing but what are they doing even undoing themselves by running away from God to hunt after the perishing pleasures of the world Instead of providing for the life to come they are making provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts Rom. 13. 14. Some of them hear the Word of God but they choak it presently by the deceitfulness of riches and the cares of this life Luke 8. 14. They are careful and troubled about many things but the One thing that should be all to them is cast by as if it were nothing Providing for the flesh and minding the world is the employment of their lives They trouble themselves with it and trouble their families and nearest relations and oft-times trouble the whole Towns or places where they live so that unless we will let them have their bone to themselves and give them our cloak when they have taken our coat and say as â—…sheth
When your corpses are laid in the grave men can say Now he hath done his satisfying the flesh and following the world but never man can truly say Now he hath done suffering for it Your life of sin is passing as a dream and your honours as a shadow and all your business as a talc that is told but the life of Glory which you rejected for this would have endured for evermore Suppose as many thousand years as there are sands on the Sea or piles of grass on the whole earth or hairs on the heads of all men in the world yet when these many are past the Joy of Saints and the Torments of the wicked are as far from an end as ever they were The eternal God doth give them a duration and make them eternal When our joyes are at the sweetest this thought must needs be part of that sweetness that their sweetness shall never have an end If our short fore-taste be Joy unspeakable and full of glory what shall we call that Joy which flows from the most perfect fruition and perpetuation 1 Pet. 1. 7 8. We have Joy here but alas how seldom Alas how small in comparison of what we may there expect Some Joy we have but how oft do Melancholy or crosses or losses in the world or temptations or sins or desertions interrupt it Our sun is here most commonly under a cloud and too often in an Ecclipse and we have the night as often as the day Yea our state is usually a Winter Our dayes are cold and short and our nights are long But when the flourishing state of glory comes we shall have no Interscissioâ—s nor Ecclipses Tâ—â— path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4. 18. And the perfect day is a perpetual day that knows no interruption by the darkness of the night For there shall be no night there nor need of candle or Sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever Rev. 22. 5. This is the life that fears no death and this is the feast that fears no want or future famine the pleasure that knows nor fears no pain the health that knows nor fears no sickness this is the treasure that fears no moth or rust or thief the building that fears no storm nor decay the Kingdom that fears no changes by Rebellion the friendship that fears no falling out the Love that fears no hatred or frustration the Glory that fears no envious eye the possessed Inheritance that fears no ejection by fraud or force or any failings the Joy that feels or fears no sorrow while God who is Life it self is our life and while God who is Love is the fountain and object of our Love we can never want either Life or Love And whiles he feeds our Love our Joyful praises will never be run dry nor ever go out for want of fewel This is the true perpetual motion the câ—rculation of the holy blood and spirit from God to man and from man to God Being prepared and brought near him we have the blessed Vision of his face by seeing him and by the blessed emanation of his love we are drawn out perpetually and unweariedly to Love him and Rejoyce in him and from hence uncessantly to praise and honour him In all which as his blessed Image and the shining reflections of his revealed glory he taketh complacency which is the highest end of God and man and the very term of all his works and wayes I Thought here to have ended this First Part of my Discourse but yet compassion calls me back I fear lest with the most I have not yet prevailed and lest I shall leave them behind me in the bonds of their iniquity I daily hear the voice of men possessed by a spirit of uncleanness speaking against this Necessity of a holy life which Christ himself so peremptorly asserteth I hear that voice which foretelleth a more dreadful voice if in time they be not prevailed with to prevent it One saith What need all this ado This strictness is more ado then needs Another saith You would make men mad by poring so much on matters that are above them Another saith Cannot you keep your Religion to your selfe and be Godly with moderation as your neighbours be Another saith I hope God is more merciful then to damn 〈…〉 that â—â— not so precise Another saith I shall never endure so strict a life and therefore I will venture as well as others The summe of allis They are so far in love with the world and sin and so much against a holy life that they will not be perswaded to it and therefore to quiet their consciences in their misery they make themselves believe that they may be saved without it and that it is a thing of no Necessity but their coming to Church and living like good neighbours may serve the turn without it for their salvation And thus doth the malicious Serpent in the hearts of those that he possesseth rise up against the words of Christ Christ saith that this is The One thing needful And the Serpent saith It is more ado then needs and What needs all this ado Though I have fully answered this ungodly objection already in my Treatise of Conversion sect 36. pag. 284. c. and more fully in my Treatise of Rest Part 3. Chap. 6. yet I shall once more fall upon it For death is coming while poor deluded souls are loytering and if Satan by such sensless reasonings as these can keep them unready in their sin till the â—atal stroak hath cut them down and cast them into endless easeless fire alas how great will be their fall and how unspeakably dreadful will be their misery Whoever thou be whether hâ—gh or low learned or unlearned that hast disliked opposed or reproached serious godly Christians as Puritanes and too precise and that thinkest the most diligent labour for salvation to be but more ado then needs and hast not thy self yet resolvedly set upon a holy life I require at thy hands so much impartiality and faithfulness to thy own immortal soul as seriously to peruse these following Questions and to go no further in thy careless negligent ungodly course till thou art able to give such a rational answer to them as thou darest stand to now at the Barr of thine own Conscience and hereafter at the Barr of Christ Quest 1. Canst thou possibly give God more then is his due Or love him more then he deserveth Or serve him more faithfully then thâ—â— art bound and he is worthy of Art thou not his creature made of nothing and hast thou not all that thou art and hast from him and if thou give him all dost thou give him any more then what is his own If thou give him all the affections of thy soul and all the most serious thoughts of thy heart and every hour of thy time and
wit to scape the Gallows and you are Schollars fit for such bestial Masters 11. Yea let me add this one more mischief Hereby they would destroy all Charity and Good works except the very bestial Love of those that please mens lusts For no Laws of men compell men to the Love of God or man Nor much to Good works Who would do any thing comparatively that believed not a Reward and Punishment hereafter If we give all that we have to the poor we can here have no Reward but the breath of â—â—â—â—â— mouth which at death we understand not Take down the everlasting Ends and Motives and all good works and inward virtues too that should produce them are taken down And by this time you may see what a litter of bears what a pack of ravening dogs what Cannibals the world should be turned into by the doctrine of the Brutists that deny the life to come Well! but perhaps you will by this time have so much sense as to confess that Threatnings and Punishments Hopes and Fears of the State of another Life are necessary to the well governing of this world And if so I desire no more to satisfie any man that believes that there is a God and that is any man that hath not drowned his wits in sin For 1. This will then shew that the Nature of man is formed for another life and God did not make him such in vain 2. And certainly if everlasting Motives must be put into the Laws that govern us and into our Hopes and Fears then it is not possible but such things there are to be expected For any man to imagine that God would make a world which he cannot Govern but by falsehood and deceit this is to say that God is no God For all lying and falshood comes either from a want of Power or Wisdom or Goodness when men either cannot make good their words or otherwise attain their ends or when they have not wit to know what is or was or will be or when they are so bad as to be disposed to deceive But he that ascribeth any of these to God doth worse then to say that there is no God If I hate deceit and Lying my self the God that gave me all that little Good which I have must hate it more Dream not of any but a worm or fool or impious tyrant that needs or loves deceit and falshood to attain their ends Judge by the frame of Heaven and Earth and by that little Good that is in Good men whether the living God be one that needs such Hellish Engines to Rule the world If therefore in order to the Government of mankind we must needs Believe a â—â—fe to come it is certainly True And why do not you believe that which Government requireth you to believe Quer. 13. Moreover I demand of you Whether you take God indeed to be the Governour of this world or not By Governour I mean properly One that Ruleth the Rational Creature as such by Moral Means even Laws and Executions I exclude not his Potential Efficacious operations but conclude a Necessity of Moral Government I know a self-conceited Popish Infidel hath endeavoured to perswade the world that Gods Soveraignty and Moral Government are Metaphorical expressions arising from the misconceivings of weak men and that Wiser men like himself do conceive of Gods Government only as of an Artificers disposal of his works that Physically accomplisheth all his Will As if Gods Natural Causations and his Moral were inconsistent Or as if God were not Wise and Good as well as Almighty or did not in his Government of man demonstrate his sapience in his Laws and his Goodness in Attractive Benefits as well as his Power in meer Natural Motion Or as if man were not a Rational Creature and a free-agent and were not to be governed according to his Nature by Objects suited to his Intellect and Will but must be used and ruled like a stone or beast Or as if God could not infallibly attain his Ends by a Sapiential Government and by preserving the liberty of the Will as well as by a meer Necessitating causation This man was so enamoured upon his supposed skill in Physicks and Metaphysicks that he not only lost his Morality but grew to be such an Enemy to it as to blot out all true Morality Civility Policy Oeconomy at a dash and stands with the rest of the Proud fraternity as a Monument of Gods justice against the Proud so deplorately forsaken even in the Reason that he glorieth of that children may perceive his folly He that is all for Operations of Power as excluding Sapiential Government by Laws and their just executions doth think sure that a horse hath more of the Image of God then a man For he is much stronger Bruitish force would be more excellent then the Attraction of Goodness and the Conduct of Wisdom if the Government which is no Government that these men dream of were the most excellent As he will allow his Artificer to shew as much at least of his wit by making a Watch or Clock that shall though by a necessity move without the finger of the workman continually moving it so methinks he should allow the Infinitely Wise and Gracious God to be nevertheless Wise or Gracious if he Rule the Rational-free-agent without a forcible Physical Necessitation by a Gracious Attraction and Sapiential Conduct agreeable to the Reason and Liberty of the Creature as long as we exclude not the Co-working of Omnipotency nor deny the infallibility of Divine Predefinition which may be secured with the security of the Creatures Liberty In a word to deny God to be the Soveraign Governour of the world in proper sense 1. Is a denying him to be God it being a term of Relation comprizing Government and not of meer Nature When it is commanded us that we have no other Gods and when we are required in the holy Covenant to take the Lord for our God and give up our selves to him as his people it most plainly expresseth that his Governing Authority or his Soveraignty is comprehended in the term God And indeed having made a Rational-free-creature whose Nature requireth Moral Government it followed by necessary resultancy that he that had sole Authority and sufficiency must be his Soveraign 2. These Proud Blasphemers that deny Gods proper Government do contradict the very drift of Scripture that calleth him our King and Governour and requireth our subjection and obedience 3. They deny the being of Gods Laws both the Law of Nature and the Written Laws and so blot out the Word of God and the sense and use of all his works Though they allow them a certain Physical operation on us yet as Laws they do obliterate them that is as they are Norma officii judicii our Rule of duty and expectation and Gods resolved way of Judging 4. They hereby overthrow all Duty as such and make Good actions to be but as
secureth every Society and interesteth them in the most impregnable defence even in the Love and favour of the Lord and in his many sure and precious promises He hath engaged his Almightiness and Fidelity for such and rendreth them as the apple of his eye and hath promised that he will be their defence Zech. 2. 8. Psalm 5. 11. 7. 10. 59. 9 16 17. 62. 2. whereas the ungodly are under his curse Psalm 1. 6. 37. And which of these Societies is liker to be happy 18. Godliness is the surest way to furnish every Society with all the blessings that are truly good for them For they have the favour and promise of him that is the giver of them all Rom. 8. 28. Psalm 34. 10. 84. 11. 23. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4. 8. 6. 6. Mat. 6. 33. But wickedness is the certain way to ruine Even one sinner destroyeth much good Eccl. 9. 18. and one godly man hindreth much evil as the case of Joseph Moses Daniel and many others tells you 19 Moreover it is Godliness that is the honour of all Societies Without this their wisdom is meer folly and their Riches are but the â—etters of their slavery and canker to gnaw them and testifie against them and their greatest victories may be but murders which shall damn them and their splendour in the world is but the sign of their misery in the eyes of all fore-seeing men Prov. 14. 34 Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people What Glory can be equal to the Glory of our interest in God and of our being his people and doing his work and having his presence 20. Lastly How can that be worst on earth that is so good in Heaven The perfection of Holiness hereafter with the Holy Love and Praises and Enjoyments of the Saints will be their Glory If you think this worst in your Societies on earth what do you but renounce it If Heaven be worst for you come not thither If the participation of that which is the felicity of the glorified be not the felicity of all Societies I desire none of their felicity What if Saints from Heaven would come down and dwell among you here on earth I beseech you as men of reason answer me these two Questions 1. Whether you do not know or verily believe that they would be more Holy and Pure and Exact and strict and more averse to all sin then any of those are that now you dislike as too precise 2. Whether you would therefore call them Puritanes and hate them and cast them out or imprison them or take them for the troublers of your Countries or rather for the honour and blessing of your Countries What you would do by them that do by those that come nearest to them among you CHAP. V. Times of Holiness are the Best Times AND now I have given you all this Evidence I dare leave it to the judgement of any man that is fit to judge Whether it be the godly or ungodly that are the Better Magistrates or Better Pastors of the Churches or Better Members of the Common-wealth or of any Society Judge now whether the Places and Times are not Best that are most Godly And whether it be the Godly or the Ungodly that are the Troublers of the world And yet it hath ever been the practice of ungodly men to charge it upon them that Fear the Lord that all the troubles of the world are long of them We were all quiet say they before this Religion and preciseness troubled us and this is it that since it came among us hath set us all together by the ears But if these men be yet reasonable I desire them to consider 1. That this hath alwayes been the old complaint of the most wicked men which God himself hath testified against When Lot did but gently admonish the abominable Sodomites to forbear a villany not to be named Gen. 19. 7 8 9. I pray you Brethren do not so wickedly What said they to him and how did they take it Why they said stand back and they said again This One fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge Now will we deal worse with thee then with them Is not this the case between us now How are we unpeaceable Because we are against sin If we would hinder men from wronging God and from condemning their own souls and others then forsooth we are their troublers and we judge them and we disturb their Peace Just like the Sodomites These precise fellows say they will neede be our Judges and we must be ruled by them before they came among us we had none of this ado But did not God think you decide the controversie aright He first took Lot and his family away that the Sodomites might be troubled with that precise and busie fellow no more and then he sent fire from Heaven on Sodom and consumed them all making them an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Or as it is fully set forth by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 2. 6 7 8 9. Turning the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes he condemned them with an overthrow making them an example to those that after should live ungodly Mark this And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust to the day of Judgement to be punished And now who is it that was troublesom and the cause of evil Was it Lot or was it Sodom Take heed lest God take the Lots that trouble you from among you and when you are rejoycing that you are rid of them he serve you worse then he served Sodom In the daies of Noah no question but that Preacher of Righteousness seemed to the world a singular and a self-conceited fellow But did not God decide the controversie whether it were Noah or they that were the troublers of the world Saith Peter 2 Pet. 2 5. God spared not the old world but saved Noah the eighth person a Preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly When Israel â—ell before the men of Ai it was a doubt who it was that was the cause of that calamity but God proved it to be Achan who is stoned upon this sentence of Joshua Josh 7. 25. Why hast thou troubled us the Lord shall trouble thee this day 2. And consider I pray you What a Quietness it is that you have before you are troubled by the Godly It is a Quietness in the high way to Hell You had the priviledge of damning your souls without disturbance from these precise controllers Hath not
Power Wisdom and Goodness engaged to us for our Good and to be ours according to our necessity and capacity This O ye worldlings is the Riches of the Saints This is the Wealth that we will boldly boast of Boast you of your houses and lands and money and we will boast of our God Have you Houses and Towns and Countreys at command Be it so but the Saints have the God of the world to be their God Have you Kingdoms and Dominions We have the God of all the earth the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Set all your Riches in the ballance against him and try what they will prove Set all the world and the Kingdoms and Glory and Wealth of it in the ballance and try whether they are any more to God then one dust or feather to all the world yea they are nothing and less then nothing vanity and lighter then vanity it self Isa. 40. 16 17. This one Jewel containeth all our Treasure He is ours that hath all things What then can we need Psal 23. 1. He is ours that knoweth all things Who then can overreach us or undo us by deceit He is ours that can do all things What then should we fear and what power shall prevail against us He is ours that is Goodness and Love it self How then can we be miserable or what imperfection can there be in our Felicity They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor himself that he should live for ever and not see corruption Psalm 49. 6 7 9. But God will redeem us from the power of the grave for he shall receive us Ver. 15. Let the workers of iniquity boast themselves a while Psalm 94. 4. Let the wicked 〈…〉 desire and bless the coveâ—â—â—â— whom the Lord abhorreth Psalm 10. 3. It is the Lord that is King for ever and ever that heareth the desires of the hamble that prepareth our hearts and prepareth his ear to hear Ver. 16 17. Our souls shall make their boast in God Psalm 34. 2. O tast and see that the Lord is good blessed is the man that trusteth in him But you cannot say truly Blessed is the man that hath Lands and Lorships Blessed is the man that hath Crowns and Kingdoms Yea truly may you say Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord. Jer. 17. 5. Fear the Lord ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him Psalm 34. 8 9 10. But when you have all the world you cannot say that you have no want Confounded then be the covetous Idolaters that boast themselves of their Idols Psalm 97. 7. But in God will we boast all the day long and praise his name for evermore Psalm 44. 8. What have you but the gleanings of our harvest and the crums that fall from the childrens table Our God is he that giveth you your prosperity He droppeth you these leavings from the redundancy of his Goodness when he hath given himself his Son and all things to his own All that we want and all that our souls desire is in God We have none in heaven but him nor any in earth that we desire besides him Psalm 73. 25. His loving kindness is better to us then life Psalm 63. 3. Our flesh and our heart faileth us and all the creatures fail us but God is the strength of our hearts and our portion for ever Psalm 73. 26. Verily the Riches of all the Princes of the earth is less in comparison of him that is the Treasure and Portion of the Saints then a straw is to all the earth or a little dung to the shining Sun 2. Would you yet hear more of the Riches of Believers though more then God there cannot be The Lord Jesus Christ is their Head and Husband their Saviour and Intercessour at Gods right hand They are Married to him His Merits are thâ—irs for all those uses to which they need them It is he that Justifieth Who then shall condemn them He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall be not with â—iâ— also freely give us all things Rom. 8. 32 34. Christ is the Pearl of infinite valuâ— for whom we have willingly sold all Matth. 13. 45 46. And what are all your Treasures to this Treasure Ask â—â—â—l and he will tell you that had tryed both Phil. 3. 7 8. His 〈…〉 â—e counteth Loss for Christ yea all things he accounted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ It is Love incomprehensible surpassing knowledge that is revealed to us in Christ Eph. 3. 18 19. The Riches of Christ are unsearchable Riches Eph. 3. 8. It is Christ that bindeth up our broken hearts that is the Peace-maker and Reconciler of our souls to God What he hath done for us and what he will do I shall tell you anon But the ungodly have no part in him nor have they any such treasure that will do for them what Christ will do for us Their Treasure is the wrath of God which they are heaping up against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God Rom. 2. 5. All the Treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in Christ Col. 2. 3. And he hath them for us according to our measure as being our Treasurie our Head and made of God to us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1. 30. They are exceeding Riches of Grace that are shewed in the kindness of God through Jesus Christ to all that are sanctified by that grace Ephes 2. 6 7 8. Yea that you may see there is no comparison even that which you abhorr in a Christians case and account his misery and the worst of Christ is better then the best of your condition and then that for which you lose your souls For the very Reproach of Christ is greater riches then the Treasures of the world Heb. 11. 26. And it is the reproach that we undergo for Christ that you most abhorr and the treasures of the world that you highlyest esteem It is greater Riches to be one of them that are scorned and derided for the sake of Christ then to be one of them that hath the wealth of the world at his dispose And if the Reproach of Christ be greater Riches then all yours What then is his Life and Love and Benefits his Grace and Glory 3. Would you have the Riches of the Saints yet further opened to you Why the Holy-Ghost is in Covenant with them as their Sanctifier and Comforter And he is not only theirs himself by Covenant and Relation but he also dwelleth in them by his graâ—â—s and restoreth the image of God upon them They are the â—…ples of the Holy-Ghost which is in them 1 Cor. 6. 19. And by the Spirit and by Faith Christ dwelleth
this man will I look saith the Lord even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Isa 66. 2. This is the Honourable entertainment of the Saints 7. And they are members of the most Honourable Society in the world The Church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Luke 1. 33. Col. 1. 13. The Kingdom of God Luke 17. 21. 18. 17. The Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 3. 2. 13. 31 33 44. It is the School of Christ or his University in which Believers are his Schollars learning to know him and serve him and praise him for ever and trained up for everlasting life Acts 11. 26. Luke 6. 13. Mat. 5. 1 2 c. It is the family or houshold of God Eph. 2. 19. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Heb. 10. 21. 1 Pet. 4. 17. It is the Spouse yea the Body of Christ Eph. 5. 25. So loved by him that he gave himself for it becoming the price of our Redemption and thought not his life too dear a Ransom nor his blood too precious to cleanse and save us Eph. 5. 25 26. Tit. 2. 14. The Church which every godly man is a living member of is a Society chosen out of the world to be nearest unto God and dearest to him as the beloved of his soul to receive the choicest of his mercies and be adorned with the righteousness of Christ and to be employed in his special service 1 Pet. 2. 4 5 9. John 15. 19. Eph. 1. 4. Psalm 132. 13. 135. 4. Eph. 5. 1. The Lord that Redeemed them is their King and Head and dwelleth in the midst of them and walketh among them as the people of his special presence and delight Psalm 2. 6. 89. 18. 149. 2. 46. 5. Isa 12. 6. Jer. 14. 9. Zeph. 3. 5 15 17. Rev. 1. 13. 2. 1. Psalm 95. 2. The Church is a Heavenly Society though the militant part yet live on earth For the God of Heaven is the Soveraign and the Father of it The glorified Redeemer is their Head The Spirit of Christ doth guide and animate them His Laws revealed and confirmed from Heaven direct and govern them Heaven is their end and heavenly are their dispositions employments and conversations There is their portion and treasure Matth. 6. 20 21. and there is their very heart and hope They are risen with Christ and therefore seek the things that are above For their life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3. 2 3 4. Their Root is there and the noblest part of the Society is there For the glorified Saints and in some sort the Angels are of the same Society with us though they are in heaven and we on earth The whole family in Heaven and earth is named from one and the same Head Eph. 3. 15. Heb. 12. 22 23. 24. We are come unto Mount Sion and unto the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling c. This is the Honourable Society of Saints the eye the pearl of the whole Creation 8. Moreover the Godly have the most Horourable Attendance The creatures are all theirs though not in point of Civil propriety yet as means appointed and managed by God their Father for their best advantage The Angels of God are ministring spirits for them not as our servants but as Gods servants for our good As Ministers in the Church are not the servants of men but the servants of God for men And so whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or to come all are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. The Shepherds servant is not the servant of the sheep but for the sheep And so the Angels disdain not to serve God in the guarding of the weakest Saints As I formerly shewed from Heb. 1. 14. Psalm 91. 11 12. 34. 7. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them For he giveth his Angels charge over us to keep us in all our wayes they shall bear us up in their hands left we dash our foot against a stone Sun and Moon and all the creatures are daily employed in our attendance O how wonderful is the Love of God to his unworthy servants in their advancement Remember it when thou art scorning at the servants of the Lord or speaking against them that those poor those weak despised Christians that thou art vilifying have their Angels beholding the face of God their Father in the Heavens Take heed therefore that you despise not the least of these It is the warning of Christ Matth. 18. 10. The same blessed spirits that attend the Lord and see his face in blissful Glory do attend and guard the meanest of the godly here on earth As the same servants use to wait upon the Father and the children in the same family or the bigger children to help the less 9. And it is the Honour of the Godly that they that are themselves most Honourable do Honour them To be magnified by a fool or wicked flatterer is small Honour but to be magnified by the best and wisest men this is true Honour We say that Honour is in him that giveth it and not in him that receiveth But it is God himself that Honoureth his Saints It is he that speaketh all these great and wonderous things of them which I have hitherto recited Search the Texts which I have alledged and try whether it be not he And surely to have the God of Heaven to applaud a man and put Honour upon him and so great Honour is more then if all the world had done it Yet we may add if any thing could be considerable that is added unto the approbation of God that all his servants the wisest and the best even his holy Angels are of the same mind and honour the godly in conformity to their Lord. And here Christian I require thee from the Lord to consider the greatness of thy sin and folly when thou art too desirous of the applause of men especially of the blind ungodly world and when thou makest a great matter of their contempt or scorn or of their slanderous censures What! is the approbation of the eternal God so small a matter in thy eyes that the scorn of a fool can weigh it down or move the ballance with thee If a feather were put into the scales against a mountain or the whole earth it should weigh as much as the esteem or dis-esteem of men their honouring thee or dishonouring thee should weigh against the esteem of God and the honour or dishonour that he puts upon thee as to any regard of the thing it self though as it reflecteth on God thou
more certainly of the Invisible things then any Saints or Angels can tell them Why should not this I say be sweeter to them then all the fleshly pleasures in the world O that I could know more of God and more of the mystery of Redemption even of an obedient crucified glorified Christ and more of the invisible world and of the blessed state of souls on condition I left all the Pleasures of this world to sensual men O that I had more clear and firm apprehensions of these transcendent glorious things How easily could I spare the Pleasures of the flesh and leave those husks to swine to feed on O could my Soul get nearer God and be more irradiated with his heavenly beams my mind would need no other recreation and I should as little relish carnal Pleasures as carnal minds do relish the heavenly delights As earthly things are poor and low so is the knowledge of them As things spiritual and heavenly are High and Glorious mysterious and profound the knowledge of them is accordingly Delighful And without controversie great is the mystery of Godliness God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. Faith is the Evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. It is far pleasanter by faith to see the Lord thâ—… to see any Creature by the eye of flesh and sweeter â—y faith to see Heaven opened and there behold our Glorified Lord then to see a horse-race or stage-play or any of the folleries of the world 2. The knowledge of things to Come is specially desired and Godliness containeth that Faith which knoweth things to come How glad would men be to be told what shall besall them to the last hour of their lives The woman of Samaria Joh. 4. called out her neighbours with admiration to see Christ as one that had told her all that shee had done But if he had told her all that ever she would do for the time to come and all that ever should befall her it might have astonished her much more Believers know what hath been even before the world was made and how it was made and what hath been since then and they know what will be to all eternity A true Believer knows from Scripture whither mens Souls go after death and how their Bodies shall be raised again and how Christ will come to Judge the world and who shall then be justified and who shall be condemned and what shall be the case of the godly and the ungodly to all eternity And is it not more pleasant to know these things then to possess all the vain delights of the earth Can the flesh afford you any thing so delightful 3. Especially it is desireable and Pleasant to Know those things that most concern us Needless speculations and curiosities we can spare There is a Knowledge that brings more pain then pleasure Yea there is a Knowledge that will torment But to know our own affairs our greatest and most necessary affairs to know our threatened misery to prevent it and to know our offered Happiness to obtain it to know our Portion our Honour our God what can be more Pleasant to the mind of man Other mens matters we can pass by But to Know such things concerning our own souls as what we must be and do for ever and what course we must take to be everlastingly happy must needs be a feast to the mind of a wise man Ask but a soul that is haunted with temptations to unbelif whether any thing would be more welcome to him then the clear and satisfying apprehensions of a lively faith Ask one that lyeth in tears or groans through the feeling of their sin and the fears of the wrath of God and doubtings of his love whether the satisfying Knowledge of pardon and reconciliation and divine acceptance would not be more pleasant to them then any of your merriments can be to you Ask that poor soul that hath lost the apprehension of his Evidences of grace and walks in darkness and hath no light that seeks and cryes and perceives no hearing whether the discovery of his Evidences the assurance that his Prayers are accepted and the light of Gods countenance shining on him would not be Better to him then any Recreation or any Pleasure the earth affords Ask any man at the hour of death that is not a block Whether now the Knowledge of his salvation would not be Better and more Pleasnt to him then all the lust or sport or honours of the world 4. The Knowledge of the Best and Joyfullest matters must be the Best and Pleasantest Knowledge And nothing can be Better then God and Glory Nothing can be sweeter then salvation and therefore this must be the sweetest Knowledge I had rather have the pleasure of one hours clear and lively Knowledge of my salvation and of the special Love of God then to be exalted above the greatest Prince and to have all the Pleasures that my senses can desire The Delights of the flesh are base and brutish and nothing to the spiritual Heavenly Delights of the renewed mind 5. The manner of our Holy Knowledge maketh it more Delightful 1 It is a Certain and Infallible Knowledge It is not a may be or bare possibility It is not It is possible there may be a Heaven and Happiness hereafter But it is as true as the Word of God is true We have his own hand and seal and earnest for it Even his precious promises and oath confirmed by miracles and fulfilled-prophecy and bearing his own image and superscription and shining to us by its own light We have in our hearts the spirit which is Gods earnest by which we are sealed up to the day of our final full redemption And if the soul yet stagger at the promise of God through the remnants of unbelief that shall not make the promise of God of none effect but his foundation shall still stand sure His word shall not pass till all be fulfilled though heaven and earth shall pass away A message by one that were sent to us from the dead were not more credible then the Word of God And this Certainty of Holy Faith and Knowledge is a very great contentment to the soul When the Glory of the Saints is a thing as sure as if we saw it with our eyes and as sure as these things which we daily see it is a great pleasure to the soul when it can but apprehend this joyful Certainty 2. And that there is a certain easiness and plainness in the great and necessary points of faith as to the manner of Revelation doth add much to Faith's Satisfaction and Delight The points that life and death lie on are not left so obscure as might perplex us lest we did not know the meaning of them But they are so plain that he that runs may read them and the simple
Call your able Pastors to debate it 2. And remember that they have the Scripture and the far greater part of the universal Church and the senses of all the world to confute before they can make good the cause their of ambitious Clergy If you are but sure you know Bread and Wine when you see and feel and smell and taste them then you are at the end of controversie with the Papists Above all see that you maintain the Love of God and a heavenly mind and mortified affections and grow not opinionative superficial or loose in your Religion For he that is heartily of no Religion is prepared to be of any Religion And it is because men are false to the acknowledged Truth that they are given up to make a Religion of deceit and falshood Your fidelity to your King and Countrey obligeth you to do your part to preserve the subjects from a disease so injurious to them Saith Dr. Sherman in his late Account of Faith against the Papist Pres p. 4 5. If Kings would think upon it there miâ—â—â— be no Popes since if Popes could well help it there should be no Kings 5. Take heed of all temptations to turbulency resisting of Authority or other unlawfull means in the obeying of your passions or discontents As God chose most eminently to Glorifie his Power under the Law of Works and the spirit of bondage to fear did much prevail but under the Gospel he hath chosen most eminently to magnifie his Goodness Love and Mercy so accordingly is the impress made upon his servants hearts They are animated by Love for the propagating of Love and therefore must work with Instruments of Love And if we had well learnt the Doctrine and Example of our Lord and made it our work to Love all and to do good to all and hurt to none and with meekness and patience to let any hurt us rather then do any thing for our own defence which is against the Law of Love we should see that Christianity would better thrive when it would be better understood by the practice of the professors Often have I noted that a whole flock of sheep will run away from the smallest dog and yet there is few of them killed by dogs because they are under their Masters care when a Woolf or Fox is pursued by all and few of them suffered to live And oft have I observed that when men that shift for themselves can scarce pass the streets yet children play in the way of Carts and Coaches without hurt while every one takes it for his care to preserve them that cannot take care of and preserve themselves And though the Deer that is within the Park is killed when the Owner please yet he is preserved there from others when the wild and stragling Deer that are abroad are a prey to any man that can catch or kill them He that saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth it for Christ shall save it The Lord stablish strengthen direct and preserve you to his Kingdom and keep you from the passions of corrupted nature and from the snares and rage of a deceitful and malicious world I beseech you continue yet your prayers for him that desireth no greater advancement in the world than to be The servant of Christ and Helper of your Joy Rich. Baxter June 7. 1662. The Contents Part 1. PReface The contempt of Godliness rebuked pag. 1 Godliness described What it containeth and what I mean by Godliness throughout this Treatise p. 5 Signs of true Godliness p. 14 Directions for such as will be soundly and sincerely godly p. 18 LUke 10 41 42. The design of the Treatise p. 1 The Text explained p. 3 c. 1. Obs Nearest natural relations are not alwayes of one mind in the matters of salvation p. 8 2. Obs When Christ cometh into the house he is presently at work for the hearers souls p. 8 3. Obs When the word is preached we must hear p. 9 4. Obs The humility of Disciples in those times ib. The sense of the Text in seven Doctrines p. 10 Doct. 1. One thing is Needful It is One thing that is absolutely Necessary but they busie themselves about many that neglect this one p. 11 In what respect it is One and but One ibid. How the troubling matters of the world are many p. 13 How far the One thing is Necessary p. 15 Qâ— Are not other things Needful in their places p. 18 The Application 1. by way of inquiry how you have sought the One thing Necessary p. 20 How a true Christian differeth from all hypocrites p. 22 1. Whatever you have been doing in the world you have but lost your Time if you have not done the One thing Needful p. 25 2. And you have lost all your labour p. 26 3. You have been busily undoing your selves p. 29 4. You have unman'd your selves and lived below your Reason and as beside your wits p. 32 The madness of them that are afraid of being Godly lest it make them mad p. 34 5. You have but abused and lost all your mercies p. 37 38 6. You have neglected Christ his Grace and Spirit p. 40 7. Your hopes and peace are but delusions and irrational p. 41 Use 2. To lament the distracted course of worldlings p. 43 Use 3. Exhortation What course will you take for time to come p. 48 Consider 1. It is Necessity that is pleaded with you p. 51 2. It is but One thing that God hath made Necessary p. 56 3. This One thing is that Good part p. 59 4. This Good part is offered you and you have your choice whether God or the world heaven or earth shall be your portion p. 61 Qu. How is it in our choice have we free-will p. 63 5. If you choose it it shall never be taken from you p. 65 A full confutation of those ungodly ones that deny the Necessity of a holy life p. 69. in 30 Queries Obj. It is not Godliness but your procise way that we call needless The particulars of a holy life examined p. 83. 1. Much preaching and hearing p. 85 2. Reading Scriptures 3. and servent Prayer p. 86 3. Diligent instructing families p. 88 4. The holy observation of the Lords Day justified p. 89 7. Strictness of life in avoiding sin p. 92 8. The rigour of Church Discipline p. 94 Obj. It is but few that are so strict p. 97 The second Part. CHap. 1. Holiness and its fruits are the Best part Wherein the Happiness of Saints consisteth p. 101. Why most men choose it not What is set in the Ballance against it p. 110 The excuses of refusers answered p. 112 Chap. 2. What he must do in reason that will be resolved which is the best part and way And who shall be the judge p. 114 Chap. 3. Twenty Queries for the full conviction of all Rational men that are willing to understand the truth that There is a Life to come of
little longer in such impudent calumniations against me and other Ministers of Christ But know that thy day is coming and that for all these things thou shalt come to judgement and if thou justifie the ungodly yet remember that It is not good to have respect of persons in judgement and he that saith to the wicked Thou art Righteous the people shall curse him Nations shall abhorr him Prov. 24. 23 24. He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both are abomination to the Lord. Prov. 17. 15. Wo unto them that call Evil Good and Good Evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter which justifie the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeth the chaff so their root shall be rottenness and their blossom shall go up as the dust because they have cast away the Law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the holy one of Israel Isa 5. 20 23 24. Let the malicious serpent accuse Job before God in the end it shall turn to his own confusion And if any of the Princes of the earth will by Doegs be provoked to destroy the Priests or by jealousie kindled by malicious whisperers be incited to do by the servants of Christ as they did by the Waldenses Bohemians Protestants in many places c. we will remember the memorable words of David 1 Sam. 26. 18 19. and let the sufferers imitate him in the submissive part Wherefore doth my Lord pursue after his servant for what have I done or what evil is in my hand Now therefore I pray thee let my Lord the King hear the words of his servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering but if it be the children of men cursed be they before the Lord for they have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord saying Go serve other Gods By going where they are served HAving fully shewed you What Godliness is I now beseech thee Reader to enquire Whether this described case be thine Art thou Devoted to God without reserve as being not thine own but his And hast thou devoted all thou hast to him with thy self to be used according to his Will Art thou mere subjected to his Authority and observant of his Laws and Government then of mans and can his word do more with thee tâ—en the word of any mortal man or then the violence of thy lusts and passions Art thou heartily engaged to him as thy felicity and dost thou give up thy self to him in filial Love dependance and observance as to thy dearest friend and Father Dost thou highlyest esteem him and resolvedly choose him and sincerely seek him preferring nothing in thy Estimation Choice Resolution or Endeavour before him Try by these and the other particulars in the Description whether you are Godly or ungodly and do it faithfully for the day is at hand when the ungodly shall not stand in judgement nor sinners in the Assembly of the just Psal 1. 5. And besides the marks expressed in the description let me offer you some from the plain words of the Textâ— that you may see what God accounteth Godliness and consequently â—…w to judge your selves 1. In John 3. 3 5 6. it is written Verily except a â—…an be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of â—…od That which is born of the flesh is flesh and â—…at which is born of the Spirit is Spirit 2 Cor. 5. 17. 〈…〉 any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things â—…e passed away behold all things are become new â—…om 8. 9. If any man have not the spirit of Christ the â—…me is none of his From these Texts you see that a heart and life made new â—…y the Spirit of Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary to true Godliness 2. Psalm 119. 5. O that my wayes were directed to keep thy Statutes Rom. 7. 18. To will is present with â—…e Psalm 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee â—nd there is none on earth c. Isa 26. 8. The desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of â—…hee From these and such like texts it is evident that The principal desires of a godly man and the choice of his will is to be what God would have him be 3. Psalm 1. 2. His delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night 1 Pet. 2. 2. As new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby Luke 10. 42. From these and such like Texts it is manifest That all the Godly do Love the Word of God as the food of their souls and the director of their lives 4. Matth. 6. 20 21 33. Lay up for your selves a treasure in heaven c. For where your treasure is there will your hearts be also Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness Matth. 7. 13. Luke 24. Enter in at the strait gate strive to enter in for many shall seek and shall not be able 2 Pet. 1. 10. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure Rom. 12. 11. From these and such texts you may discern that Godliness consisteth in such diligence for salvation as to seek it before any earthly thing and not to think the labour of a holy life too much for it 5. Rom. 8. 1 5 6 7 8 13. Gal. 5. 18 19. Read them and you will see that Godliness consisteth in living after the spirit and not after the flesh and in mortifying the deeds of the body by the spirit living not by sensuality but by Faith 6. John 3. 19 20. And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light because their deeds were evil For every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth cometh to the light c. 1 King 21. 7 8 And the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat there is yet one man Micaiah by whom we may enquire of the Lord but I hate him for he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil And Jehoshaphat said Let not the King say so From these and such like Texts you see that The Godly love the discovering light and the most searching faithful preacher but the ungodly cannot endure the light which sheweth them their sins nor love the Preachers that tell them of their sin and misery 7. 1 Cor. 13. John 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if you love one another 1 John 3. 14. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the Brethren Psal 15. 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that
way nor Isaac and Ismael nor Sem and Cham not would restrain Cain the first man born into the world from cruel murdering his brother upon a difference about their Religions caused by his own ungodly mind even because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous and acceptable to God 1 John 3. 12. And therefore Parents must patiently submit having done their duty if even the children of their bodies should prove reprobates And Brothers and Sisters must submit if these in so neer a relation be Cast-awayes God hath not promised that all our kindered shall be saved Rejoyce that you are not your selves forsaken and be glad that any and so many are sanctified though further from you in the flesh and love them in their more excellent relation to Christ and you 2. Note here how our Lord doth spend his time in the place and company where he is When he entreth into a house he is presently at work in teaching poor souls the way to God Or else how could Mary have been imployed in hearing him In our places and measure we should imitate him in this Can you come into any house or company and find nothing to say or do for God Is there none wiser then your selves that you may learn of as Mary did of Christ nor none more ignorant whom Charity requireth you to teach Nor none that need a quickening word to mind them of their everlasting state As soon as worldly or vain ungodly people get together they are presently upon some worldly or vain discourse And if you be indeed a heavenly and spiritual people should you not be more ready when you come together for heavenly spiritual discourse Have you not a thousand fold more to set your tougues on work The necessities of the hearers the hopes of doing good the presence of God the sense of the duty the sweetness of the subject the avoiding of sin and the blessing of Gods acceptance to your selves O had we but the skill and will and diligence that this interlocutory preaching by holy conference doth require what a supply party would it be for the promoting of mens salvation where the more publick preaching of the Gospel is wanting Who can forbid us by familiar discourse to exercise our charity in minding poor regardless sinners of the life to come and exhorting them to due preparation and repentance and to open to them the riches of Christ and set forth his love and draw them to embrace him 3. Note here how carefully we should take the present opportunities for our souls to hear and learn as Mary did She stands not carelling like our full stomackt hearers that ask How can you prove that I am bound to hear such a Lecture or to come to Church and hear a Sermon twice on the Lords day or to come to the Minister to ask advice or be instructed by him No more then a hungry man will ask How prove you that it is my duty to eat every day Or then a sick man will say How prove you that I am bound to seek to the Physicion to go or send to his house and to look after him As there is much in the very New nature and health and relish of a gracious soul to decide such Controversies as these without any subtilty of argument so a Christians prudence and care of his salvation will tell him that when Christ hath a voice to speak to him it beseemeth him to have an ear to hear and that the Sermon telleth the hearer the season of his duty and the offer of a mercy telleth us when it is our duty to accept it without any other more particular obligation unless when we can truly say as before God that some duty that at that time is greater hindreth us These are easie questions to those that savour the things of the Spirit When Christ is speaking Mary will be hearing and lesser things shall not call her off If any shall say So would we too if we could 〈…〉 Christ I answer Remember that he never intended to 〈…〉 himself on earth and teach his Church personally by his own mouth but hath appointed Messengers and Officers to proclaim his Laws unto the world and tender them his grace and saith He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Luke 10. 16. and he that despiseth despiseth not man but God 1 Thes 4. 8. And he that will not now believe and hear Christ speaking by his Ministers when he is acknowledged to be the son of God and his sealed Word hath had so long possession in the world would hardly have regarded Christ himself in a time when he appeared in the form of a servant and was found in fashion as a man and was believed on but by a few persons then counted but inconfiderable 4. Note also the humility and teachableness of Disciples in those times who were wont to sit learning at their Teachers feet Which was then an ordinary case and not of Christ Disciples only Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel Acts 22. 3. Not like the proud and self-conceited part of our hearers in these times that come to hear somewhat for their malicious or contentious minds to quarrel with and expect that their Teachers tell them nothing but what is agreeable to their own conceits and think us to be injurious to them if we would heal their ignorance or impiety and make them any wiser or better then they are and that reproach us and set themselves against us as their enemies if we will not be ruled by them and humour them in all our administrations as if we were the patients and they the Physicion we the learners and they the Teachers yea we their servants and they our Guides and Rulers in the matters of our own Office But let us come closer to the words themselves and consider of the Instructions which they afford us which are these Doct. 1. It is but One thing that is of absolute necessity but it is many things that those are taken up with that neglect that one Doct. 2. The One thing needful leadeth to content but the many things of the world do trouble and disquiet and distract the soul Doct. 3. All men where the Gospel is preached have their choice whether they will seek and have the one thing necessary or trouble and distract themselves with the many things that are unnecessary Doct. 4. They that choose the One thing necessary do choose the good part and they that choose any other do make an evil and unhappy choice Doct. 5. The One thing needful shall not be taken from them that choose it but they that choose it not shall have no better then they choose Doct. 6. Those that make the bad unhappy choice are apt to grudge at them that choose better and will not think and do as they Doct. 7. When the matter is brought before the Lord Jesus Christ he will not take
the world and sin no longer and is put off with the leavings of the flesh and hath no more of their hearts their tongues their time their wealth then it can spare They ask their flesh how far they shall be Religious and will go no further then will stand with their prosperity in the world With the first and best they serve the flesh and with the cheapest and the refuse they serve the Lord When they go highest in their out-side carnal Religiousness they go not beyond this hypocritical reserved state and usually as Cain they hate Abel for offering a more acceptable sacrifice God must take up with this from them or â—â— without They alway serve him with this reserve though it 〈…〉 not alwayes explicite and discerned by them Provided that â—â— may go well with me in the world and I may have some competent proportion of honour profit or pleasure and Religion may not â—â—ose me to be undone If God will not take them on these 〈…〉 as most certainly he never will he must go look him â—â—â—er servants and so he will and make them know at last 〈…〉 their sorrow that he needed not their service but it was 〈…〉 that needed him and the benefits of his service I thought meet though I have done it oft before to give â—â—â— this difference between the Hypocrite and the sincere And â—â—w it is my earnest request unto you all that you will presently â—â— your souls to an account and know which of these two â—â—rses you have taken and which of these two is your own â—â—ondition If nature had made you such strangers to your selves as that 〈…〉 were unable to answer such a question I would never trouble 〈…〉 with it but I suppose by faithful enquiry you may know 〈…〉 much of your selves if you are but willing You know where it is that you have dwelt and what it is that you have been â—â—â—ng in the world and you can review the actions of your lives though they have been of smaller consequence Why then may 〈…〉 not quickly know if you will so great a thing as What hath â—â— the very End and Business for which you have lived in the â—â—rld till now Have you been running so long and know not â—â— what is the prize that you have run for Have you forgot the â—â— and that you have been so long going on Have you been â—â—sie all your daies till now and know not about what or why â—ertainly this is a thing that may be known if you are willing and â—igent to know it It is for one of these two that you have â—â—ed for the world or for God To please your flesh or to â—ease God and be saved Either to make provision for Earth or â—raven Which of these is it Deal plainly with your selves â—or your salvation is deeply concerned in the account Perhaps you will say that It was for both for as you have a soul and a body so you must look to both Yea but so as one â—â—at knoweth that One thing is Needful As your body is but â—â—e prison the case the servant of your souls so it must be proâ—â—ded for and used but as a servant and maintained only in a fitâ—ess for its work But the question is Which of them hath had the preheminence Which hath had the life of your affections and endeavours Which of them was your end and about which hath been the chief business that you have most carefully and diligently carryed on This is the great question You cannot have two masters though you may have many instruments and fellow-servants You cannot acceptably serve God if you serve Mammon Every wicked man may do somthing in Religion and every good man may do something that is contrary to Religion A carnal man may do something for God and for his soul and a spiritual man ought to do something subordinately for his body and too often alas doth something for it inordinately But which bears the sway and which is first sought and which comes behind and hath but the leavings of the other Be not deceived God is not mocked Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap If you sow to the flesh of the flesh you shall reap corruption but if you sow to the spirit of the spirit you shall reap everlasting life Gal. 6. 7 8. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world for themselves for if any man love the world with his chiefest Love the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2. 15. Is it not a wonder that any reasonable man can be such a stranger to himself as not to know what he lives for and what hath had his heart and what hath been the principal business of his life Some by-matters you may easily forget or over-look but can you do so by your end which hath been your chiefest care and business If indeed you no more know your own minds nor what you have all this while been doing in the world ask those that you have conversed with and judge by the effects and signs Others can tell what you have most seriously talked of They may conjecture by their observation what you have most carefully sought and resolutely adhered to Whether it be God or the flesh this world or Heaven The One thing Needful or the many troubling trifles in your way It is like that wise and godly observers can help you to discern it though sensualists will but deceive you A mans Love at least his chiefest Love cannot be hid but will appear in his behaviour If you Love God above the world you will seek him and his Glory before the world and if you do so it may partly be discerned if you have conversed with discerning men Heaven and earth are not so like nor the way to each of them so like but it may partly be discerned which way men are going and what they drive at in their daily course But I will urge you no further to the tryal I will take it for granted that your Consciences are telling many of you that you have been troubled about many things while the One thing Needful hath been neglected And if indeed this be your case suffer me to tell the guilty plainly what it is that they have done 1. Whatever you have been doing in the world you have lost your Time if you have not been seeking the One thing necessary If you have been gathering riches or growing up in honour as the rush groweth in the mire Job 8. 11. or filling your purses or your barnes or pleasing your fantasies and flesh you have but fooled away your time and done just nothing and much worse Nothing is done if the One thing Necessary be undone Believe it Time is a precious thing and ought not to have been thus cast away When you come to the end of it the worst and proudest of you shall confess it is precious Then O for one year more
perisheth in the using and flyeth from us when we have greatest need That is the good part which all men will say is good in the Conclusion which the wicked themselves that are now of another mind will confess at last to be the best and not that which is commended only in prosperity while the frensy or dream of sensuality doth beguile men â—â—â— which they will all cry out against at last If you would know which is the best part take counsel of God and see what he saith and ask men of wisdom and of greatest experience that have tried both and men that have staid the end and seen what fleshly pleasures and profits and honours can do for them For how can men make so true a judgement that do not either stay the end or else foresee the end by faith Do not take their judgements that are drunk with their sensual delights and that will confess they must repent themselves and therefore confess they must be of another mind Take not their judgements that neither have seen nor yet foresee the end the worst is yet to come with them Their states and minds are near a change The day is near when they will say that heaven was the better part and be convinced by punishment that would not be convinced by instruction Surely Sirs it is so easie a Question to reason it self where sin hath not blinded it whether God or the world be the better part that one would think there should be left no room for doubting Dare any of you speak out and say that earth is better then heaven or sin then grace or temporal pleasure then eternal happiness I think you dare not Shame will forbid you and Conscience will contradict you if you should say so And will you commend God by your words and discommend him by your lives Will you say heaven is best and yet seek the world before it and not let it have the best of your affections and endeavours Shall it be highest in your mouthes and lowest in your hearts and lives Shall it have the first place in your prayers and the last in your labours Why then you commend God but to his dishonour and your condemnation You extoll heaven and heavenly things but to the confusion of your own faces that your own confessions may be brought in hereafter as witnesses against you In the name of God therefore I charge you if you know which is the better part condemn not your selves by making choice against your knowledge 4. COnsider also that this good part is offered you and you have your choice whether God or the world whether heaven or earth shall be your portion It is not Purchasing or proper meriting but choosing the good part that you are called to It is not Mary hath purchased or merited the better part but hath chosen the better part Two things are here contained 1. That it is not matter of Impossibility that you are called to you are not excluded from the hopes of salvation by any exceptions that God hath put in against you in his promise but it is conditionally made as well to you as to others 2. And the condition is not any thing â—â—reasonable but your own consent Christ and salvation are offered to your choice If you will but prefer them before the trifles of the world you may have them The door of Grace is open to you as well as to others if you will but enter you may live you are not left in a remediless case nor given over to desperation you cannot say Repenting and Believing will do us no good we cannot have Christ though we were never so willing You cannot say We would fain have Christ and his Spirit to sâ—nctifie us but we cannot we are willing to be his Disciples but he is not willing to accept us and to be our Saviour you cannot say so and say truly you cannot say he is set to sale to you and that he expecteth such a price as you are unable to give for you are called to take him freely and though this be sometimes called buying yet it is a buying without money and without price Isa 55. 1 2 3 4. And though you must sell all you have for this unvaluable pearl Matth. 13. 46. yet that is but a Metaphorical selling a parting with your sin and fleshly pleasure as troubles and impediments that would keep you from salvation As a sick man sells his diseases for health or at least as he hath health by forbearing some hurtful things that please him Or as a prisoner purchaseth the liberty that is freely given him by consenting to come forth and cast off his fetters Your hands are full of dirt and God offers you gold and you cannot receive it till you throw away the dirt This is your Purchase You give God nothing as a valuable price for his mercy but you throw away the sin that is inconsistent with your happiness Still I shall tell you you may have Christ if you will pleasures and profits are flattering you to your destruction and God calls you from them and offereth you his son and everlasting life and intreateth you to accept them And here you have your choice The offer is whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. And if you will but chuse that happiness that is offered you and Christ the way to that happiness all the world cannot bereave you of your choice It is brought to your hand and urged on you You have now your choice whether you will have Christ or the flesh grace or sin heaven or hell As you chuse so you shall have And if you miss of life it will be because you did not chuse it Even because you would not come to Christ that you might have life John 5. 40. and would not have him to rule over you Luke 19. 27. and would not have the Lord indeed for your God Pâ—â—â—m 81. 11. and did not chuse the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 29. yea when Christ would have gathered you you would not be gathered Matth. 23. 37. It is this turning away of the simple that doth slay them because they refuse when Christ calls them and regard not when he stretcheth forth his hand but set at naught his counsel and will have none of his reproof Prov. 1. 24 25 32. See therefore that you refuse not him that speaketh for if you turn away from him that speaks from heaven and neglect or make light of so great salvation how do you think it possible you should escape Heb. 12. 25. 2. 3. Mat. 22. 5. But perhaps some of you will think to excuse your selves for want of Free-will and say How is it in our choice when God must give us to will and to do and we can do nothing of our selves have we free-will or power to chuse the better part You must not set up the power or will of man too high Answ
or by Policy they would rob you of your Portion they cannot do it For which way should they do it They cannot turn the heart of God against you nor make him break his Covenant with you nor repent him of his Gift and Calling which he hath extended to you For he is unchangeable and loveth you with an everlasting love Mal. 3. 6. Jer. 31. 3. Isa â—â—â— 8. Jer. 33. 20 21 23. 50. 5. Rom. 11. 29. They cannot undermine the rock that you are built upon nor batter the fortress of your souls nor overcome your great Preserver and Defence nor take you out of the hands of Christ Psal 73. 26. 31. 2 3. 62. 2. 59. 9 16. Joh. 10. 28. Cast not away the salvation that is offered you and then never fear least it be taken from you See that you chuse the better part and resolvedly chuse it and it will be certainly your own for ever For man cannot take it from you nor Devils cannot take it from you and God will not take it from you Rust and moths will not corrupt this Treasure nor can thieves break through and steal it from you Mat. 6. 19 20. But you cannot say so of worldly riches If you chuse to be Lords and Princes on the earth you cannot have your choice but if you could you cannot keep it If you chuse the wealth and credit of the world and were sure to get it you were as sure to leave it For naked you came into the world and naked you must go out Job 1. 21. If you chuse your ease and mirth and pleasure these will be taken from you If you chuse the satisfying of your fleshly desires and all the delight and prosperity that the world can afford you yet all must be taken from you Yea quickly and easily taken from you Alas one stroak of an Apoplexy or a few fits of a Fever or the breaking of a small vein or many hundred of the like effectual means are ready at the beck of God to take you from all that you have gathered for your flesh And then whose shall all these things be None of yours I am sure nor will they redeem your souls from death or hell Luke 12. 20. Psalm 49. 7. If you be in honour you abide not in it but are as to your body as the beasts that perish If you think to perpetuate your houses and your names this your way is but your â—olly though your posterity go on to approve your sayings and succeed you in your sins Psalm 49. 11 12 13. The worldly wise man doth perish with the fool as sheep they 〈◊〉 laid in the grave Death shall feed on them and the upright shall have Dominion over them in the morning ver 10 14. They shall soon be cut down like the grass and whether as the green herb Psal 37. 2. I have seen the wicked in great prosperity and spreading himself like a green bay-tree yet he passed away and loe he was not yea I sought him but he could not be found v. 35 36. You think it a fine thing to have the fulness of the creature to be esteemed with the highest and fed and cloathed with the best and fare deliciously every day as the rich man Luke 16. but hath he not paid dear think you for his riches and pleasure by this time His feeding and fulness was quickly at an end but his torment is not yet ended nor ever will be You think it a brave thing to clamber up to riches and that which you call greatness and honour in the world but how quickly how terribly must you come down Go into the Sanctuary of God and understand your end Surely God hath set them in slippery places and casteth them down into destruction How are they brought to desolation as in a moment They are utterly consumed with terrours As a dream when one awakeneth so at the awakening shall their Image or shadow of honour be despised Psalm 73. 17 18 19 20. How short is the pleasure and how long is the pain How short is the honour and how long is the shame What is it under the Sun that is everlasting You have friends but will they dwell with you here for ever You have houses but how long will you stay in them It is but as yesterday since your houses had other Inhabitants and your Towns and Countries other Inhabitants and where are they all now You have health but how soon will you consume in sickness You have life but how soon will it end in death You have the pleasure of sin you say unto your selves Eat drink and be merry but how soon will all the mirth be mar'd and turned into sadness everlasting sadness When you hear Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul and then whose shall these things be Luke 12. 20. Oh miserable wretch If thou hadst chosen God instead of thy sin and the everlasting Kingdom instead of this world thou wouldst not have been thus cast off in thy extremity God would have stuck better to thee Heaven would have proved a more durable Inheritance For it is a Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. The day is near when thy despairing soul must take up this lamentation My dearest friends are now forsaking me I must part with all that I laboured for and delighted in I have drunk up all my part of pleasure and there is no more left My merry company and honours and recreations are past and gone I shall eat and drink and sport no more but God would not have used me thus if I had set my heart upon him and his Kingdom Oh that I had chosen him and made him my portion and spent these thoughts and cares and labours for the obtaining of his love and promised Glory which I spent for the pleasing and providing for my flesh Then I should have had a happiness that death could not deprive me of and a Crown that fadeth not away Neither life nor death nor any creature could have separated me from his love I need not then have gone out of the world as a prisoner out of the Gaol to the â—â—rr and to the place of execution My departing soul should not then need to have been afraid of falling into the hands of an unreconciled God and so into the hands of the Devils as his executioners nor of passing out of the flesh to hell Oh poor sinners for how short a pleasure do you sell your hopes of everlasting Blessedness and run your selves into endless pains O what comparison is there between the time of your pleasure and the everlastingness of your Punishment How short a while is the cup at your mouthes or the drink in your bellies or the harlot in your embracements or the wealth of the world in your Possession And how long a time must you pay for this in hell How quickly are your merry hours past but your torments will never be past
every word of thy mouth and every penny of thy wealth in the way that he requireth it is it any more then is his due Should not he have all that is Lord of all Quest 2. Is it not the first and great Commandment Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might And do not heathens confess this by the light of nature And hath not thy tongue confest it many a time And doth not thy conscience yet bear witness that it is thy duty And is it possible thou shouldst thus Love him with all thy heart and soul and might and yet not seek and serve him with all thy heart and soul and might Or can the most sanctified person do any more if he were perfect Quest 3. Dost thou not confess that we are all sinners And that the best is still too bad And that he that loveth and serveth God most doth yet come exceeding short of his duty And yet wouldst thou have such men come shorter and darest thou perswade them to do less Must not the best confess their daily failings and beg pardon of them from the Lord and be beholden to the blood of Christ and lament their imperfections And yet wouldst thou have them be such odious hypocrites as to think they serve God too much already while they confess that they come so short Shall they confess their failings and reproach those that endeavour to avoid the like Shall the same tongue say Lord be merciful to me a sinner and Lord I am good enough already What need there so much ado to please and serve thee any better What would you think of such a man Quest 4. Is it not an unquestionable duty to grow in grace and to press towards perfection as men that have not yet attained it 2 Pet. 3. 18. Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And must Paul and Peter and the holyest on earth still seek to grow and labour to be more holy and shall such a one as thou say What need I be any more holy that art utterly unsanctified Quest 5. Is it not one of the two grand Principles of faith and all Religion without which no man can please God Heb. 11. 6. Whoever cometh to God must believe first that God is that there is a God most powerful wise and good secondly that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him yea this is one of natures principles It is the Diligent seekers of God that he will reward And yet dare a fleshly negligent sinner reproach the diligent seeking of God and take it for a needless thing and say What needs all this ado Are not these the Atheists seconds even next to them that deny that there is any God or that blasphemâ— him And indeed if he be not worthy of all the Love and service that thou canst give him he is not the true God! Consider therefore the tendency of thy words and tremble Quest 6. Doth not that wretch set up the flesh and the world aboâ—â— the Lord that thinks not most of his thoughts and cares and words and time and labour for the world to be too much ado and yet thinks less for God and heaven to be too much And dost thou think in thy conscience that the flesh is better worthy of thy Love and care and labour then the Lord or that earth will prove a better reward to thee then Heaven Who thinkest thou will have the better bargain in the end The fool that laid up riches for himself and was not rich to God and shall lose all at once that he so much valued and so carefully sought Luke 12. 20 21. or he that laid up his treasure in Heaven and there set his heart and sought for the never fading Crown Matth. 6. 20 21 33. and counted all as loss and dung for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ Phil. 3. 8. Do you think that there is any thing more worth your care and time and labour or can you more profitably lay it out Quest 7. Have you not immortal souls to save or lose And are not your bodies for their service and to be used and ruled by them And should not your souls then have more of your care and diligence then corruptible flesh that must turn to dirt Quest 8. Dare any one of you say that you are wiser then the All-knowing God Is not thy wisdom less to his then a glow-worms light is to the Sun And hath not God most plainly and frequently in his Word commanded thee a holy life Yea every part and parcell of it is nothing else but the obeying of that Word For if it be not prescribed by the Lord it is not Holiness nor that which I am pleading for And when the living God hath told the world his mind and will shall a sinful man stand up and say I am wiser then my Maker I know a better way then this What need there all this stir for Heaven What dost thou less then thus blaspheme and set up thy folly above the wisdom of the Lord when thou condemnest or reproachest the holiness which he commandeth Quest 9. Dare you say that God is not only so unwise but so unrighteous and tyranical as to give the world unnecessary Laws and set them upon a needless work What King so tyranical as would require his subjects on pain of death to go pick straws against the wind What Master or Parent so foolishly cruel as to command their servants or children to weary themselves with hunting butter-flies and following their own shadows And darest thou impute such foolish tyrannie to the God of heaven as if he had made a world and set them upon a needless work and commanded them to tire themselves in vain Quest 10. Can a man be too diligent about that work which he was made for and is daily preserved and maintained for and for which he hath all the mercies of his life Thou hadst never come into the world but on this business even to serve and please God and prepare for everlasting happiness And are you afraid of doing this too diligently Why is it thinkest thou that God sustaineth thee Why dyedst thou not many years ago but only that thou mightest have time to seek and serve him Was it only that thou mightest eat and drink and sleep and go up and down and fill up a room among the living Why beasts and fools and mad-men do all this as well as thou Why hast thou thy Reason and understanding but to know and serve the Lord Is it only to know how to shift a little for the commodities of the world Or is it not to know the way to life eternal Look round about thee on all the creatures and on all the mercies which thou dost possess every deliverance and priviledge and accommodation every bit of bread thou eatest and every hour of thy precious time are all given thee for this One thing needful And yet wilt thou
is there yet remaining then that you quarrel with as too much preciseness Is it the strictness of mens lives in forbearing sin and not doing as their neighbours do in rioting and vain recreations and delights For this I need not stand to justifie them with any impartial sober man If sin be evil and displease God and deserve damnation he that most fully and carefully avoideth it is the honestest and the wisest man You will not blame your child or servant for being loth to offend and disobey you even in the smallest matter You like not him that offereth you the least abuse so well as him that offereth you none You had rather be well then have the least disease You will not take a little poyson nor would you feel a little of hell Why then should we not avoid the least sin so far as we are able If sinning be good then Devils are the best creatures and Angels and Christ in his manhood the worst But if sin be the greatest evil What will you call those men that do not only wilfully commit it but plead for it and reproach those that would fain avoid it Or what if some of those that you reproach are mistaken in some point and 〈◊〉 that to be a sin that is none Or what if you think it to be no sin which they scruple Will you blame a man that loves God to be afraid of that which he suspecteth may offend him Or will you blame him that cares for his salvation to make as sure of it as he can and to keep as far from the brink of hell as he able How is it that you observe not that your very reproaches do confute themselves What is it that you are offended at in the servants of the Lord Is it Good or Evil Surely it is some fault or other of theirs that you will pretend to be the cause For scarce any but the Devil himself will openly and professedly oppose Goodness under the name of Goodness And if it be a real or supposed fault that you speak against them for doth it not intimate that they should avoid all faults as far as they are able And yet will you at the same time reproach them for being too strict and fearful to offend as if it were their fault that they are unwilling to be faulty But let us hear what God saith of this Prov. 14. 9. Fools make a mock at sin vers 34. Righteousness exalteth a Nation but sin is a reproach to any people And yet you would make the avoiding it a reproach Gen. 4. 7. If thou do well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyeth at the door Numb 32. 23. Be sure your sin will find you out Jam. 1. 15. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death 1 Thes 5. 22. Abstain from all appearance of evil Matth. 12. 36 37. But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned Matth. 5. 19. Whosoever shall break one of the least of these Commandements and shall teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of heaven but whosoever shall do and â—eâ—â—h them the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven vers 22. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement but whosoever shall say Thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire vers 28. I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart Vers 34 35 36 37. I say unto you swear not at all Neither by heaven for it is Gods throne nor by the earth for it is his footstool But let your communication be Yea Yea Nay Nay for whatsoever is more then these cometh of evil Jam. 4. 12. But above all things my Brethren swear not neither by heaven neither by the earth nor by any other oath but let your Yea be Yea and your Nay Nay lest you faell into condemnation Epes 5. 3 4. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not once be named amongst you as becometh Saints Neither filthyness nor foolish talking nor jeasting which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks An hundred such passages of Scripture I might recite that might quickly satisfie you what God expecteth and whether it be too much preciseness to fear the smallest sin 8. But perhaps it is the rigor of their Church discipline that maketh you offended with those that you count too pure and precise because they will not let other men alone but are reproving them and bringing them to open penitence and confession of their open sins and casting those out of the Communion of the Church which do refuse it Answ But do they do this of themselves or doth God command it them Do you think that the Communion of Saints is to be turned into a rabble of impiety and the Church into a swine-stye Do you not know that the Canons of the antient Churches for many hundred years after Christ are stricter in this Discipline by far then those that now offend you by their strictness And hear what he Holy-Ghost â—aith Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy 〈…〉 thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and 〈…〉 Matth. 18. 15. 16 17. If thy brothâ—◠〈…〉 tâ—ll him his fault between thee and 〈…〉 gained thy brother But if 〈…〉 thee one or two more that 〈…〉 every word may be established And if 〈…〉 unto the Church but if he neglect 〈…〉 the Church let 〈…〉 be unto thee as an Heathen mar or a 〈…〉 â— Cor. 5. For I verily at absent in body but present in â—â—irit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that hath done this deed that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Purge out therefore the old leaven Now I have written to you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one no â—ot to eat therefore put away from among your selves the wicked person 2 Thes 3. 6 14. Now we command you Brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be
hearts they set most by the pleasures of this world Why else is their Heart most towards them Why else do they choose them and refuse to Live a Holy life Why have they no delight in God and why have we so much ado with them to bring them to a heavenly mind and life and all in vain What! will not men be perswaded to choose that which they know is best for them Object Temptations are strong and men are weak and so men go against their knowledge Answ 1. What do Temptations prevail with you to do Is it not to think well of sinful pleasures and to think more hardly of the wayes of God Is it not to like a worldly fleshly life better then a Holy life If not how can you follow those temptations And if it be so then they draw you for that time to think that fleshly pleasures are the better part 2. But if indeed it be as you say you are the most unexcuseable miscreants in the world What! do you know that God is best for you and yet will you fly from him Do you know that heaven is the only happiness and yet will you seek this world before it Do you know what is Best for you and will not hâ—â—â— it and what is worst and yet will keep it Will you go to 〈…〉 and know whither you are going And will you run from â—…ven and damn your selves and know that you do so Yea 〈◊〉 that while we day by day entreate you to the contrary If this be the case of any one of you the God of Justice shall teach you to know what you are doing by his everlasting vengeance Heaven and earth shall be witness against you your own Consciences and such Confessions of your own shall bear witness against you that you justly perish and are damned because you would be damned and are shut out of Heaven because you would not be perswaded to come thither Object But we hope we may have Both Pleasure here and Heaven hereafter and that we may be saved by the mercy of God and the blood of Christ without the sanctification of the spirit and though we do not live a Holy life Answ And who gave you these hopes Is it God on whom you pretend to trust or the Devil that doth deceive you Certainly not God For he hath told you over and over that he will save none but the sanctified Acts 26. 18. and that except a man be born again even of the Spirit as well as of water he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God John 3. 3 5. and that without holiness none shall see the Lord Heb. 12. 14. And is it God that perswadeth you that his Word is false Doubtless it is the Devil When God had told Adam and Eve That in the day that they did eat the forbidden fruit they should die the death was it not the Serpent that gave them hopes of living and told them that they should not die If you be at that pass that you will take on you to trust in God and yet will not believe him but your trust is but trusting that God is a lyar you are as sottish in your presumption as Heathens are in their Infidelity For who is worse he that believeth that there is no God as Atheists do or he that believeth that God is a Lyar which is to be no God and worse If therefore you do believe indeed that Heaven is Best you must needs believe that Holiness is Necessary yea and Best too when Heaven consisteth so much in perfected holiness And therefore you must choose and seek with greatest diligence that Happiness which you confess is Best or never hope that it will be yours O did you at the heart believe it to be Best and that for you you would love it and seek it and be a holy people without delay You cannot so turn away from that which you heartily judge to to be Best for you indeed But the most that I have to deal with are they that cannot be perswaded at the heart but that feasting and drinking and lust and wealth and worldly honour are Better for them then a Holy life with such promises of Heaven as God hath left us For all or most ungodly men have this perswasion next their hearts whether they observe it and know of it or not Now with such deluded unbelieving souls I am next to plead this weighty cause If thou that Readest this be one of them that takest a worldly felicity with Gods threatnings to be Better and rather to be chosen then Holiness with his Promise of future happiness I will now debate the case with thee and undertake by the light of Christ to open the horrible folly of thy mistake And if I do not give thee such sound and weighty undenyable evidence that no man of Reason should resist to prove the choice of Holy persons to be the wisest and their part the best I will give thee leave to call me a Lyar and a deceiver for ever CHAP. II. What in Reason he must do that would be certainly resolved which is the best part and way And who shall be Judge BUt before we come to the debate I have two Questions to pâ—â— to thee that in Reason must be first resolved The first is Whether thou art willing to know the Truth and resolved to choose the best part when thou knowest it It is in vain for me or any man to Reason with thee if thou wouldst not kâ—â—â— and to shew thee the Truth if thou hate it and wilt not acknowledge it when thou seest it and to bring thee in the clearest light if thou be before hand resolved to shut thy eyes And if thou wilt not choose that which thy conscience shall be convinced thou shouldst choose as being absolutely best to what purpose then should it be revealed to thee Wouldst thou be a happy man or noâ— Wouldst thou have Joy or Sorrow Good or Evil stop here and before thou goest any further make me this Promisâ—… before the Lord That thou wilt not wilfully resist the lighâ—… that thou wilt choose and presently and resolvedly choose that 〈…〉 that thy conscience shall tell thee upon certain evidence is the 〈…〉 Promise but this which no man of Reason 〈…〉 and then we may make something of our debate My second Question is Who it is that shall be Judge between us in this debate or whose witness it is that you will take for currant I am willing to stand to the Judgement of any that understand the case and are impartial I hope you will consent that we shall take the most competent witnesses and Judge And if so 1. You know that the Devil is no competent Judge It is he that perswadeth you that present delights are the better part and rather to be chosen then a Holy life But he is Gods enemy and therefore no wonder if he speak against him He is your deadly enemy
you proud and self-conceited sinners that will plead for your ungodly ways and plead against a holy life and quarrel with the most faithful administrations of youâ— Pastors It is a matter of Everlasting moment that you and we do differ about and which of us is liker to be in the right I confess I am a weak and ignorant man but is the sottish ungodly quarreller any wiser then I am How camest thou man to thy knowledge that thou thinkest thy self wiser then me and all the Pastors of the Church My Knowledge that is but little hath cost me almost forty years hard study Hast thou read and meditated and studied more Hadst thou better helps and means of Knowledge God usually giveth his gifts in the painful use of means If I should think my self wiser in thy trade and able to control thee thou wouldst judge me a self-conceited fool What hast thou done for thy knowledge that I have not done Hast thou prayed for it day and night So have I. Hast thou had any private way of Learning that no man knoweth Truly I have marvelled at the â—aces of many ignorant careless men that they do not blush when we have thus expostulated with them when they quarrel with their Teachers and set against them with as brazen a face as if they were all Doctors or had studied forty years and we were as they are Yea as if they were wiser thâ—n all the Apostles Doctors and Pastors of the Church Were it not a wonder indeed if God should give more knowledge about the matters of salvation to a sensual voluptuous Gentleman or to an idle droan or a fellow that scarce ever read over the Bible and to such as live a worldly fleshly and ungodly life then to all his Ministers and Servants that love his Laws and meditate in them day and night and live in Prayer and other holy exercises and make it their daily care and business to conform their hearts and lives to the holy Doctrine which they study Surely God will sooner reveal his mind to a diligent searcher that feareth and loveth him then to a lustful Epicurâ— or a drunken swearing worldly sot He that every day abuseth the Holy Ghost that should be his Teacher is not so likely to come to Knowledge as he that humbly learneth and obeyeth him It is â— strange evidence that most wicked men do give us to prove themselves wiser then their Teachers when they can scarce give 〈◊〉 wise account of the Principles of Religion contained in a Catechisâ—â— they will prove themselves wise by despising wisdom and railing at the Wise They prove themselves Learned by reproaching the learned They prove themselves godly enough to be saved by hating and scorning them that are Godly and prove themselves the servants of Christ by speaking against his service They prove themselves wise enough to Teach or quarrel with their Teachers by refusing to Learn and to be any wiser and by babling out their sinfull folly And when they have done they prove that their hearts for all this are as good as the precisest by prating against that Holiness which is the only health and goodness of the heart and by shewing us to our grief that they neither know what Goodness is nor what is in their hearts They prove to us that they have Hopes for all this of being saved and seeing the face of God by hating them that are Pure in heart that have the promise of seeing his face Mat. 5. 8. and by reviling or forsaking the way of salvation and by shewing us on their souls the open Marks of the wrath of God and of a state of condemnation This is the Devils Logick And this is the wisdom of the wicked They may next go further and prove that they are chaste by reviling chastity and prove that they are sober by speaking against sobriety and by wallowing in their vomit or prove that they know all arts and trades and sciences by reviling them And as they now prove that they are the freemen of Christ by shewing us the Devils fetters upon them so if they hold out they will shortly have nothing to prove themselves in Heaven but by shewing us the flames of Hell which they endure If therefore all the Holiest and wisest men on earth may be admitted to be witnesses then Holiness must be your Best and all things else be nothing worth in comparison of it 5. Moreover if yet you would have more witness shall those be heard that have tryed both states the state of Sin and the state of Holiness and that have gone both wayes and therefore are able to speak to us by experience If you were to take advice about any worldly business you would choose a man of Experience for your Counsellor an experienced Physicion for your bodies and an experienced Tradesman for your work You will sooner believe a Traveller that â—ath seen the places that he speake of if he be honest then another godly men have tryed both wayes Alas they have known and too much known the way of sin and they have tryed the Holy way that you dislike I think therefore that they are competent Witnesses And if their witness be worth any thing the cause must go against the ungodly For their Lives tell you their Judgement Their hatred to sin their diligent seeking after God their constant endeavours in a Holy course their suffering any thing rather then forsake this Holy way when once they have sincerely chosen it all these do fully acquaint you with their judgement Do you think it is for Nothing that the holy servants of the Lord do stiek so close to him and labour so constantly in his work surely if they had not found that this way is beyond comparison the best you might draw them from it into a state of ungodliness again at least fire and sword and torment might perswade them to forsake it Something he findeth in it that is good that will let go his life and all the world for it What say you now have you any just exceptions against the testimony of these Experienced men The ungodly cannot be competent witnesses for they have tryed but one side They have had experience of a prophane a fleshly worldly life but they never yet tryed a Holy life And therefore how should they be fit to tell you what Good is in the way of God which they never travelled in Or what Gain is in the Heavenly Treasure which they never traded for Or what Beauty is in the face of Christ and Glory which they never had an eye of faith to see Or what sweetness is in the Hidden Manna which they never tasted If you say that many that have tryed the way of Godliness have turned from it and are against it I beseech you weigh my answer 1. It is not One of a hundred that doth so no not in these apoâ—â—â— tizing times when all seducers are let loose And is one mans
life to come where some are happy and some are miserable and they commonly profess that all men should obey their Maker and make it their chiefest care and labour in this life to be happy in the next Heathens will confess this And yet I suppose you will easily confess that these men are none of the fittest Judges The way to Life by Jesus Christ they do not understand But that the world is vanity and nothing to be preferred before our happiness in the world to come this they will commonly acknowledge And if the lives of the most of them contradict this profession yet still they are forced to confess the truth and truth is not the less truth because they that confess it will not obey it Nay what greater testimony can you wish to silence your unbelieving thoughts then the witnesses of the enemies of the truth who as they condemn themselves by bearing witness to that which they refuse to practise so shall their witness aggravate your condemnation if you will live below it What are you Christians and yet refuse to come up in your choice and lives to the doctrine of Heathens and Infidels 7. I know you will think at least that those Hereticks that are daily here bawling against us will not be partial on our side â—f you think that this Doctrine is contrived by us for any ends and interests of our own hearken then to our enemies These railing Quakers that can scarce tell how to speak a word of the Ministers of Christ but what is the spawn of venemous fiery bitter malice do for all this cry up Holiness of life Though they corrupt the doctrine of Christ so odiously and speak like Heathens in many of their extasies and writings yet do they openly cry down your sensual worldly wayes Do you not hear how they rail at us for your sakes that are vicious and ungodly and tell us that you are the fruit and shame of our Ministry Though these words be the fruit and shame of their malicious Heresie for all the world may know that it is our daily work to procure your Conversion and that you keep your sins and refuse a holy heavenly life in despight of us yet I must tell you that these wretches shall condemn you The streets and Congregations have heard them cry out against your ungodly lives and yet you will not turn to God Must good and bad must Ministers and raging Hereticks give in their testimony against you and yet will you not be satisfied and come in 8. If yet you know not the better part to whom will you appeal Will you go to the Multitude and put it to the vote not only among Christians but throughout the world Truly there is no great reason for this when most men are so blind and wicked but yet if you should they would go against you twenty if not an hundred to One. I know well enough that when it comes to practice they will not live a holy Life and shew thereby a root of bitterness But if you ask them what their judgement is Whether God or the world whether Heaven or earth whether Holiness or sin be best and to be chosen most men are against you and would give it you as their judgement under their hands that God and everlasting life should be first sought Though by this Confession they condemn themselves yet is it their Confession As I told you before the Jews are for this doctrine the Turks and other Mahometans are for it most of the Heathen world is for it doctrinally though they will not practice it Only there are three sorts against it in the world that ever I heard of One sort are the Cannibals that eat mens flesh and go naked and live like beasts and never heard of another life and some such savages as they Another sort is a few of the Heathen Philosophers and and their followers that differ in this from all the rest A third sort is here and there a debauched apostate that by the righteous judgement of God are so far forsaken by his Grace for their pride and falshood against the truth that they have lost the belief of a Life to come and live under the visible plagues of God upon their souls as men that have sinned wilfully against the truth and have no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgement and fire that shall devour the adversary Heb. 6. 6 7. 10. 26. and are near the state of the Devils themselves that are reserved in the chains of spiritual darkness to the judgement of the great day Jude 6. Job 21. 30. And will you take the judgement of here and there a forlorn wretch a deplorate apostate an Epicure or a Countrey of inhumane Cannibals before the judgement of the most wise and godly and of almost all the world What excellency hath the understanding of these singular men that it should be so valued above all others You know partly in this place who they be that are of this Opinion And is their Number or Wisdom or Conversation such as should move you to be of their Opinion Shall half a dozen desperate apostates of ungodly lives seem wiser to you then all the world And yet I am perswaded that if you go to any even of these few apostates whatever they think they will confess that a Holy life is best And yet have you not witness enough against you 9. Who then shall be the Judge Shall we appeal to the very Things themselves and to the daily experience of the world You see that worldlings labour for the wind You see that all their care and pains will not avoid the stroak of death that turneth the proudest flesh into a clod and maketh dirt of the greatest Prince You see that wealth and honour do but mock men and leave them in the grave to darkness and corruption And when you are sure that this will be the upshot of all your fleshly pleasure and worldly gains are you not satisfied past all doubt that the smallest hopes or possibility of another life should be sought with far more care then this 10. If none of these witnesses be regarded by thee I know not whom to appeal to but thy self And wilt thou needs thy self decide the case Hast thou knowledge and experience honesty and impartiality enough to fit thee to be judge If thou hadst thou wouldst make no doubt of it but have been resolved for Heaven and Holiness ere this Thy unresolvedness proves thee blind and partial and very much forsaken by the spirit of light And should such a one be judge But go to I will much referre thy case to thy self reserving still the final judgement to the Lord upon these just and resonable conditions 1. Wilt thou first thy self but use those necessary means for knowledge in Reading Fasting Praying Watching Meditation Conference with the wise and such like as all those do that come to ripe and saving
Knowledge If I referr my health to thee as my Physicion thou must not refuse to try my pulse and see my urine and use the means to find out the disease Wouldst thou be my Lawyer and refuse to read my Evidences and study my case And wilt thou needs be judge thy self of the matters of thine own felicity or misery and yet refuse to read and hear and pray and meditate and use the necessary means of understanding Wilt thou lie in bed and work out thy salvation Wilt thou make use of no ones eyes but thy own and yet wilt thou wink or draw the Curtains or shut the windows and cast away thy spectacles and neither come into the sunshine nor use a candle This is but to say I will willfully condemn my soul and none shall hinder me 2. But yet another condition I must propose If thou wilt but as I said before of others a while make Tryal of a holy life and try in thy self what Faith and Hope and Charity are and try what selfdenyal is I will then referr the matter to thy self Go back from God if thou find any Reason for it and turn from Christ and Heaven and Holiness if thou do not like them But if thou wilt needs be the judge and wilt not be perswaded to try the thing thou art a partial self-deceiving judge 3. But it this much cannot be obtained at least be Considerate in thy judging If thou wilt but take thy self aside from the noise of wordly vanities and deceits and commune seriously with thy heart and bethink thee as before the Lord and as one that knows he must shortly dye Whether Heaven or Earth should be sought most carefully and Whether God or thy flesh should be served most resolvedly and diligently and if thou wilt but dwell so long upon these manlike thoughts till they are digested and Truth have time to shew its face I dare then leave the question to thy self The next time that the Sermon or any affliction comes near thee and awakeneth thy Conscience do but withdraw thy self into secret and soberly bethink thee of the matter what hopes thou hast from the world and what thou 〈◊〉 have from God what Time is and what Eternity is and give â—â—â— Conscience leave to speak and then I will venture the issue upon thy Conscience For thee I mean though I must stick to a better judge my self Doth not Conscience sometime tell thee that the Holyest persons are the wisest and that thy labour is liker at last to be lost and repented of than theirs Doth not Conscience sometime make thee wish that thou wert but in as safe a case as they and that thou mightest but die the death of the Righteous and that thy last end might be as theirs 4. But if all this will not serve the turn thou shalt be Judge thy self but it shall be when thou art more capable of judging If God by Grace shall Change thy heart I will stand to thy Judgement If he do not when thy graceless guilty soul shall pass out of thy pampered dirty flesh and appear before the dreadful God I will then leave the case to thy Conscience to judge of To all Eternity it shall be partly left to the judgement of thy Conscience whether sin or Holiness be better and whether Saints or careless sinners were the wiser and whether it had not been be ter sor thee to have spent that life in preparing for thy Endless life which thou spentst in slighting it and caring for the world and flesh Then thou shalt be Judge thy self of these matters but under a more severe and righteous judge And so as shall make thy tearing heart to wish with many a thousand groans that thou hadst judged wiselier in time But because that Judgement will be to desperation and too late for hope or any help let Conscience speak when thou lyest sick and seest that thou art a dying man Then judge thy self whether a Holy or a worldly life be better and whether it had not been thy wiser course to have sowed to the spirit that so thou maist reap everlasting life then to have sowed to the flesh from which thou now lookst to reap no better then corruption Be not deceived God is not mocked whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap Gal. 6. 6 7. But because it will be very late to stay till thy own Death draw so neer thee go but to thy neighbours that lie in sickness looking for the stroak of death Yea to thy companions in sin and folly and ask them then which way is better Ask them then which is the better part Whether now they had rather be the Holyest Saints or such as they have been Whether now they had not rather they had spent their time in the most careful seeking for Everlasting life then in doing as they have done Say to thy old companion now Brother I see you are near your end the mortal stroak of death is coming you are now leaving all the pleasures of this world I pray you tell me now your Judgement whether mirth and sport and feasting and drinking and wealth and honour be more to be sought then life eternal and whether Hearing and Reading the word of God and Praying and meditating and flying from sin be as bad or as needless a thing as we have formerly taken it to be Had you rather appear before the Lord in the case of those that we derided as Puritans and too precise for making such a doe about salvation or in the case that you and I have lived in Ask but this Question to thy old companions and try whether the Consciences of almost all that approach their end do not bear witness against ungodliness and do not justifie the holy diligence of the Saints It is but two days since a poor drunkard of a neighbour Parish being ready to pass out of this world did send hither and to other Parishes in the terrours of his soul to desire our Congregations to take warning by him and to strive with God if possible for some mercy for his soul that was passing in terrours into another world because of the guilt of his odious sin Well sirs I have gone along with you to all the creatures in this world that have any fitness to judge in this case and if all these will not serve we must go to another world for Judgement or stay till you come there 11. And really do you think if we could speak with Angels or departed Souls that they would not consent with God and all Believers in their Testimony O how they would rebuke their madness that make any doubt of so great so plain so sure a truth as this of the necessity and the excellency of a Holy life None are so fully resolved of this question as they that have tasted the End of both and past the righteous judgement of the Lord. They that are feeling the anguish of their
not what or for want of a little care in seeking it You say You know not whether there be a Hell for ungodly men or no But what if it prove true as certainly it will where are you then Will you venture your selves upon the Possibility of such an Endless Loss and Torment which now you might on reasonable terms escape You will confess that a Possibility of a Kingdom should be more regarded then a Certainty of a pin or a feather And a Possibility of some Tormenting disease but for twenty years should more carefully be avoided then the Certain stinging of a Nettle Quer. 2. You say You are not sure that there is a life to come But are you sure to continue the life you have Or is it any great matter that you are called to lose for the obtaining of 〈…〉 that you are not sure of You know the contrary or easily may do You are sure that you have not long to be here Nothing more sure then that you will shortly die And your are not sure but it may be to morrow And while you are here it is nothing worth the naming but what hath reference to another life that you do possess What have you to your flesh but meat and drink and sleep and lust and such kind of beastial delights Which it is better be without then have if we could also be without the need of them Can you call these by the name of Happiness without renouncing your Reason and Experience You say You know not what God will do for you hereafter But you know what sin and the world will do for you here Even Nothing but hold you in a transitory dream and then dismiss you into rottenness and dust If you were not certain of another life as long as you are most certain of the vanity of this doth not Reason tell you that a Possible Everlasting Glory should be preferred before a Certain vanity If you were not sure to get any thing by God and a Holy Life yet as long as you are sure even as sure as you live that you can lose nothing by it that is worth the talking of is not the case then resolved which way is the Better If you say you shall lose your fleshly pleasures I answer They are not worth the having The pleasure doth not countervail the trouble no more then the delight of scratching as I said before doth countervail the trouble of the itch Moderation and temperance is sweeter then excess If too much be better then enough and that which hurteth nature better then that which helpeth it then self-destroying and fighting against your bodily welfare would be best Is not a temperate meal more pleasant then a gluttonous surfet that is worse to the feeling of the glutton the next day Is not common food that costeth not much and kindleth no troublesom itch in a mans appetite more pleasant then enticing costly dainties Is not so much drink as nature requireth much better then that which makes the stomack sick the brain witless if not the purse pennyless and breedeth many noysom diseases to the flesh and hasteneth death that hasteth of it self By that time the gawdy apparel the dainty fare and drink is paid for and by that time the flesh hath suffered all that pain and sickness that are the ordinary followers of excess me thinks you should say that if there were no Hell your sin were a punishment it self and that in this life it brings more pain then pleasure and that such kind of pleasure is noâ— worth the keeping to the hazard of the least Possibility of 〈◊〉 Everlasting life Wouldst thou under thy hand and seal give away thy hopes and possibility of everlasting life and run the hazzard of an everlasting Torment for the Pleasures of sin or to avoid the trouble of a Holy life Why then thou maist as well even sell it all for pins or points or childrens rackets Then thou art as foolish as the worst of Witches that sell their souls to a lying spirit that whatever he doth promise them doth pay them with nothing but calamity and deceit When thou comest to know better what it is that the world can do for thee thou wilt then confess there was nothing in it that should not have been sleighted for the smalest hopes of an Everlasting life Doâ—t thou think the world will be much better to thee for the time to come than hitherto it hath proved Deceive not thy self it will prove the same yea and worst at last Look back now upon all the pleasures of thy life from thy infancy to this day and tell me what the better thou art for them If this were the hour of thy death would all the profits or pleasures of thy life be any comfort to thee or make thy death a whit the easier Have the dust or bones of the Carkasses of Voluptuous sinners any comfort or benefit now by all the pleasure of their former sin Surely I need not all these words to a man of common understanding to convinee him that if Heaven were as uncertain as the Infidel doth imagine a man of Reason should venture all that he hath upon the meer Possibility because his All indeed is Nothing and he is sure he can be no loser by the bargain it being not so much as the venture of a pin for the Possibility of a Crown Quer. 3. But that 's not all What if I shall prove to thee past all denyal that even in this life Holiness is far the most delightful gainful honourable life and that the ungodly live in a continual misery Will not this serve turn to convince thee that a Holy life should be undertaken for a meer Possibility of Heaven if we had no more Read but the Proofs of this anon and if I make it not good to thee call me a deceiver But if I prove that Holiness is the sweetest life on Earth and Heaven the sure Reward hereafter and that sin is a misery it self to the sinner and Hell the certain punishment hereafter then see that thou confess that God is a good Master and the Devil a bad one for at last thou shalt be forced to confess it Quer. 4. Well You say You are not sure that there is another life for man But have you used the Means to make it sâ—â— to you and to be well-resolved If you have then you have impartially searched and prayed and meditated on the Word of God and heard what can be said by Wiser men for that which you say you are not sure of but if you have trusted to your own understanding and neglected Meditation Prayer Enquiry and other needful means what wonder then if you be uncertain Even whether there be a Heaven or Hell It s no disgrace to Physick or Astronomy or Musick or Languages or Navigation but to you if you say that you are uncertain of all their conclusions when you never studied them or at least
never studied them with that diligence and patience as those must do that will attain a certain satisfying knowledge Quer. 5. Moreover if you are so uncertain of a Life to come I would ask you Whether in all your search and study you have behaved your selves as Learners or rather as proud self-conceited men that think themselves wise enough before they learn to try and judge their Books and Teachers If this be your case no wonder if you be Infidels If you come with such a disposition to read a Book of Astronomy or Physick you will never learn If you go to any Schoolmaster or to learn any language or science and think your selves able before you have learnt them to try and judge your Teacher and all the Books you read and so will reject all that you do not understand or agreeth not with you former conceits you will sooner prove doting fools then Schollars and sooner be the derision of Rational men then come to the knowledge â—â—â—ch you pretend to seek Come to Christs School as little children in meekness and humility and a willingness to be taught and patiently continue in the use of means till Learning can be attained before you think your selves fit to censure the Truth of God which you are learning and then tell me whether God doth not resolve you Quer. 6. Moreover I would know of you that doubt so of the life to come Whether you have been true to so much Light as you received and have lived in obedience to the Truth which God revealed to you Or rather whether you have not wilfully and knowingly lived in some secret or open sin and striven against the Light and Spirit of Christ and abused the truth which you have known and used violence with your own conscieâ—â—â—â— If so which it s ten to one is your case it is no wonder 〈◊〉 are Infidels forsaken of God whom you first forsook and given up to Pride and Self-deceit Quer. 7. If Man have no Life to live but this and no further End of his Actions then a Beast nor any further account to give then he is indeed but one of the higher sort of Beasts differing but gradually from a Dog as a Dog doth from a Swine And if this be indeed thy judgement of thy self I demand Whether or no thou be content to be used as a Beast Wilt thou not take it ill to be called or judged a Beast by another Or wouldst thou have others judge better of thee then thy self Wouldst thou have no man regard thy Propriety or Life any more then a Beast is to be regarded A Beast hath no Propriety no not of that which Nature hath given him You accuse not your selves of doing him any wrong when you deprive the sheep of his fleece nor when you make a constant drudge of your Horse or Ox. And do you think it lawful before God for any one that can but master you to do the like by you to strip you naked and to make pack-horses of you and use you as their slaves We take it to be no sin to take away the lives of Beasts if it be but for our own commodity We kill Oxen and calves and sheep and swine and fowle and fishes for our daily food And is it lawful before God for others to do so by you Should nothing restrain them but want of Power to overcome you If you say that you are Beasts as Beasts you should be used Quer. 8. Moreover I would know of you Whether you think that there is any other world which spiritual inhabitants do possess If you say No you go against all Reason and experience Against Experience because that many a hundred Witches and many Apparitions and haunted houses have put the matter out of question for all that many reports of such things have been false And against all Reason because we see that this inferiour world is everywhere replenished with inhabitants The earth hath men and beasts the aire hath birds the water hath fishes And can a man of common Reason then think that the superiour Regions which we see and which we see not which for greatness and for spendor and excellency are a thousand fold above this earth should all be uninhabited and destitute and that there are not creatures also there for excellency and Number incomparbly beyond the inhabitants of this lesser lower world Certainly nothing is made in vain nor are the works of God so monstrously disproportioned and discomposed as for the Nobler parts to be only for the baser The Heavens that are over us and all the vast and most excellent parts of the Creation have a use that is answerable to their excellency God makes not cottages to be inhabited and Pallaces and Cities to lie wast and desert to no use But if you grant there is another world proportionaby thus replenished with creatures you may easily see from thence a Probability that man shall be translated thither Why not the soul of man as well as those spirits that in assumed shapes have made their appearances unto man As all things ripen to their perfection why should it seem any more improbable that the soul shall pass hence into the world of spirits then that the chicken shall come out of the shell and the infant out of the wombe into so wide and light a world as this when before they were shut up in a narrow darkness and never heard nor knew any thing of that world which they enter into Quer. 9. Do you know why it is that God hath given man that knowledge and free-will and capacity to seek another life which beasts have not if he be intended for no other life then beasts If God be no most Wise he is not God If he be then he maketh not so excellent faculties as these in vain but fitteth all his Creatures to their uses Every workman will do so by his work Why is a knife made keen but to cut with And what are the wheels of your watch or clock made for but to shew you the hour of the day Look now into the whole frame of the soul of man and judge by its aptitude what it is made for 1. Man is capable of Knowing that there is a God and knowing his Attributes which Beasts are not because they be not made to enjoy him 2. Man is capable of knowing his Relation to this God that he is our Creator and we his Creatures he our Lord and we his Own he our Ruler and we he Subjects he our Benefactor and we his Benificiaries And we are capable of Knowing our Duty in these several Relations And certainly all this is not in Vain 3. Man is capable of Knowing that the Everlasting Love of God is that alone that can make him Happy And why would God shew him this if he were not capable of enjoying it Reason tells men that nothing here can make us Happy and that 〈…〉 do it 4. Man is capable of
Or if there were no Fear of that yet Man hath Reason to think before-hand of his Death and to think of his abode in Darkness which Beasts have not To think of being turned to â—â—tinking carrion and to a clod and so continuing for ever without any Hope of a Resurrection would be matter for continual horrour to a confidering man which Brutes are not molested with And wise men that can fore-see would be tormented more then fools All this is incredible that God should make his nobler creature to be Naturally most miserable and give him Knowledge and Affections and set a Certain Death and Possible Torment continually before his eyes to Torment him without any Remedy And besides the Hoped Life hereafter there is none Quer. 12. Do you think that the Belief of another life is needful or useful to the well governing of this world or not If you say no 1. Why then do Infidels and Brutists say that Religion is but the device of men for the Governing of the world and that without it subjects would not be Ruled You confess by this your frivilous objection that the world cannot be Ruled well without the Belief of a life to come 2. And it is most manifest from the very nature of man and from the common experience of the world 1. If man be well-governed it must be either by Laws containtng Rewards and penalties or without Not without For 1. All the world doth find it by experience that it cannot be and therefore every Common-wealth on earth is Governed by Laws either Written Customary or Verbal 2. If the Love of Vertue for it self should prevail with one of a thousand that would be nothing to the Government of the world 3. Nor could any man be effectually induced to love Vertue for it self according to the doctrine of the Brutists For Vertue it self is made no Vertue by them but a deformity of the mind while they overthrow the End and Object and Law that it is measured and informed by as I shall more fully open to you anon It is therefore most certain that no Nation is or can be Governed as beseemeth man without Proposed punishments and Rewards And if so then these must be either temporal punishments and benefits or such as are to be had in the Life to come That Temporal punishments and benefits cannot be Motives sufficient for any tolerable much less perfect or sufficient Government is a most evident Truth For 1. de facto we see by experience that no people live like men that be not Governed by the Belief of another life The Nations that believe it not are Savages almost all living naked and bestially and knowing nothing of vertue or vice but as they feel the commodity or discommodity to their flesh They eat the flesh of men for the most part and live as brutishly as they believe And if you say that in China it is not so I answer one part of them there believe the Immortality oâ— the soul and most of them take it as probable and so the Nation hath the Government which it hath from everlasting Motives And if you say that the antient Romans had a sufficient Government I answer 1. The most of them believed a life to come and it was but a few that denyed the Immortality of the soul and therefore it was this that Governed the Nations For those that believed another life had the Government of the few that did not believe it or else the Government it self had been more corrupt 2. And yet the faultiness of their belief appeared in the faultiness of their Government Every Tyrant took away mens lives at pleasure Every Citizen that had slaves which was common at pleasure killed them and cast them into the fish-ponds The servants secretly poysoned their masters and that in so great numbers that Seneca saith Epist 4. ad Lucul that the Number of those that were killed by their servants through treachery deceit or force was as great as of them that were killed by Kings which was not a few 2. It is apparent that the world would be a Wilderness and men like wild and ravenous beasts if they were not Governed by Motives from the Life to come 1. Because the Nature of man is so corrupt and vicious that we see how prone they are to evil that everlasting Motives themselves are too much uneffectual with the most 2. Every man naturally is selfish and therefore would measure all Good and Evil with referrence to themselves as it was commodious and incommodious to them And so vertue and vice would not be known much less regarded 3. By this means there would be as many Ends and Laws or Rules as Men and so the world would be all in a Confusion 4. If Necessity forced any to combine it would be but as Robbers and strength would be their Law and Justice and he that could get hold of another mans estate would have the best Title 5. All those that had but strength to do mischief would be under no Law nor have any sufficient Motive to Restrain them What should restrain the Tyrants of the world that rule over many Nations of the earth if they believe no Punishment after death but that their Laws and Practises should be as impious and bestial as their lusts can tempt them to desire What should restrain Armies from Rapes and Cruelty that may do it unpunished Or popular tumults that are secured by the multitude 6. And there would be no restraint of any villany that could but be secretly committed And a wicked wit can easily hide the greatest mischiefs Poysoning stabbing burning houses defaming adultery and abundance the like are easily kept secret by a man of wit unless a special Providence reveal them as usually it doth 7. At least the probability of secrecy would be so great and also the probability of sinful advantage that most would venture 8. And all those sins would be committed without scruple which the Law of man did appoint no punishment for as Lying and many odious vices 9. If one man or two or ten should be deterred from poysoning you or burning your houses or killing your cattle c. by humane Laws a thousand more would be let loose and venture 10. All the sins of the heart would have full Liberty and a defiled soul have neither cure nor restraint For the Laws and judgments of men extend not to the heart All the world then might live in the Hatred of God and of their neighbours and in daily Murder Theft Adultery Blasphemy of the heart Wit his they might be as bad as Devils and fear no punishment for man can take no cognizance of it And it is the heart that is the Mâ—n You see then what persons the Infidels and Brutists would have us all be What hearts and lives mankind should have according to their Laws Be Devils within and murder and deceive and commit adultery as much as you will so you have
you Certainly the Law makers would make other Laws then now they do and men would lead other kind of lives And what security you would have of your goods or houses or lives a week from the malice or covetousness of others I cannot imagine You would not dare to travel by the way or look out among men You could not trust your servants nor your wives or husbands because there would be nothing but temporal punishment to restrain them which cunning might escape I do not think but you would rather have servants or neighbours or husband or wife that believe a Life to come then those that do not if you had tryed others but a little while and seen how little they were to be trusted and consequently how bad your opinion is Quer. 16. And I would know Whether you pretend to any honesty and Conscience or not If not you will give us leave to judge of you and trust you accordingly If you do then upon what ground is it possible for you to be honest If you believe no life to come you must take your pleasure here on earth for your chiefest happiness and you cannot believe any proper Government of the world by the Laws Rewards and punishment sufficient to restrain men from their sin Vertue can be no Vertue if God no more regard it and sin is no sin if against no Law Indeed while you live among Believers where vice is in disgrace you may for your credit seem to be vertuous But your Profession alloweth us to judge that you avoid no evil that you dare commit if it do but suit with your fleshly interest He that believeth no Life to come and tells me so doth bid me in effect to suppose him resolved for all the wickedness imaginable so far as he dare and hath temptations and opportunity Are you of this Brutish judgement I shall expect from you then no better then a brutish life and trust you less then I would do a brute because you have more interest and temptation to do evil and more cunning to perform it Are you Brutists in opinion Then you are already habitually perfidious cruel covetous malicious murderers whoremongers thieves lyars and worse if any thing be worse For honest you cannot for shame expect that any should esteem you I will not believe a word you say further then some interest of your own is concerned in the truth of it Qu. 17. If it be not the very Light and Law of Nature that teacheth and obligeth a man to believe a life to come how comes it to pass that all the world except a few Savages and Cannibals and here and there an Apostate among us do universally profess to believe it The Jews the Turks the Heathens of most Nations besides the Christians do all make it an Article of their Belief We differ indeed about the way and yet are all agreed that Godliness and Honesty fearing God and doing Righteousness are necessary but that there is another life we are in almost all the world agreed And will you go against the light of humane Nature it self Or with what face can you expect that here and there such a wretch as you should be though wiser then all the world till you give us better evidence of your wisdom And how justly do they perish that will follow you Quer. 18. Are not those that Believe the Life to come of Holyer lives for the generality then those that do not And whether is it like that God should reveal his mind to them or unto wicked wretches and is it liker that he should forsake all the holy persons of all ages and give them up to deceit in the greatest matters who most diligently study and pray for Knowledge rather then forsake those sensual wretches that wilfully forsake him Quer. 19. Is there not in thy own Conscience at least sometimes some fears yet left of a life to come I believe there is and when thou hast done thy worst thou wilt hardly perfectly overcome them Doth not conscience say O but what if there should be a Hell for the ungodly Where am I then Hearken then to thy Conscience Quer. 20. Dost thou believe that spirits in borrowed shapes have oft appeared unto men and in voioâ—s spoaken to them to draw them to sin or to perdition If thou do believe it thou maist easily believe that there is a Hell which they are so busie to perswade us to and a Heaven of which they would deprive us If thou believe not that there have been such Apparitions I am able to give thee undenyable testimonies Read what I have said in my Treatise against Infidelity of this Read Remigius Bodin Danâ—us Malleâ—s Maleficorum c. of Witches and Read a little Book called The Devil of Mascon where is abundant testimony of his Vocal conference for about a quarter of a year together in the house of a godly Minister in a populous City before Papists Protestants and all Many I could give you that were done here at home In these twenty Questions I have but endeavoured to prepare you to Believe by shewing you the very Light of Nature But it is a lively faith in the word of God that effectually prevaileth against Infidelity and therefore next let us come to that I will not so much lose my time as to cite particular Texts of Scripture for that which is the very work and drift of the Scripture But because thou canst have no shift in the world for thy Brutish unbelief but by denying the Scripture to be the Word of God I referr thee to that which I have written in the Books forementioned to prove it And at this time shall add to what is there said but these few Questions Qu. 1. If the Scripture be not the Word of God How could it tell us of the making of the world and such like things which none but God alone could tell I know you will say I know not whether it tell us true or not or whether the world were not as Aristotle thought from eternity But tell me this then to pass by the rest now How comes it to pass that in all the world there are no Books or Monuments known of any longer standing then the time that Scripture assigneth to the Creation It is not six thousand years since the Creatiou If the world had lasted thousands and millions of years before is it possible that all its Antiquities should be lost and not one to be seen nor mentioned by man in all the world For the sabulous tales of some in China without all proof are not worth the mentioning Certainly some Book would have been saved or some Cities or lasting piles or stony monuments preserved or some sign or tradition kept alive of some of all those many thousand years If you say that Writing or Printing were not then known you come to that which confounds you more How is it possible that in so many hundred thousand years the
but what is to be found in this way I lay not only all the reputation of my understanding but all the hopes and happiness of my soul upon the proof of this point If I prove it not I will confess my self a fool and undone for ever But if I prove it let the ungodly make this sad Confession and choose the Better part while they may have it 1. And first That Godliness is the Best for all societies that are just I prove thus 1. Godliness doth Unite or Center all Societies in the Only Head and Center of Unity that is the Blessed God himself A Common-wealth will never have Peace in a state of Rebellion against their Soveraign unless he be one that they can overcome Nor Souldiers in a state of Mutiny against their General nor Schollars in shutting out their Master God is the only Soveraign of the whole world The godly all unite in him Ungodliness is Rebellion against him The Rebels are alwayes in his Power There is no Peace nor safety therefore nor any Unity but an Agreement in Rebellion for a while to any that are not by Holiness united in him and Loyal subjects to him Isa 48. 22. There is no Peace saith the Lord unto the wicked Object But do we not see that the main Divisions of the world are about Religion Answ 1. It s true but not by the truly Religious The great quarrel of the world is against Religion in the life and practice of it 2. It is unholy men that cannot abide to be accounted unholy that are the chief dividers 3. Among the truly Godly there is no division in the main but only diffetences about the smaller Branches of Religion which are Numerous and less discernable and less necessary then the common Truths They are all Agreed of Truth enough to bring them to Heaven and therefore enough to unite them in dear Affection upon earth Nay there is not one of them that hath not a special love to all that he discerneth to be the servants of the Lord. If any be without this he is ungodly And we are not to answer for the miscarriages of every Infidel or ungodly man that will put on the Name of Christianity and Godliness If there should be fallings out among the godly they cannot rest till they are healed and set in joynt again But you must not then be so unjust as to conclude that we can have no Unity till we are in all things of a mind May not men of various complexions be of one Society Are not the multitudes of Veins and Arteries in your Bodies united in the trunks and roots It not the Tree one that hath many branches Object But God whom you will needs unite in is far from us and his mind unknown and so is not the mind of Princes and therefore we cannot unite in God Answ In things Necessary to our future Happiness and present unity in special Love the mind of God is more plainly and fully opened to us then the mind of any Prince unto his subjects What precepts can be plainer then to Love God above all and our Neighbour as our selves and first to seek the Kingdom of God and to Repent and Believe in Christ How plain are the Articles of our Faith and the ten Commandments Divisions have been about niceties I hope God will call back his Churches to the Antient simplicity and Practical Godliness and then the Christian world will be agreed except the wicked 2. Godliness propoundeth and prosecuteth the most Uniting Excellent Powerful End for all that duty that should advance Societies and therefore must needs be Best for all Societies God and Heaven is the common End of all the Godly They are Agreed every man of them in One End and so are not others Their End hath that Power in its attractive Excellency by which it can do the greatest things that are to be done with the will of man The Ends of the ungodly are small and childish toye◠Our End also is as the Sun sufficient for all and therefore 〈…〉 matter of contention All may have God as well as One without diminishing the happiness of any 3. Godliness takes away the Ball of the worlds contention that sets men everywhere together by the ears It teacheth men to slight the Honour and Vain-glory that the Gallants will fight and die for And to contemn that wealth that Towns and Countries and Kingdoms are divided and destroyed by It teacheth men to slight that Money the Love of which is the root of all evil 1 Tim. 6. 10. It sheweth men a better Treasure and not only Verbally but Effectually teacheth them to trample upon that which the tumultuous world doth so much scramble for and seek by such rapine oppression deceit and blood If all the Ambitious climers and State-troublers were truly godly they would quietly seek for higher Honours If all the covetous Noblemen Souldiers Landlords and Rich men were truly Godly they would never set both City and Countrey into combustions and poor oppressed families into complaints for the Love of Money If thieves turned godly you might travail safely and spare your locks and keep your purses If Tradesmen were all truly Godly deceit would not so break their peace What is there for Societies to strive about when the bone of contention is taken away and Godliness hath cast down the Idol of the world that did disturb them 4. Godliness takes down the great disturbing and dividing Principle in mans soul and that is Selfishness And it both commandeth and worketh self-denyal Every ungodly man hath a private End and a private Spirit and Interest that is dearer to him then any other So many ungodly men as there are so many Ends and Interests And how then can there be a Possibility of Unity The wisest Law-givers could never yet contrive an effectual course for the uniting of all these If Selfishness were down I scarce know what should trouble the peace of Kingdoms Cities Families or any other Societies Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Or Thou shalt not covet is the summe and conclusion of all the Law of God concerning our carriage one to another And it is Godliness and nothing else that perfectly teacheth and truly though imperfectly here effecteth this Self-denyal But of this elsewhere 5. Godliness hath the most perfect Righteous Laws and therefore is 〈…〉 all Societies If God can make better Laws then man then this is past all question His Laws require nothing but what is for mens good They prescribe nothing that is dishonest or unjust They promise the greatest Rewards to the obedient They drive on the backward by the threatning of the greatest punishments Their Authority is highest and most unquestionable They all proceed from one absolute Soveraign and are the same to all the people of the world They change not but are to endure to the worlds end Whereas all the Laws of men are limited to their own Dominions and endure
but while their power can enforce them They are subject to errour and injustice and are not the same in one Countrey as in another or in one age as in the former and their Rewards and punishments are but temporal and therefore though under the Laws of God they are necessary for the Government of Common-wealths yet without Gods Laws they would be utterly insufficient 6. The way of Holiness is contrary to all Evil whatsoever and therefore hath nothing to disturb a Common-wealth It is true we cannot say so of the persons because they are but imperfectly sanctified Were they in all things such as their Lord and Rule and Religion do require they would have nothing that might be injurious to any But surely as a sick man or a lame is better then a dead corps and as a man of mean understanding is better then an ideot and a mean Schollar better then the illiterate so a man imperfectly sanctified is better in a Common-wealth then the ungodly You blame not the Laws of this Land because that Thieves and Murderers break them The Laws are Good if they oblige men to nothing but what is Good though bad men break them The Rules of Christian Religion are most perfect and direct or command men nothing that is evil There may be faults in us but there is none in the holy Laws which we desire and endeavour to obey Religion therefore is the way to the perfecting and securing of all Societies and the want of it subverteth them 7. Holiness doth not only tell men of a right way and shew them their duty but also effectually Disposeth their very minds to the performance of it and causeth them to walk therein The nature of it is to be the very Right Disposition of the heart and right ordering of the life The truly gracious soul is habitually an enemy to all known sin and addicted to obey in all known Duties And surely persons thus habituated are liker to live according to their Dispositions then others to live well that hate the good in their hearts which they should practise Mens Laws can command good but cannot give men good hearts to practise it as God doth by his servants If you cannot tell whether wicked men that love sin or godly men that hate it are better members of a Common-wealth you know not what Societies are for 8. Holiness destroyeth the root of iniquity and teacheth men to hate even secret sins which are in the heart or which none can see but God alone The Laws of men restrain the Subjects but from open injuries but Holiness restraineth men from doing the most secret wrong to others or once thinking speaking or contriving any evil against them It reacheth the conscience it cleanseth the heart from whence all evil doth proceed 2 Sam. 12. 12. Deut. 27. 24. Psalm 90. 8. Eccles 12. 14. A man fearing God as such dare not deceive or wrong another though he were sure that it would never be known on earth For he knoweth that the Lord is the avenger of such things 1 Thes 4. 6. 9. Holiness cementeth the members of all Societies with the strongest cement of endeared Love It bindeth them together in the bond of Charity He is not Godly that Loveth not all men even his enemies with that common Love that is due to humanity and that Loveth not all that Fear the Lord with a special Love Psalm 15. 4. Joh. 13. 34 35. 15. 12 17. 1 Joh. 3. 14 23. 4. 7 11 12 20. Luke 6. 27. 10. Holiness maketh Princes and Rulers a double blessing to their people It maketh them the more Divine and bear the more excellent Image of God How precious is the name of a David an Hezekiah a Josiah a Constantine a Theodosius though they had all their falls in comparison of the name of a Saul a Jeroboam an Ahab a Nero a Julian O how sweet is the name of a Godly King in the Subjects mouthes Even those that are enemies to Godliness as in themselves because they cannot endure to be curbed and troubled with it do yet use to admire and honour it in their Kings and Governours Authority and Holiness conjunct are two such rayes of the Heavenly Majesty and Goodness as place man in the state of highest excellency on earth and make him so much to resemble his Creator as hath given such the highest place in the esteem and honour of the world of any mortals And it is not easie for a people to value such Holy and Pious Princes and Governours too highly or to be sufficiently thankful for them unto God 1. Holiness effectually teacheth Governours to Rule for God To set him highest and make it their work to seek his Glory and to avoid all selfish contradictory interests and to own nothing that stands at enmity with his honour but to judge that they have most happily attained the ends of their Government and lives if they have promoted the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ and the work of Holiness in the world 2. Holiness will cause Rulers to preferr Gods Laws before their own and to be examples to their Subjects of obedience to God and to desire that all men should stand in far greater awe of God then of them It will make them careful to form all their Laws and Government to the pleasing of God and promoting mens obedience to his Laws and to take heed that there be nothing in them injurious to Christ or contrary to his Will It will teach them with David to enquire of God and make him their Counsellour And with Josiah to search the Book of the Law and humble themselves when they have violated it And with Joshua Not to suffer it to depart out of their mouthes but to meditate in iâ— day and night that they may observe to do according to all that is written therein And then God hath promised to make their way prosperous and to give them good success Josh 1. 8. 3. Holiness will cause the Rulers of the world to Love those that are Holy and to promote the Communion of Saints and to be Nursing Fathers to the Church even that part of the Holy Catholick Church which they are entrusted with and to protect them from the violence of men It will keep them from the sins of Jeroboam that corrupted Gods worship and put forth his hand against the Prophet that spoke against it Whereby God will be engaged to be their Protector in Peace and War When Princes and people that fall out with Holiness and take part with the flesh and set themselves against the servants the worship and the wayes of Christ do put themselves from under his protection and put themselves under the battering and piercing stroakes of his displeasure And wo to him that striveth with his Maker and that kicks against the pricks of his severity Isa 45. 9. Acts 9. 5. 26. 14. The fatal ruine of the Kingdoms of the world or at least the
Conscience sake And though the errour and commands of Councils and Parliaments excuse not à tote an illiterate Laicke that understandeth not those matters yet surely à tanto it is some excuse And sometime oppression maketh a wise man mad Eccles 7. 7. And sometime impatience prevaileth with the weak to do things unwarrantable humane passion blindeth Reason sometime Temptations prevail in this as in other cases And sometimes Hypocrites that never had any true Religion do shew their carnal dispositions and unmortified lusts and passions and pride by their rebellion against their lawful Governours and then Religion must bear the blame of the actions of those that counterfeit Religion and of those crimes which it doth most prohibite and condemn In a word Be the accusation against any particular person just or unjust nothing is more sure and clear then that he is most unjust that will charge the Christian Religion as guilty of Countenancing any Rebellions Conspiracies sedition disobedience faction or divisions Christ went before us in his own example to pay tribute to Casar and commanded us to give to Caesar the things that are Câ—sars and their false accusing him and condemning him as an offender against Caesar did no whit move him from the duty of his state of humiliation What can be more against all Treason and perfidiousness then that holy doctrine which commandeth us the exactest performance of every lawful promise much more of our Oaths and duties of Allegiance what can be more against Rebellions then that holy doctrine which teacheth us a life of patience and meekness condemning private revenge and commanding us rather to turn the other cheek to him that smiteth us and to give our coat to him that taketh away our cloak and go two miles with him that would compell us to go one that is to suffer yet more rather then revenge our selves or break peace or order or raise wars to escape such injuries It is a crucified Christ that conquered by suffering that is your example And our Religion is but our Conformity to him in his sufferings and his holiness He hath made it part of our duty to himself to obey Kings and Rulers and all Superiours not only the good but the froward and to take it patiently if we suffer for well-doing and not to return so much as a reviling dishonouring word or murmuring rebellious thought It is not fighting for our selves but following him with the Cross and forsaking all that we have that Christ hath made the work of his disciples and the necessary condition of his promise of salvation Luke 14. 33. There is no Master in all the world that so strictly commandeth Patience and forbearance and forgiving and Love and Peace and submission to one another as Jesus Christ doth He sets the hearts of all his servants on another Kingdom and tells them they have greater things to mind then riches or honours or domination upon earth He taketh the bone of contention from before them and bids them leave such things as these to the men of the world that have their portion in this life You may as honestly say that the Sun is the greatest cause of darkness as that Christ and holiness are the cause of seditions rebellions treasons or perfidiousness in the world All the world set together hath not done so much as he hath done against them If men threaten hanging and quartering to such offences Christ threatneth damnation in hell fire to them And would you wish him to inflict a sharper punishment or more severely to manifest his hatred of the crimes I tell you therefore if you should find Rebellion and Sedition among Christians it is but as you may find corruption in the bodies of the living which is contrary to life and health and to be found much more among the dead I am not here pleading for individual persons but for Christianity and Godliness If any professed Christians forsake the way of Patience and Subjection and turn to Rebellion and disloyalty they do far forsake Religion and Godliness and much more wrong and offend their heavenly master then their King and Governours Plead who will for the wickedness of such men for my part I will not I am sure Christ will not plead for their sin which he condemneth He may justifie them from it upon repentance but he will never justifie them for it and in it It is not because they are godly but for want of Godliness that any men have ever been guilty of rebellions or resisting Lawfull powers As Dr. Ward hath fully proved in his Sermon on Rom. 13. 2. Nothing more tendeth to the ruine of Rulers and people then to hearken to the Devil and the Enemies of Holiness that would perswade the world into a conjunction with them in the Enmity against the way of Godliness and the faithful servants of the Lord upon pretence that they are adversaries to Governours and Government It is a weighty truth that the foresaid Doctor begins his Sermon with Among all the stratagems of the Devil tending to the undermining of Religion and the subversion of the souls of men though there cannot be any more unreasonable yet there was never any more unhappily succesful then the creating and fomenting an Opinion in the world that Religion is an Enemy to Government and the bringing sincerity and zeal in Religion into jealousie and disgrace with the Civil Powers It was by this Jealousie blown into the heads of the High Priests and the Sanhedrim amongst the Jews and of Herod and Pontius Pilate that Christ himself was accused condemned and executed on a tree By this the Apostles were haled before the Governours of Provinces forced from one City to fly to another for this they endured bonds and sundry kinds of death It was through this fancy that the Christians for three hundred years together endured the rage of Heathen Emperours being destitute afflicted and tormented Our Lord Christ was traduced as an enemy to Caesar a man refractory to the Roman Laws and a Non-conformist to the Religion and Laws of his Countrey Thus and more that Author So that it is no new thing for the most innocent and holy and excellent persons to suffer as enemies to the Government where they lived nay it hath been the common case nor is it strange to hear Religion and Holiness charged with these crimes which they are most against As for the malicious slanders of the Papists against the Reformed Churches as if they had promoted all their Reformations by Rebellion they have been confuted sufficiently by many At this time I shall only desire the Reader that would be satisfied in this and understand the Protestant doctrine in these points to read Bishop Bilsons Difference between Christian subjection and unchristian Rebellion Especially pag. 382. and from 494. to 522. Also Hookers Eccles Polit. the last Book lately published And if he would know whether it be an Article of the very Religion of the
certain experience of all true Christians in the world They all have tasted and found that excellencie in the holy ways and Ordinances of the Lord that they value them above all the world With David they esteem them above Gold and Silver Psal 119. 72. With Solomon they say that all the things that we can desire are not to be compared to them Prov. 3. 15. 8. 11. And with Job they value the word of God above their necessary food Job 23. 12. And with Paul they count all things Loss aud dung in comparison of the excellent knowledge of Christ Phil. 3. 7 8. They know that it is a thousand times better with them since God converted them to a holy life then it was before as well as you know that you are better in your health then you were in sickness Try whether you can make men that ever were among those where plague and war and famine raigned to believe that it was never a good world since this plague and war and famine ceased You may as soon make wise men believe this as make experienced godly men to believe that it is worse with them for their turning to the Lord and living holy heavenly lives You can never by all your doating and self-conceited prating make those believe whom God hath sanctified that they were in a better case before when they were the slaves of Satan and served sin were under the wrath and curse of God They feel that within them that will never suffer them to believe you The health of their recovered souls their experience of the Goodness of the ways of God the comforts they have had in the pardon of sin and the hopes of Glory do make them know that you talke distractedly when you tell them that they were better before or that the world is the worse for the grace of God 6. And we cannot believe you when you speak evil of a holy course because your words are against all Religion and common reason and much more destructive of the Christian faith If God be not to be Loved with all our hearts and served with our greatest care then he is not God or then there is no such thing as Religion to be regarded A God that is worse then the Creature is no God If we must not seek first the Kingdom of God and the Righteousness thereof Matth. 6. 33. as Christ hath commanded then it is in vain to seek it at all If there be no Heaven or Hell let us lay by all Religion But if there be that man that thinks it not worth his greatest care and diligence to be saved doth forseit the reputation of his reason with his soul Will you believe that man that saith he believeth that there is an Everlasting Glory to be sought and made sure of in this life of our pilgrimage and warfare and yet thinks it not worth our seeking for above all and worthy all our cost and labour He speaks a gross and blockish contradiction A Heaven no better then Earth is no Heaven A Heaven that is not worthy the labour of a holy life is no Heaven And a God that is not worthy of all that we can do is no God Either plainly say that you are Pagans and worse and believe not any life but this Or else live as Christians if you will be called Christians say not that you believe there is a Hell if you think a Holy life too dear to scape it 7. Yea this is not all but your words do tend to Brutishness it self Pagans did believe for the most part a life after this And Julian that Apostate Infidel himself doth prescribe to all his Idols Priests a very strict and Religious life according to the Religion which he owned and professeth that all care and temperance and piety should be used to please God and obtain the happiness to come And shall men called Christians take the very Infidels for Puritanes and be worse then Heathens If we have not another life to look after then what are we but beasts that perish If you think that you die like beasts call your selves beasts and never more own the name of men If you are not beasts but men that have you souls to save or lose to be happy or miserable for ever And is it not worth all our care labour to look after them 8. Another reason why I will never believe you that the world was better when there was less preaching and Religion is because you speak against the very end and nature of preaching and Religion For the word of God is written and preached to this very end to make men better And is that the way to undoe the world to perswade them to amend O Impudent malignant tongues What doth the word of God speak against but sin Doth it anywhere speak against any thing that is Good or doth it anywhere command you any thing that is bad Let the bitterest enemy of God upon earth say so and prove it if he can I here in defiance of the Devil and all his instruments and servants challenge them in their bitterest malice to say the worst they can of the Gospel or of true Religion and prove that ever it encouraged men to sin or that ever any was a loser by it O wonderful Must the God of heaven indite such Laws against all evil condemning it and threatning damnation for it and yet will these wretches have the faces to say that it is long of the Scripture or of Religion that the world is Evil What! Will preaching against your wickedness make you wicked If it do be it known to the faces of you that it is you and not preaching that shall be one day found to be the cause and be condemned for it Must Princes and Parliaments make Laws to hang thieves and murderers and when they have done will you say it is long of them and their Laws that men are robbed and murdered Why this is not yet so impudently unjust as you deal with God For they threaten but hanging and he threatneth everlasting damnation against sin and executeth it on all the unconverted as sure as he threatneth it And would you have him yet do more to testifie his dislike of sin Tell me thou that blasphemest the holy commands of thy Creator Wouldst thou have him do more then everlastingly to damn unconverted sinners to prove that he is no friend or cause of sin what should he do more Is there a greater plague then Hell to threaten Or wouldst thou have him do more to shew how much he loveth Goodness then to command it and perswade men daily to it and to promise Everlasting Glory for their Reward Is there any greater Reward to be promised I tell thee blasphemer to the Justifying of my Lord that all the world hath never done the thousandth part against mens faults as God hath done Never were there stricter Laws against them then his Laws And never
more terrible executions And yet wilt thou say that its long of God or Scripture or Religion that the world is naught If thou stay a little longer impenitently in thy blasphemy till death have but given thee the mortal stroak and it s hard at hand thou shalt then be answered in another manner and God will easily justifie himself and stop all such vile and arrogant months and confute thee with an everlasting Vengeance Remember that thou wast forewarned 9. Yea furthermore you are confuted and shamed by your own complaints What is it that you quarrel with the Law of God for is it not because it is so strict and forbiddeth sin and threatneth damnation for it Is it not because it requireth so much goodness and telleth you that none of the unconverted ungodly shall be saved And what is it that you quarrel with the godly for Is it not for serving God and because they will not be as bad as others And yet the same tongues dare blaspheme the Laws of God and say the world is the worse for them And the same tongue dares revile the godly as the cause that the world is so bad What should one say to such unreasonable men that will at the same time murmur at the Holy word and wayes of God because they contradict the wickedness of the world and threaten them with Hell fire because they repent not and yet say it is long of this very word and the preaching and obeying of it in a holy life that the world grows worse O impudent mouths that at once revile the servants of Christ because they will not be as bad as others and yet say that its they that make the world so bad God will very shortly stop such unreasonable mouths 10. And if your words were true then it would follow that all Gods greatest Mercies are worth nothing yea that they are a hurt to us and curses rather then blessings What is the Gospel worth if the reading and preaching and practising of it do make the world worse and only trouble men What are all Gods Ordinances worth if this be the fruit of them And why hath he appointed Pastors and Teachers for his Church if this be all the good they do Nay what is Christ himself worth to the world if those are the worst men that most obey him and study his word and diligently seek him O unworthy souls is this all your thanks to God for a Christ when you are lost by sin and for the Gospel that offereth you everlasting life and for the Ministry of your Pastors that would teach you the way of life May we not take up the Prophets exclamation Isa 1. 2. Hear O heavens and give ear O earth I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me The Ox knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Masters crib but this people doth not know the Lord nor Consider Your beast doth not take his provender to be naught for him and rather choose to be without it And you are worse then beasts in your dealing with the Lord and when he hath provided you a Christ a Gospel Teachers and holy Ordinances even the preciousest things in the world you unthankfully refuse them yea and reproach them and take them to be naught for you and say that it is long of them that the world is so bad O horrid ingratitude when miserable souls are in the captivity of sin and Satan and within a few steps of everlasting fire the God of Mercy sends his Son his Word and Ministers to help them out and set them free and save them from Hell before it be too late and what entertainment have they They are reviled by these wretches as if they came to make them worse and do them a mischief and not to save them Righteous is the Lord that condemneth such as would not be saved and as took salvation for an injury And just were God if he should take away the Gospel and his Ministers and his people from so unthankful and unworthy a generation as this that are weary of them and say they are the troublers of the world and think that they do them more hurt then Good and as the Gadarens by Christ desire him to depart out of their coasts Matth. 8. 34. Be content a while unworthy souls You shall not long be troubled with a Christ or with the Gospel or with Preaching or with Praying or with the company of these precise people that you so much dislike Sleep on but a few nights more and pass on but a few dayes further and you shall come to a place before you look for it where you shall never have their company more and where you shall be out of the reach of Preaching and Praying and Holiness and of Hope And in the mean time were it not for the sakes of those whom God will convert and save this troublesome Gospel and Holy people should be taken from you and given to a people that will be more thankful and more fruitful because you put it from you and have judged your selves unworthy of everlasting life Acts 13. 46. Matth. 21. 41. No thanks to you that England is not like the Indians and as miserable as you would have it 11. And why should we believe you when we see that you judge clean contrarily for your bodies then you do for your souls I have never heard any of you say It was never good world since our land was fruitfull and since so much corn came to the the market It was a better world when men had nothing but roots to feed on And yet would you be believed when you say that it was better when men had not so much of the Scripture and of Christ and holiness the food the life the health of souls 12. And I the less believe you because I find that this hath been the common speech of others in all former ages They that lived in the dayes of your fathers said so of the former times It was formerly a better world then now And if you had lived in those dayes of your fathers fore-fathers you would have heard them say the same It s common with men to feel the evil that 's present and to praise the days that are past whose evil they felt not or have forgotten But hear what God saith Eccles 7. 10. Say not thou What is the Cause that the former dayes were better then these for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this Eccles 1. 9. The thing that hath been it is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the Sun 13. And little cause have we to believe you when we have present experience that your words are false We see that those are the best that are most Godly He is blind that seeth not an exceeding difference betwixt them and such as you that speak against them Do not we
see that they are sober when some of you are drunken and that they are seeking heaven when you are seeking the world and that they are providing for their souls and pleasing God and imployed in the most sweet and heavenly works while you are pampering the flesh or making provision to satisfie its lusts Do we not hear their speeches are of God and their salvation and things that edifie while you curse or swear or talk filthily or idly and unprofitably like dreaming or distracted men And yet would you make us believe that you are as good as they and that Religion makes men worse But you say that for all this they are secretly as bad as others Foolish malice If it be secret how do you know it If you know it how is it secret and its marvail that you do not make it known Is it not easie to say so by a Job or a Samuel or by Christ himself if saying so may serve turn and a wicked tongue may pass for proof You may say that in secret I commit all the sins imaginable and how can I disprove you when I have no witness but only by desiring you to prove it if you can But O happy are the servants of the Lord that are even in secret alwayes in the presence of their Judge who will bear witness for them and justifie them against malignant tongues But you say that they are as covetous as other men though they are more Religious But this is as shameful a falshood as the former Do we not see the contrary in the open fruits Covetous men are the forwardest to call others Covetous because they would have no body hinder or cross them in their Covetous desires or designs And then they are saying O such a professor used me thus and such a one did thus and usually they partially relate the case as their own Covetous hearts encline them passionately to judge it And perhaps they may meet with a worldly hypocrite that seemeth Religious which is no more to the disgrace of Religion then Cham was in the Family of Noah or Absolom in the house of David or Judas in the Family of Christ Do not you call your selves Christians your selves And yet Christianity is never the worse because you are wicked that profess it But sure I am that the servants of Christ are not comparable to you in Coveteousness For as I find God describing them in his Word to be a people dead to the world whose conversation is in heaven so I see that they can spare time from worldly business while they and their housholds serve the Lord and so cannot you They are seeking Heaven when you are seeking earth And we may know what a man loveth if we know what he seeketh And again I must bear witness from my own experience that in this place where I live I have reason to believe that where other men of their ability give a penny to the poor for charitable uses those that you call precise and think too Religious do give six if not twice six and some of them much more then I will express There are few weeks but we have occasion to try it by voluntary collections for some needy persons or charitable uses and therefore we have much opportunity to know besides contributions at Sacraments and other publick occasions But you say that in former times there was more Love among neighbours then is now Then there was more familiarity and kindness and less hatred and malice and contention then now I answer Am I not sure by constant experience that there is far more love among the godly then among you Do I not see how dear they are to one another and how sweetly and familiarly they converse together and joyn in prayer and holy exercises and conferr about their everlasting state Do I not see that they are ten times more liberal to relieve each other in distress then you are Many and many a time I have seen them give ten or twenty shillings in collections to relieve godly people in distress when those of you that are richer give but two pence or a groat to your companions in the like Collections And what makes them be so much together if there be not Love among them I profess to you I never yet saw any thing that is worthy the name of Love and Peace among any other sort of men But perhaps you will say that there are contentions and differences among them about Religion which the world was never troubled with before To which I answer 1. What differences or contentions do you see among them in this Town or Parish Among five hundred people that you count Precise what one is there among us that is either Anabaptist or Separatist or Antinomian or Arminian or of any other sect What one that separateth from any Ordinance of publick Worship What differences do you know among us Is there here any more Churches then one Do you hear any contendings Do you see any thing like a difference among us all For my part I know of none Nor but of one in the Parish that is turned from us which is a simple ignorant harmless man that turned Anabaptist For as for the Apostate Infidels that joyn with you that are ungodly we have nothing to do with them but lament their misery 14. Another thing that hindreth our Belief of you is that we see that it is only ignorant or wicked men that are of this opinion and say that the world is the worse for Godliness or the Preaching of the Gospel Not a man saith so that knoweth what he saith and that ever felt the power and sweetness of the Gospel upon his soul But only those that are blinded by the world and serve the flesh and are drowned in lust and know not what they speak against And shall we regard the judgement of such men 15. And moreover when you say that the world was better when there was less Godliness and Teaching you contradict all history and therefore are not to be believed You know not well what is before you much less do you know what hath been in your fore-fathers dayes Be it known to you we have as full advantage to know that as you have Many and many a large Volume have I read concerning the state of the world before us which tell us of far greater wickedness in our fore-fathers daies then are in these If you will not believe me I will shew it to any of you that can read and understand at any time when you will come to me I will shew you the words of the Chroniclers and Historians of those ages that make more lamentable complaints of the vices of those times and tell us of far more evil then and of a far greater scarcity of good then can be truly spoken concerning us And are you that never saw those daies to be believed before them that saw them 16. And I am sure also that
and Honesty 1 Tim. 2. 2 3. Indeed the Greek word here is that which signifieth gravity and seemliness of behaviour but that which is frequently translated good is it which signisieth the truly Honest And you know none of the ungodly are ever called Good in Scripture but clean contrary Prov. 11. 6. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them but transgressâ—rs shall be taken in their own naughtiness So vers 18. 19 20. The wicked worketh a deceitful work but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward As righteousness tendeth to life so he that pursueth evil doth it to his own death They that are of a froward heart are an abomination to the Lord but such as are upright in their way are his delight Everywhere you see how God abhorreth the ungodly and extolleth those that love and fear him Christ calleth the ungodly Evil men that â—â—t of the evil treasure of their hearts do bring forth evil things Matth. 12. 35. All is evil the life evil the heart evil and the man evil Prov. 12. 26. The Righteous is more excellent then his neighbour but the way of the wicked seduceth them And Psalm 16. David calleth the godly The excellent in whom is all his delight It is an excellent spirit that is in them Dan. 3. 12. 14 and 63. and an excellent way in which they go 1 Cor. 12. 31. and an excellent knowledge which the spirits illumination causeth them to attain Phil. 3. 18. Ephes 3. 18 19. You have Gods judgement of the case if that will satisfie you who it is that is the Best and Honestest man the Holy or the unholy 2. Do you think that man is an Honest man that will deny you your due and rob you of all that is your own Or rather is not the Just man the Honest man that will give every man his own I know you will give your voices for the latter O then take heed lest you condemn your selves If you be not Holy your own testimony doth condemn you For it is only the Godly that give God his own when the ungodly rob him of it Hast thou not thy Life and Time and Maintenance from God Hast thou not thy Reason and thy Affections and all thy faculties from him And should not all thou hast be employed for him Thou art a dishonest man that grudgest yea denyest him one day in seven when thou owest him all Thou art a dishonest man that givest away thy Makers due unto his vilest enemies That wastest thy means or strength on sin that spendest thy precious time on vanity that abusest his creatures to the satisfying of thy lusts and that livest to thy flesh when thou shouldst live to God Thou robbest him of all which thou givest to his enemies and of all which thou dost not use for his service It is less dishonesty to rob thy Master that trusteth thee with his goods then to rob the Lord that trusteth thee with thy time and parts and all things O blind unworthy sinners What makes you think him an honest man that robbeth his Maker or denyeth him his own when you call him a dishonest man that robbeth but such silly worms as you that in respect of God have nothing of your own Art thou better then God that it should be called dishonesty to wrong thee and no dishonesty to wrong him or deny him that which is his own God hath an absolute Title to you and that on more accounts then one You are his own as you are his creatures All souls are mine saith the Lord Ezek. 18. 4. And he hath Title to thee by Redemption as well as by Creation For to this end Christ dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord of the deâ—d and of the living Rom. 14. 9. We are not our own we are bought with a price and therefore should glorifie God in our bodies and our spirits which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. For if one dyed for all then were all dead that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. And as you your selves are Gods own as he is your Creator and Redeemer so all that you have is his own as the bestower or as your Master that trusteth it in your hands Exod. 19. 5. Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my Covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine And saith God to Job Job 41. 11. What soever is under the whole heaven is mine Psalm 50. 10 11 12. Every beast of the Forrest is mine the wild beasts of the field are mine the world is mine and the fulness thereof 1 Cor. 4. 7. What hast thou which thou didst not receive Thou hast not a minute of time which thou owest not to God nor a thought nor a word nor a farthing of thy estate And is it not the basest injustice and dishonesty to give these to thy flesh and deny them to him and think his service an unnecessary thing If thou wilt give the world and thy lusts any thing let it be that which thou canst truly call thine own As God saith to the Idolators Ezek. 16. 18 19. Thou hast set mine oyl and mine incense before them my meat also which I gave thee c. so may he say â—o thee It is his Time which thou hast consumed in idleness and in sinful delights and his Provision by which thou hast â—ed thy lusts But the sanctified man is devoted to God His study is to give him his own All the business of his life which you account his over-much strictness and preciseness is nothing but his Honesty to God in giving him his own You look your horse should travail for you and your Oxe should labour for you and your servant work for you because they are your own And shall not we give up all that we have to God that are much more his own Will you hang them that take your Own from you and count them Honest that deal worse with God Say not If Christ were here we would give it him For he hath told you how you should use all his talents in his Laws and if you deny them to the poor or any holy use that he requireth them you deny them unto him Read Mat. 25. 10. 40 41 42. 3. Do you think that an unnatural man is an Honest man One that will abuse his Father or Mother and scorn the bowels from which he sprung All the world is agreed on it that such are dishonest Honour thy Father and Mother is called the first Commandment with promise Exod. 21 17. He that curseth his Father or Mother shall surely be put to death See Prov. 20. 20. 30. 17. The eye that mocketh at his Father and despiseth to obey his Mother the Ravens of the valley shall pick it out and the young
honoured all rejoyce 1 Cor. 12. 25 26. As weak as Christians are and as worthless in your eyes one of their hearty spiritual prayers and one word of their holy savoury conference doth profit us more then all your Treasures will ever profit you While the Divine nature is in them somewhat Divine will proceed from their mouthes and be seen in their lives which is worth more then all the Riches of the world And O how fruitful are the holy Ordinances which we partake of both in the Churches Communion and alone in our retirements A poor Christian can get more in a Sermon which you sleep under or deride then you will get by your trades or livings while you live He findeth greater Treasures in one Chapter of the Bible or in one good Book then you can get out of all your lands or labours The best of your livings will not yield you so much commodity in seven years nor in seven thousand years if you could so long keep them as a believing soul can get from God in one hours prayer even in secret where he is not by man observed You do not believe this that are ungodly I know you do not heartily believe it for else you would try it and not continue in your ungodliness But they that try it know it to be true Or else what makes them continue in it and live upon their holy Communion with God and his servants more resolvedly then you do on your lands and labours Somewhat you may conjecture they find in holy duty that makes them so instant in it as they are 7. Another part of our commodity by Holiness is the Promise and Assurance of the Love of God and of our salvation and the Peace of Conscience that followeth hereupon All true Believers have objective certainty that is the thing is certain in itself whether they perceive it or not And they may have subjective or Actual certainty in themselves if they do their parts And is not a certain Title to a Lordship or a Kingdom a greater Treasure then the possession of a straw Much more is Gods Promise of Everlasting Glory a greater Treasure then all your wealth As Heaven is infinitely better then earth so the Promise of God is the best security Though we be not with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and do not yet see the face of God yet have we a Promise that speedily we shall be there and shall see that which they see and enjoy all that which they enjoy The poorest Christian hath all that in Promise under the hand of God himself which Angels and Glorified Saints have in possession They can shew you a better Title to Heaven though they are unworthy in themselves then any of you can shew to your lands or houses in your Deeds or Leases As poor and simple as that Godly man is whom you despise he is an Heir of Heaven and a fellow-Heir with Christ Rom. 8. 17. Gal. 3. 29. Heb. 1. 14. 11. 9. When we had the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy-Ghost and were justified by grace we were made the Heirs of eternal life according to the hope that is given us by the Gospel Tit. 3. 5 7. And God that hath given them those Better things that accompany salvation is not unrighteous to forget their work and labour of love if they do but shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end and be not sloathful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the Promises Heb. 6. 9 10 11 12. For this cause was Christ the Mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the Transgressions under the first Testament they which are called may receive the Promise of the eternal inheritance Heb. 9. 15. And we know that he is faithful that hath promised And if your Bills and Bonds and Deeds and Leases be part of your Riches we shall much more take the Promise of God for our everlasting happiness in Heaven to be far greater Riches 8. And yet we may put this among our Riches or at least as the Over-plus given us by God that we have better advantage even for the matters of this world then the ungodly have For we have a Promise that we shall lack nothing that is good for us Psal 34. 10. and so have not they We have warrant to east all our care on God who by promise is engaged to care for us 1 Pet. 5. 7. We are commanded to be anxiously careful for nothing but in all things to make known our requests to God as little children that care not for themselves but go to their father for what they want Phil. 4. 6. It is enough for us whatever we want that our heavenly Father knoweth that we want it Matth. 6. 32. who hath charged us to disburden our minds of these vexatious cares and to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof and promised us that other things shall be added to us Mat. 6. 33. We have also a promise that all things shall work together for our good Rom. 8. 28. And therefore we shall have more from the things of this life then the ungodly have Yea more by the want of them then they by the possession For if they do us good in our graces and communion with God and in the matter of our salvation they help us to that which is of far higher value then themselves Poverty to a true Believer is better then Riches to the ungodly that destroyeth himself by them when the Believer is helped by his poverty Imprisonment to Paul and Silas was better then liberty to their persecutors And thus in the fruits and saving benefits all things are ours 1 Cor. 3. 22. We have the Love of God with what we possess be it more or less when the wicked have his wrath with it And who would have their Riches on such terms 9. Another part of the Gain of Godliness is that it puts us into a Readiness to die and a fitness to appear before the Lord. Though all the Godly have not so great a readiness as to desire to be presently dissolved yet all of them are in a safe condition and are so far ready that death shall pass them into a blessed state For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernaâ—le were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hâ—… eternal in the heavens And in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven And God that hath given 〈…〉 the earnest of his Spirit hath wrought in us to be alwayes confident or at least given us cause knowing that whilest we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord For we walk by faith and not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1
2 8 9. Though the abode of the godly in the flesh is usually more needful to those about them yet to themselves their death is gain and therefore they have cause to desire to depart and be with Christ as being far better Phil. 1. 21 23 24. For sin which is the sting of death is mortified and the curse of the Law which is the strength of it is relaxed or null fied to us by the Gospel so that the Believer may triumph and say O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory 1 Cor. 15. 55 56. and to give thanks to God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ vers 57. Verily I would not exchange my part though alas too small or dark a part in this one priviledge of true Believers for all the wealth and dominions on earth O the face of Death will soon make the Glory of all your greatness to vanish and the beauty of your flourishing estates to wither and all that you now glory in to appear as nothing And then how glad would you be to change Portions with the holy servants of the Lord whom you now despise When once you hear Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul and whose then are all those things that thou hast provided Luke 12. 20. then in a moment you will change your minds and cry out of the world as nothing worth and wish you had busied your hearts and hands in laying up a better treasure This is one difference O â—ngodly wretch between a holy servant of God and thee Death cannot undo him but it will undo thee It cannot take his Riches from him for his God his Christ his Holiness the Promises are his Riches but it will separate thee and thy wealth for ever It will put an end to all his troubles and fears and griefs and it will put an end to all thy prosperity and to all thy mirth and hope for ever A godly man dare die or if he ignorantly fear it yet shall it be the end of all his fears but thou darest not die and yet thou must or if thou ignorantly hope of a happiness after it yet will it nevertheless end all thy hopes O what a mercy is it to be ready to die 10. But the great unspeakable Riches of the Saints is in the Life to come We have here the Hope and the fore-taste but it is only there that we shall have our Portion You see what a poor Christian is according to his outward appearance But you see not what he will be to eternity There is the Kingdom for which we hope and for which we run and wait and suffer If God be true and his Gospel true then Heaven shall be the Portion of the sanctâ—fied But if it were otherwise then we would confess their hopes are vain Heaven is our Riches or we have none There have we laid up all our Hopes and in these Hopes we will live and die as knowing they will not make us ashamed Rom. 5. 5. 9. 33. 1 John 2. 28. We believe that we shall live with Christ in glory and shine as stars in the Firmament of our Father and be made like to the Angels of God and shall see his face and praise his name and live in his everlasting Love and Joy For all this he himself hath promised us 1 Thes 4. 17. 18. Daâ— 12. 3. Mat. 13. 43. Luk. 20 36. Rev. 22. 4. Mat. 25. 21. And now poor worldling what is all your Gain and Riches in comparison of the least of these Do you think in your judgements that there is any comparison Or rather doth not sin and the world even brutifie you and make you lay by the use of your reason and live as if you knew not what you know Your Treasure is all visible when ours is unseen and therefore I may bid you bring it forth and let us see it whether indeed it be better then the Treasure of the Saints Let us see what that is that is better then God and everlasting glory What! is a little fleshly ease or mirth a little meat and drink and pleasure a little more money or space of ground to use then your neighbours have are these the things that you will change for Heaven and preser before the Lord that made you O poor miserable sinners Are you not told that you have your good things here but what will you have hereafter when this is gone Luke 16. 25. When your wealth is gone and your mirth is gone your souls are immortal and therefore your misery and horrour will continue and never be gone As the wealth of the godly is within them and above the reach of their enemies and surer then yours so is it the more durable even everlasting When all your Riches are upon the wing even ready to be gone and leave you in sorrow when you are most highly valuing them you have it now but it is gone to morrow And what is the Hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Job 27. 8 9. Let the words of Christ decide the Controversie if indeed you take him for your Judge Mat. 16. 2â— 25 26 27. If any man will come after we let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul For the Son of man shall come in the Glory of his Father with his Angels and then he shall reward every man according to his works Well sirs you that are all for Getting and for wealth judge now if you have not lost your Reason whether a Holy or unholy â— Heavenly or an Earthly life be the more Profitable way I would not draw you to any thing that you should lose by If I speak not for your Gain reject my words as contemptuously as you please But if I do then be not against your own commodity Will such silly Gain as the world affords you do so much with you as it doth and shall not the Heavenly inheritance do more shall all this stir be made in the world for that which you are ready to leave behind you and will you not lay up a Treasure in heaven where rust and moaths corrupt not and where you may live for ever Matth. 6. 20. What profit now have all those millions of souls that are gone from earth by all the wealth they here possessed Hear sinners and bethink you in the name of God You are leaving Earth and stepping into Eternity and where then should you lay up your Riches Would you rather have your Portion where you must stay but a few days then where you must
Judgements of the Lord God hath begun to take away the reproach of Holiness and through his great mercy to us it is more Honourable in England then formerly it hath been Is it Honoured by you Or are you hardened to perdition Fearfull is the case of him whoever he be that after all the gentle and terrible warnings of the Lord dare think or speak reproachfully of a Holy life Yet hear the calls of the Eternal Wisdom Prov. 1. 20 21 22 c. How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof But mercies and judgements are lost on the hard-hearted Isa 26. 10 11. Let favour be shewn to the wicked yet will he not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold the Majesty of the Lord. When the hand of the Lord is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at his people and the enemies own fire shall devour them And then as they set at nought his counsell and would none of his reproof but mocked them that feared God so will he also laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord Prov. 1. 25 26 27 29. I will add but this one word of terror To scorn at Holiness is to scorn at the Holy Ghost whose office or work it is to sanctifie us As the Father hath commanded us to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. and made it his Image on us and as the Son hath come to destroy unholiness 1 John 3. 8. and give us an example of perfect holiness and sanctifie to himself a peculiar people Titus 2. 14. so is it the undertaken work of the Holy Ghost as sent therefore from the Father and the Son to make Holy all that God will save And though I say not that it is the unpardonable Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to scorn his very work and office yet I say it is a Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost so near that which is unpardonable that the thoughts of it should humble all that have been guilty and make men fear so horrible a sin But Bessed is he that walketh not in the Counsel of the Ungodly â—or standeth in the way of sinners nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked but he blesseth the habitation of the just Surely he scorneth the scorners but he giveth grace unto the lowly Prov. 3. 33 34. These are the true sayings of the Lord. I thought not meet to pass by this necessary reproof of the contempt of Holiness which this Land hath been so guilty of and which hath undone so many souls and made such desolations in the Land And now you shall see that I am able to make good the grounds of this reproof and that Holiness is no Dishonourable thing 1. The Holy servants of the Lord have the most Honourable Master in all the world This only is sufficient to weigh down all the Honours of the world if it were ten thousand worlds When the builders of the Temple were asked their names by the Officers of King Darius Ezra 5. 10 11. their answer was We are the servants of the God of Heaven and Earth No King on Earth no Angel in Heaven hath a more honourable Master To be the highest Officer of the greatest Prince is a Title as much more base then this as man is baser then the Infinite God If God can not put sufficient Honour on those that are Related to him tell us who can When Moses went to Pharaoh for the Israelites deliverance he was to speak in the name of the Lord and when Pharaoh spake contemptuously of the Lord as one that he knew not and would not obey how wonderously doth God vindicate his honour his people Let other men be called Knights and Lords and Kings and Emperours may I but be truly called the servant of the God of Heaven I shall not envy them their honours Our relation to so glorious a Majesty doth put an unexpressible Honour upon the poorest person and the lowest works A servant of the Lord is more Honourable in ragâ— in a smoaky cottage or the meanest state then the Emperour of Constantinople or Tartary is in all their Wealth and Worldly Glory And if you think not so your selves why do you so much honour them when they are dead What was Peter and Paul and the rest of the Apostles but poor despised men in the world that travailed about to preach the Gospel and what was their honour but to be the Holy Servants of the Lords Yet now they are dead you are desirous to keep Holy dayes in an honourable memorial of them and Kings and Princes reverence their names What were the Martyrs whose memories are now so Honourable with us but a company of hated persecuted men that were used by others as Butchers do their beasts and worse But because they were the servants of the Lord and suffered for his truth and cause their names are honourable and the names of their greatest persecutors do even stink It s said of Constantine the Great who himself was Greater by his Holiness then his Victories that he was wont to reverence the Bishops that had been sufferers for Christ and kissed the place where the eye abode that one of them had lost for the Gospels sake The Christian Princes that ruled the world were wont to Honour the poorest mortified retired servants of Christ that had cast off the world as perceiving that he is more Honourable that contemneth it then he that enjoyeth it The nearest to God undoubtedly are the most Honourable 2. Consider that as it is God that the Saints are thus Related to so their Relation is so near and their Titles so exceeding high which God himself hath put upon them that it advanceth them to the greatest height of Honour that men on earth can reasonably expect Yea with holy admiration we must say it so wonderful is the Honour which the Glorious God hath put upon his poor unworthy servants thar they durst not have owned it nor thought such Titles meet for men if God himself had not been the Author of them Nor could they have believed that God would so advance them if he had not both revealed it and given them faith to believe his revelation As if it were not enough for us to be his servants he calleth us his friends Joh. 15. 13 14 15. Greater Love hath no man then this that a man lay down his life for his friends Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you Henceforth I call you not servants For the servant knoweth not what his Lord
doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you Jam. 2. 23. Abraham was called the friend of God 2. And they are called the Lords Jewels Mal. â— 17. 3. They are called his Beloved and dearly Beloved Deut. 33. 12. Psalm 60. 5. 127. 2. Cant. 2. 16. 6. 3. 7. 10. Holy and Beloved are inseparable Rom. 4. 7. Beloved of God called to be Saints Col. 3. 12. the elect of God Holy and Beloved They are the dearly beloved of his soul Jer. 12. 7. For they are accepted in the Beloved Eph. 1. 6. Even in the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased Matth. 3. 17. 17. 5. 4. They are called children or adopted sons Gal. 4 6. John 1. 12. And he disdaineth not to be called their Father Heb. 12. 9. Matth. 23. 9. 2 Cor. 6. 18. I will be a Father to you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Mal. 3. 17. He will spare them as a man spareth his son that serveth him 5. They are called also the Heirs of Heaven Rom. 8. 17. A more Honourable heritage then earth affords 6. They are called a peculiar people to the Lord Tit. 2. 14. and his peculiar treasure Exod. 19. 5. Psal 135. 4. 7. They are called Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 6. They are a chosen generation a Royal Priest-hood a Holy Nation a peculiar people 1 Pet. 2. 9. 8. The sanct fied are called the Spouse of Christ Cant. 4. 8. to 13. Because of the similitude of the holy Covenant which they make with Christ to a marriage Covenant and because of the dearness of his love to them and the nearness and sweetness of his Communion with them Mat. 21. 2 4 9. The Lord is said to be married to them Jer. 3. 14. And their Maker calls himself their Husband Isa 54. 5. 9. Yea more they are called the Members of Christ 1 Cor. 6. 15. 12. 12. They are the Body of Christ and members in particular vers 27. We are members of his body of his flesh and of his bone loved and cherished by him as a man doth his own flesh Ephes 5. 25 28 29 30 32. They are kept by the Lord as the apple of his eye Deut. 32. 10. And he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of his eye Zech. 2. 8. What nearness what dearness do those terms express 10. Yea they are said to be one with Christ 1 Cor. 6. 17. â—â— that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit John 17. 21 22 23. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in â—â— that the world may believe 〈…〉 â—â—oâ— hast sent me that they may be One even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one Not that they are One in God-head or personality or office with Christ but most nearly conjoyned as subjects to their Prince that make One Body Politick and as a wise to a husband and nearer then these can express in that they have the communications of his Spirit Judge now by all these wonderful Titles whether any but an Atheist or Infidel can deny that the Godly are the most Honourable people in the world If it be not a contemptible thing to be the son of a King much less to be the sons of the eternal King Deny the Honour of those that are so nearly related to him and you deny the Honour of God himself and consequently deny him to be God Atheism is the beginning and end of all 3. Moreover the servants of the Lord have the most Honourable Natures or Dispositions in the world And the Honour that ariseth from a mans intrinsecal Disposition is far greater then that which accrueth to him from his parentage or wealth or worldly greatness or any such extrinsick accidents Many a proud and worthless person doth boast of the Nobility of their Ancestors and tell you what blood doth run in their veins when they have debased souls and nothing advanced them of their Ancestors but their Riches or the pleasure of some Prince and they know that the beggars at their doors did come from Noah as well as they The Surgeon findeth no purer blood in their veins then in the beggars nor are their carkasses any more sweet or lovely and therefore if their manners are worse they are more base then honest beggars It is the mind that beareth the true stamp of Nobility They are the Noblest that have the Noblest souls All the Silks and Velvers in the world will not make an Ape as Honourable as a Man nor an Ideot as a wise man Solomon in all his Royalty was not cloathed like some of the flowers in the field Mat. 6. 28. 29. and yet he was more Honourable then they A Corpse may be most sumâ—tuously adorned A Crown may be set on the head of an image Such as the mind is such is the man And that the souls of the sanctified are more Nobly qualified then of other men is easily demonstrated For 1. Christ dwelleth in them by faith and by his Spirit Ephes â— 17. 2. 22. We are the Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. The new nature of the Saints hath no meaner an Author then the Lord himself It is the Divine Power that giveth us all things that pertain to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1. 3. As it is the Honourable work of God the Father to be our Creator and of God the Son to be our Redeemer so is it the Honourable work of God the Holy-Ghost to be our Sanctifier And therefore as it is a Blaspheming of the Creator to vilifie the Creation and a Blaspheming of the Redeemer to vilifie the Redemption so is it a Blaspheming of the Sanctifier to vilifie Sanctification Though â— I say not that it is the unpardonable Blasphemy yet a fearful Blasphemy it is O that those wretches knew their crime that mock at the special work of the Holy-Ghost 2. The new creature is illuminated with a Heavenly light and cured of its former mortal blindness and is brought out of darkness into marvellous light Eph. 1. 18. Acts 26. 18. Col. 1. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 9. and is taught of God John 6. 45. 1 Thes 4. 9. 1 Joh. 2. 27. And it is more Honourable to see then to be blind and to live in the open Light then in a dungeon And it is the highest matters in the world that the gracious soul is savingly acquainted with It is more Honourable to have the Knowledge of profoundest Sciences then of some low and poor employment And it is more Honourable to have the saving Knowledge of God and of the life to come which the poorest sanctified person hath then to have the most admired fleshly wisdom or all the common learning in the world What high and excellent and
them whom God doth delight to Honour He will Deliver them and Honour them Psal 91. 15. 4. And as the sanctified have the most Honorable dispositions so have they the highest and most Honorable Designs The End of their lives is incomparably above other mens The rest of the world though they may talk of Heaven and wish for it rather then Hell when they can live no longer do indeed drive on no greater trade then providing for the flesh and feathering them a nest which will quickly be pulled down and like the spider spinning themselves a web which death will shortly sweep away But the Design and daily business of the Godly is for everlasting Glory Heb. 11. 10. They look for a City that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God vers 13 14 15 16. They confess themselves strangers and pilgrims on earth thereby declaring that they seek a Countrey And truly if they were mindful of that deceitful world which they came out of and have forsaken they may have opportunities and too many invitations to return to it But now they desire a better Countrey that is an Heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called Their God for he hath prepared for them a City This Noble End ennobleth both the persons and conversations of believers To Rule a Kingdom is a Nobler design then to play with children for pins or points But to seek the Everlasting Kingdom is far above all the highest designs that are terminated upon earth If Everlasting Glory with God in Heaven be a nobler state then a worldly life then must the seeking it be a nobler design Paul sheweth you the difference very pathetically Phil. 3. 18 19 20. For many walk of whom I told you often and now tell you weeping that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ Whose end is destruction whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame who mind earthly things But our Conversation is in Heaven that is we live as Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and not as those that are here at home It is Heaven that sanctified persons mind that they study and care for and labour and live for in the world And therefore though in their Natural capacity they are but as other men yet in their Moral and Relative capacity I think I may say without Hyperbole that they are much more advanced above the dignity of the great unsanctified Princes upon earth then Reason and learning and manly designs advance a man above a beast It is the Nobleness and baseness of the end that doth honour or abase the agent and therefore none are truly Honourable but those that seek the spiritual the high eternal Honour 5. The Employment as well as the Designs of the Godly do prove them to be the most Honourable Both the End and Matter do shew the excellency of their Work As the End Honoureth the person so doth it Honour all the works that are Means thereto The first thoughts of a Godly man when he awaketh and the last when he lyeth down if he observe his Rule are usually for Heaven When you are conversing with worldly men about these common worldly things they are in prayer or holy meditation conversing with God about the matters of his service and their salvation Their hearts are toward him their thoughts are on him They are devoted to him Their daily business is to serve him When I awake saith David Psal 139. 28. I am still with thee Psal 16. 7. 8. I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reins also instruct me in the night seasons I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved The life of the Godly is called in Scripture a walking with God such was the course of Henock Noah and Abraham Gen. 5. 22 24. 6. 9. 17. 1. 24. 40. They walked before God Gen. 48. 15. and in his ways Deut. 28. 9. They love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul as to the sincerity of it and walk after him and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and serve him and cleave unto him Deut. 13. 3 4. And can an inhabitant of this world have a more honourable imployment then to serve the Lord and a more honourable state then to walk with God should we not have thought such words intolerable to be used of the best on earth if God had not been himself the author of them and put them into our mouths Hear more of his own expressions concerning the conversations of his servants 1 Cor. 1. 9. God is faithful by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ 1 Joh. 1. 3. And truly our Fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ By fellowship is not meant here a society of equals God forbid we should think so blasphemously But it is a Communion of the beloved sanctified Creature with his blessed Creator agreeable to his distance In their secret addresses his servants have communion with him Their Prayer is nothing else but a humble speaking to the living God for the supply of all their wants In their Praises and Thanksgivings it is God that they deal with and the words of their mouths and the meditation of their hearts are acceptable is the sight of their Redeemer Psal 19. 14. They poure out their souls before him and he openeth his ears and his bosome unto them Psal 62. 8. 10. 17. He will feed kis flock like a shepherd he will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young Isa 40. 11. And in the publick Worship of God in the holy Assemblies his servants also have communion with him It is him that they hear whoever be the messenger It is him that they adore and praise and magnifie Come say they and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob and he will teach us of his wayes and we will walk in his paths Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord Isaiah 2. 3 5. We have thought of thy loving kindness O God in the midst of thy Temple Psalm 48. 9. In his Temple doth every man speak of his glory Psalm 29. 9. Yea the common employments of the Godly are sanctified and thereby advanced above the highest actions of the wicked For it is God and Glory that is in all their ultimate End Whether they eat or drink or what ever they do they do it to his glory 1 Cor. 10. 31. That is They intend his Glory as their end and they do it in reverent obedience to his Will and in a holy manner behaving themselves as may honour him whose work they do And he that hath the face to say that Prayer Praise Thanksgiving Meditation holy conference and other works of Holiness and
maist regard it He is the wise man that God calls wise and he is the fool that God calls fool and that is every one that layeth up riches for himself and is not rich towards God Luke 12. 20 21. He is the Happy man that God calls Happy and he is a miserable man that God counts miserable and who those are you may see in Psalm 1. and many Scriptures before-cited Hear the words and you that are Believers lay up the blessed promise of Christ himself John 12. 26. If any man serve me him will my Father Honour And who cares then for the dishonours of all the wicked of the world Our tryed faith as preciouser then Gold will be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. See 2 Tim. 2. 21. We must learn therefore to imitate our Lord John 5. 41. and not to receive our Honour from men and not to imitate the wicked vers 44. that receive Honour one of another and seek not the Honour that cometh from God There is enough for us in Gods approbation And yet all his servants do imitate their Lord and his Judgement is their Judgement and whom he honoureth them do they honour Angels and Saints and all that enter into the Tabernacle of the Lord do contemn the vile and honour them that fear the Lord Psalm 15. 4. And though no mans Judgement or Praise be valuable in comparison of the Lords yet the Honour and Praise that is given by the wise and Godly is more then a thousand times as much from ignorant ungodly men If the Athenian Orator regarded the censure of Socrates more then of all the rest of his auditors we have cause to judge he Elogies of experienced holy men a greater honour then of thousands of the wicked greater then all their contempt or scorn is able to weigh down The applause of the wicked is oft-times a dishonour in wise mens eyes Was it not Balaams chiefest honour to hear from Balak I thought to promote thee to great Honours but the Lord hath kept thee back from Honour Numb 24. 11. The Honour that God keepeth a man from is no Honour but it is an Honour to be kept from such Honour by the Lord innocent poverty is incomparably more Honourable then Riches by iniquity which is the greatest shame 10. Lastly it is unspeakable everlasting Honour that holiness doth tend unto and which holy men shall enjoy with God The very Relation of a Godly man to his everlasting Glory is an Honour ten thousand times surpassing the Honour of all the Kingdoms of the world If you did but know that one of your poor neighbours should certainly be a King would you not presently honour him even in his rags You may know that the Saints shall raign with Christ as sure as if an Angel from heaven had told you so and more and therefore how should a Saint be honoured If God had but legibly marked out some among you for salvation and written in their fore-heads This man shall be saved would not all the Parish reverence that man Why a Heavenly mind and the Love of God and self-denyal and holy obedience are Heaven-marks infallible as true as the Gospel and written by the same hand as the Gospel was I mean by the Spirit of God himself If a voice from Heaven should speak now of any person in the Congregation and say This man shall raign in Heaven for ever would it not be an Honour above all your worldly Honours Why Holiness is Gods Image and the Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance and beareth witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God and we have the promise and seals and oath of God for our confirmed certainty yea and the Knowledge of God in Christ is the beginning of eternal life John 17. 3. and what would we have more The presence of Christ in a little of his Glory upon the Mount transported the three Disciples And the glympse of the Glory of God which Moses saw did make his face shine that the Israelites could not behold it The approaches of the Saints to God in holy Worship here on earth are exceeding Honourable because they participate of heaven and it is upward that they look 1 Chron. 16. 27. Glory and Honour are in his presence strength and gladness are in his place The soul that is beholding God by faith and conversing with the Heavenly inhabitants is quite above all earthly things and as Angels are more honourable then men and Heaven then Earth so are Believers that converse in Heaven with Angels yea with Christ himself by faith more honourable then terrestrial carnal men But the great Honour is behind yet near at hand when the promised Crown is set upon their heads O mark the Honour that is promised them by the Lord of truth The soul it self before the Resurrection of the body shall be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. Even present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 1. 8. John 12. 26. If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be And at the Resurrection Christ that hath loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it will present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Eph. 5. 25 26. Will they not be Honourable even in the eyes of the ungodly world when they hear the sentence of their Lord Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Mat. 25. 34. and vers 23. Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord When Christ shall come to be Glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe 2 Thes 1. 10. Mark here that it is one end of the coming of Christ to be Glorified and admired in his Saints Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints to execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him Jud. 14. 15. Our hearts shall be established unblameable in holiness before God even our father at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints 1 Thes 3. 12 13. we shall then praise him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. He that overcometh shall be cloathed with white rayment and confessed by Christ before the Father and the Angels of heaven Rev. 3. 5. Yea he shall be a Pillar in the Temple of God and go out no more and Christ will write on him the Name of God and the name of the City of God New Hierusalem which cometh down out of Heaven from God and his own name vers
12. Yea he will grant to him to sit with him in his throne as he himself hath overcome and is set down with the Father in his Throne vers 21. And he will honour his Saints to be Judges of Angels and of the world 1 Cor. 6. 2 3. And they that overcome and keep his words unto the end to them will he give power over the nations and they shall rule with a rod of iron and break them to shivers as the vessels of a potter even as Christ received of his Father and he will give them the morning star Rev. 2. 26 27. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear the Glorious things that are promised to the Saints The high praises of God shall be in their mouths and the two-edged sword in their hands to execute on the wicked the Judgement written such Honour have all his Saints Psal 149. 6 9. Then shall we hear the Praises of the Heavenly society saying We give thee thanks O Lord God Almighty which art and wast and art to come because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned and the Nations were angry and thy wrath is come and the time of the dead that they should be judged and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the Prophets and to the Saints and them that fear thy name small and great and shouldst destroy them that dwell on the earth then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father Who hath ears to hear let him hear Matth. 13. 43. Yea they shall be equal to the Angels of God Luk. 20. 36. This is the Inheritance of the Saints in Light of which God is now making us Meet to be partakers Col. 1. 12. If all that sâ—â—â— in the Council against him saw Stevens face as it had been the face of an Angel Act. 6. 15. what shall be the glory of the Saints when themselves shall see the face of God and his name shall be written in their foreheads Rev. 22. 4. when the ungodly world shall know that Holiness was the most Honourable State But perhaps some will say that this language will make 〈…〉 Proud To tell men that they are the most Honourable personâ— in the world is the way to make them the Proudest persons To which I give you a manifold answer that your Objection may not have the least pretence that it is unsatisfied 1. Worldly Honours are of a more swelling nature then Heavenly Honours and yet it would scarcely be taken well if this conclusion should pass for currant that the most Honourable are the most Proud For then it would follow that none are so vile so like the Devil so unlike God and so the Princes and nobles of the earth would become the most despicable persons in the world and their very Honour it self would be their dishonour and so no Honour And if worldly Honours will not warrant you to conclude the persons to be most Proud much less will the Heavenly Honour There is the more Need and the less Fear of the Honour of the Godly because it is the blessing of an Humbled soul God casts them down before he lifts them up It is only the Humble that he exalteth They feel their sin and misery before they know their Honour A Broken heart hath need of healing and a fainting soul is fittest for a Cordial You need not fear when you refresh the sick lest it should make them wanton as it may do the sound A comfortable word to one that is samenting over the dead and weeping at a grave is not so likely to make them Proud as to others in prosperity A drooping and discouraged soul is hardly raised high enough and kept from sinking They have had the sentence past upon them and have had the rope as it were about their neck they have been at the very gates of Hell they have seen by faith what work what woes there are for sin in the life to come and therefore these souls have need to hear of their Felicity 3. Moreover they have a great deal of work to do and their strength and courage is too small and the work is such as flesh and blood cannot away with much less afford them sufficient strength for Such labourers must have encouraging strengthening food Their work is such as will keep them under God doth not keep his servants idle and therefore they are in the less danger of â—â—xing Proud and wanton Isa 35. 2 3 4. They shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God And why is this foretold them strengthen yeâ— the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees say to them that are of a fearful heart Be strong fear not behold your God will come with vengeance even God with a recompence he will come and save you Heb 12. 1â— 13. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make strait paths for your feet lest that which is laâ—e be turned out of the way but let it rather be healed we are commanded 1 Thes 5. 14. as to warn them that are unruly so to comfort the feeble-minded and support the weak 4. Moreover the Godly have the greater need of such encouragements because they have much suffering to undergo They have all your hatred and scorns to suffer and all the adversities of the world with which their Father shall please to exercise them And he that layeth the burden on them will give them strength by strengthening meanâ— Gods not hath corks as well as leads If birds had not feathers as well as flesh they would be unable to fly As Christ himself was encouraged to endure the contradiction of sinners and to bear the cross and despise the shame by looking at the joy that was set before him and so for the suffering of death was â—â—owned with Glory and â—â—â—â— Heb. 12. 2 3. 2. 9. so will he have his people â—read in his steps and take up their â—â—oss and follow him and deny themselves and all the world yet so as to look at there compence of reward and seek for glory honour and immortality and by these to be animated to the work and patience of the Saints as â—…ing to be Glorified with him whâ—â— they have suffered with 〈…〉 Matth. 16. 24. 〈…〉 Heb. 1â— 26. â—oâ— 2. 7. 8. 17 18. As the Angel said to Elijah 1 King 19. 7. Arise and eate because the journey is too great for thee so God encourageth his servants by his Honours and rewards because the journey the labour the suffering is too great without such encouragement to be cheerfully undergone And in the strength of these consolations they bear the cross 5. The objection is most against the Lord. If it be an errour to Honour and extol the Godly as tending to make them Proud it is God himself that is the owner of it The words that I have recited to you are his
own words Do we devise these sayings Or do we not shew them you in the Scripture And dare you charge God with errour or encouraging Pride Do you think he knew not what he said when he spake such Honourable things of his servants Did he need you to have taught him to have endited his word and to have warned him that he make not his servants proud As if he hated not pride as much as you 6. Yea God will do more then this for his servants he will advance them to Salvation and yet he will not make them proud There is no Pride in Heaven though there be the greatest Glory The Angels are most glorious and yet least proud If you would not wish God to keep men out of Heaven lest it make them proud you should not grudge at his Honouring them on earth with the mention of their Heavenly titles upon that account 7. The Exaltation of the Saints is a spiritual exaltation which is not so apt to make men Proud as carnal exaltation is Charity puffeth not up as â—ery knowledge doth It is selfishness that is the Life of Pride which consisteth in excessive self-esteem and desire of an excessive esteem with others and to be magnified by them And nothing but Grace can subdue this selfishness and therefore nothing else candestroy Pride 8. Moreover the Honour of the Saints is the less like to make them Proud because Humility is part of the Grace that â—â— bestowed on them To be Proud and Holy is to be sick and Holy to be Light and Dark they are plain contraries No man is proud but for want of Holiness and therefore that Holiness should efficiently make men proud is impossible any more thâ—n Health can make men sick or Darkness can be caused by Light And if objectively any be Proud of his Holiness 〈…〉 but in such a measure as he is noholy Holiness doth ever 〈…〉 Pride and contain Humility and self-denyal as an essential part All Christs Disciples learn of him in their measure to be meek and lowly 9. Let experience tell you whether it be not some worldly Honour or parts and gifts that are the much commoner object of Pride then Holiness I have oft heard talk of mens being proud of their Humility and Holiness but the Temptations of my own soul have comparatively layn but little that way nor have I observed it the common case of others in any proportion with other kinds of Pride Riches and Honours and Beauty and Dignity I see people ordinarily proud of And I see many Proud of Counterfeit Graces that have none that is sincere as far as may be perceived by others to be proud of And I see many Proud of their Learning and Knowledge and nimble tâ—ngnes a hundred fold more then ever I found true Christians Proud of the Love of God and a Heavenly mind Alas we have much a doe for the most part to discern that we have any of this at all and to find so much of it in our selves as is necessary to our support and thankfulness 10. Lastly consider what abundance of Means the Lord hath adjoyned as Antidotes with his servants Honours to keep them from being puffed up with Pride and then tell me whether you dare charge God with errour or want of wisdom in this thing 1. The nature and life of Holiness consisteth in the souls retiring home to God and adhering to him and walking as before him And there is not a more powerful means in the world to keep Humble the soul then the Knowledge of God O when a poor sinner hath but any lively apprehensions of the Greatness and Glory of the Lord it amazeth him and levelleth him with the dust and abaseth him in his own esteem and maketh him say with Job 40. 4 5. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth 4 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes One glympse of God were enough to humble any soul that truly knoweth him A Godly man hath still to do with that Majesty that continually aweth him His 〈…〉 is with him His thoughts are on him his work is with him 〈…〉 his word that he readeth and heareth and discourseth of and therefore aâ— his word with reverence and Godly fear as knowing that our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. It is God that he prayeth to that he meditateth on and he praiseth and hath still to do with And therefore no wonder if he walk hambly with so holy and great a God 2. The sin and misery that once they were in while they knew not God will do much to keep humble a gracious soul as long as they live Though God so forget our sins as to forgive them yet we can scarce forgive our selves or at least can never forget them Though he see no fin in his servants as he seeth it in the world nor so as to hate and condemn them for it yet they see that once they were as bad as the world and were children of wrath as well as others They condemn themselves when God doth justifie them and set their sins before their faces which God doth cast behind his back O those dark those ungrateful and those perilous dayes will never be forgotten by the renewed soul The thoughts of them shall ever keep us humble When we look on the wicked miserable world to think that such were many of us though mercy have washed and sanctified and justified us 3. Moreover God hath so contrived the way of their salvation that they shall have all by a Redeemer and by freest Grace and none shall be justified by the works of the Law nor by any merit of his own but Boasting is excluded by the Law of faith Rom. 3. 19 27 28. and we shall have nothing but what we receive besides and contrary to our desert 4. And alas too much corruption still remaineth in us We have flesh that fighteth against the spirit Rom. 7. 24. Gal. 5. 17. We know but in part and Love God but in part and serve him with such constant weakness that these things are usually such humbling matters to a gracious soul that were it not for the Comforter they would be unable to look up O to feel how dark we are how far from God! how strange to heaven how little we believe and know and love these are humbling thought indeed to a soul that is acquainted withit self 〈…〉 â—â—verty beggery or the reproach in the world would be so humbling to them To find such remnants of that odious sin that cost them dear and had cost them dearer if it had not cost their Lord so dear this is constant matter of humiliation 5. And too often do their corruptions get advantage of them and produce some actual sin of thought word or 〈…〉 and this also must
that are but honest-hearted may certainly understand them Which quiets and pleaseth and satisfies the mind 3. And yet there is an exciting Difficulty in many things that are offered to our Knowledge which doth but make our holy studies the more delightful If the Word of God were so plain and obvious to all that it might be all understood at the first reading the plainness would bring our Sacred Knowledge into contempt as being an easie common thing Things common and easily got are little set by But when the plainness is such as may prevent our despair and dissatisfaction and yet the Difficulty such that it may hold us in study and prevent our contempt it makes the most delightful Knowledge It is Pleasant to find some daily addition to our Light and to be on the gaining and thriving hand and this upon our diligent search Successes are as pleasant as a present fulness of supplies The daily blessing of God upon our studies and humble learning addeth to our delight So that all this set together may shew you how pleasant a thing it is to have the Knowledge of a Saint Especially if you add that he hath an Exporimental and so a sweeter Knowledge then the most learned men have that are ungodly He hath tasted that the Lord is gracious and he hath tasted the sweetness of his Love and of all the Riches of his Grace in Christ and of his full and precious promises and of the inward powerful workings of his spirit His experimental Knowledge is the most Delightful Knowledge The Pleasure of Natural Knowledge is great but the Pleasure of saving Knowledge is much greater I do not believe that ever any of the Ambitious troublers of the world that let go Heaven that they may Rule on Earth have half the Pleasure in their Greatness and usurped Dignities as an honest Student hath in his Books and studious exercises and successes But if you compare the Pleasures of their Greatness and Commands with the Pleasure of a true Believing soul in his life of Faith and sweet fore-thoughts of his Heavenly Inheritance I must plainly tell you that we disdain the comparison Again I say that if you will compare the Drunkards the Fornicators or the Ambitious or Covetous mans delight with the solace that I find in my retired studies even about natural common things I disdain the comparison But if you compare their Pleasure with that little alas too little pleasure that I find in the believing thoughts of Life Eternall I do not only disdain your comparison but detest it Were I minded to be long I would shew you from these twelve particular Instances the abundant Pleasure of Holy Knowledge 1. What a Pleasant thing is it to know the Lord the Eternal God in his blessed Attributes The dimmest glimmering Knowledge of God is better then the clearest Knowledge of all the mysteries of nature 2. How Pleasant is it to know the works of his Creation How and why and when he made the world and all that is therein 3. How Pleasant is it to know the blessed Son of God and to behold the face of his Fathers Love that is revealed in him as his fullest Image 4. How Pleasant is it to know the Law and Gospel the Matter and the Method the litteral and spiritual sense to see there the mind and will of God and to see our Charter for the Heavenly Inheritance and read the Precepts and the Promises and the Examples of the faith and patience of the Saints 5. How Pleasant is it to know the Heavenly operations of the Holy Ghost and the nature and action of his several Graces and the uses of every one of them to our souls and especially to find them in our selves and to be skilled in using them 6. How Pleasant is it to know the nature and frame of the Church of Christ which is his Body and to know the difference and use of the several members To understand the office of the Ministry and why Christ hath set them in the Church and how much love he hath manifested therein that they should preach to us and offer us Reconciliation in his name and stead 2 Cor. 5. 19. and marry us unto Christ in Baptism receiving us in his name into the Church and holy Covenant and that in his name and stead they should deliver us his body and blood and absolve the penitent sinner from his sins and deliver him a sealed pardon and receive the returning humbled soul into the Church of Christ and Communion of the Saints 7. How Pleasant is it to know the nature and use of all Christs Ordinances The excellencies of his Holy Word the use of Baptism and the refreshing strengthening use of the Supper of the Lord the use and benefit of Holy prayer and praises and thanksgiving and Church-order and all parts of the Communion of the Saints 8. Yea there is a holy Pleasure in knowing our very sin and folly When God bringeth a sinner to himself though his sin be odious to him yet to know the sin is Pleasant and therefore he prayeth that God would shew him the bottom of his heart and the most secret or odious of his sins 9. And it is Pleasant to a Christian to know his Duty It very much quieteth and delighteth his mind when he can but know what is the will of God When the way of Duty is plain before him how chearfully can he go on whatever meet him and how easie doth it make his labour and his suffering 10. Yea it is Pleasant to a Believer to understand his very danger Though the Danger it self be dreadful to him yet to know it that he may avoid it is his desire and his delight 11. And how Pleasant is it to understand all the Helps Encouragements and Comforts that God hath provided for us in our way and how many more are for us then against us 12. But above all how Pleasant is it to know by faith the life that we must live with God for ever and what he will do for us to all eternity in the performance of his holy Covenant I do but briefly name these Instances of Delightful Knowledge which are sweeter to the holy soul then all the Pleasures of sin to the ungodly Do you think that any of you hath such solid Pleasure in your sins as David had in the Law of God when he meditated in it with such delight and saith How sweet is it to my mouth even sweeter then the honey and the hony-comb Surely you dare not compare with him in Pleasures 2. Another part of Holiness that is Pleasant in the Nature of it is that which is subjected in the heart or affections And here is the chiefest of its sweetness and delights 1. The very compliance of the Will with the Will of God and its Conformity to his Law doth carry a quieting Pleasure in it That soul is happyest that is nearest God and likest to him and that
eyes He discerneth not the Lords body He only quieteth and deludeth his conscience with the outward form He hath not faith to feed on Christ But to a lively faith what sweetâ— ness doth such a Feast afford We have here Communion with the blessed Trinity in thâ—… three parts of this Eucharistical Sacrament As the Father 〈…〉 both our Creator and the offended Majesty and yet he hath 〈…〉 his Son to be our Redeemer so in the first part which 〈…〉 the CONSECRATION we present to our Creator the creatures of Bread and Wine acknowledging that from him we receive them and all and we desire that upon our Dedication by his Acceptance they may be made Sacramentally and Representatively the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ In the second part of the Eucharist which is the COMMEMORATION of the sacrifice offered on the Cross we break the bread and pour forth the wine to Represent the breaking of Christs Body and shedding of his Blood for the sin of man and we beseech the Father to be Reconciled to us on his Sons account and to accept us in his Beloved and to accept all our sacrifices through him So that as Christ now in Heaven is Representing his sacrifice to the Father which he once offered on the Cross for sin so must the Minister of Christ Represent and plead to the Father the same sacrifice by way of Commemoration and such Intercession as belongeth to his Office The third part of the Eucharist is the OFFER and PARTICIPATION in which the Minister Representing Christ doth by Commission deliver his Bedy and Blood to the penitent hungry believing soul and with Christ is delivered a sealed â—â—â—don of all sin and a sealed gift of life Eternal All which are received by the true Believer An unbeliever knoweth not what transactions there are between the Lord and a holy soul in this Ordinance where the appearances are so small A bit of bread and a sup of wine are indeed small matters But so is not this Communion with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost What a comfort is it that the offended Majesty will accept a sacrifice at our hands and enter a treaty of Peace with the offendours Yea that he will provide the sacrifice himself and the preciousest in the whole world that he will signifie this his acceptance of the sacrifice and how he is pleased in his well-beloved Son and that he accepteth his Sons Intercession in the Heavens and his Ministers intercession and his Churches prayers on earth through Christ Seeing Christ 〈…〉 be glorified with his Father and not continue visible among 〈…〉 what could we desire more from him then the three fold Reâ—â—â—sentative which he hath left behind him to supply the room â—â— his Bodily presence Even the Representation of himself by 〈…〉 by his Ministers and by the Holy Ghost which is 〈…〉 substitute within for the efficacy of all O what unspeakable mysteries and treasures of mercy are here-presented to us in a Sacrament Here we have Communion with a Reconciled God and are brought into his presence by the great Reconciler Here we have Communion with our blessed Redeemer as Crucified and Glorified and offered to us as our quickning preserving strengthening Head Here we have Communion with the Holy Ghost applying to our souls the benefits of Redemption drawing us to the Son and communicating light and life and strength from him unto us increasing and actuating his graces in us Here we have Communion with the Body of Christ his sanctified people the heris of life When the Minister of Christ by his Commission Representeth a Crucified Christ to our eyes by the Bread and Wine appointed to this use we see Christ Crucified as it were before us and our Faith layeth hold on him and we perceive the Truth of the Remedy and build our souls upon this Rock When the same Minister by Christs Commission doth offer us his Body and Blood and Benefits it is as firm and valid to us as if the mouth of Christ himself had offered them And when our souls Receive him by that Faith which the Holy Ghost exciteth in us the participation is as true as that of our bodies receiving the Bread and Wine which represent him O do but ask a drooping soul that mourns under the fears of Gods displeasure how he would value a voice from Heaven to tell him that all his sins are pardoned and that he is dear to God and judge by his answer what is contained and offered in a Sacrament Ask him how he would take it if Christ should speak those words himself to him which he hath given his Minister Commission in his name to speak Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you It is the same Christ the same pardon and salvation that is offered us by the Messengers of Christ and which he personally offered himself to his Disciples When you must all appear at the Barr of God O what would you not give for a sealed pardon which in a Sacrament is given freely now to the believing soul Judge now by this whether it be a Joyous Ordinance When the poorest Christian this day receiveth that which the greatest Prince that is ungodly would then give all the world for it he had it For want of that pardon Christian which thou must now receive many thousands will tremble at the barâ— of God and be overwhelmed with his wrath for ever Ask a soul that groaneth under the languishings of his grace and the burden of any strong corruption how he would value the mortifying and quickning grace of the Holy Ghost that would break his bonds and give him light and life and strength and by his answer judge of the value of a Sacrament We have here the greatest mercies in the world brought down to us in sensible Representations that they might be very neer us and the means might be suited to the frailty and infirmity of our present state If the sealed message of Gods Reconciliation with us and a sealed pardon of all our sins and a sealed grant of Everlasting life be not more pleasant and desirable to your thoughts then all that earth and flesh can yield you it is because your are alive to sin and dead to God and want that spiritual sence and appetite by which you might be competent judges If God if Christ if grace if the foretasts of glory can afford no pleasure to the soul then Heaven it self would not be pleasant But if these are sweet the Sacrament is sweet that doth convey them Well poor stubborn carnal sinners you have been invited to this feast as well as others we are sent to call you and even compel you to come in though upon the terms and in the way of Christ but you have no great list but somewhat else doth please you better And will it prove better indeed to you at the end Well take your own choice If an Alehouse be better then the Table of the
Paul that had tryed both ways confesseth Tit. 3. 3. None so unlike to be the servants of Christ as they that are cloathed in purple and fine linnen and that fare sumptuously or deliciously every day Luk. 16. To live in rioting and drunkenness in chambering and wantonness in strife and envying and to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof is the description of one that walks not honestly and is far from a Christians life and hopes Rom. 13. 13 14. It is those voluptuous sensual sinners that most obstinately shut out all reproofs and refuse him that speaketh to them from heaven and will not so much as soberly consider of the things that concern their everlasting peace and therefore are oft so forsaken of grace that they grow to be scorners of the means of their salvation and being past feeling do give themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Eph. 4. 19. Which then is most desirable the healing or the wounding pleasures the quickening or the killing mirth the wholsome or the poysonous sweet the delights that mend us and further our salvation or corrupting pleasures that drown men in perdidition 9. The Delights of Holiness are kin to Heaven They are of the same nature with those that Saints and Angels have with God though we must acknowledge an unconceivable difference It is the same God and the same Glory that now delighteth us as seen by faith which shall then delight us when seen by intuition with open face We are solacing our selves in Love and Praise with the same employment that we must have in Heaven And therefore if Heaven be the state of Greatest joy and pleasure the state of Grace and work of Holiness that is likest to it must needs be next it But sensual pleasures are beastial and sordid and so far unlike the Joys of Heaven that nothing more withdraws the mind or maketh it unmeet for Heaven 10. Lastly the delights of Holiness are durable even everlasting The further we goe the greater cause we have of joy It is not a mutable good that we rejoyce in but in the immutable God the antient of days and in that Christ that loveth his spouse with an everlasting love and in the sure and faithful promises and in the hopes of the Kingdom that cannot be moved The spring of our pleasures is in Heaven and our rejoycing is but the beginning of that which must there be perpetuated Death cannot kill the joys of a believer the grave shall not bury them millions of ages shall not end themâ— Here they may be interrupted because the pleased face of God may be ecclipsed and sin and Satan may cast malicious doubt into our minds and the neighbourhood of the flesh will force the mind to participate of its sufferings But still God will keep their comforts alive at least in the root and help them in the act as we have need of them and are fit for them And in the world of Joy for which he is preparing us our Joy shall be perfected and never have interruption or end Holy-Festivals and Ordinances and sweetest Communion of Saints and dearest Love of truest friends and perfect health and prosperity in the world and all other comforts set together that this world affords are but short emblems and small fore-tastes of the Joyes which the face of God will afford us and we shall have with Christ his Saints and Angels to all eternity But sensual Pleasures are of so short continuance that they are gone before we feel well that we have them The drunkard the glutton the fornicator the gamester are drinking but a sugered cup of poyson and merrily sowing the seeds of everlasting sorrow Satan is but scratching them as the butcher shaves the throat of the swine before he kill them One quarter of an hour ends the pleasure and leaves a damp of sadness in its room He that hath had 40. or 50. years pleasures hath no relish of it when it is past but it is as if it had never been and much worse He that hath spent a day or moneth or year in Pleasure hath no more at night or at the years end when it is gone then he that spent that time in sorrow The bones and dust of thousands lie now in the Church yard that have tasted many a sweet cup and morsel and have had many a merry wanton day And are they now any better for it then if they had never known it And are not the poor and sorrowful there their equals And doubtless their souls have as little of those pleasures as their dust In Heaven they are abhorred In Hell they are turned into tormenting flames and remembred as fuel for the devouring fire There are Gluttons but no more good cheer There are Drunkards but no more drink There are Fornicators but no more lustful pleasures There are the playful wasters of their time but no more sport and recreation There are the vain-glorious proud ambitious souls but not in glory honour and renown but their aspiring hath cast them into the gulf of misery and their pride hath covered them with utter confusion and their glory is turned to their endless shame Those that are now overwhelmed with the wrath of God and shut up under desperation are the souls that lately wallowed here in the delights of the flesh and enjoyed for a season the pleasures of sin and now what fruit have they of all their former seeming happiness He that is feasted and gallantly adorned and attended to day is crying for a drop of water in vain tomorrow Luk. 16. 23 24 25 26. Christ tells you the gain of earthly riches and the duration of earthly pleasures to the ungodly Luk. 6. 24 25. Woe to you that are rich for you have received your consolation Woe to you that are full for you shall hunger woe to you that laugh now for you shall mourn and weep that is You that live a sensual life and take up your pleasure and felicity here shall find that all will end in sorrow But blessed are ye that hunger now for ye shall be filled blessed are ye that weep now for ye shall laugh v. 21. that is You that are contented to pass through sorrows and tribulation on earth to the Kingdom where you have placed your happiness and hopes shall find that your sorrows will end in joy and therefore you are blessed while you seem miserable to the world Joh. 16. 20. Ye shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and ye shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy v. 22. Now you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy no man taketh from you We have a constant interest in the Foutain of all Joy and if our sun be clouded it is but for a moment Our maker is our Husband the Lord of hosts is his name and our Redeemer the holy one of Israel
and thy Will It proclaimeth thy pernicious Folly and Impiety If thou hadst no more wit then to be Pleased more with stones then gold with dung then meat with shameful nakedness then cloathing thou wouldst not be judged wise enough to be left to thy own dispose and government But the folly which thou dost manifest is unspeakably greater Darkness is not so much worse then Light and Death is not so much worse then Life as sin is worse than Holiness and the world than God And is the Worst more Pleasant to thee then the Best It is a fool indeed to whom it is a sport to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. and so great a mischief as sin is and yet hath no delight in understanding Prov. 18. 2. Delight is not seemly for such fools Prov. 19. 10. And how wicked is that Heart as well as Blind that is so averse to God and Holiness Doth not this shew thee 1. The absence of Gods holy image 2. And the presence of Satans image upon thy soul Nothing doth more certainly prove what a man is then the complacency and displacency of his Heart If you know what it is in your selves or others that pleaseth and displeaseth most you may certainly know whether you have the spirit and grace of Christ or not This is the durable infallible Evidence which Satan shall never be able to invalidate and which the weakest Christians can scarce tell how to deny in themselves Could they be more Holy it would please them better then to be more rich Could they believe more and Love God more and trust him more and obey him better it would please them more then if you gave them all the honours of the world They are never so well pleased with their own hearts as when they find them nearest Heaven and have most of the Knowledge of God and impress of his attributes and sense of his presence They are never so well pleased with their lives as when they are most holy and fruitful and may fullyest be called A walking with God They are never so much displeased with themselves as when they find least of God upon their hearts and are most dark and dull and undisposed to holy Communion with him They are never so much weary of themselves as when their lives are least fruitful holy and exact And this is a certain Evidence of their sincerty For it shews what they Love and what it is that hath their Hearts or Wills And it is the Heart or Will that is the man in Gods account God takes a man to be what he sincerely would be As he is so he Loveth and Willeth and as he Loveth and Willeth such he is His complacency or displacency are the immediate sure discoveries of his bent or inclination This certain Evidence poor doubting souls should have oft recourse to and improve And on the contrary it is as sure an Evidence of your misery when you savour not the things of the Spirit Rom. 8. 5 6 7. and when it pleaseth you more to be great then to be good to be rich then to be religious and righteous to serve your lusts then to serve the Lord When you set more by the applause of men then by the approbations of God and had rather be far from God then near him and be excused from a holy life then used to it and constant in it When you take the world and sin for your recreation or delight and a godly life for a melancholy wearisom and unpleasant course This certainly shews that you have yet the old corrupted nature and Serpentine enmity against the Spirit and Life of Christ and are yet in the flesh and therefore can no more please the Lord then his holy wayes are pleasing unto you Rom. 8. 6 7 8. and it proveth that you are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of your iniquity and that your hearts are not right in the sight of God and that you are the slaves of Satan whose nature you partake of by which you are thus alienated from the Lord. Didst thou know God as Faith doth know him his Loving kindness would be better to thee then life it self Psalm 63. 3. If thou didst Love him as it is like thou wilt pretend thou dost it would be meat and drink to thee to enjoy his Love and do his Will And if thou know him not by Faith nor cleavest to him by unfeigned Love how canst thou pretend to have his Image How would you judge of that mans heart that were no better affected to his friend to his parents or children or other relations then you manifest your selves to be to God If he can take no pleasure in the company of his wife or children but is glad when he is far from them in the company of strangers or harlots or prodigals would you not say this man had a base unmanly disposition Express but such an inclination in plain words and try how honest sober men will judge of them Much more would it be odious to Christian ears if you should tell God plainly We can find no pleasure in thee or in thy holy wayes thy Word and Service are unsavoury and wearisom unto us We had rather be talking or busied about the matters of the world We have far more pleasure in recreations and sensual accommodations then in remembring thee and thy Kingdom and then we find in the life that is called holy Would not such words as these be called impious by every Christian that should hear them And is not that an impious heart then which speaketh thus or is thus affected and that an impious life that manifesteth it though dissembling lips are ashamed to profess it If God be not most to be loved and delighted in then any thing or all things else he is not God If Heaven and Holiness be not sweeter then all the pleasures of earth and sin let them have no more such honourable names Let sin and earth then be called Heaven but wo to them that have no better 2. What monstrous ingratitude is that man guilty of that when God hath provided and Christ hath purchased such high delights and freely tendred them to unworthy sinners will say I find no pleasure in them and take them for no delights at all When the Lord beheld thee wallowing in thy filth and laughing in thy misery and making a sport of thine own perdition he pittied thee and provided and offered to thee the most noble and excellent delights that thy nature is capable of enjoying And wilt thou cast them back unthankfully in his face and say They are unpleasant tedious things If your child did so by his meat or cloathes yea or a beggar at your door did so by his alms you would think it proved his great unworthyness If he throw away the best you can give him and say It is naught there is no sweetness in it would you not think it fit that want should help to
mend his rellish and cure his ingratitude And will you do so your selves by Christ and Holiness and say as those Mal. 1. 13. What a weariness is it Take heed lest you provoke the Lord to cast you into a state in which you shall have more cause to be aweary If you are weary of reading and praying and hearing and other holy exercises and weary of heart-searching penitent meditations will you not be wearyer of Hell-fire and of the dolorous reviews of this your folly and of the endless easeless remediless sense of the wrath of God and gripes of your own self-tormenting consciences How just is it with God to give those men somewhat that they have cause to be aweary of that will be thus aweary of his sweetest service and reject the greatest mercies he can offer them as if they were some burdensom worthless things 3. Will you have any pleasure at all or will you have none If any in what then will you place it and whence will you expect it if not from God in a holy life If God be thy trouble what then is fit to be thy delight Darest thou say in thy heart or with thy tongue that sin and sensuality is better Darest thou say that a good bargain or other worldly gain or cards or dice or other sports or ease or good chear or an Ale-house or a Whore are pleasanter things then walking with thy God in faith and holiness and expectation of the everlasting joyes Heaven and earth shall bear witness against thee and common Reason shall bear witness against thee for this inhumane impious folly and ingratitude if ever thou appear at the barr of God with the guilt of such unreasonable sin What! is God no better in thine eyes then a filthy brutish sinful pleasure and is the Love of God no sweeter a work then the Love of sensual delights Saith blessed Augustine He that will sell or exchange his soul for transitory commodities doth censure Christ to be a foolish Merchant that knew no better what he aâ—â— when he gave his Life for those souls that you will not lose a sin for So I may say here Hath Christ bought for you Holy and Everlasting pleasures at the price of his own most bitter pains and precious blood and do you now think them no better then your fleshly beastial delights Is it Christ or you think you that is mistaken in the value of them Did he shed his blood to purchase you that which is not worth the parting with a cup of drink for or the parting with your pleasure or unjust commodity for Sure he that judgeth thus of Christ is far from believing in him with any true Christian saving Faith 4. If you can find no pleasure in God and in a holy life you may be sure that he will have no pleasure in you Wonder not if you find in your greatest need that you are abhorred and loathed by the Lord when you loathed the very thoughts and mention of him in the day of your visitation Marvail not if the most Holy God do take no pleasure in a leathsem sinner when the sinner is so ungodly that he takes more pleasure in the most sordid fading trifles then in God You may offer the sacrifice of your heartless hypocritical prayers and praises unto God and he will count them abomination and cast them back as dung into your faces and tell you that he hath no pleasure in the sacrifice of such fools Read it in his own words Prov 15. 8. 21. 27. Isa 1. 13. Eccles. 5. 4. As you are weary of serving him so he is â—â—â—ary of your services and it is a trouble to him 〈…〉 them and when you spread forth your hands he will hide his eyes from you yea when you make many prayers he will not hear Isa 1. 14 15. When the Jews offered their lame deceitful sacrifices and said Behold what a weariness is it God sends them word that he hath â—o pleasure in them nor would regard their persons nor accept a sacrifice at their hands Mal. 1. 8 9 10. and their solemn feasts he counteth dung And dung would be no acceptable present or seast to your selves if it were offered you instead of meat Mal. 2. 3. My soul saith the Lord loathed them and their soul abhorred me Zech 11. 8. As he that despiseth him shall be lightly esteemed by him 1 Sam. 2. 30. So he that loatheth him shall be loathed by him If any man draw back saith the Lord my soul shall have no pleasure in him Heb. 10. 38. For he is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with him the foolish shall not stand in his sight he hateth all the workers of iniquity Psalm 5. 4 5. And little do you now imagine what a horrour it will be to you in the day of your extremity for God to tell you that he hath no pleasure in you When you look before you into an eternity of woe which you have no hope to escape but by the mercy of the Lord and he shall dash that hope by telling you that he hath no pleasure in you it will give your souls the deadly wound that never shall be healed In vain then shall you wish that you had chosen in time the durable delights and not the pleasures of filthy sin for so short a season and to your torment you shall know whether God or the world was more worthy of your sweetest affections and delights and how deservedly they are all damned that obeyed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2. 12. Who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1. 32. If you will count it your pleasure to ryot in the day-time rather then to walk and work by the light you must look to receive the due reward of such unrighteousness 2 Pet. 2. 13. If it be your sport to sin and to do mischief Prov. 10. 23. you shall have small sport in suffering the punishment of your willful folly 5. If God and Holiness seem not pleasant to you then Heaven it self cannot seem pleasant to you if you consider it truly as it is For the Heavenly felicity consisteth in the perfection of our Holiness and the perfect fruition of God himself by Sight and Love and Joy for ever If the little Holiness be unpleasant and irksom to you which appeareth in the imperfect Saints on earth what pleasure could you take in that supereminent Holiness which is the state and work of the celestial inhabitants If the thoughts and mention of God be unpleasant to you and his holy praises do seem to you as matters of no delight What then would you do in heaven where this must be your everlasting work And if Heaven seem a place of toyle and trouble to you how just will it be that
worse then the creature and Heaven then earth and so much worse as not to be endured in your thoughts and affections in comparison of them You will never know your friends till you forsake these deceivers Nor ever know the Pleasures of a Holy life till you will let go the poysonous pleasures of sin And then you may find that Sanctification destroyeth not but changeth and recovereth your Delights and giveth you safety for the greatest peril health for sickness friends for enemies gold for dross life for death and the fore-tasts of Rest for tiring vexation 2. THE second sort that are hence to be Reproved are Those weak and troubled servants of the Lord that live as sadly as if they found more grief then pleasure in the wayes of God Indeed it is to be lamented that few of the heirs of life do live according to the happiness and dignity of their Calling nor are the great things that God hath done for them so apparent in the cheerfulness and comforts of their lives as they should be But some that are addicted to dejectedness do in a greater measure wrong Christ and themselves being alwayes feeding upon secret griefs and torturing themselves with doubts and fears and acquainted with almost no other language but lamentations self-accusations and complaints These poor souls usually discover honest hearts that are weary of sin and low in their own eyes and long to be better and do not dis-regard the matters of their salvation as dead-hearted ungodly sinners do Their complaints shew what they would be and what they would be sincerely that they are in Gods account But yet they live so far below the sweet delights which they might partake of and so far below the provisions of their Fathers house and the riches of the Gospel that they have cause to lament their excessive lamentations and more cause to reform this sad distemper and no cause to indulge it as usually such do And though with the most of them some natural passions and weaknesses and some melancholy distempers are so much the cause as may much excuse them yet because it is an evil which must be disowned and Reason must be the means where people have the free use of Reason I shall lay down some of the great inconveniences of this sad distemper and beseech those that tender the honour of God and would do that which is most pleasing to him and love not their own calamity that they will soberly consider of what I say and labour to regulate their minds accordingly 1. I desire the dejected Christian to consider that by his heavy and uncomfortable life he seemeth to the world to accuse God and his service as if he openly called him a rigorous hard unacceptable master and his work a sad unpleasant thing I know this is not your thoughts I know it is your selves and not God and his service that offendeth you and that you walk not heavily because you are holy but because you fear you are not holy and because you are no more holy I know it is not of grace but for grace that you complain But do you not give too great occasion to ignorant spectators to judge otherwise If you see a servant alwayes sad that was wont to be merry while he served another master will you not think that he hath a master that displeaseth him If you see a woman live in continual heavyness ever since she was marryed that lived merrily before will you not think that she hath met with an unpleasing match You are born and new born for Gods honour and will you thus dishonour him before the world What do you in their eyes but dispraise him by your very countenance and carriage while you walk before him in so much heaviness The child that still cryes when you put on his shoes doth signifie that they pinch him and he dispraiseth his meat that makes a sower face at it And he dispraiseth his friend that is alway sad and troubled in his company He that should say of God Thou art bad or cruel and unmerciful should blaspheme And so would he that saith of Holiness It is a bad unpleasant hurtful state How then dare you do that which is so like to such blaspheming when you should abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes 5. 22. Canst thou find in thy heart thus to dishonour and wrong the God whom thou so much esteemest and the grace which thou so much desirest For a wicked man that is far from God to go heavily or roar in the horrour of his soul is a shame to his sin but no dishonour to God and Holiness But for you that are near him in relation engagement and attendance to walk so heavily reflects on him to whom you are Related and from whom you look for your Reward 2. Consider also What a lamentable hinderance you are hereby to the conversion and salvation of souls Your countenances and sad complainings do affright men from the service of the Lord and as it were call to them to keep off and fly from the way that you find so grievous You gratifie Satan the enemy of Christ and Holiness and souls and become his instruments though against your wills to affright men from the way of life As the Papists keep their deluded Proselytes abroad from Truth and Reformation by giving them odious descriptions of the Protestants as if they were Hereticks proud frantick mad and scarcely men and when they burn them they adorn them with pictures of the Devil even so doth Satan keep poor souls from entertaining Christ and Truth and entering the holy pathes by making them believe that the servants of Christ are a company of distempered melancholy souls and that Godliness is the way to make men mad and that he that will set his heart on Heaven must never look more for a merry comfortable life on earth Hence comes the proverb of the Malignant Formalists and Prophane that A Puritane is a Protestant frightened out of his wits And will you confirm this slander of the Devil and his instruments Will you entice men to believe him Will you make your selves such pictures of unhappiness and wear such a Vizor of calamity and misery as shall frighten all that look on you and observe you and discourage them from the way which they see accompanyed with so much sorrow As you hang up dead crows in your field to frighten the rest from the Corn and as murderers are hanged in irons to terrifie all that see them from that crime or as the heads of Traytors are set up to the same end as proclaiming to all passengers Thus must you be used if you will do as they Just so would Satan fill you with terrours and overwhelm you with grief and distract you with causeless doubts and fears that you may appear to the world a miserable sort of people and then all that look on you will be afraid of Godliness and think they see it
so much in doubt of it If thou truly Love it thou hast it for it is only grace that causeth an unfeigned Love of grace And if thou love it not why canst not thou more quietly be without it Why dost thou make so much ado for it But if thou have it in the least degree and so art born again of the spirit thou hast with it an unspeakable treasure of delights The God of Life and Love is thine The Lord Jesus Christ is thine The Spirit is thine The promises are thine and Heaven it self is thine in title and shall be thine in full perpetual possession The God that made and ruleth all things is Reconciled to thee and is thy Father having by grace in Christ adopted thee to be his Son Rom. 5. 1 2 10 11. 8. 1 16 17. Gal. 4. 6. 2 Cor. 6. 18. The Son of God is become thy Head and thou art become a member of his body as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone which no man ever yet hath hated Ephes 5. 23 27 29 30. Thou art become the Temple and residence of the Holy Ghost Thy title to Heaven is incomparably more sure then any mans humane title to his possessions or inheritance on earth And what rejoycing can be too great for a man in thy condition O what a Life should that man live with what sweet delight should he be transported that hath the Spirit of Christ now living in him to prepare him and seal him up for an endless life with Christ He that shall be shortly so full of joy should not be empty now when he remembreth what he must shortly be Doth it beseem him now to dwell in grief and refuse consolation that must in a few dayes be swallowed up with Joy If thou that fittest here in heaviness wert assured that shortly thou shouldst be with Christ and made a blessed companion of Angels and possessed of thy Masters joy a joy that hath no bounds or end would not thy Conscience then tell thee that thou greatly wrongest such abundant mercy in that thou art no more affected with it and that thy want of joy doth express thy too much want of thankfulness Dost thou sit there like a child of God and like an heir of Heaven and a co-heire with Christ Rom. 8. 16 17. Doth that sorrowful heart and that dejected countenance become one that must live with Christ for ever in such resplendent glory as thou must do and that hath but a few more dayes to live till thou take possession of these endless joyes The Lord pardon and heal our unbelief Did Faith more effectually play its part as it is the evidence of things not seen and withdraw the veil and shew us though but in a glass the glory which we must see with open face it would be wine to our hearts and oyl to our countenances and make our poverty sickness and death more comfortable then the wealth and health and life of the ungodly I know you will say still that you could rejoyce if you were sure all this were yours but when you rather think you have no part in it it can be but small comfort to you Answ 1. But who is it long of that you have still such fears Have you not in your souls that Love to Holiness that desire after it that hatred and weariness of sin that Love to the searching discovering use of the Word of God that Love to the Brethren which are the evidences of your title and to which God hath plainly promised salvation If then you have your Title in the Promise and your Evidences in your hearts and yet will be still questioning whether you have them or no and whether the Kingdom shall be yours your weakness and inconsiderateness causeth your own sorrows And when you have sinfully bred your doubts will you insist on them to excuse your following sins 2. Are you not sure that Christ and his benefits are yours I am sure they are yours or may be if you will and nothing but your continued refusal can deprive you of them For this is the very tenor of the promise And if you will not have Christ and his offered benefits why do you so dissemble as to take on you to mourn because you have them not But if you are willing they are yours Object But you will say if we had nothing but cause of comfort we could rejoyce but we have cause of sorrow also How can we live comfortably under so much sin and suffering Answ By this account you will never rejoyce till you come to Heaven for you will never be free from sin and suffering till then Nay it seems you would have no man else rejoyce and so would banish all comfort from the world For there is no man without sin and suffering But what can there be of any weight to prohibit a sincere Believer from seasonable spiritual rejoycing Have you sin It is not gross and reigning sin And sinful infirmities the best of the Saints on earth have had As your sin must be your moderate sorrow so the pardon of it and the degree of mortification which you have attained and the promise you have of full deliverance should be the matter of your greater joy Are your Graces weak Be humbled in the sense of that your weakness but rejoyce more that they are sincere and will be perfect Are your afflictions great Be humbled under them But rejoyce more that they are but Fatherly chastisements proceeding from Love and tending to your greater good and that you are saved from the consuming fire and shall live in everlasting rest where affliction shall be known no more Is it possible for that man that hath the love of God and shall have heaven for ever to have any sufferings that should weigh down these and be matter to him of greater sorrow then this of joy Can you imagine that there is more evil in your infirmities and sufferings then there is good in God and happiness in Heaven Is it reason and equity that you should look at sin only and not at grace and at what you want only and not at what you have received Seeing you have more cause of joy then sorrow should you not distribute your affections proportionably as there is cause I disswade you not from seasonable moderate sorrows But should not your joy be much greater as long as the cause of it is much greater 4. And here I would intreate you to consider well of the tenour of Gods commands concerning this matter in the Gospel and of the examples of the Saints there left on record And then tell me which course it is that God is best pleased with Your chearful or your dejected course of life I find that though I pitty the sad and miserable yet I had rather my self have a chearful then a drooping grieving troubled companion and friend Because I desire one suitable to my self in the state I would
you revile and that in highest fervour and perfection They Rest not day or night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Rev. 4. 8. Dost thou know the man on earth that is most precise and holy and diligent for God Why the lowest of the Saints in Heaven go quite beyond him And in good sadness dost thou take Heaven to be the worst place and think that so much Holiness will make it troublesom Bear witness then against thy self Out of thy own mouth art thou condemned How canst thou expect to be admitted into Heaven that takest it for so bad a place Thou teachest God to thrust thee back and say to thee Be gone here is nothing but Holiness which you could not alive You shall go to a place where Religion and Holiness shall not trouble you Well Sirs Consider now as men of Reason of all these twenty Reasons which I have given you and then tell me whether that be not the better world and the better soul where there is most Faith and Holiness CHAP. VI. Holiness is the only way of Safety I Have proved to you that Holiness is best for Common wealths and given you many General undenyable evidences to prove that it is Best for all men in particular I shall now come to the particular evidences and shew you wherein it is that it is Best for all men There are three sorts of Good that men have to look after The first is the security of their Life and Being the second is their moral well-being and the third is their Natural well-being This last also is divided into three branches and consisteth in our Profit our Honour and our Pleasure So that here are five several sorts of Goodness to be considered of and you will find that Holiness is Best beyond all comparison in each respect 1. In respect of Safety 2. In point of Honesty 3. In point of Gain 4. In point of Honour And 5. In point of Pleasure or Delight If I prove not every one of these then tell me I promised more then I could perform But if I do prove them I look that you that Read it should promise presently to come in to God and a Holy life and faithfully perform it 1. And that HOLINESS IS THE SAFEST WAY I prove thus 1. That man is in a safer state that is delivered from the power of Satan then he that is in his bondage and taken captive by him at his will But all the unsanctified are in this captivity and all the sanctified are delivered out of it as the Scripture most expresly tells us Ephes 2. 1 2. 3 And you hath be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the Prince of the Power of the air the Spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom we also bad our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind c. So 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God eradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will And Acts 26. 17 18. I send thee to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God And Col. 1. 13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son Satan is the Ruler and the Jaylor of the ungodly that leadeth them to sin and so to destruction and keepeth them for torments at the day of wrath And is he safe that is in the Devils power If he should appear to thee and lay hold of thee thou wouldst not think that thou were safe But his possession of thy soul is far more dangerous Thou dost not believe that thou art in his power But thy blindness sheweth it and thy enmity to the way of Holiness sheweth it and thy ungodly life doth fully shew it and the Scripture affirmeth it of all such and what need there any further proof But the sanctified are all dilivered from this slavery and though the Devil may rage against them he shall not prevail 2. Moreover those that are United to Jesus Christ and are become the living Members of his Body are certainly safer then those that are yet strangers to him and have no special interest in him But all that are sanctified are thus united to Christ and made his members and all the unsanctified have no part in him He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 12. John 15. 6 7 9 10. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you continue in my love If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love Yee are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you v. 14. Eph. 5. 25 26 27 29 30. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and â—â—â—aâ—â—â— it with the washing of water by the word that be might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish No man ever hated his own flesh but nourisheth and cheri â—ath it even as the Lord the Church For we are Members of his Body of his flesh and of his bones Judge by these passages whether the sanctified are not safe If the Love of Christ and his Merits and his Power cannot keep them safe then nothing can If the Saviour cannot save them none can Is not the very flesh of Christ safe are not the members of his Body safe are not his friends his spouse and beloved safe If Christ can save us we are safe For who can conquer him Or who can take us out of his hands John 10. 28. If he be for us who shall be against us and if he justifie us who shall condemn us Rom. 8. 33 34 35. But is it so with the ungodly No they have no part nor lâ—t in this matter but are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity because their heart is not right in the sight of God Act. 8. 21 23. 3. Moreover he that hath escaped the Curse of the Law and hath his sins forgiven him and is justified from all things that could by the Law be charged on him is safer then he that is under the Curse and hath all his sins yet lying on his soul But the first of
Sing unto the Lord sing Psalms unto him talk of all his wonderous works Glory ye in his holy name let the heart of them rejoyce that seek the Lord Psal 105. 1 2 3. The Saints shall shout aloud for joy Psal 132. 9 16. Be glad in the Lord O ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart Psal 32. 11. Behold my servants shall rejoyce but ye shall be ashamed Behold my servants shall sing for joy of heart but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart and shall houle for vexation of spirit Isa 65. 13 14. Abundance such passages tell you what manner of persons it is that God delighteth in and what he would have you be and doe These I have recited to shame the godly out of their undecent troubles and dejectedness as you would shew a child his face in a glass when he cryeth that he may see how he deformeth it The very Kingdom of God consisteth in righteousness and Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost If you would live as is most pleasixg unto God and as beseemeth those that are indeed believers let the joy of believers be as far as is possible your ordinary frame And if by sin you wound your souls and bring smart upon your selves dwell not in that wounded smarting state but go to your Physicions and beg of God that he will restore to you the joy of his salvation and make you to hear the voice of joy and gladness that your broken heart and bones may rejoyce Psa 51. 8 12. And take notice throughout all the Scripture whether you find the servants of God so much complaining of their want of assurance and of their frequent doubtings of their own sincerity and his love I think you will find this a very rare thing in the ancient Saints They were sensible of sin as well as we and they were as sensible of Gods afflicting hand and oft as Job David Hezekiah c. complained under it perhaps with some excess and too much questioning Gods favour to them as if he had forsaken them But besides and without any such affliction to live in ordinary trouble of mind through the doubting of their sincerity and of Gods special love and to be exercised in the complaining and disconsolate way as now abundance of Christians are this I find little of the Scripture Saints The reason was not because they had more holiness and less sin than many that now are thus cast down For the Gospel time excelleth theirs in degrees of grace and I think the greater care that Christians have of their hearts and of inward rectitude and communion with God and their fuller apprehensions of the life to come and so of their greatest hopes and dangers is one great cause But yet there are worse concurring causes The Love of God and his readiness to shew mercy should not be more questioned now when it is so abundantly revealed by Christ then it was in times of darker revelation The servants of God did formerly conceive that nothing but sin could make man miserable and therefore when they had sinned they repented and instead of continuing doubts and fears they bent their resolutions against their sins and having cast away their gross and wilful sins and continuing the conflict against their unavoidable infirmities which they hated they knew that the door of mercy was still open to them and that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father who is the propitiation The time that is now spent in doubting and complaining and asking How shall I know that I sincerely repent was then spent in Repenting and reforming and using the means that God hath appointed for the conquering of sin and then trusting to his grace and Covenant in the blood of Christ for pardon And it would be better with us if we did thus Judge now by all these Scriptures and by the course of former Saints how God would have you behave your selves Do you not read an hundred times of their joy and thanks and praising God and calling upon others to praise him for once that they perplexedly question their sincerity But perhaps youâ—le say that your strength is so weak and your sins and enemies so strong and all your duty so imperfect and unworthy that having such continual cause of trouble you cannot choose but walk in heaviness and in fears I answer you 1. But why do you not tell what you have as well as what you want Have you not greater cause to say My sins being mortified at the root and all forgiven and my soul renewed and reconciled unto God and I being made an heir of Heaven how can I choose but live in joy 2. Are you heartily willing to forsake your sins and overcome the things of which you so complain or are you not If you are not why do you complain of them and why will you not consent to let them go and use Gods means to overcome them If you are willing then they are but your pardoned infirmities For that 's the difference between infirmities and reigning sins Whatsoever sin consisteth with a greater Habitual willingness to avoid that and all other sin then to keep them is but an Infirmity for it stands with present saving grace and is always Habitually or virtually repented of and actually when grace by knowledge and consideration hath opportunity and advantage to produce the act 3. And when once you are truly ingraffed into Christ he is your worthiness and your righteousness and the treasury of your souls and what you want in your own possession you have in his hands and as what you have is but his gift so what you want he is able and ready to supply Look not too much to your selves as if your safety and happiness were principally in your own hand God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his son He that hath the son hath life 1 Joh. 5. 10 11. It is through him that we can do all things so far as he strenghteneth us and without him we can do nothing Make use of him therefore as the Lord of life and joyfully acknowledge all that you receive and stand not dejectedly lamenting that you need him If you would have the waters of life goe to the fountain and do not sit down and fruitlesly vex your selves with complaining of your wants instead of seeking for supplyes Is there not an all sufficient Physicion of souls at hand Doth he not freely offer you his help what though you are not suddenly cured wounds may be caused in an hour but they use not to be cured in an houre Stay his time and use his remedies and cheerfully trust him and you shall find the cure successfully go on though it will not be finished till death 5. Consider also that it must needs be the best and most desirable life which is likest to our life in Heaven And therefore as Heaven is a state of Joy so Joy
is the highest and best condition on earth He is the best and happyest man that is likest to the glorified Saints and Angels And judge your selves whether a dejected or a rejoycing Christian be liker to these inhabitants of Heaven Object But you will say by that rule we should not mourn at all for they do not Whereas God delighteth in the contrite soul Christ blesseth mourners and weepers Answ 1. Your resemblance of the Saints in Heaven must be propertionable in all the parts You must labour first to be as like them as you can in Holiness and then in Joy If you could be as far from sin as they you need not mourn at all But because you cannot you must have moderate regular sorrows and humiliation while you have sin But yet withall you must endeavour to imitate the heavenly Joyes according to the measure of your Grace received 2. And it is such a regular contrition consisting in humble thoughts of our selves and tending to restore us from our falls and sorrows unto our integrity and joy which God delighteth in And it is such mourners as these and such as suffer for righteousness sake from men that Christ pronounceth blessed But the inordinate troubles of the soul that exclude a holy delight in God though he pardon yet he never doth encourage 6. Consider also that a great part of your Religion yea and the most high and excellent part doth consist in the causes form and effects of this holy joy and chearfulness 1. As to the causes of it they are such as in themselves are requisite to the very being of the new creature Faith and Love which are the Head and Heart of sanctifying grace are the causes of our spiritual joy An unwilling heavy forced obedience may proceed from meeâ— Fears and this will not prove an upright heart But when once we Believe Everlasting Glory and Love Christ as our Saviour and the Father as our Father and felicity and Love a holy frame of heart and life as the image of God and that which pleaseth him then our obedience will be chearful and delightful unless accidentally we trouble our selves by our own mistakes If you can truly make God and his will and service your Delight you may be sure you Love him and are beloved by him as being past the state of slavish fear 2. And I have shewed you that Joy in the Holy-Ghost is it self one part of that grace in which Gods Kingdom doth consist Though not such a part as a Christian cannot possibly be without yet such as is exceeding suitable to his state and necessary to his more happy being 3. And without this holy Delight and Joy you will deny God a principal part of his service How can you be thankful for the great mercies of your Justification Sanctification Adoption and all the special graces you have received or for your hopes of Heaven it self as long as you are still doubting whether any of these mercies are yours or not and almost ready to say that you never received them Nay you will be less thankful for your health and life and food and wealth and all common mercies as doubting leâ—t they will prove but aggravations of your sin and misery And for the great and excellent work of Praise which should be your daily sacrifice but specially the work of each Lords day how unfit is a doubting drooping distressed soul for the performance of it You stiffle holy Love within you and stop your mouthes when they should be speaking and singing the praises of the Lord and disable your selves from the most high and sweet and acceptable part of all Gods service by your unwarrantable doubts and self-vexations And when all these are laid aside how poor and lean a service is it that is left you to perform to him Even a few tears and complaints and prayers which I know God will mercifully accept because even in your desires after him there is Love but yet it is far short of the service which you might perform Nay your Heavenly-mindedness will be much supprest as long as you are sadly questioning whether ever you shall come thither and it will be yours or not 7. Are you not ashamed to see the servants of the Devil and the world so jocund and your selves so sad that serve the Lord Will you go mourning so inordinately to Heaven when others go so merrily to Hell Will you credit Satan and Sin so much as to perswade men by your practice that sin affordeth more pleasure and content then Holiness 8. You could live merrily your selves before your Conversion while you served sin And will you walk so dejectedly now you have repented of it As if you had changed for the worse or would make men think so I know you would not for all the world be what you were before your change Why then do you live as if you were more miserable then before 9. You would be loth so long to resist the sanctifying work of the Spirit And why should you not be loth to resist its comforting work It is the same Holy Ghost that you resist in both Nay you dare not so open your mouthes for wickedness and plead against Sanctification it self as you open them on the behalf of your sinful doubtings and plead for your immoderate dejections If you should how vile would you appear 10. Lastly consider that God will lay sufferings enow upon you for your sins and suffer wicked men to lay enow on you for well doing and you need not lay more upon your selves You have need to use all means for strength to bear the burdens that you must undergo and it is the joy of the Lord and the hopes of Glory that are your strength And will you cast away the only supports of your soul and sink when the day of suffering comes How will you bear poverty or reproach or injuries how will you meet approaching death if you feed your doubts of your salvation and of the Love of God in Christ which must corroborate you O weaken not your souls that are too weak already Weaken not your souls that have so much to do and suffer and that of so great necessity and importance While you complain of your weakness encrease it not by unbelieving uncomfortable complaints Gratifie not the Devil and wicked malicious men so far as to inflict on your selves a greater calamity then all their malice and power could inflict It is a madness in them that will please the Devil to the displeasing of God though the pleasing of their own flesh be it that moveth them to it But for a man to please the Devil and displease God even when he displeaseth his own flesh by it also and bringeth nothing but sorrow to himself by it this is in some respects more unreasonable then madness it self Many cast away their souls for Riches and Honours and carnal accommodations but who would do it for poverty sickness or disgrace So