that the fleshly mind which is enmity against God should be ready to do good to the spiritual and holy servants of God Gen. 3. 15. Rom. 8. 6 7 8. Or that a selfish man should much care for any body but himself and his own When Love is turned into the hatred of each other upon the account of our partial interests and opinions and when we are like men in war that think he is the bravest most deserving man that hath killed most when men have bitter hateful thoughts of one another and set themselves to make each other odious and to ruine them that they may stand the faster and think that destroying them is good service to God who can look for the fruits of Love from damnable uncharitableness and hatred or that the Devils tree should bring forth holy fruit to God 4. And then when Love is well-spoken of by all even its deadly enemies lest men should see their wickedness and misery and is it not admirable that they see it not the Devil hath taught them to play the Hypocrites and make themselves a Religion which costs them nothing without true Christian Love and Good works that they may have something to quiet and cheat their consciences with One man drops now and then an inconsiderable gift and another oppresseth and hateth and destroyeth and slandereth and censureth that he may not be thought to hate and ruine without cause and when they have done they wipe their mouths with a few Hypocritical prayers or good words and and think they are good Christians and God will not be avenged on them One thinks that God will save him because he is of this Church and another because he is of another Church One thinks to be saved because he is of this opinion and party in Religion and another because he is of that One thinks he is religious because he saith his prayers this way and another because he prayeth another way And thus dead Hypocrites whose hearts were never quickened with the powerful Love of God to love his servants their neighbours and enemies do perswade themselves that God will save them for mocking and flattering him with the service of their deceitful lips while they want the Love of God which is the root of all Good and are possessed with the Love of money which is the root of all evil 1 Tim. 6. 10. and are Lovers of pleasures more than God 2 Tim. 3. 4. They will joyn themselves forwardly to the cheap and outside actions of Religion but when they hear much less than One thing thou yet wantest sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have a treasure in Heaven they are very sorrowful because they are very rich Luk. 18. 22 23. Such a fruitless love as they had to others Iam. 2. such a fruitless Religion they have as to themselves For pure Religion and undefiled before God is to visit the fatherless and widows in their adversity and to keep your selves unspotted from the world James 1. 27. See 1 Joh. 2. 15. 3. 17. Whâ—sâ— hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother hath need and shutteth up his bowels of compâ—ssion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him There are specially three Texts that describe the case of sensual uncharitable Gentlemen 1. Luk. 16. A Rich man cloathed in purple and silk for so as Dr. Hammond noteth it should rather be translated and fared sumptuously every day you know the end of him 2. Ezek. 16. 49. Sodoms sin was Pride fulness of bread and abundance of idleness neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy 3. James 5. 1 to 7. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you Ye have lived in pleasure on earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in or for the day of slaughter Ye have condemned and killed the just and he doth not resist you And remember Prov. 21. 13. Whoso stoppeth his cars at the cry of the poor he also shall cry himself and shall not be heard And Jam. 2. 13. He shall have judgement without mercy that shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgement Yea in this life it is oft observable Prov. 11. 24. There is that scattereth and yet increaseth and there is that with-holdeth more than is meet but it tendeth to poverty Tit. 2. Directions for works of Charity Direct 1. LOve God and be renewed to his image and then it will be natural to you to do good Direct 1. and his Love will be in you a fountain of good works Direct 2. Love your Neighbours and it will be easie to you to do them all the good you can As it Direct 2. is to do good to your selves or Children or dearest friends Direct 3. Learn self-denyal that selfishness may not cause you to be all for youâ—â—lelves and be Satans Direct 3. Law of Nature in you forbidding you to do good to others Direct 4. Mortifie the flesh and the vices of sensuality Pride and Curiosity Gluttony and drunkenness Direct 4. are insatiable gulfs and will devour all and leave but little for the poor Though there be never so many poor families which want bread and clothing the Proud person must first have the other silk Gown or the other ornaments which may set them out with the forwardest in the mode and fashion and this house must first be handsomelyer built and these rooms must first be neatlier furnished and these Children must first have finer cloaths Let Lazarus lye never so miserable at the door the sensualist must be cloathed in purple and silk and fare deliciously and sumptuously daily Luke 16. The glutton must have thâ— dish and cup which pleaseth his appetite and must keep a full Table for the entertainment of his companions that have no need These insatiable vices are like Swine and Dogs that devour all the Childrens bread Even vain recreations and gaming shall have more bestowed on them than Church or poor as to any voluntary gift Kill your greedy vices once and then a little will serve your turns and you may have wherewith to relieve the needy and do that which will be better to you at your reckoning day Direct 5. Let not self isâ—ness make your Children the inordinate objects of your charity and provision Direct 5. to take up that which should be otherwise employed Carnal and worldly persons would perpetuate their vice and when they can live no longer themselves they seem to be half alive in their posterity and what they can no longer keep themselves they think is best laid up for their Children to feed them as full and make them as sensual and unhappy as themselves So that just and moderate provisions will not satisfie them but their Childrens Portions must be as much as they can get and almost all their Estates are sibi suis for themselves and theirs And
it And what do men at death say of it And what do converted souls or awakened consciences say of it Is it then followed with delight and fearlesness as it is now Is it then applauded Will any of them speak well of it Nay all the world speaks evil of sin in the general now even when they love and commit the several acts Will you sin when you are dying § 29. Direct 10. Look alwayes on sin and judgement together Remember that you must answer for Direct 10. it before God and Angels and all the world and you will the better know it § 30. Direct 11. Look now but upon sickness poverty shame despair death and rottenness in the Direct 11. grave and it may a little help you to know what sin is These are things within your sight or feeling You need not saith to tell you of them And by such effects you might have some little knowledge of the cause § 31. Direct 12. Look but upon some eminent holy persons upon earth and upon the mad prophane Direct 12. malignant world and the difference may tell you in part what sin is Is there not an amiableness in a holy blameless person that liveth in love to God and man and in the joyful hopes of life eternal Is not a beastly Drunkard or Whoremonger and a raging Swearer and a malicious persecutor a very deformed loathsome creature Is not the mad confused ignorant ungodly state of the world a very pittiful sight What then is the sin that all this doth consist in Though the principal part of the Cure is in turning the Will to the haired of sin and is done by this discovery of its malignity yet I shall add a few more Directions for the executive part supposing that what is said already have had its effect § 32. Direct 1. When you have found out your disease and danger give up your selves to Christ as Direct 1. the Saviour and Physicion of souls and to the Holy Ghost as your Sanctifier remembring that he is sufficient and willing to do the work which he hath undertaken It is not you that are to be Saviours and Sanctifiers of your selves unless as you work under Christ But he that hath undertaken it doth take it for his glory to perform it § 33. Direct 2. Yet must you be willing and obedient in applying the Remedies prescribed you by Christ and observing his Directions in order to your Cure And you must not be tender and coy and fineish and say This is too bitter and that is too sharp but trust his Love and skill and care and take it as he prescribeth it or giveth it you without any more ado Say not It is grievous and I cannot take it For he commands you nothing but what is safe and wholesome and necessary and if you cannot take it you must try whether you can bear your sickness and death and the fire of Hell Is humiliation confession restitution mortification and holy diligence worse than Hell § 34. Direct 3. See that you take not part with sin and wrangle not or strive not against your Direct 3. Physicion or any that would do you good Excusing sin and pleading for it and extenuating it and striving against the Spirit and Conscience and wrangling against Ministers and godly friends and hateing reproof are not the means to be cured and sanctified § 35. Direct 4. See that malignity in every one of your particular sins which you can see and say Direct 4. is in sin in general It 's a gross deceit of your selves if you will speak a great deal of the evil of sin and see none of this malignity in your Pride and your worldliness and your passion and pievishness and your malice and uncharitableness and your lying backbiting slandering or sinning against conscience for worldly commodity or safety What self-contradiction is it for a man in prayer to aggravate sin and when he is reproved for it to justifie or excuse it For a Popish Priest to enter sinfully upon his place by subscribing or swearing the Trent Confession and then to preach zealously against sin in the general as if he had never committed so horrid a crime This is like him that will speak against Treason and the Enemies of the King but because the Traytors are his friends and kindred will protect or hide them and take their parts § 36. Direct 5. Keep as far as you can from those temptations which feed and strengthen the sins which Direct 5. you would overcome Lay siege to your sins and starve them out by keeping away the food and fewel which is their maintenance and life § 37. Direct 6. Live in the exercise of those graces and duties which are contrary to the sins which Direct 6. you are most in danger of For grace and duty is contrary to sin and killeth it and cureth us of it as the fire cureth us of cold or health of sickness § 38. Direct 7. Hearken not to weakning unbelief and distrust and cast not away the comforts of God Direct 7. which are your cordials and strength It is not a frightful dejected despairing frame of mind that is fittest to resist sin but it is the encouraging sense of the love of God and thankful sense of grace received with a cautelous fear § 39. Direct 8. Be alwayes suspicious of carnal self-love and watch against it For that is the Direct 8. burrow or fortress of sin and the common Patron of it ready to draw you to it and ready to justifie it We are very prone to be partial in our own cause as the case of Iudah with Thamar and David when Nathan reproved him in a Parable shew Our own passions our own pride our own censures or back-bitings or injurious dealings our own neglects of duty seem small excusable if not justifyable things to us whereas we could easily see the faultiness of all these in another especially in an enemy when yet we should be best acquainted with our selves and we should most love our selves and therefore hate our own sins most § 40. Direct 9. Bestow your first and chiefest labour to kill sin at the Root To cleanse the Heart Direct 9. which is the fountain For out of the heart cometh the evils of the life Know which are the Master-Roots and bend your greatest care and industry to mortifie those And that is especially these that follow 1. Ignorance 2. Unbelief 3. Inconsiderateness 4. Selfishness and Pride 5. Fleshliness in pleasing a bruitish appetite lust or fantasie 6. Senseless hard-heartedness and sleepiness in sin § 41. Direct 10. Account the world and all its pleasures wealth and honours no better than indeed Direct 10. they are and then Satan will find no bait to catch you Esteem all as dung with Paul Phil. 3. 8. And no man will sin and sell his soul for that which he accounteth but as dung § 42. Direct 11. Keep up
1 Pet. 2. 21 22 23 24. Isa. 53. cast down who never despised or envied man nor never feared man who never was over-merry or over-sad who being reviled reviled not again but was dumb as a lamb before the shearers § 21. Direct 17. Keep as far from all occasions of your passions as other duties will allow you And Direct 17. contrive your affairs and occasions into as great an opposition as may be to the temptation Run not into temptation if you would be delivered from evil Much might be done by a willing prudent man by the very ordering of his affairs God and Satan works by means let the means then be regarded § 22. Direct 18. Have a due care of your bodies that no distemper be cherished in them which causeth Direct 18. the distemper of the soul. Passions have a very great dependance on the temperament of the body And much of the cure of them lieth when it is possible in the bodyes emendation § 23. Direct 19. Turn all your passions into the right chanel and make them all Holy using them for Direct 19. God upon the greatest things This is the true cure The bare restraint of them is but a palliate cure like the easing of pain by a dose of opium Cure the fear of man by the fear of God and the Love of the creature by the Love of God and the cares for the body by caring for the soul and earthly fleshly desires and delights by spiritual desires and delights and worldly sorrow by profitable godly sorrow § 24. Direct 20. Controul the effects and frustrate your passions of what they would have and that Direct 20. will ere long destroy the cause Cross your selves of the things which carnal Love and desire would have Forbear the things which carnal mirth or anger would provoke you to and the fire will go out for want of fewel Of which more in the particulars Tit. 2. Directions against sinful Love of Creatures § 1. LOve is the Master Passion of the soul because it hath the chiefest Object even Goodness which Solus Amor facit hominem bonum vel malum Paul Sâ—aliger Thes. p. 721. is the object of the will And simple Love is nothing but Complacencie which is nothing but the simple Volition of Good And it is a Passionate Volition or Complacencie which we call the Passion of Love When this is Good and when its sinful I shewed before But yet because the one half of the cure here lieth in the conviction and it is so hard a thing to make any Lover perceive a sinfullness in his Love I shall first help you in the tryal of your Love to shew the sinfullness of it when I have first named the objects of it § 2. Any creature which seemeth Good to us may possibly be the object of sinful Love As Honor Greatness authority praises money houses lands cattle meat drink sleep apparel sports friends relations and life it self As for Lustful Love I shall speak of it anon Helps for discovering of sinful Love § 3. Direct 1. Make Gods interest and his word the standard to judge of all affections by That Direct 1. which is against the Love of God and would abate or hinder it yea which doth not directly or indirectly tend to further it is certainly a sinful Love And so is all that is against his word For the Love of God is our final act upon our ultimate end and therefore all that tends not to it is a sin against our very end and so against our nature and the use of our faculties § 4. Direct 2. Therefore whatever creature is Loved ultimately for it self and not for a higher end Direct 2. even for God his service his honour his relation to it or his excellencie appearing in it is sinfully loved For it is made our God when it is Loved ultimately for it self § 5. Direct 3. Suspect all Love to creatures which is very strong and violent and easily kindled and Direct 3. hardly moderated or quieted Though you might think it is for some spiritual end or excellencie that you Love any person or any thing yet suspect it if it be so easie and strong Because that which is truly and purely spiritual is against corrupted nature and comes from Grace which is but weak we find no such easiness to Love God and scripture and prayer and holiness nor are our affections so violent to these It s well if all the fewel and blowing we can use will keep them alive It s two to one that the flesh and the Devil have put in some of their fewel or gunpouder if it be fierce § 6. Direct 4. Suspect all that Love which selfishness and fleshly-interest have a hand in Is it some Direct 4. bodily pleasure and delight that you love so much Or is it a good book or other help for your soul We are so much apter to exceed and sin in carnal fleshly mindedness than in Loving what is good for our souls that there we should be much more suspicious If it be violent and for the body it s ten to one there is sin in it § 7. Direct 5. Suspect all that Love to creatures which your Reason can give no good account of nor Direct 5. shew you a justifiable cause If you Love one place or person much more than others and know not why but Love them because you cannot choose this is much to be suspected Though God may sometime kindle a secret Love between friends from an unexpressible unity or similitude of minds beyond what reason will undertake to justifie yet this is rare and commonly fansie or folly or carnality is the cause However it is more to be suspected and tryed than Rational Love § 8. Direct 6. Suspect all that fervent Love to any Creature which is hasty before sufficient tryal for Direct 6. commonly both persons and things have the best side outward and seem better at the first appearance than they prove Not but that a moderate Love may be taken up upon the first appearance of any excellency especially spiritual But so as to allow for a possibility of being deceived and finding more faultiness upon a fuller tryal than we at first perceive Have you dwelt in the house with the persons whom you so much admire and have you tryed them in their conversations and seen them tryed by crosses losses injuries adversity prosperity or the offers of preferment or plenty in the world you would little think what lurketh undiscovered in the hearts of many that have excellent parts till tryal manifest it § 9. Direct 7. Try your affections in prayer before God whether they be such as you dare boldly pray Direct 7. God either to increase or continue and bless and whether they be such as Conscience hath no quarrel against If they endure not this tryal be the more suspicious and search more narrowly The name and presence
from the ignorance or unbelief of some of these or not considering and applying them to the cause that is before you Psal. 9. 10. They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee § 4. Direct 2. Know God in Iesus Christ the Mediator and come to him by him And then you Direct 2. may have access with boldness and confidence Ephes. 3. 12. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by his blood by the new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh And having an High Priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22. The sight of Christ by faith should banish immoderate fear Matth. 14. 27. Be of good chear it is I be not afraid § 5. Direct 3. Understand the tenour of the Gospel and the freeness of the Covenant of Grace and Direct 3. then you will there find abundant encouragement against the matter of inordinate fears § 6. Direct 4. Employ your selves as much as possible in Love and praise for Love expelleth tormenting Direct 4. fear there is no fear in Love 1 John 4. 18. § 7. Direct 5. Remember Gods particular mercies to your selves for those will perswade you that Direct 5. he will use you kindly when you find that he hath done so already As when Manoah said We shall surely dye because we have seen God his Wife answered If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received an offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things Judg. 13. 22 23. § 8. Direct 6. Labour to clear up your title to the promises and special interest in Christ. Otherwise Direct 6. the doubts of that will be still feeding and justifying your fears § 9. Direct 7. Consider what a horrible injury it is to God to think of him as you do of the Devil Direct 7. as an enemy to humble willing souls and a destroyer of them and an adversary to them that diligently seek him of whom he is a lover and rewarder And so to think of God as Evil and fear him upon Heb. 11. 6. such misapprehensions § 10. Direct 8. Observe the sinfulness of your fear in the effects how it driveth you from God and Direct 8. hindereth faith and love and thankfulness and discourageth you from prayer and Sacraments and all duty And therefore it must needs be pleasing to the Devil and displeasing to God and no way to be pleaded for or justified § 11. Direct 9. Mark how you contradict the endeavours of God in his Word and by his Ministers Direct 9. Do you find God driving any from him and frightning away souls that would fain be his Or doth he not prepare the way himself and reconcile the world to himself in Christ and then send his Embassadors 2 Cor. 5. 19. Luke 14. 17. Matth. 22. 8. in his name and stead to beseech them to be reconciled unto God and to tell them that all things are ready and compell them to come in § 12. Direct 10. Consider how thou wrongest others and keepest them from coming home to God When Direct 10. they see thee terrified in the way of piety they will fly from it as if some enemies or robbers were in the way If you tread fearfully others will fear there is some quicksand If you tremble when you enter the Ship with Christ others will think he is an unfaithful Pilot or that its a leaking Vessel Your fear discourageth them § 13. Direct 11. Remember how remediless as to comfort you leave your selves while you inordinately Direct 11. fear him who alone must comfort you against all your other fears If you fear your Remedy what shall cure the fear of your disease If you fear your meat what shall cure your fear of hunger If you fear him that is most Good and faithful and the friend of every upright soul what shall ease you of your fear of the wicked and the enemies of holy souls If you fear your Father who shall comfort you against your foes You cast away all peace when you make God your terrour § 14. Direct 12. Yet take heed lest under this pretence you cast away the necessary fear of God Direct 12. even such as belongeth to men in your condition to drive them out of their sin and security unto Christ and such as the truth of his threatnings require For a sensless presumption and contempt of God are a sin of a far greater danger Directions against sinful fear of the Devil § 1. Direct 1. Remember that the Devil is chained up and wholly at the will and beck of God He Direct 1. could not touch Iob nor an Ox nor an Ass of his till he had permission from God He cannot appear Job 1. to thee nor hurt thee unless God give him leave § 2. Direct 2. Labour therefore to make sure of the Love of God and then thou art safe Then thou Direct 2. hast God his Love and Promise alwayes to set against the Devil § 3. Direct 3. Remember that Christ hath conquered the Devil in his temptations on the Cross by Direct 3. his Resurrection and Ascension He destroyed through death him that had the power of death even the Devil that he might deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. The Prince of this world is conquered and cast out by him and wilt thou fear a conquered foe § 4. Direct 4. Remember that thou art already delivered from his power and dominion if thou he Direct 4. renewed by the Spirit of God And therefore let his own be afraid of him that are under his power and not the free men and redeemed ones of Christ God hath delivered thee in the day that he converted thee from a thousand fold greater calamity than the seeing of the Devil would be And having been saved from his greatest malice you should not over-fear the less § 5. Direct 5. Remember what an injury it is to God and to Christ that conquered him to fear the Direct 5. Devil while God is your protector any otherwise than as the instrument of Gods displeasure It seemeth as much as to say I fear lest the Devil be too hard for God or lest God cannot deliver me from him § 6. Direct 6. Remember how you honour the Devil by fearing him and pleasure him by thus honouring Direct 6. him And will you not abhor to honour and please such an enemy of God and you This is it that he would have to be feared instead of God He glorieth in it as part of his dominion As Tyrants rejoyce to see men fear them as those that can destroy them when they will so the Devil triumpheth in your fears as his honour When God reprehendeth the
and accordingly your speech must be mixt and tempered and your counsels or comforts given with the Conditions and Suppositions exprest § 13. Quest. But what order would you have us observe in speaking to the ignorant and ungodly Quest. 5. when the time is so short Answ. 1. Labour to awaken them to a lively sense of the change which is at hand that they may Answ. understand the necessity of looking after the state of their souls 2. Then shew them what are the terms of salvation and who they are that the Gospel doth judge to salvation or damnation 3. Next advise them to try which of these is their condition and to deal faithfully seeing self-flattery may undo them but can do them no good 4. Then help them in the tryal q. d. If it have been so or so with you then you may know that this is your case 5. Then tell them the Reasons of your fears if you fear they are unconverted or of your hopes if you hope indeed that it is better with them 6. Then exhort them conditionally if they are yet in a carnal unsanctified state to lament it and be humbled and penitent for their sinful and ungodly life 7. And then tell them the Remedy in Christ and the Holy Ghost and the Promise or Covenant of Grace 8. And lastly tell them their present duty that this Remedy may prove effectual to their salvation And if you have so much interest or authority as maketh it fit for you excite them by convenient questions so far to open their case as may direct you and as by their answers may shew whether they truly resolve for a holy life if God restore them and whether their hearts indeed be changed or not § 14. Direct 7. If you are not able to instruct them as you should read some good Book to Direct 7. them which is most suitable to their case Such as Mr. Perkins Right art of Dying well The Practice of Piety in the Directions for the Sick Mr. Ed. Lawrences Treatise of Sickness or what else is most suitable to them And because most are themselves unable for counselling the sick aright and you may not have a fit Book at hand I shall here subjoyn a brief Form or two for such to Read to the Sick that can endure no long discourse And other books will help you to forms of Prayer with them if you cannot pray without such help § 15. Direct 8. Iudge not of the state of mens souls by those carriages in their sickness which Direct 8. proceed from their diseases or bodily distemper Many ignorant people judge of a man by the manner of his dying If one die in calmness and clearness of understanding and a few good words they think that this is to die like a Saint Whereas in Consumptions and oft in Dropsies and other such Chronical diseases this is ordinary with good and bad And in a Feaver that 's violent or a Phrensie or Distraction the best man that is may die without the use of Reason Some diseases will make one blockish and heavy and unapt to speak and some consist with as much freedom of speech as in time of health The state of mens souls must not be judged of by such accidental unavoidable things as these § 16. Direct 9. Be neither unnaturally sensless at the death of friends nor excessively dejected or afflicted Direct 9. To make light of the Death of Relations and friends be they good or bad is a sign of a very vitious nature that is so much selfish as not much to regard the Lives of others And he that regardeth not the Life of his friends is little to be trusted in his lower concernments I speak not this of those persons whose temper alloweth them not to weep For there may be as deep a regard and sorrow in some that have no tears as in others that abound with them But I speak of a naughty selfish nature that is little affected with any ones concernments but its own § 17. Yet your grief for the death of friends must be very different both in degree and kind 1. For ungodly friends you must grieve for their own sakes because if they dyed such they are lost for ever 2. For your Godly friends you must mourn for the sake of your selves and others because God hath removed such as were blessings to those about them 3. For choice Magistrates and Ministers and other instruments of publick good your sorrow must be greater because of the common loss and the judgement thereby inflicted on the World 4. For old tryed Christians that have overcome the world and lived so long till age and weakness make them almost unserviceable to the Church and who groan to be unburdened and to be with Christ your sorrow should be least and your joy and thanks for their happiness should be greatest But especially abhor that nature that secretly is glad of the death of Parents or little sorrowful because that their estates are faln to you or you are enriched or set at liberty by their death God seldom leaveth this sin unrevenged by some heavy judgements even in this life § 18. Direct 10. To overcome your inordinate grief for the death of your relations consider these Direct 10. things following 1. That excess of sorrow is your sin And sinning is an ill use to be made of your Help against excessive grief for the Death of friends affliction 2. That it tendeth to a great deal more It unfitteth you for many duties which you are bound to as to Rejoice in God and to be Thankful for mercies and cheerful in his Love and Praise and Service And is it a small sin to unfit your selves for the greatest duties 3. If you are so troubled at Gods disposal of his own what doth your Will but rise up against the will of God as if you grudged at the exercise of his Dominion and Government that is that he is God! Who is wisest and Best and fittest to dispose of all mens lives Is it God or you Would you not have God to be the Lord of all and to dispose of Heaven and earth and of the lives and Crowns of the greatest Princes If you would not you would not have him to be God If you would is it not unreasonable that you or your friends only should be excepted from his disposal 4. If your friends are in Heaven how unsuitable is it for you to be overmuch mourning for them when they are rapt into the highest Joyes with Christ and Love should teach you to rejoice with them that rejoice and not to mourn as those that have no hope 5. You know not what mercy God Isa. 57. 1. shewed to your friends in taking them away from the evil to come you know not what suffering Phil. 1. 2◠23. the Land or Church is falling into or at least might have faln upon themselves nor what sins they might have
Christians Armenians Greeks Papists who will hear them and among Heathens in Indostan and elsewhere and Mahometans especially the Persians who allow a liberty of discourse But above all the Chaplains of the several Embassies and Factories O what an opportunity have they to sow the seeds of Christianity among the Heathen Nations and to make known Christ to the Infidel people where they come And how heavy a guilt will lye on them that shall neglect it And how will the great industry of the Jesuites rise up in judgement against them and condemn them Direct 10. The more you are deprived of the benefit of Gods publick Worship the more industrious Direct 10. must you be in Reading Scripture and good Books and in secret Prayer and Meditation and in the improvement of any one godly friend that doth accompany you to make up your loss and to be instead of publick means It will be a great comfort among Infidels or Papists or ignorant Greeks or prophane people to read sound and holy and spiritual Books and to conferr with some one godly friend and to meditate on the sweet and glorious subjects which from Earth and Heaven are set before us and to solace our selves in the praises of God and to powre out our suites before him Direct 11. And that your work may be well done be sure that you have right ends and that it be Direct 11. not to please a ranging fancy nor a proud vain mind nor a Covetous desire of being Rich or high Peregrinatio omnis obscura sordida est iis quorum industria in patria potest esse illustris Cicer. that you go abroad but that you do it purposely and principally to serve God abroad and to be able to serve him the better when you come home with your wit and experience and estates If sincerely you go for this end and not for the Love of money you may expect the greater comfort Direct 12. Stay abroad no longer than your lawful ends and work require And when you come home let it be seen that you have seen sin that you might hate it and that by the observation of the errors and evils of the world you love sound doctrine spiritual worship and holy sober and righteous Direct 12. living better than you did before and that you are the better resolved and furnished for a godly exemplary fruitful life One thing more I will warn some Parents of who send their Sons to travel to keep them from Note untimely marrying lest they have part of their estates too soon That there are other means better than this which prudence may find out If they would keep them low from fulness and idleness and bad company which a wise self-denying diligent man may do but another cannot and engage them in as much study and business conjunct as they can well perform and when they must needs marry let it be done with prudent careful choice and learn themselves to live somewhat lower that they may spare that which their Son must have this course would be better than that hazardous one in question CHAP. XX. Motives and Directions against Oppression § 1. OPpression is the injuring of inferiours who are unable to resist or to right themselves when men use Power to bear down right Yet all is not Oppression which is so called by the poor or by inferiours that suffer For they are apt to be partial in their own cause as well as others There may be injustice in the expectations of the poor as well as in the actions of the rich Some think they are oppressed if they be justly punished for their crimes And some say they are oppressed if they have not their wills and unjust desires and may not be suffered to injure their superiours And many of the poor do call all that In omni certamine qui opulentior est etiamsi accipit injuriam tamen quia plus potest facere videtur Salust in Iugurth Oppression which they suffer from any that are above them as if it were enough to prove it an injury because a Rich man doth it But yet Oppression is a very common and a heynous sin § 2. There are as many wayes of oppressing others as there are advantages to men of power against them But the principal are these following § 3. 1. The most common and heinous sort is the malignant injuries and cruelties of the ungodly against men that will not be as indifferent in the matters of God and salvation as themselves and that will not be of their opinions in Religion and be as bold with sin and as careless of their souls as they These are hated reproached slandered abused and some way or other pesecuted commonly where ever they live throughout the world But of this sort of Oppression I have spoken before § 4. 2. A second sort is the Oppression of the Subjects by their Rulers either by unrighteous Laws or cruel executions or unjust impositions or exactions laying on the people greater Taxes tributes or servitude than the common good requireth and than they are able well to bear Thus did Pharaoh oppress the Israelites till their groans brought down Gods vengeance on him But I purposely forbear to meddle with the sins of Magistrates § 5. 3. Souldiers also are too commonly guilty of the most inhumane barbarous oppressions plundering the poor Countrey-men and domineering over them and robbing them of the fruit of their hard labours and of the bread which they should maintain their families with and taking all that they can lay hold on as their own But unless it be a few that are a wonder in the world this sort of men are so barbarous and inhumane that they will neither read nor regard any counsel that I shall give them No man describeth them better than Erasmus § 6. 4. The Oppression of Servants by their Masters I have said enough to before And among us where servants are free to change for better Masters it is not the most common sort of Oppression But rather servants are usually negligent and unfaithful because they know that they are free Except in the case of Apprentices § 7. 5. It is too common a sort of Oppression for the Rich in all places to domineer too insolently over the poor and force them to follow their wills and to serve their interest be it right or wrong So that it is rare to meet with a poor man that dare displease the rich though it be in a cause where God and Conscience do require it If a rich man wrong them they dare not seek their remedy at Law because he will tire them out by the advantage of his friends and wealth and either carry it against them be his cause never so unjust or lengthen the suit till he hath undone them and forced them to submit to his oppressing will § 8. 6. Especially unmerciful Landlords are the common and sore oppressors of the Countrey-men If a
direct you in it and confer about it And it is best for you if he be one that excelleth you herein that he may add something to you But then you will not be such to him and so the friendship will be unequal 20. Lastly There must be some suitableness in Age and Sex The young want experience to make them meet for the bosome friendship of the aged though yet they may take delight in instructing them and doing them good And the young are hardly reconcilable to all the gravity of the aged And it must not be a person of a different sex unless in case of Marriage Not but that they may be helpful to each other as Christians and in a state of distant friendship But this bosome intimacy they are utterly unfit for because of unsuitableness temptation and scandal Directions for the right Use of special Bosome Friendship Direct 1. ENgage not your self to any one as a bosome friend without great evidence and Direct 1. proof of his fitness in all the foregoing qualifications By which you may see that this is not an ordinary way of duty or benefit but a very unusual case For it is a hard thing to meet with one among many thousands that hath all these qualifications And when that is done if you have not all the same qualifications to him you will be unmeet for his friendship what ever he be for yours And where in an age will there be two that are suited in all those respects Therefore our ordinary way of duty is to love all according to their various worth and to make the best use we can of every ones grace and gifts and of those most that are nearest us but without the partiality of such extraordinary affection to any one above all the rest For young persons usually make their choice rashly of one that afterwards proveth utterly unmeet for the Office of such a friend or at least no better than many other persons Nay ten to one but after experience will acquaint them with many that are much wiser and better and fitter for their love And hasty affections are guilty of blind partiality and run men into sin and sorrow and often end in unpleasant ruptures Therefore be not too forward in this friendship Direct 2. When you do choose a friend though he must be one that you have no cause to be Direct 2. suspicious of yet reckon that it is possible that he may be estranged from you yea and turn your enemy Causeless jealousies are contrary to friendship on your part and if there be Cause it is inconsistent with friendship on his part But yet no friendship should make you blind and not to know that man is a corrupt and mutable creature especially in such an age as this wherein we have seen how personal Changes State-changes and changes in Religion have alienated many seeming friends Therefore Love them and Use them and Trust them but as men that may possibly fail all your expectations and open all your secrets and betray you yea and turn your enemies Suspect it not but judge it possible Direct 3. Be open with your approved friend and commit all your secrets to him still excepting Direct 3. those the knowledge of which may be hurtful to himself or the revealing of them hereafter may be intollerably injurious to your self to the honour of Religion to the publick good or to any other If you be needlesly close you are neither friendly nor can you improve your friend enough to your own advantage But yet if you open all without exception you may many wayes be injurious to your friend and to your self and the day may come which you did not look for in which his weakness passion interest or alienation may trouble you by making all publick to the world Direct 4. Use as little affectation or ceremony with your friend as may be but let all your converse Direct 4. with him be with openness of heart that he may see that you both trust him and deal with him in plain sincerity If dissimulation and forced affectation be but once discovered it tendeth to breed a constant diffidence and suspicion And if it be an infirmity of your own which you think needeth such a cover the Cloak will be of worse effect than the knowledge of your infirmity Direct 5. Be ever faithful to your friend for the cure of all his faults and never turn friendship Direct 5. into flattery yet still let all be done in Love though in a friendly freedome and closeness of admonition It is not the least benefit of intimate friendship that what an enemy speaketh behind our backs a friend will open plainly to our faces To watch over one another daily and be as a glass to shew our faces or faults to one another is the very great benefit of true friendship Eccles. 4. 9 10 11. Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labour For if they fall the one will lift up his fellow But wo to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up It is a flatterer and not a friend that will please you by concealing or extenuating your sin Direct 6. Abhor Selfishness as most contrary to real friendship Let your friend be as your self Direct 6. and his interest as your own If we must love our neighbour as our selves much more our dearest bosome friends Direct 7. Understand what is most excellent and useful in your friend and that improve Much Direct 7. good is lost by a dead hearted companion that will neither broach the Vessel and draw out that which is ready for their use nor yet feed any good discourse by due questions or answers but stifle all by barren silence And a dull silent hearer will weary and silence the speaker at the last Direct 8. Resolve to bear with each others infirmities Be not too high in your expectations from Direct 8. each other Look not for exactness and innocency but for humane infirmities that when they fall out you may not find your selves disappointed Patience is necessary in all humane converse Direct 9. Yet do not suffer friendship to blind you to own or extenuate the faults of your dearest Direct 9. friend For that will be sinful partiality and will be greatly injurious to God and treachery against the soul and safety of your friend Direct 10. And watch lest the love estimation or reverence of your friend should draw you to Direct 10. entertain his errors or to imitate him in any sinful way It is no part of true friendship to prefer men before the truth of Christ nor to take any heretical dividing or sensual infection from our friend and so to dye and perish with him Nor is it friendly to desire it Direct 11. Never speak against your friend to a third person Nor open his dishonourable weakness Direct 11. to another
me Denyal of our grace may seem to be humility but it tendeth to extinguish Love and Gratitude § 57. But you 'l say I must avoid soul-delusion and Pharisaical ostentation on the other side and few reach assurance how then should we keep up the Love of God Answ. 1. Though I am not come to the point of Trying and Discerning Grace I shall give you this much help in the way because it is so useful to the exercises of Love 1. If you have not Enjoying delighting Love yet try whether you have not Desiring seeking Love Love appeareth as truly in deâ—iâ—â—ng and seeking Good as in delighting in it Poor men shew their Love of the world by Desiring and seeking it as much as rich men do in delighting in it What is it that you most desire and seek 2. Or if this be so weak that you scarce discern it do you not find a mourning and lamenting Love You shew that you loved your money by mourning when you lose it and that you loved your friend by grieving for his death as well as by delighting in him while he lived If you heartily lament it as your greatest unhappiness and loss when you think that God doth cast you off and that you are void of Gracâ— and cannot serve and honour him as you would this shews you are not void of Love 3. If you feel not that you Love him do you feel that you would fain Love him and that you Love to Love him If you do so it is a sign that you do Love him When you do not only desire to find such an Evidence of salvation in you but when you desire Love it self and Love to Love God Had you not rather have a heart to Love him perfectly than to have all the riches in the world Had you not rather live in the Love of God if you could reach it than to live in any earthly pleasure If so be sure he hath your hearts The Will is the Love and the Heart If God have your Will he hath your Heart and Love 4. What hath your Hearts if he have them not Is there any thing that you prefer and seek before him and that you had rather have than him Can you be content without him and let him go in exchange for any earthly pleasure If not it is a sign he hath your Hearts You love him saâ—ingly if you set more by nothing else than by him 5. Do you love his holy Image in his word Do you delight and meditate in his Law Psalm 1. 2. Is it in your hearts Psalm 40. 8. Or do you pray Incline my heart unto thy Testimonies Psalm 119. 36. If you love Gods Image in his word the wisdom and holiness of it you love God 6. Do you love his Image on his Children If you Love them for their heavenly wisdom and holiness you so far Love God He that loveth the Candle for its light doth love the light it self and the sun He that loveth the wise and holy for their wisdom and holiness doth love wisdom and holiness it self The word and the saints being more in the reach of our sensible apprehensions than God himself is we ordinarily feel our Love to them more sensibly than our Love to God when indeed it is God in his word and servants that we love 1 Iohn 3. 14. Psalm 15. 4. 7. Though for want of Assurance you feel not the delights of Love have you not a heart that would delight in it more than in all the riches of the world if you could but get assurance of your interest Would it not comfort you more than any thing if you could be sure he Loveth you and could perfectly Love him and obey him If so it is not for want of Love that you delight not in him but for want of Assurance So that if God have thy heart either in a delighting Love or a seeking and desiring or a lamenting mourning Love he will not despise it or reject it He is â—igh to them that be of a broken heart Psalm 34. 18. A broken and contrite heart is his sacrifice which he will not despise Psalm 51. 17. The good Lord will have mercy on every one that prepareth their hearts to seek him though they do it not according to the preparation of the sanctuary 2 Cor. 30. 18 19. By these Evidences you may discern the sincerity of Love in small degrees and so you may make Love the occasion of more Love by discerning that Goodness of God which is manifested to you in the least § 38. 2. But suppose you cannot yet attain assurance Neglect not to improve that Goodness and Mercy of God which he revealeth to you in the state that you are in Love him but as Infinite Goodness should be loved who so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3. 16. Love him as the most blessed merciful God who made you and all things and hath given to the world an universal pardon on condition of their penitent acceptance and offereth them everlasting life and all this purchased by the blood of Christ Love him as one that offereth you reconciliation and intreateth you to be saved and as one that delighteth not in the death of the wicked but rather that they turn and live and as one that would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth though he will save none but the penitent that do acknowledge the truth And when you love him sincerely on these accounts you will have the evidence of his special Love to you § 39. Direct 16. Improve thy sense of natural and friendly love to raise thee to the Love of God Direct 16. When thou seest or feelest what Love a parent hath to children and a Husband to a wife or a Wife to a Husband or faithful friends to one another think then What Love do I owe to God O how inconsiderable is the Loveliness of a child a wife a friend the best of Creatures in comparison of the Loveliness of God Unworthy soul Canst thou love a drop of Goodness in thy friend And canst thou not Love the Ocean of Goodness in thy God Is a spark in the creature more amiable than the fire that kindled it Thou canst Love thy friend for all his blemishes his ignorance his passions and manifold imperfections And canst thou not love thy God who hath none of these nor any thing to discourage or damp thy love Thou lovest and deservedly lovest thy friend because he loveth thee and deals friendly with thee But O how much greater is the Love of God Did ever friend Love thee as he hath loved thee Did ever friend do for thee as he hath done He gave thee thy being thy daily safety and all the mercies of thy life He gave thee his Son his Spirit and his Grace He pardoned thy sins and
took thee into his favour and adopted thee for his son and an heir of Heaven He will glorifie thee with Angels in the presence of his Glory How should such a friend as this be loved How far above all mortal friends Their love and friendship is but a token and message of his Love Because he Loveth thee he sendeth thee kindness and mercy by thy friend and when their kindness ceaseth or can do thee no good his kindness will continue and comfort thee for ever Love them therefore as the messengers of his Love but Love him in them and love them for him and love him much more § 40. Direct 17. Think oft how delightful a life it would be to thee if thou couldst but live in the Direct 17. Love of God And then the complacencie will provoke desire and desire will turn thy face towards God till thou feel that thou lovest him The Love of a friend hath its sweetness and delight and when we Love them we feel such pleasure in our Love that we Love to Love them How pleasant then would it be to Love thy God O blessed joyful life if I could but love him as much as I desire to love him How freely could I leave the ambitious and the covetous and the sensual and voluptuous to their doting delusory swinish love How easily could I spare all earthly pleasures How near should I come to the Angelical life Could I love God as I would love him it would fill me with continual pleasure and be the sweetest feast that a soul can have How easily would it quench all carnal love How far would it raise me above these transitory things How much should I contemn them and pitty the wretches that know no better and have their portion in this life How readily should I obey And how pleasant would obedience be How sweet would all my Meditations be when every thought is full of Love How sweet would all my prayers be when constraining Love did bring me unto God and indite and animate every word How sweet would Sacraments be when my ascending flaming love should meet that wonderful descending love which cometh from Heaven to call me thither and in living bread and spiritful wine is the nourishment and cordial of my soul How sweet would all my speeches be when Love commanded them and every word were full of Love How quiet would my Conscience be if it had never any of this accusation against me to cast in my face to my shame and confusion that I am wanting in Love to the blessed God O could I but Love God with such a powerful Love as his Love and Goodness should command I should no more question my sincerity nor doubt any more of his Love to me How freely then should I acknowledge his grace and how heartily should I give him thanks for my justification sanctification and adoption which now I mention with doubt and fear O how it would lift up my soul unto his praise and make it my delight to speak good of his name What a purifying fire would Love be in my breast to burn up my corruptions It will endure nothing to enter or abide within me that is contrary to the will and interest of my Lord but hate every motion that tendeth to dishonour and displease him It would fill my soul with so much of Heaven as would make me long to be in Heaven and make death welcome which is now so terrible Instead of these withdrawing shrinking fears I should desire to depart and to be with Christ as being best of all O how easily should I bear any burthen of reproach or loss or want when I thus Loved God and were assured of his Love How light would the Cross be And how honourable and joyful would it seem to be imprisoned reviled spit upon and buffeted for the sake of Christ How desirable would the flames of Martyrdom seem for the testifying of my love to him that loved me at dearer rates than I can love him Lord is there no more of this blessed life of Love to be attained here on earth When all the world reveals thy Goodness when thy Son hath come down to declare thy love in so full and wonderful a manner When thy word hath opened us a window into Heaven where afar off we may discern thy Glory yet shall our hearts be clods and ice O pitty this unkind unnatural soul This dead insensible disaffected soul Teach me by thy spirit the art of Love Love me not only so as to convince me that I have abundant cause to Love thee above all but Love me so as to constrain me to it by the magnetical attractive power of thy Goodness and the insuperable operations of thy omnipotent Love § 41. Direct 18. In thy Meditations upon all these incentives of Love preach them over earnestly to Direct 18. thy Heart and expostulate and plead with it by way of soliloquy till thou feel the fire begin to burn Do not only Think on the Arguments of Love but dispute it out with thy Conscience and by expostulating earnest reasonings with thy heart endeavour to affect it There is much more moving force in this earnest talking to our selves than in bare cogitation that breaks not out into mental words Imitate the most powerful Preacher that ever thou wast acquainted with And just as he pleadeth the case with his hearers and urgeth the truth and duty on them by reason and importunity so do thou in secret with thy self There is more in this than most Christians are aware of or use to practise It is a great part of a Christians skill and duty to be a good preacher to himself This is a lawful and a gainful way of preaching No body here can make question of thy call nor deny thee a License nor silence thee if thou silence not thy self Two or three sermons a week from others is a fair proportion but two or three sermons a day from thy self is ordinarily too little Therefore I have added soliloquies to many of these Directions for Love to shew you how by such pleadings with your selves to affect your hearts and kindle Love § 42. And O that this might be the happy fruit of these Directions with thee that art now reading or hearing them That thou wouldst but offer up thy flaming Heart to Jesus Christ our Great High-Priest to be presented an acceptable sacrifice to God! Or if it flame not in Love as thou desirest yet give it up to the Holy Spirit to increase the flames Thou little knowest how much God setteth by a Heart He calleth to thee himself My son give me thy heart Prov. 23. 26. Without it he cares not for any thing that thou canst give him He cares not for thy fairest words without it He cares not for thy lowdest prayers without it He cares not for thy costliest alms or sacrifices if he have not thy heart If thou give all thy goods to
thou but say This man is more powerful than God Or God cannot deliver me out of his hands If it be want or sickness or death which thou fearest what dost thou but say in thy heart that God either knoweth not what is best for thee so well as thou knowest thy self or else is not Powerful or Gracious enough to give it nor true enough to keep his promise He that believeth not makes God a lyar 1 Iohn 5. 10 11. § 13. Direct 6. Remember that Trusting God doth as it were oblige him and distrusting him doth Direct 6. greatly disoblige him especially when any thing else is trusted before him If any man trust you upon any encouragement given him by you you will take your selves obliged to be trusty to him and not to fail any honest trust But if he trust you not or trust another you will turn him off to those that he hath trusted God may say to thee Let them help thee whom thou hast trusted Thou trustedst not in me and therefore I fail not thy trust when I forsake thee § 14. Direct 7. Remember that thou must trust in God or in nothing For nothing is more sure Direct 7. nor more frequently experienced than that all things else are utterly insufficient to be our help Shall we choose a broken reed that we know before hand will both deceive and pierce us Wo to the man that hath no surer a foundation for his Trust than Creatures The greatest of them are unable and the Best of them are untrusty and deceitful How sad is thy case if God turn thee off to these for help in the hour of thy extremity Then wilt thou perceive that it is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in Princes Psal. 118. 8 9. The righteous shall see and fear and laugh at him Lo this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthned himself in his wickedness Psal. 52. 6 7. But they that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion that cannot be removed but abideth for ever Psal. 125. 1. Creatures will certainly deceive thy trust but so will not God § 15. Direct 8. Believe and remember the particular providence of God which regardeth the falling Direct 8. of a Sparrow on the ground and numbereth the very hairs of your heads Matth. 10. 30. And can you distrust him that is so punctually regardful of your least concernments that is alway present and watcheth over you You need not fear his absence disregard forgetfulness or insufficiency Doth he number your hairs and doth he not number your groans and prayers and tears How then doth he wipe away your tears and put them all as in his bottle Psal. 56. 8. Rev. 7. 17. § 16. Direct 9. Compare God with thy dearest and most faithful friend and then think how boldly Direct 9. thou caust trust that friend if thy life or wellfare were wholly in his hand and how much more boldly thou shouldst trust in God who is more wise and kind and merciful and trusty than any mortal man can be When thou art in want in prison in sickness and in pain expecting death think now if my life or health or liberty were absolutely in the power of my surest friend how quietly could I wait and how confidently could I cast away my fears though I had no promise what he would do with me For I know he would do nothing but what is for my good And is not God to be trusted in much more Indeed a friend would ease my pain or supply my wants or save my life when God will not But that is not because God is less kind but because he is more wise and better knoweth what tendeth to my hurt or good My friend would pull off the Plaister as soon as I complain of smart but God will stay till it have done the cure But sure God is more to be trusted for my real final good though my friend be forwarder to give me ease All friends may fail but Gâ—d 〈◊〉 faileth § 17. Direct 10. Make use of the natural Love of quietness and thy natural weariness of tormenting 〈◊〉 10. câ—res and feaâ—â— and sâ—rrows to move thee to cast thy self on God and quiet thy soul in trusting on him For God hath purposely made thy self and all things else insufficient unsatisfactory and vâ—xatious to theâ— that thou mightst be driven to rest on him alone when nothing else affords theâ—â—â—st Cares and fears and unquietness of mind are such Thorns and Bryars as nature cannot love â—â— be content with And you may be sure that you can no way be delivered from them but by trusting upon God And will you choose care and torment when so sure and cheap a way of case is sâ—t before you Who can endure to have fears torment him and cares feed daily upon his heart that may safely be delivered from it An ulcerated fâ—stered pained mind is a greater calaâ—ity than any bodily distress alone And if you be cast upon your own care or committed to the trust of any creature you can never rationally have peace For your own ease and comfort then betake your selves to God and cast all your care and burden on him who careth for you and knoweth perfectly what you want 1 Pet. 5. 7. Matth 6. 32. Read often Matth. 6. from â— 2â— How sweet an â—ase and quietness is it to the mind that can confidently trust in God How quiet is he from the storms of trouble and the sickness of mind which others are distressed with Isâ— 26. 3 4. Thou wilâ— keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thâ—e Trust â—â— in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jâ—hovah is everlasting strength Psal. 112. 7 8. He shall not be afraid of evil tydings his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord His heart is established â—e shall not be afraid Psal. 31. 19 20. O how great is thy goodness which thou hast lâ—id up for them that fear thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the Sons of men Thâ—u shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man thou shalt keep them secretly in thy pâ—viliâ—n from the strife of tongues 24. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart â—â— ye that hope in the Lord Psal. 56. 3 4. What time I am afraid I will trust in thee In God I will prâ—ise his word In God have I put my trust I will not fear what flesh can do unto me How easie and sweet a life is this § 18. Direct 11. Remember that Distrust is a pregnant multiplying sin and will carry thee to all iniquity Direct 11. and miseâ—y if thou suffer it to prevail Distrusting God is but our entrance upon a life of error sin and wo It presently sets us on idolatrous confidence on
that they are zealous for the faith when they are but contending for their honour or conceits Passion covers much deceit from the passionate § 22. Direct 17. Suspect your selves most among the great the wise the learned and the godly or Direct 17. any whose favour opinion or applause you most esteem It is easie for an arrant Hypocrite to despise the favour or opinion of the vulgar of the ignorant of the prophane or any whose judgement he contemneth It is no great honour or dishonour to be praised or dispraised by a child or fool or a person that for his ignorance or prophaness is become contemptible But Hypocrisie and Pride do work most to procure the esteem of those whose judgement or parts you most admire One most admireth worldly greatness and such a one will play the Hypocrite most to flatter or please the great ones he admireth Another that is wiser more admireth the judgement of the wise and learned and he will play the Hypocrite to procure the good esteem of such though he can sleight a thousand of the ignorant and his pride it self will make him sleight them Another that is yet wiser is convinced of the excellency of Godly men above all the Great and Learned of the world And this man is more in danger of Pride and Hypocrisie in seeking the good opinion of the Godly and therefore can despise the greatest multitudes of the ignorant and prophane Yea pride it self will make him take it as an addition to his glory to be vilified and opposed by such miscreants as these § 23. Direct 18 Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship that he is a Spirit and Direct 18. therefore to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth and that he is most great and terrible and therefore to be worshipped with sâ—ri usnâ—ss and reverence and not to be dallyed with or served with toyes or lifeless lip-service and that he is most holy pure and jealous and therefore to be purely worshipped and that â—e is still present with you and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do The knowledge of God and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence is the most powerful means against Hypocrisie Christ himself argueth from the Nature of God who is a Spirit against the hypocritical ceremoniousness of the Samaritans and Iews Iohn 4. 23 24. Hypocrites offer that to God which they know a man of ordinary wisdom would scorn if they offered it to him If a man knew their hearts as God doth would he be pleased with words and complements and gestures which are not accompanied with any suitable seriousness of the mind Would he be pleased with affected histrionical actions One that seeth a Papist Priest come out in his Formalities and there lead the people in a Language which they understand not to worship God by a number of Ceremonies and canting repeated customary words would think he saw a Stage-player acting his part and not a wise and holy people seriously worshipping the most holy God And not only in worship but in private duties and in converse with men and in all your lâ—ves the remembrance of Gods presence is a powerful rebuke for all hypocrisie It is more foolish to sin in the sight of God because you can hide it from the world than to steal or commit adultery in the open Market-place before the crowd and be careful that Dogs and Crows discern it not If all the world see you it is not so much as if God in secret see you Be not deceived God is not mocked Gal. 6. 7. § 24. Direct 19. Remember how Hypocrisie is hated of God and what punishment is appointed for Direct 19. Hypocrites They are joyned in torment with unbelievers and as wicked mens punishment is aggravated by their being condemned to the fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels so the punishment of ordinary ungodly persons is aggravated by this that their portion shall be with hypocrites and unbelievers How oft find you the Lamb of God himself denouncing his thundering Woes against the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees How oft doth he inculcate to his Disciples Be not as the Hypocrites Matth. 6. 2 5 16. And no wonder if Hypocrites be hateful to God when they and their services are lifeless Images and have nothing but the Name and outside of Christianity and some antick dress to set them off and humane ornaments of Wit and Parts as a Corpse is more drest with Flowers than the living as needing those Ceremonies for want of life to keep them sweet And a Carrion is not amiable to God And the Hypocrite puts a scorn on God as if he thought that God were like the Heathens Idols that have eyes and see not and could not discern the secret dissemblings of his heart or as if he were like fools and children that are pleased with fair words and little toyes God must needs hate such abuse as this § 25. Direct 20. Come into the Light that your hearts and lives may be throughly known to you Direct 20. Love the most searching faithul Ministry and Books and be thankful to reprovers and plain dealing friends Permanent tepidi â—gnavi neglâ—gâ—ntes Vaâ—â— leves voluptâ—â—si delâ—caâ—â— commoda corporis supersâ—ua sectantur suâ—m compendium in omnibus quaeâ—unt ubicunque honoâ—em existimationem nominis sui integra seâ—vaâ—e possunt Iâ—â—us prâ—priae voluntaâ—â— perâ—â—nacâ—ter addâ—â—â—â— irreâ—â—gnâ—â— minime abnegati superbi curiosi contumaces sunt in omnibuâ— licet â—â—terne coram hominibus bene mâ—â—ati videantur In tentationibus impatientes amari procaces iracundi â—risâ—es aliis molestâ— verbis tamen ingenioque seâ—â—â—â— In prosperis nimium eâ—aâ—i hilaâ—es In adversis nâ—mâ—um turbaâ—i sunt pusilâ—animes Aâ—iorum temeraâ—â—â—â— sunt judices aliorum vitia accuratissime perscrutari de aliorum defectibus frequenter gaâ—â—â—â—re aâ— gloâ—â—ari egregium putant Ex istis simiâ—â—bus operibus facillime cognosci poterunt nam moribus gestibusque suis câ—u sorex quispiam suopte sâ—met judicio produâ—â— Thaâ—le â—loâ— pag. 65 66. Darkness is it that cherisheth deceit It is the office of the Light to manifest Justly do those wretches perish in their hypocrisie who will not endure the light which would undeceive them but fly from a plain and powerful Ministry and hate plain reproof and set themselves by excuses and cavils to defend their own deceit § 26. Direct 21. Be very diligent in the examining of your hearts and all your actions by the Word Direct 21. of God and call your selves often to a strict account Deceit and guilt will not endure strict examination The Word of God is quick and powerful discovering the thoughts and imaginations of the heart There is no Hypocrite but might be delivered from his own deceits if by the assistance of an able Guide he would faithfully go on in the work of self-trying without partiality oâ— sloth § 27. Direct
godly Son of a wicked Father is more honourable than they Your ancestors are but of the common stock of sinful Adam and your great friends may possibly become your enemies and it is little that the greatest of them can do for you if God be not your friend 7. Is it your learning or wisdom or ability for speech or action that you are proud of Remember that the Devils and many that are now in Hell have far exceeded you in these And that the wiser you are indeed the humbler you will be and by pride you confute your ostentation of your wisdom Achitophels wisdom which saveth not the owner from perdition is little cause of glorying Ier. 8. 8 9. There were men that boasted of their wisdom even in the Law of God who yet were ashamed and dismayed for they rejected the Word of the Lord and then what wisdom could there be in them Therefore thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches but let him that gloryeth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness judgement and righteousness in the earth for in these do I delight saith the Lord Jer. 9. 23 24. Those were not unlearned of whom Paul speaketh 1 Cor. 1. 20. Where is the Wise Where is the Scribe Where is the Disputer of this world Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 8. Is it success in Wars or great undertakings that you are proud of But by whose strength did you perform it And how unhappy a success is that which hindreth your success in the work of your salvation And how many have been brought down again to shame that have been lifted up in pride of their successes 9. Is it the applause of men that proclaim your excellency that you are proud of Alas how poor a portion is the breath of man And how mutable are your applauders that perhaps the next day will turn their tunes and as much reproach you Will you be proud of Praise when it is the Devils whistle purposely to entice you into this pernicious snare that he may destroy you It is a danger to be feared for it destroyeth many but not a benefit much to be rejoyced in much less to be proud of for few are the better for it Titles and applause increase not real worth and vertue but puff up many with a mortal tympanie 10. Is it your grace and goodness or eminency in Religion that you are proud of This is most absurd when predominant Pride is a certain sign that you have no saving grace at all and so are proud of what you have not And if you have it so far as you are proud of it you abuse it contradict it and destroy it For Pride is to Grace what the Plague or Consumption is to Health It is Novices that have least grace and knowledge that are aptest to be puft up with Pride and thereby to fall into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 6. that is into the like punishment for the like sin When the Pot boyleth over that which was in it is lost in the fire Rise not too high in the esteem of your grace lest you rise to the loss of it Be not high-minded but fear Rom. 11. 20. When you think you stand take heed lest you fall 1 Cor. 10. 12. § 98. Direct 17. Look to the nature and tendency of every Grace and Ordinance and Duty and use them diligently for they all tend to the destruction of Pride Knowledge discerneth the folly and pernicious tendency of Pride and abundant matter for Humiliation Faith is the casting off our pride and going with empty hungry souls to Christ for mercy and supply It sheweth us the most powerful sight in the world for the humbling of a soul even a Crucified Christ and a most Holy God and a glorified society of humble souls and a dreadful judgement and damnation for the proud I might shew you the same of every grace and duty but for being tedious § 99. Direct 18. Look to the humbling Iudgements of God on your selves and others and turn them Direct 18. all against your Pride You will sure think it an unsuitable and unseasonable thing for the calamitous to be proud Are you not oft complaining of one thing or other upon your consciences your bodies your estates your names your relations or friends and yet will you be proud while you complain If the Judgements that have already befallen you humble you not it God love you and will save you you may expect you should feel more and the load should be increased till it make you sâ—oop O miserable obstinate sinners that can groan with sickness and yet be proud and murmur under want and yet be proud and daily crossed by one or other and yet be proud yea and tormented with fears of Gods displeasure and yet be proud Have not all the Wars and blood and ruines that have befallâ—n us in these Kingdoms been yet enough to take down pride Many 〈…〉 bling sights we have seen and many humbling stripes we have felt and yet are we not humbled We have seen houses râ—bbâ—d and Towns fired and the Countrey pillaged and the blood of many thousands shed and their carkasses scattered about the fields and yet are we not humbled If we were proud of our Riches they have been taken from us If proud of our buildings they have been tuâ—â—ed into ruinous heaps If we have been proud of our Government and the Fame and Glory of our Countrâ—y we have seen how our sins have pulled down our Government dishonoured our Rulers and blâ—mished our Glory and turned it into shame and yet are we not humbled If you lived in a house infected with the Plague and had buried Father and Mother and Brothers and Sisters and but a very few were left alive expecting when their turn came next if these few were not humbled would you not think them blind and sottish persons Do you yet look high and conâ—end for preheminâ—nce and look for honour and envy others and desire to domineer and have your will and way and set out your selves in the neatest dress Must you have sharper stripes before you will be humbled Must greater injuries and violences and losses and fears and reproaches be the means Why will you choose so painful a remedy by frustrating the easier If it must be so the 〈…〉 ment shall shortly come yet nearer to thee It shall either strip thee of the rest or cover theâ— with shame or lay thee in pain upon thy Couch where thy head shall ake and thy heart be sick and thy bâ—dâ— weaâ—y and thou shalt pant and gasp for breath Wilt thou then be proud and câ—â—â—â—â—l for honour When thou expectest hourly when thy proud and guilty soul shall be turned out of tâ—y body
their bodies or minds to serve God you may so far go beyond them and use with thankfulness the mercies given you But you must no more be flesh-pleasers than they 5. And some deceive themselves by interposing sometimes a formal fast as the fleshly Pharisee that fasted twice a week Luke 18. 12. and then they think that they are no sensualists I speak not of the Popish fasting with Fish and Delicates this is not so much as a shew of mortification But what if you really fast as oft as the Pharisees did and quarrel with Christs Disciples for not fasting Matth. 9. 14 15. Will not a sensualist do as much as this if his Physicion require it for his health If the scope of your lives be fleshly it is not the interruption of a formal fast that will acquit you which perhaps doth but quicken your appetite to the next meal § 21. VII Yet many are wrongfully taken by others if not by themselves to be sensual by False appearances of sensuality such mistakes as these 1. Because they live not as meanly and scantly as the poor who want things necessary or helpful to their duty But by that rule I must not be well because other men are sick or I must not go apace because the lame can go but slowly If poor men have bad Horses I may ride on the best I can get to dispatch my business and redeem my time so I prefer not costly useless ostentation before true serviceableness 2. Others are accused as sensual because the weakness of their bodies requireth a more tender usage and dyet than healthful mens some bodies are unfitter for duty if they fast And some are useless through sickness and infirmities if they be not used with very great care And it is as truly a duty to cherish a weak body to enable it for God service as to tame an unruly lustful body and keep it from offending him 3. Some Melancholy conscientious persons are still accusing themselves through meer scrupulosity questioning almost all they eat or drink or wear or do whether it be not too much or too pleasing But it is a cheerful sobriety that God requireth which neither pampereth the body nor yet disableth or hindereth it from its duty and not an unprofitable wrangling scrupulosity § 22. Direct 1. The first and Grand Direction against Flesh-pleasing is that you be sure by a serious Direct 1. living faith to see the Better things with God and to be heartily taken up in minding loving seeking and securing them All the other directions are but subservient to this For certainly mans soul will not be idle being a living active principle And it s as certain that it will not act but upon some End or for some End And there are no other Ends to take us up but either the things temporal or eternal And therefore there is no true cure for a sensual Love of temporal things but to turn the heart to things eternal Believingly think first of the certainty greatness and eternity of the Ioyes above and then think that these may more certainly be yours than any worldly Riches or delights if you do not contemptuously reject them And then think that this is the time in which you must make sure of them and win them if ever you will possess them and that you are sent into the world of purpose on this business And then think with your selves how fleshly pleasures are the only competitors with the everlasting pleasures and that if ever you lose them it will be by over-loving these transitory things and that one half of your work for your salvation lyeth in killing your affections to all below that they may be alive to God alone And lastly think how much higher and sweeter pleasures even in this life the godly do enjoy than you and you are losing them while you prefer these fordid pleasures Do you think that a true Believer hath not a more excellent delight in his fore-thoughts of his immortal blessedness with Christ and in the assurance of the Love of God and communion with him in his holy service than you or any sensualist hath in flâ—shly pleasures Sober and serious Meditation on these things will turn the mind to the true delights § 23. Direct 2. Be acquainted with the range of sensual desires and follow them and watch them Direct 2. in all thâ—ir extravagancies Otherwise while you are stopping one gap they will be running out at many more I have given you many instances in my Treatise of Self-denyal I will here briefly set some before your eyes 1. Wâ—â—ch your Appetites as to meat and drink both quantity and quality Gluttony is a common unâ—bsâ—rvâ—â— sin The flesh no way enslaves men more than by the appetite As we see in Drunkards and Gluttons that can no more forbear than one that thirsteth in a burning Feavor 2. Take heed of the Lust of uncleanness and all degrees of it and approaches to it especially immodest embraces and behaviour 3. Take heed of ribald filthy talk and Love Songs and of such incensing snares 4. Take heed of too much sleep and Idleness 5. Take heed of taking too much delight in your Riches and lands your buildings and delectable convâ—niences 6. Take heed lest Honours or worldly Greatness or mens applause become your too great pleasure 7. And lest you grow to make it your delight to think on such things when you are alone or talk â—â—â—â—y of them in company with others 8. And take heed lest the success and proâ—perity of your affairs do too much please you as him Luke 12. 20 9. Take not up any inordinate pleasure in your children relations or nearest friends 10. Take heed of a delight in vain â—â—profitable sinful company 11. Or in fineness of apparel to set you out to the eyes of others 12. Take heed of a delight in Romances Play-books feigned stories useless news which corrupt the mind and waste your time 13. Take heed of a delight in any recreations which are excessive needless devouring time discomposing the mind entising to further sin hindering any duty especially our delight in God They are miserable souls that can delight themselves in no more safe or profitable things than Cards and Dice and Stage-playes and immodest dancings § 24. Direct 3. Next to the universal Remedy mentioned in the first Direction see that you have the Direct 3. particular remedies still at hand which your own particular way of flesh-pleasing doth most require And let not the love of your vanity prejudice you against a just information but impartially consider of the diseasâ— and the remedy Of the pâ—â—ticulâ—rs anon § 25. Direct 4. Remember still that Goâ— would â—ive yâ—u more pleasure and not less and that he Direct 4. will give you as much of the â—elights of sense as is truly good for you so you will take them in their place in subordination to your heavenly delights And is not
well as he because he will not speak to call them You see by daily experience that a mans Thoughts are much in the power of his will and made to obey it If money and honour or the delight of knowing can cause a wicked Preacher to command his own thoughts on good things as aforesaid you may command yours to the same things if you will but as resolutely exercise your authority over them § 4. Direct 4. Use not your Thoughts to take their liberty and be ungovered For use will make them Direct 4. â—ead-strong and not regard the voice of Reason and it will make Reason careless and remiss Use and custome hath great power on our minds where we use to go our path is plain but where there is no use there is no way Where the water useth to run there is a chanel It s hard ruling those that are used to be unruly If use will do so much with the tongue as we find in some that use to curse and swear and speak vainly and in others that use to speak soberly and religiously in some that by use can speak well in conference preaching or praying many hours together when others that use it not can do almost nothing that way why may it not much prevail with the thoughts § 5. Direct 5. Take heed lest the senses and appetite grow too strong and master Reason for if they Direct 5. do they will at once dispâ—ssess it of the government of the thoughts and will bruiâ—ishly usurp the power themselves As when a rebellious army deposeth a King they do not only cast off the yoak of subjection themselves but dissolve the Government as to all other subjects and usually usurpe it themselves and make themselves Governors If once you be servants to your fleshly appetites and sense your Thoughts will have other work to do and another way to go when you call them to holy and necessary things Especially when the entising objects are at hand You may as well expect a clod to ascend like fire or a swine to delight in temperance as a glutton or drunkard or fornicator to delight in holy contemplation Reason and Flesh cannot both be the Governors § 6. Direct 6. Keep under passions that they depose not Reason from the Government of your thoughts Direct 6. I told you before how they cause evil thoughts and as much will they hinder good Four passions are especial enemies to meditation 1. Anger 2. Perplexing Grief 3. Disturbing Fear 4. But above all excess of Pleasure in any worldly fleshly thing Who can think that the mind is fit for holy contemplation when it flames with wrath or is distracted with grief and care or trembleth with fear or is drunk with pleasure Grief and fear are the most harmless of the four yet all hinder Reason from governing the thoughts § 7. Direct 7. Evil habits are another great hindrance of Reasons command over our thoughts Labor Direct 7. therefore diligently for the cure of this disease Though Habits do not necessitate they strongly encline And when every good thought must go against a strong and constant inclination it will weary Reason to drive on the soul and you can expect but small success § 8. Direct 8. Urgent and oppressing busyness doth almost necessitate the thoughts Therefore avoid Direct 8. as much as you can such urgencies when you would be free for meditation Let your thoughts have as little diverting matter as may be at those times when you would have them entire and free for God § 9. Direct 9. Crowds and ill company are no friends to meditation Choose therefore the quietness Direct 9. of solitude when you would do much in this As it is ill studying in a croud and unseasonable before a multitude to be at secret prayer except some short ejaculations so is it as unmeet a season for holy meditation The mind that is fixedly employed with God or about things spiritual had need of all possible freedom and peace to retire into it self and abstract it self from alien things and seriously intend its greater work § 10. Direct 10. Above all take heed of sinful Interests and designs for these are the garison of Satan Direct 10. and must be battered down before any holy cogitations can take place He that is set upon a design of rising or of growing rich hath something else to do than to entertain those sober thoughts of things eternal which are destructive of his carnal design § 11. Direct 11. The impediments of Reasons authority being thus removed distinguish between your Direct 11. occasional and your stated ordinary course of thoughts And as your hands have their ordinary stated course of labour and every day hath its employment which you fore-expect so let your Thoughts know where is their proper chanel and their every daies work and let holy prudence appoint out proportionable time and service for them What a life will that man live that hath no known course of labour but only such as accidentally he is called to His work must needs be uncertain various unprofitable and uncomfortable and next to none And he that hath not a stated course of employment for his thoughts will have them do him little service Consider first how much of the day is usually to be spent in common busyness And then consider whether it be such as taketh up your thoughts as well as your hands or such as leaveth your thoughts at liberty as a Lawyer a Physicion a Merchant and most Tradsemen must employ their Thoughts to the well-doing of their work And these must be the more desirous of a seasonable vacant hour for meditation because their thoughts must be otherwise employed all the rest of the day But a Weaver a Taylor and some other Tradsemen and day-labourers may do their work well and yet have their thoughts free for better things a great part of the day These must contrive an ordinary way of employment for their thoughts when their work doth not require them and they need no other time for meditation The rest must entertain some short occasional meditations intermixt with their busyness but they cannot then have time for more solemn meditation which differeth from the other as a set prayer from a short ejaculation or a Sermon from an occasional short discourse They that have more time for their thoughts must before-hand prudently consider how much time it is best to spend in meditation for the increase of Knowledge and how much for the exercise of holy affections and on what subject and in what order and so to know their ordinary work § 12. Direct 12. Lay your selves under the urgencie of necessity and the power of those motives which Direct 12. should most effectually engage your thoughts In the foresaid instance what is it that makes a wicked preacher that he can study Divine things orderly from year to year but that he is still under the
the Meek that they shall inherit the earth Matth. 5. 50. § 11. Direct 11. Live as in Gods presence and when your passions grow bold repress them with the Direct 11. reverend Name of God and bid them remember that God and his holy Angels see you § 12. Direct 12. Look on others in their passion and see how unlovely they make themselves With Direct 12. â—rowning countenances and flaming eyes and threatning devouring looks and hurtful inclinations And think with your selves whether these are your most desirable patterns § 13. Direct 13. Without any delay confess the sin to those that stand by if easier means will not Direct 13. repress it And presently take the shame to your selves and shame the sin and honour God This means is in your power if you will and it will be an excellent effectual means Say to those that you are angry with I find a sinful anger kindling in me and I begin to forget Gods presence and my duty and am tempted to speak provoking words to you which I know God hath forbidden me to do Such a present opening of your temptation will break the force of it And such a speedy confession will stop the fire that it go no further For it will be an engagement upon you in point of honour even the reputation both of your wit and honesty which will both suffer by it if you go on in the sin just when you have thus opened it by confession I know there is prudence to be used in this that you do it not so as may make you ridiculous or harden others in their sinful provocations But with prudence and due caution it is an excellent remedy which you can use if you are not unwilling § 14. Direct 14. If you have let your passion break out to the offence or wrong of any by word or Direct 14. deed freely and speedily confess it to them and ask them forgiveness and warn them to take heed of the like sin by your example This will do much to clear your consciences to preserve your Brother to cure the hurt and to engage you against the sin hereafter If you are so proud that you will not do this say no more You cannot help it but that you will not A good heart will not think this too dear a remedy against any sin § 15. Direct 15. Go presently in the manner that the place alloweth you to prayer to God for Direct 15. pardon and grace against the sin Sin will not endure prayer and Gods presence Tell him how apt your pievish hearts are to be kindled into sinful wrath and intreat him to help you by his sufficient grace and engage Christ in the cause who is your head and advocate and then your souls will grow obedient and calm Even as Paul when he had the prick in the flesh prayed thrice as Christ did in his agony so you must pray and pray again and again till you find Gods grace sufficient 2 Cor. 12. 7 8 9. for you § 16. Direct 16. Covenant with some faithful friend that is with you to watch over you and rebuke Direct 16. your passions as soon as they begin to appear and promise them to take it thankfully and in good part And perform that promise that you discourage them not Either you are so far aweary of your sin and willing to be rid of it as to be willing to do what you can against it or you are not If you are you can do this much if you please If you are not pretend not to repent and to be willing to be delivered from your sin upon any lawful terms when it is not so Remember still the mischievous effects of it do make it to be no contemptible sin Eccles. 7. 9. Be not hasty in thy Spirit to be angry for anger resteth in the bosome of fools Prov. 16. 32. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruleth his Spirit than he that taketh a City Prov. 15. 18. A wrathful man stirreth up strife but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife The discretion of a man deferreth his anger and it is his glory to pass over a transgression Prov. 19. 11. Tit. 8. Directions against sinful Fear § 1. THe chief of my advice concerning this sin I have given you before Chap. 3. Direct 12. Yet somewhat I shall here add Fear is a necessary Passion in man which is planted in Nature for the restraining of us from sin and driving us on to duty and preventing misery It is either God or Devils or men or inferiour creatures or our selves that we fear God must be feared as he is God as he is Great and Holy and Iust and True as our Lord and King and Judge and Father And the fear of him is the beginning of wisdom Devils must be feared only as subordinate to God as the executioners of his wrath And so must men and beasts and fire and water and other creatures be feared and no otherwise We must so discern and fear a danger as to avoid it Our selves we are less apt to fear because we know that we Love our selves But there is no creature that we have so much cause to fear as our folly weakness and willfulness in sin § 2. Fear is sinful 1. When it proceedeth from unbelief or a distrust of God 2. When it ascribeth more to the creature than is its due As when we fear Devils or men as Great or bad or as our enemies without due respect to their dependance upon the will of God When we fear a chained creature as if he were unchained 3. When we fear God upon mistake or error or fear that in him which is not in him or is not to be feared As when we fear least he will break his promise lest he will condemn the keepers of his Covenant lest he will not forgive the penitent that hate their sin lest he will despise the contrite lest he will not hear the prayers of the humble faithful soul lest he will fail them and forsake them lest he will not cause all things to work together for their good lest he will forsake his Church lest Christ will not come again lest our bodies shall not be raised lest there be no life of glory for the just or no immortality of souls all such fears as these are sinful 4. When our fear is so immoderate in degree as to distract us or hinder us from faith and prayer and make us melancholy or when it hindereth Love and praise and thanks and necessary joy and tendeth not to drive us to God and to the use of means to avoid the danger but to drive us from God and kill our hope and make us sit down in despair Directions against sinful fear of God § 3. Direct 1. Know God in his Goodness Mercifulness and Truth and it will banish sinful fears Direct 1. of him For they proceed
they would not buy a little forbidden poisonous pleasure with the price of future pain and sorrows and if they did not foolishly and over-tenderly refuse those holy necessary medicinal sorrows by which their greater overwhelming and undoing sorrows should have been prevented § 13. Direct 7. Look always on your Remedy when you look on your misery and when you find any Direct 7. dangerous sin or sign in you presently consider what is your duty in order to your recovery and escape It is an ordinary thing with pievish distempered natures when they are reproved for any sin to resist the reproof by excuses as long as they can And when they can resist no longer then they fall into despairing lamentations If they are so bad what then shall they do and in the mean time never set themselves against the sin and cast it off and return to their obedience that their comforts may return They will do any thing rather than amend The reason why God convinceth them of sin is that they may forsake it and they are sooner brought to any thing than to this Convince them of their pride or malice or worldliness or disobedience or slothfulness or passion and they will sooner sink in sorrow and despair than they will set upon a resolved reformation This is it indeed which the Devil desireth He can allow you grief and desperation but not to amend But is this best for you Or is it pleasing to God Deny not your sin but see withal that there is enough in Christ for your pardon and deliverance He hath appointed you means for your present recovery and he is ready to help you Ask what is your duty for your cure and set upon it without delay § 14. Direct 8. Remember your causes of Ioy as well as your cause of sorrow that each may have Direct 8. their due and your joy and sorrow may both be suited to their causes To which end you must labour for the exactest acquaintance with your own condition that possibly you can attain to If you are yet ungodly Act. 8. 8. your sorrow must be greater than your joy or else it will be irrational joy and pernitious to your souls and increase your after sorrow And you must not over-look so much cause of comfort as is afforded you in Gods patience and the offers of a saviour and of pardon and grace and life in him If you are truly Godly you must so mourn for sin and weakness and wants and crosses and afflictions of your selves and others as never to forget the unvaluable mercies which you have already received your part in Christ and life eternal your beginnings of grace and your reconciliation with God which allow and command you greatly to rejoyce And remember that no humiliations will excuse you from the observation and acknowledgement of all these mercies § 15. Direct 9. Read over all the commands of Scipture that make it your Duty to rejoyce in the Direct 9. Lord and exceedingly to rejoyce And make as much conscience of them as of other commands of God The same God commandeth you to Rejoyce who commandeth you to hear and pray and repent See Psal. 33. 1 Phil. 3. 1. 4. 4. Rom. 5. 2. Phil. 3. 3. 1 Thes. 5. 16. 1 Pet. 1. 6. 8. 4. 13. Heb. 3. 6. 2 Cor. 6. 10. Rom. 12. 12. Psal. 32. 11. 132. 9 16. Rom. 14. 17. Psal. 5. 11. § 16. Direct 10. Befriend not your own excessive sorrows by thinking them to be your duty nor Direct 10. suspect not lawful mirth and joy as if it were a sin or a thing unbecoming you For if you take your sin for your duty and plead for it and your duty for your sin and plead against it you are far from the way of amendment and recovery And yet it is common with an afflicted weak impatient soul to fall into liking though not in Love with their inordinate sorrows and to justifie them and think that it is their duty still to mourn If these sorrows were of God we should be more backward to them And if our comfort were not more pleasing to God our natures would not be so backward to them as they are § 17. Direct 11. Love no creature too much and let it not grow too sweet and pleasant to you Else Direct 11. you are preparing for sorrow from the creature Love it less and you shall sorrow less All your grief for crosses and losses in goods estate in children and friends in reputation liberty health and life doth come from your over-loving them Value them but as they deserve and you may easily bear the loss of them He that maketh them his Idol or felicity will grieve for the want of them or the loss of them as a man undone that cannot live without them But he that hath placed his happiness and hopes in God and valueth the world no further than it tendeth to his ultimate end will no further grieve for the want of it than as he misseth it to that end 1 Tim. 6. 10. The love of money and coveting after it doth pierce men through with many sorrows Mark what you find your heart too much set upon and pleased in or hoping after and take it off quickly if you love your peace § 18. Direct 12. Learn to be pleased and satisfied in the will of God Trust your Heavenly Father Direct 12. who knoweth what you need It is some rebellion or crossness of our wills to the will of God which causeth our inordinate griefs and trouble Because we cannot bring our wills to his will nor make our reason stoop unto his wisdom nor think well of his providence unless he will suit it to our conceits and interests and lusts therefore so far as we are carnal we are ordinarily displeased and grieved at his ways If we might have had our own wills about our estates or names or children or friends or health or life we should not have been troubled at the present But because it is not our way but Gods way that is taken nor our will but Gods will that is done therefore we are grieved and discontent as if his way and will were worse than ours and God had wanted his foolish children to be his counsellors or they could have chosen better for themselves § 19. Direct 13. Afflict your selves no further than God or man afflict you But remember if you think Direct 13. Libâ—nter feâ— as quod necesâ—e est â—doâ—or patieâ—â—ia vinâ—itur Martiâ— Duâ—niens de Morib Tristitiam si poâ—es ne admiseris sin minus ne ostenderis Id. ibid. that you have too much already against your wills how foolish and self contradicting it is to lay a great deal more willfully upon your selves Is it slanders or reproach that men afflict you with Let it be so that toucheth not the heart Is it poverty crosses or losses that God afflicteth you with Let it be so
would be more offended Therefore I shall only give you these general intimations 1. Nature is content with a little but Appetite is never content till it have drowned Nature 2. It is the perfection of concoction and 〈…〉 Senec. goodness of the nutriment that is more conducible to health than the quantity 3. Nature will easilier overcome twice the quantity of some light and passable nourishment than half so much of gross and heavy meats Therefore those that prescribe just twelve Ounces a day without differencing meats that so much differ do much mistake 4. A healthful strong body must have more than the weak and sickly 5. Middle aged persons must have more than old folks or children Juvenum viâ—tus est Nihil â—â—â—â—us Soâ—â—at 6. Hard Labourers must have more than easie Labourers and these more than the idle or Students or any that stir but little 7. A body of close Pores that evacuateth little by sweat or transpiration must have less especially of moisture than another 8. So must a cold and flegmatick constitution 9. So must a stomach that corrupteth its food and casteth it forth by periodical bilious evacuations 10. That which troubleth the stomach in the digestion is too much or too bad unless with very weak sickly persons 11. So is that too much or bad which maketh you more dull for study or more heavy and unfit for labour unless some disease be the principal cause 12. A body that by excess is already filled with crudities should take less than another that nature may have time to digest and waste them 13. Every one should labour to know the temperature of their own bodies and what diseases they are most enclined to and so have the judgement of their Physicion or some skilful person to give them such directions as are suitable to their own particular temperature and diseases 14. Hard Labourers err more in the quality than the quantity partly through poverty partly through ignorance and partly through appetite while they refuse that which is more wholsome as meer Bread and Beer if it be less pleasing to them 15. If I may presume to conjecture ordinarily very hard Labourers exceed in quantity about a fourth part Shop-keepers and persons of easier Trades do ordinarily exceed about a third part Voluptuous Gentlemen and their Servingmen and other servants of theirs that have no hard labour do usually exceed about half in half But still I except persons that are extraordinarily temperate through weakness or through wisdom And the same Gentlemen usually exceed in Variety Costliness Curiosity and Time much more than they do in quantity so that they are Gluttons of the first magnitude The Children of those that govern not their appetites but let them eat and drink as much and as often as they desire it do usually exceed above half in half and lay the foundation of the diseases and miseries of all their lives All this is about the truth though the Belly believe it not § 48. When you are once grown wise enough to know what in measure and time and quality is Venter praecepta non audit Senec. fittest for your health go not beyond that upon any importunity of Appetite or of friends For all that is beyond that is Gluttony and sensuality in its degree § 49. Direct 8. If you can lawfully avoid it make not your Table a snare of Temptation to your Direct 8. selves or others I know a greedy appetite will make any Table that hath but necessaries a snare to iâ— If you will not take this counsel at least use after meat to set before your guests a Bason and a â—eather oâ— a Provang to vomit it up again that you may shew some mercy to their bodies if you will shew none to their souls self But do not you unnecessarily become Devils or tempters to your selves or others 1. For Quality study not Deliciousness too much unless for some weak distempered stomachs the best meat is that which leaveth behind it in the mouth neither a troublesome loathing nor an eager appetite after more for the tastes sake But such as Bread is that leaveth the Palate in an indifferent moderation The curious inventions of new and dilicious dishes meerly to please the Appetite is Gluttony inviting to greater Gluttony Excess in Quality to invite to excess in Quantity § 50. Object But you 'll say I shall be thought niggardly or sordid and reproached behind my back if my Table be so fitted to the temperate and abstinent Answ. This is the pleading of Pride for Gluttony Rather than you will be talkt against by belly-gods A Sensualist craving to be admitted of Cato among his familiars Cato answered him I cannot live wiâ—h one whose Palate is wiser than his brain Erâ—s or ignorant fleshly people you will sin against God and prepare a Feast or Sacrifice for Bacchus or Venus The antient Christians were torn with Beasts because they would not cast a little Frankincense into the fire on the Altar of an Idol And will you feed so many Idol bellies so liberally to avoid their censure Did not I tell you that Gulosity is an irrational vice Good and temperate persons will speak well of you for it And do you more regard the judgement and esteem of belly-gods § 51. Object But it is not only riotous luxurious persons that I mean I have no such at my Table But it will be the matter of obloquy even to good people and those that are sober Answ. I told you some measure of Gluttony is become a common sin and many are tainted with it through custome that otherwise are good and sober But shall they therefore be left as uncurable or shall they make all others as bad as they And must we all commit that sin which some sober people are grown to favour You bear their censures about different opinions in Religion and other matters of difference and why not here The deluded Quakers may be witnesses against you that while they run into the contrary extream can bear the deepest censures of all the world about them And cannot you for honest Temperance and Sobriety bear the censures of some distempered or guilty persons that are of another mind Certainly in this they are no Temperate persons when they plead for excess and the baits of sensuality and intemperance § 52. 2. For variety also make not your Table unnecessarily a snare Have no greater variety than the weakness of stomachs or variety of Appetites doth require Unnecessary variety and pleasantness of meats are the Devils great instruments to draw men to Gluttony And I would wish no good people to be his Cooks or Caterers When the very brutish Appetite it self begins to say of one dish I have enough then comes another to tempt it unto more excess and â—â—other after that to more All this that I have said I have the concurrent judgement of Physicion 〈…〉 n who condemn fulness and variety as
drinking healths or urging Direct 9. others to pledge them or drink more Plutarch saith that when Agesilaus was made the Master of a Feast and was to prescribe the Laws for drinking his Law was If there be Wine enough give every one what he asketh for if not enough divide it equally By which means none were tempted or urged to drink and the intemperate were ashamed to ask for more than others As among Witches so among Drunkards the Devil hath his Laws and Ceremonies and its dangerous to practise them § 85. Direct 10. Go to thy sinful companions to their houses and tell them plainly and seriously Direct 10. that thou repentest of what thou hast done already and that thou art ashamed to remember it and that now thou perceivest that there is a righteous God and a day of judgement and an endless punishment to be thought on and that thou art resolved thou wilt be voluntarily mad no more and that thou wilt not sell thy soul and Saviour for a merry cup And beseech them for the sake of Christ and of their souls to joyn with thee in repentance and reformation but let them know that if they will not thou comest to take thy leave of them and art resolved thou wilt no more be their companion in sin lest thou be their companion in Hell If thou art willing indeed to Repent and be saved do this presently and plainly and stick not at their displeasure or reproach If thou wilt not say thou wilt not and say no more thou canst not but say I will keep my sin and be damned For that 's the English of it § 86. Direct 11. Suppose when the Cup of excess is offered thee that thou sawest these words Direct 11. Sin and Hell written upon the Cup and sawest the Devil offering it thee and urging thee to drink and sawest Christ bleeding on the Cross and calling to thee O drink not that which câ—steth so dear a price as my blood Strongly imprint this supposition on thy mind And it is not unreasonable For certainly sin is in thy Cup and Hell is next to sin and it is the Devil that puts thee on and its Christ unseen that would disswade thee § 87. Direct 12. Suppose that there were mortal poyson in the Cup that is offered thee Ask thy Direct 12. self Would I drink it if there were poyson in it If not why should I drink it when sin is in it and Hell is near it And the supposition is not vain It s written of Cyrus that when Aâ—tiages observed that at a Feast he drank no Wine and asked him the reason he answered because he thought there was poyson in the cup for he had observed some that drunk out of it lost their speech or understanding and some of them vomited and therefore he feared it would poyson him However its poyson to the soul. § 88 Direct 13. Look soberly upon a drunken man and think whether that be a desirable plight Direct 13. for a wise man to put himself into See how ill-favouredly he looks with heavy eyes and a slabbering mouth stinking with drink or vomit staggering falling spewing bawling talking like a mad man pitied by wise men hooted at by Boyes and madly reeling on towards Hell And â—â—thal look upon some wise and sober man and see how composed and comely is his countenance and gesture how wise his words how regular his actions how calm his mind envied by the wicked but reverenced by all that are impartial And then bethink thee which of these it is better to be like Saith Basil Drunkenness makes men sleep like the dead and wake like the sleeping It turneth a man into a useless noysome filthy hurtful and devouring Beast § 89. Direct 14. If all this will not serve turn if thou be but willing I can teach thee a cheap Direct 14. restraint and tell thee of a medicine that is good against Drunkenness and Excess Resolve that after every Cup of excess thou wilt drink a Cup of the juyce of Wormwood or of Carduus or Centaury or Germandâ—r at least as soon as thou comest home and growest wiser that this shall be thy penance And hold on this course but a little while and thy appetite will rather choose to be without the drink than to bear the penance Do not stick at it if thy Reason be not strong enough for a manly â—ure drench thy self like a Beast and use such a cure as thou art capable of and in time it may bring thee to be capable of a better And I can assure thee a bitter draught is a very cheap remedy to prevent a sin § 90 Direct 15. If all this will not serve I have yet another remedy if thou be but Willing Direct 15. Confess thy self unfit to govern thy self and give up thy self to the government of some other thy Wife thy Parents or thy friend And here these things are to be done 1. Engage thy Wife or Friend to watch over thee and not to suffer thee to go to the Ale-house nor to drink more than is profitable to thy health 2. Deliver thy Purse to them and keep no money thy self 3. Drink no more at home but what they give thee and leave it to them to judge what measure is best for thee 4. When thou art tempted to go to the Ale-house tell thy wife or friend that they may watch thee Even as thou wouldst call for help if Thieves were robbing thee 5. Give leave to thy Wife or friend to charge the Ale-sellers to give thee no drink And go thy self when thou art in thy right mind and charge them thy self to give thee none and tell them that thou art not thy self or in thy right wits when thou desirest it If these means seem now too hard to thee and thou wilt sin on and venture upon the wrath and curse of God and upon Hell rather than thou wilt use them remember hereafter that thou wast damned because thou wouldst be damned and that thou chosest the way to Hell to scape these troubles and take that thou gettest by it But do not say thou couldst not help it for I am sure thou canst do this if thou wilt Thou wilt lock thy door against Thieves Lock thy mouth also against a more dangerous Thief that would rob thee of thy Reason and salvation Saith Basil If his Master do but box or beat his servant he will run away from the strokes And wilt thou not run away from the drink that would break thy brains and understanding § 91. Direct 16. But the saving remedy is this Study the love of God in Christ and the riches of Direct 16. Grace and the eternal glory promised to holy souls till thou be in Love with God and Heaven and Holiness Read Eph. 5. 18 and hast found sweeter pleasure than thy excess and then thou wilt need no more Directions PART V. Tit. 1. Directions against
8. marry than to burn 1 Cor. 7. 9. It is Gods Ordinance partly for this end Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled Heb. 13. 4. It is a resemblance of Christs Union with his Church and is sanctified to believers Eph. 5. 1 Cor. 7. Perhaps it may cast thee upon great troubles in the world if thou be unready for that state as it is with Apprentices Forbear then thy sin at easier rates or else the lawful means must be used though it undo thee It s better thy Body be undone than thy soul if thou wilt needst have it to be one of them But if thou be marryed already thou art a monster and not a man if the remedy prevail not with thee But yet the other directions may be also serviceable to thee § 26. Direct 9. If less means prevâ—il not open thy case to some able faithful friend and engage Direct 9. them to watâ—h ever thee and tell them when thou art most endangered by the temptation This will shame thee from the sin and lay more engagements on thee to forbear it If thou tell thy friend Now I am tempted to the sin and now I am going to it he will quickly stop thee Break thy secresie and thou losest thy opportunity Thou canst do this if thou be willing If ever thy Conscience prevail so far with thee as to resolve against thy sin or to be willing to escape then take the time while Conscience is awake and go tell thy friend And tell him who it is that is thy wicked companion and let him know all thy haunts that he may know the better how to help thee Dost thou say that this will shame thee It will do so to him that it s known to But that is the benefit of it and that 's the reason I advise thee to it that shame may help to save thy soul. If thou go on the sin will both shame and damn thee and a greater â—hame than this is a gentle remedy in so foul and dangerous a disease § 27. Direct 10. Therefore if yet all this will not serve turn Tell it to many yea rather tell it all Direct 10. the Town than not be â—ured And then the publick shame will do much more Confess it to thy Pastor and desire him â—penly to beg the prayers of the Congregation for thy pardon and recovery Begin thus to crave the fruit of Church Discipline thy self so far shouldst thou be from flying from it and spâ—rning against it as the desperate hardened sinners do If thou say This is a hard lesson remember that the suffering of Hell is harder Do not say that I wrong thee by putting thee upon scandal and open shame It is thou that puttest thy self upon it by making it necessary and refusing all easier remedies I put thee on it but on supposition that thou wilt not be easilier cured Almost as Christ puts thee upon cutting off a right hand or plucking out a right eye lest all the body be cast into hell This is not the way that he commandeth thee first to take he would have thee avoid the need of it but he tells thee that its better do so than worse and that this is an easie suffering in comparison of Hell And so I advise thee if thou love thy credit forbear thy sin in a cheaper way but if thou wilt not do so take this way rather than damn thy soul. If the shame of all the Town be upon thee and the Boys should hoot after thee in the Streets if it would drive thee from thy sin how easie were thy suffering in comparison of what it is like to be Concealment is Satans great advantage It would be hard for thee to sin thus if it were but opened Tit. 2. Directions against inward filthy Lusts. § 1. Direct 1. BEcause with most the temperature of the Body hath a great hand in this sin Direct 1. your first care must be about the body to reduce it unto a temper less inclined to lust And here the chief remedy is fasting and much abstinence And this may the better be born because for the most part it is persons so strong as to be able to endure it that are under this temptation If your Temptation be not strong the less abstinence from meat and drink may serve turn For I I would prescribe you no stronger Physick than is needful to cure your disease But if it be violent and lesser means will not prevail it s better your bodies be somewhat weakened than your souls corrupted and undone Therefore in this case 1. Eat no Breakfast nor Suppers but one meal a day unless a bit or two of Bread and a sup or two of Water in the morning and yet not too full a dinner and nothing at night 2. Drink no Wine or strong Drink but Water if the stomach can bear it without sickness and usually in such hot bodies it is healthfuller than Beer 3 Eat no hot Spices or strong or heating or windy meats Eat Lettice and such cooling Herbs 4. If need require it be often let blood or purged with such purges as copiously evacuate serosity and not only irritate 5. And oft bath in cold Water But the Physicion should be advised with that they may be safely done § 2. If you think this course too dear a cure and had rather cherish your flesh and lust you are not the persons that I am now Directing for I speak to such only as are willing to be cured and to use the necessary means that they may be cured If you be not brought to this your Conscience had need of better awakening I am sure Christ saith that when the Bridegroom was taken from them his Disciples should fast Mar. 2. 19 20. And even painful Paul was in fasting often 2 Cor. 6. 5. 11. 27. and kept under his body and brought it into subjection lest by any means when he had Preached to others himself should be a castaway 1 Cor. 9. 27. And I am sure that the ancient Christians that lived in solitude and eat many of them nothing but bread and water or meaner fare than Act 10. 30. 14 23. â—uâ— â— 37. bread did not think this cure too dear Yea smaller necessities than this engaged them in fasting 1 Cor. 7. 5. This unclean Devil will scarcely be cast out but by prayer and fasting Mar. 9. 29. § 3. And I must tell you that Fulness doth naturally cherish Lust as fewel doth the fire Fulness of bread prepared the Sodomites for their filthy lusts It s no more wonder that a stuffed paunch hath a lustful fury than that the water runs into the Pipes when the Cistern is full or than it is wonder to see a dunghill bear weeds or a Carrion to be full of crawling Magots Plutarch speaks of a Spartan that being asked why Lycurgus made no Law against Adultery answered There are no Adulterers with us But saith the other what if
in the most adorned manner and do all that Harlots can do to make themselves a snare to fools do put the charitable hard to it whether to believe that it is their tongues or their backs that are the lyer As Hierome saith Thou deservest Hell though none be the worse for thee for thou broughtest the poyson if there had been any to drink it Let thy apparel be suited not only to thy rank but to thy disease If thou be enclined to lust go the more meanly clad thy self and gaze not on the ornaments of others It s folly indeed that will be enamoured on the Taylors work yet this is so common that its frequently more the apparel than the person that â—ntiseth first and homely rags would have prevented the deceit As the Poet saith Auferimur cultu gemmis auroque teguntur Omnia pars minima est ipsa puella sui Ovid. de Remed Am. § 13. Direct 11. Think on thy tempting object as it is within and as it shortly will appear without Direct 11. How ordinary is it for that which you call Beauty to be the portion of a fool and a fair skin to cover a silly childish pievish mind and a soul that is enslaved to the Devil And as Solomon saith Prov 11. 22. As a jewel of Gold in a Swines snout so is a fair woman without discretion And will you lust after an such adorned thing Think also what a dunghill of filth is covered with all those ornaments that it would turn thy stomach if thou sawest what is within them And think what a face that would be if it were but covered with the Pox and what a face it will be when sickness or age hath consumed or wrinkled it And think what thy admired Carkass will be when it hath lain a few days in the grave Then thou wouldst have little mind of it And how quickly will that be O man there is nothing truly amiable in the Creature but the image of God the wisdom and holiness and righteousness of the soul. Love this then if thou wilt Love with wisdom with purity and safety For the Love of Purity is pure and safe § 14. Direct 12. Think on thy own death and how fast thou hastest to another world Is a lustful Direct 12. heart a seemly temper for one that is ready to dye and ready to see God and come into that world where there is nothing but pure and holy doth abide § 15. Direct 13. Consider well the tendency and fruits of lust that it may still appear to your Direct 13. minds as ugly and terrible as it is indeed 1. Think what a shame it is to the soul that can no better rule the body and that is so much defiled by its lusts 2. Think what an unfit companion it is to lodge in the same heart with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit shall a member of Christ be thus polluted shall the Temple of the Holy Ghost be thus turned into a Swine sty Is lust fit to dwell with the Love of God wilt thou entertain thy Lord with such odious company what an unkindness and injury is this to God that when he that dwelleth in the highest Heavens condescendeth to take up a dwelling in thy heart thou shouldst bring these Toads and Snakes into the same room with him Take heed lest he take it unkindly and be gone He hath said he will dwell with the humble and contrite heart but where said he I will dwell in a lustful heart 3. Think how unfit it makes thee for Prayer or any holy address to God What a shame and fear and deadness it casts upon thy spirit 4. And think how it tends to worse Lust tendeth to actual filthiness and that to Hell cherish not the Eggs if thou wouldst have none of the Brood It s an easie step from a Lustful heart to a defiled body and a shorter step thence to everlasting horrour than you imagine As St. Iames saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and entised then when lust both conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1. 13 14. Gal. 6. 8. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Remember that Lust is the spawn of sin and sin is the way to Hell § 16. Direct 14. Be sure to keep up a holy constant Government over thy Thoughts Suffer them not Direct 14. to go after tempting filthy sensual things As soon as ever a thought of Lust comes into thy mind abhor it and cast it out Abundance of the cure and of thy safety lyeth upon thy Thoughts They that let their Thoughts run uncontrolled and seed on filthiness are already fornicators in the heart and are hatching the Cockatrice Eggs and no wonder if from Thoughts they proceed to deeds O what a deal of uncleanness is committed by the Thoughts which people are little ashamed of because they are unseen of men If the Thoughts of many were open to beholders what wantonness and lust would appear in many adorned Sepulchres Even in the time of holy Worship when once such give the unclean spirit possession of their thoughts how hardly is he cast out they can scarce look a comely person in the face without some vicious thought If Hierome confess that in his Wilderness his Thoughts were running among the Ladies at Rome what may we think of them that feed such filthy Phantasies Say not you cannot rule your Thoughts You can do much if you will and more than you do If money and honour can make an ungodly Preacher command his Thoughts to holy things in the studies of Divinity through much of his life you may see that your Thoughts are much in your power but of this before § 17. Direct 15. If other means serve not open thy case to some friend and shame thy self to him as Direct 15. I advised under the former Title Confession and shame and advise will help thee § 18. Direct 16. Above all go to Christ for help and beg his spirit and give up thy Heart to better Direct 16. things O if it were taken up with God and Heaven and the Holy life that 's necessary thereto these things are so Great and Holy and sweet and of such concernment to thee that they would leave little room for Lust within thee and would make thee abhor it as contrary to those things which have thy heart No such cure for any carnal Love as the Love of God nor for fleshly lusts as a spiritual renewed Heavenly mind Thou wouldst then tell Satan that God hath taken up all the room and thy narrow Heart is too little for him alone and that there is no room for lust or the thoughts that serve it A true Conversion which turneth the heart to God doth turn it from this with other sins though some sparks may still be unextinguished It was once noted
Wilderness than with a contentious angry woman Prov. 29. 22. An angry man stirreth up strife and a furious man aboundeth in transgression There is no ruling the tongue if you cannot rule the passions Therefore it 's good counsel Prov. 22. 24. Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go lest thou learn his way and get a snare to thy soul. § 47. Direct 9. Foresee your opportunities of profitable discourse and your temptations to evil Direct 9. speeches For we are seldom throughly prepared for sudden unexpected accidents Consider when you go forth what company you are like to fall into and what good you are like to be called to or what evil you are likest to be tempted to especially consider the ordinary stated duties and temptations of your daily company and converse § 48. Direct 10. Accordingly besides your aforesaid general preparations be prepared particularly Direct 10. for these duties and those temptations carry still about with you some special preservatives against those particular sins of speech which you are most in danger of and some special provisions and helps to those duties of speech which you may be called to As a Surgeon will carry about with him his instruments and Salves which he is like to have use for among the persons that he hath to do with And as a Traveller will carry such necessaries still with him as in his travail he cannot be without If you are to converse with angry men be still furnished with patience and firm resolutions to give place to wrath Rom. 12. 19. If you are to converse with ignorant ungodly men go furnished with powerful convincing reasons to humble them and change their minds If you are to go amongst the cavilling or scorning enemies of holiness go furnished with well digested arguments for the defence of that which they are likest to oppose that you may shame and stop the mouths of such gainsayers This must be done by the word of the spirit which is the word of God Ephes. 6. 17. Therefore be well acquainted with the Scripture and with particular plain Texts for each particular use By them the man of God is compleat throughly furnished to every good work 2 Tim. 3. 17. § 49. Direct 11. Continually walk as in the presence of God and as under his Government and Direct 11. Law and as those that are passing on to Iudgement Ask your selves whatever you say 1. Whether Psal. 1 9. 4. it be fit for God to hear 2. Whether it be agreeable to his holy Law 3. Whether it be such speech as you would hear of at the day of judgement If it be speech unmeet for the hearing of a grave and reverend man will you speak it before God will you speak wantonly or filthily or foolishly or maliciously when God forbiddeth it and when he is present and heareth every word and when you must certainly give account to him of all § 50. Direct 12. Pray every morning to God for preservation from the sins of speech that you are Direct 12. lyable to that day Commit the custody of your tongues to him Not so as to think your selves discharged of it but so as to implore and trust his grace Pray as David Psal. 141. 3 4. Set a watch O Lord before my mouth keep the door of my lips encline not my heart to any evil thing and that the Psal. 19. 14. words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart may be acceptable to him § 51. Direct 13. Make it part of your continual work to watch your tongues Carelesness and negligence Direct 13. will not serve turn in so difficult a work of government Iames telleth you that to tame and rule the tongue is harder than to tame and rule wild beasts and birds and serpents and as the ruling of a horse by the bridle and of a Ship that 's driven by fierce winds and that the tongue is an unruly evil and that he that offendeth not in word is a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body Jam. 3. Make it therefore your study and work and watch it continually § 52. Direct 14. Call your tongues daily to account and ask your selves what evil you have Direct 14. spoken and what good you have omitted every day and be humbled before God in the penitent confession of the sin which you discover and renew your resolution for a stricter watch for the time to come If your servant be every day faulty and never hear of it he will take it as no fault and be little careful to amend Nay you will remember your very Ox of his fault when he goeth out of the Furrow by a prick or stroke and your Horse when he is faulty by a spur or rod And do you think if you let your selves even your tongues be faulty every day and never tell them of it or call them to account that they are ever like to be reformed and not grow careless and accustomed to the sin Your first care must be for preventing the sin and doing the duty saying as David Psalm 39. 1 2 3. I said I will take heed to my ways that I offend not with my tongue I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me I was dumb with silence I held my peace Psalm 35. 28. My tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long Psal. 71. 24. Psal. 119. 172. My tongue shall speak of thy word Psalm 45. 1. My tongue is as the pen of a ready writer But your next care must be to repent of the faults which you commit and to judge your selves for them and reform Remembering that there is not a word in your tongues but it is altogether known to God Psalm 139. 4. § 53. Direct 15. Make use of a faithful monitor or reprover We are apt through custom and partiality Direct 15. to overlook the faults of our own speech A friend is here exceeding useful Desire your friend therefore to watch over you in this And amend what he telleth you of And be not so foolish as to take part with your fault against your friend Tit. 2. Special Directions against prophane swearing and using Gods name unreverently and in vain § 1. I. TO swear is an affirming or denying of a thing with an appeal to some other thing or person as a witness of the truth or avenger of the untruth who is not producible as Witness What an Oath is or Iudge in humane courts An affirmation or negation is the matter of an oath The peculiar appellation is the form It is not every appeal or attestation that maketh an Deu 6. 13 10 20. oath To appeal to such a witness as is credible and may be produced in the Court from a partial incredible witness is no oath To appeal from an incompetent Iudge or an inferior Court to
a state of meer delight lest it prove but a fools Paradice to you See that you be furnished with Marriage-strength and patience for the duties and sufferings of a married state before you venture on it Especially 1. Be well provided against Temptations to a Worldly mind and life For here you are like to be most violently and dangerously assaulted 2. See that you be well provided with Conjugal affections For they are necessary both to the Duties and Sufferings of a married life And you should not enter upon the state without the necessary preparations 3. See that you be well provided with Marriage-prudence and understanding that you may be able to instruct and edifie your families and may live with them as men of knowledge 1 Pet. 3. 7. and may manage all your business with discretion Psal. 112. 15. 4. See that you be provided with Resolvedness and Constancy that you vex not your self and relations by too late repentings and come not off with a Had I wist or non putâram Levity and mutability is no fit preparative for a state that only death can change Let the Love and Resolutions which brought you into that state continue with you to the last 5. See that you be provided with a diligence answerable to the greatness of your undertaken duties A slothful mind is unfit for one that entereth himself voluntary upon so much business as a cowardly mind is unfit for him that listeth himself a Souldier for the Wars 6. See that you are well provided with Marriage-patience to beat with the infirmities of others and undergo the daily crosses of your life which your business and necessities and your own infirmities will unavoidably infer To Marry without all this preparation is as foolish as to go to Sea without the necessary preparations for your Voyage or to go to War without Armor or Ammunition or to go to work without Tools or Strength or to go to buy Meat in the Market when you have no money § 43. Direct 4. Take special care that fansie and passion over-rule not Reason and Friends advice in the choice of your condition or of the person I know you must have Love to those that you match with But that Love must be Rational and such as you can justifie in the severest tryal by the evidences of worth and fitness in the person whom you love To say you Love but you know not why is more beseeming children or mad folks than those that are soberly entring upon a change of life of so great importance to them A blind Love which maketh you think a person excellent and amiable who in the eyes of the wisest that are impartial is nothing so or maketh you overvalue the person whom you fansie and be fond of one as some admirable creature that in the eyes of others is next to contemptible this is but the Index and evidence of your folly And though you please your selves in it and honour it with the name of Love there is none that is acquainted with it that will give it any better name than LUST or FANCY And the marriage that is made by Lust and Fancy will never tend to solid Content or true Felicity But either it will feed till death on the fewell that kindled it and then go out in everlasting shame or else more ordinarily it proveth but a blaze and turneth into loathing and weariness of each other And because this passion of Lust called Love is such a besotting blinding thing like the longing of a woman with child it is the duty of all that feel any touch of it to kindle upon their hearts to call it presently to the tryal and to quench it effectually and till that be done if they have any relicts of wit or reason to suspect their own apprehensions and much more to trust the judgement and advice of others § 44. The means to quench this Lust called Love I have largely opened before I shall now only How to cure Lustful Love remember you of these few 1. Keep asunder and at a sufficient distance from the person that you dote upon The nearness of the fire and fewel causeth the combustion Fancy and Lust are enflamed by the senses Keep out of sight and in time the Feavor may abate 2. Overvalue not vanity Think not highly of a Silken Coat or of the great Names of Ancestors or of Money or Lands or of a painted or a spotted face nor of that natural comeliness called beauty Judge not of things as children but as men Play not the fools in magnifying trifles and overlooking inward real worth Would you fall in Love with a Flower or Picture at this rate Bethink you what work the Pox or any other withering sickness will make with that silly beauty which you so admire Think what a spectacle death will make it And how many thousands once more beautiful are turned now to common earth And how many thousand souls are now in Hell that by a beautiful body were drowned in lust and tempted to neglect themselves and how few in the world you can name that were ever much the better for it what a childish thing it is to dote on a Book of tales and lyes because it hath a beautiful gilded cover and to undervalue the writings of the wise because they have a plain and homely outsides 3. Rule your thoughts and let them not run masterless as fansie shall command them If Reason cannot call off your thoughts from following a lustful desire and imagination no wonder if one that rideth on such an unbridled Colt be cast into the dirt 4. Live not idly but let the business of your callings take up your time and employ your thoughts An idle fleshly mind is the carkass where the Vermine of Lust doth crawl and the nest where the Devil hatcheth both this and many other pernicious sins 5. Lastly and chiefly forget not the concernments of your souls Remember how near you are to Eternity and what work you have to do for your salvation Forget not the presence of God no◠the approach of death Look oft by faith into Heaven and Hell and keep Conscience tender and then I warrant you you will find something else to mind than Lust and greater matters than a silly carkass to take up your thoughts and you will seel that Heavenly Love within you which will extinguish earthly carnal Love § 45. Direct 5. Be not too hasty in your choice or resolution but deliberate well and throughly Direct 5. know the person on whom so much of the comfort or sorrow of your life will necessarily depend Where Repentance hath no place there is the greater care to be used to prevent it Reason requireth you to be well acquainted with those that you trust but with an important secret much more with all your honour or estates and most of all with one whom you must trust with so much of the comfort of your lives and your
Christ and his Disciples But walk with the most Holy and blameless and charitable that live upon that truth which others talk of and are seeking to please God by the wisdom which is first pure and then peaceable and gentle Jam. 3. 17 18 when others are contending for their several sects or seeking to please Christ by killing him or censuring him or slandering him in his servants Ioh. 16. 2 3. Matth. 25. 45. 40. Direct 8. § 8. Direct 8. Keep a just account of your Practice Examine your selves in the end of every day and week how you have spent your time and practised what you were taught and judge your selves before God according at you find it Yea you must call your selves to account every hour what you are doing and how you do it whether you are upon Gods work or not And your hearts must be watcht and followed like unfaithful servants and like loitering Scholars and driven on to every duty like a dull or tired horse § 9. Direct 9. Above all set your hearts to the deepest contemplations of the wonderful Love of God Direct 9. in Christ and the sweetness and excellency of a holy life and the certain incomprehensible glory which it tendeth to that your souls may be in Love with your dear Redeemer and all that is holy and Love and obedience may be as natural to you And then the practice of holy doctrine will be easie to you when it is your delight § 10. Direct 10. Take heed that you receive not ungrounded or unnecessary prejudices against the Direct 10. person of the Preacher For that will turn away your heart and lock it up against his doctrine And therefore abhor the spirit of uncharitableness cruelty and faction which alway bendeth to the suppressing or vilifying and disgracing all those that are not of their way and for their interest And be not so blind as not to observe that the very design of the Devil in raising up divisions among Christians is that he may use the tongues or hands of one another to vilifie them all and make them odious to one another and to disable one another from hindering his Kingdom and doing any considerable service to Christ. So that when a Minister of Christ should be winning souls either he is forbidden or he is despised and the hearers are saying O he is such or such a one according to the names of reproach which the Enemy of Christ and Love hath taught them CHAP. XX. Directions for profitable Reading the holy Scriptures § 1. SEeing the diversity of mens tempers and understandings is so exceeding great that it is impossible that any thing should be pleasing and suitable to some which shall not be disliked and quarrelled with by others and seeing in the Scriptures there are many things hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. and the Word is to some the savour of death unto death 2 Cor. 2. 16. You Mar. 4. 24. have therefore need to be careful in Reading it And as Christ saith Luke 8. 18. Take heed how you hear so I say Take heed how you read § 2. Direct 1. Bring not an evil heart of Unbelief Open the Bible with holy Reverence as the Book Direct 1. Read Chap. 3. Dir. 1. and against Unbelief Tom. 1. of God indited by the Holy Ghost Remember that the Doctrine of the New Testament was revealed by the Son of God who was purposely sent from Heaven to be the Light of the world and to make known to men the Will of God and the matters of their salvation Bethink you well if God should but send a Book or Letter to you by an Angel how reverently you would receive it How carefully you would peruse it and regard it above all the Books in the world And how much rather should you do so by that Book which is indited by the Holy Ghost and recordeth the doctrine of Christ himself whose authority is greater than all the Angels Read it not therefore as a common Book with a common and unreverent heart but in the dread and Love of God the Author Direct 2. § 3. Direct 2. Remember that it is the very Law of God which you must live by and be judged by at last And therefore read it with a full Resolution to obey what ever it commandeth though flesh and men and Devils contradict it Let there be no secret exceptions in your heart to baulk any of its Precepts and shift off that part of obedience which the flesh accounteth difficult or dear § 4. Direct 3. Remember that it is the Will and Testament of your Lord and the Covenant of most Direct 3. full and gracious Promises which all your Comforts and all your hopes of pardon and everlasting life are built upon Read it therefore with Love and great delight Value it a thousand fold more than you would do the letters of your dearest friend or the Deeds by which you hold your Lands or any thing else of low concernment If the Law was sweeter to David than honey and better than thousands of Gold and Silver and was his delight and meditation all the day O what should the sweet and pretious Gospel be to us Direct 4. § 5. Direct 4. Remember that it is a Doctrine of unseen things and of the greatest Mysteries and therefore come not to it with arrogance as a Iudge but with Humility as a Learner or Disciple And if any thing seem difficult or improbable to you suspect your own unfurnished understanding and not the sacred Word of God If a Learner in any Art or Science will suspect his Teacher and his Books when ever he is stalled or meeteth with that which seemeth unlikely to him his pride would keep possession for his ignorance and his folly were like to be uncurable Direct 5. § 6. Direct 5. Remember that it is an Universal Law and Doctrine written for the most ignorant as well as for the curious and therefore must be suited in plainness to the capacity of the simple and yet have matter to exercise the most subtile wits and that God would have the style to savâ—ur more of the innocent weakness of the instruments than the matter Therefore be not offended or troubled when the style dâ—th seem less polite than you might think beseemed the Holy Ghost nor at the plainness of some parts or the mysteriousness of others But adore the wisdom and tender condescension of God to his poor creatures § 7. Direct 6. Bring not a carnal mind which savoureth only fleshly things and is enslaved to those Direct 6. sins which the Scripture doth condemn For the carnal mind is enmity against God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law Rom. 8. 7 8. And the things of God are not discerned by the meer natural man for they are foolishness to him and they must be spiritually
little more And to see a man fell his God and Soul and Heaven for fleshly pleasure when perhaps he hath not a year or a month or for ought he knoweth a day more to enjoy it For a man to be weary and give over prayer just when the mercy is at hand and to be weary and give over a holy life when his labour and sufferings are almost at an end How sad will this day be to thee if Death this night be sent to fetch away thy soul Then whose will all those pleasures be that thou â—oldst thy soul for Luk. 12. 19 20 21. If thou knewest that thou hadst but a month or year to live wouldst thou not have held out that one year Thou knowest not that it shall be one week This is like the sad story of a Student in one of our Universities who wanting money and his Father delaying to send it him he stayed so long till at last he resolved to stay no longer but steal for it rather than be without And so went out and robbed and murdered the first man he met who proved to be his Fathers messenger that was bringing him the money that he rob'd and killed him for which when he perceived by a letter which he found in his pocket he confest it through remorse of Conscience and was hang'd when a few hours patience more might have saved his innocency and his life And so is it with many a backsliding wretch that is cut off if not like Zimri and Cosbi in the act of their sin yet quickly after and enjoy the pleasure which they forsook their God for but a little while § 43. Direct 4. When you are awakened to see the terribleness of a relapsed state presently return Direct 4. and fly to Christ to reconcile your guilty souls to God and make a stop and go not one step further in your sin nor make no delayes in returning to your fidelity It is too sad a case to be continued in If thou darest delay yet longer and wilfully sin again thou art yet impenitent and thy heart is hardened and if the Lord have not mercy on thee to recall thee speedily thou arâ— lost for ever § 44. Direct 5. Make haste away from the occasions of thy sin and the company which ensnareth Direct 5. thee in it If thou knewest that they were Robbers that intended to murder thee thou wouldst be gone If thou knewest that they had plague sores running on them thou wouldst be gone And wilt thou not be gone when thou knowest that they are the servants of the Devil that would infect thee with sin and cheat thee of thy salvation Say not Is not this company lawful and that pleasure lawful c. If it be like to entise thy heart to sin it is unlawful to thee whatever it is to others It is not lawful to undoe thy soul. § 45. Direct 6. Come off by sound and deep repentance and shame thy self by free confession Direct 6. and mince not the matter and deal not gently with thy sin and be not tender of thy fleshly interest and Jam. 5. 16. Neh. 9. 2 3. Matth. 3. 6. Act. 19. 18. skin not over the sore but go to the bottom and deceive not thy self with a seeming cure Many a one is undone by repenting by the halves and refusing to take shame to themselves by a free confession and to engage themselves to a through reformation by an openly professed resolution Favouring themselves and sparing the flesh when the sore should be lanced and searched to the bottom doth cause many to perish while they supposed that they had been cured § 46. Direct 7. Command thy senses and at least forbear the outward acts of sin while thy Conscience Direct 7. considereth further of the matter The drunkard cannot say that he hath not power to shut his mouth Let the forbidden cup alone No one compelleth you You can forbear it if you will The same I may say of other such sins of sensuality Command thy hand thy mouth thy eye and guard these entrances and instruments of sin § 47. Direct 8. Engage some faithful friend to assist thee in thy watch Open all thy case to some Direct 8. one that is fit to be thy guide or helper And resolve that whenever thou art tempted to the sin thou wilt go presently and tell them before thou do commit it And intreat them to deal plainly with you and give them power to use any advantages that may be for your good § 48. Direct 9. Do your first works and set your selves seriously to all the duties of a holy life Direct 9. And incorporate your selves into the society of the Saints For holy employment and holy company are very great preservatives against every sin § 49. Direct 10. Go presently to your companions in sin and lament that you have joyned with them Direct 10. and earnestly warn and intreat them to repent and if they will not renounce their course and company and Mat. 26. 75. Luk. 22. 62. tell them what God hath shewed you of the sin and danger If really you will return as with Peter you have faln so with Peter go out and weep bitterly and when you are converted strengthen your brethren and help to recover those that you have sinned with Luk. 22. 32. § 50. I have suited most of these Directions to those that relapse into sins of sensuality rather than to them that fall into Atheism Infidelity or Heresie because I have spoken against these sins already and the Directions there given shew the way for the recovery of such Tit. 2. Directions for preventing Backsliding or for Perseverance APostacy and Backsliding is a state that is more easily prevented than cured And therefore I shall desire those that stand to use these following Directions lest they fall § 1. Direct 1. Be well grounded in the Nature and Reasons of your Religion For it is not the highest Direct 1. zeal and resolution that will cause you to persevere if your judgements be not furnished with sufficient Reasons to confute gainfayers and evidence the truth and tell you why you should persevere I speak that with grief and shame which cannot be concealed The number of Christians is so small that are well seen in the Reasons and Methods of Christianity and are able to prove what they hold to be true and to confute Opposers that it greatly afflicteth me to think what work the Atheists and Infidels would make if they once openly play their game and be turned loose to do their worst If they deride and oppose the immortality of the soul and the life to come and the truth of the Scriptures and the work of Redemption and office of Christ alas how few are able to withstand them by giving any sufficient Reason of their hope We have learnt of the Papists that he hath the strongest faith that believeth with least Reason and we have
thing in it steal again into your hearts and seem Direct 7. too sweet to you If your friends or dwellings or lands and wealth or honours begin to grow too pleasant and be over-loved your thoughts will presently be carryed after them and turned away from God and all holy affection will be damped and decay and grace will fall into a consumption It is the Love of money that is the root of all evil and the love of this world which is the mortal enemy of the Love of God Keep the world from your hearts if you would keep your graces § 19. Direct 8. Keep a strict Government and watch over your fleshly appetite and sense For the Direct 8. loosing of the reins to carnal lusts and yielding to the importunity of sensual desires is the most ordinary Rom. 8. 13. Rom. 13. 13 14. way of wasting grace and falling off from God § 20. Direct 9. Keep as far as you can from Temptations and all occasions and opportunities of sinning Direct 9. Trust not to your own strength And be not so fool-hardy as to thrust your selves into needless danger No man is long safe that standeth at the brink of ruine If the fire and straw be long near together some spark is like to catch at last § 21. Direct 10. Incorporate your selves into the Communion of Saints and go along with Direct 10. them that go towards Heaven and engage your selves in the constant use of all those means which God hath appointed you to use for your perseverance Especially take heed of an idle slothful unprofitable life And keep your graces in the most lively exercise For the slothful is Brother to the waster And idleness consumeth or corrupteth our spiritual health and strength as well as our bodily Set your selves diligently to work while it is day and do all the good in your places that you are able For it is acts that preserve and increase the habits And a Religion which consisteth only in doing no hurt is so lifeless and corrupt that it will quickly perish § 22. Direct 11. Keep alwayes in thine eye the doleful case of a Backslider which I opened Direct 11. before O what horror is waiting to seize on their consciences How many of them have we known that on their death-beds have lain roaring in the anguish of their souls crying out I am utterly forsaken of God because I have forsaken him There is no mercy for such an apostate wretch O that I had never been born or had been any thing rather than a man Cursed be the day that ever I hearkned to the counsel of the wicked and that ever I pleased this corruptible flesh to the utter undoing of my soul O that it were all to do again Take warning by a mad besotted sinner that have lost my soul for that which I knew would never make me satisfaction and have turned from God when I had found him to be good â—nd gracious O prepare not for such pangs as these or worse than these in endless desperation § 23. Direct 12. Make not a small matter of the beginnings of your backsliding There are very Direct 12. few that fall quite away at once the misery creepeth on by insensible degrees You think it a small matter to cut short one duty and omit another and be negligent at another and to entertain some pleasing thoughts of the world or first to look on the forbidden fruit and then to touch it and then to taste it but these are the way to that which is not small A thought or a look or a taste or a delight hath begun that with many which never stopt till it had shamed them here and damned them for ever CHAP. XXVII Directions for the Poor THere is no condition of life so low or poor but may be sanctified and fruitful and comfortable to us if our own misunderstanding or sin and negligence do not pollute it or imbitter it to us If we do the Duty of our condition faithfully we shall have no cause to murmurr at it Therefore I shall here direct the Poor in the special Duties of their condition and if they will but conscionably perform them it will prove a greater kindness to them than if I could deliver them from their poverty and give them as much riches as they desire Though I doubt this would be more pleasing to the most and they would give me more thanks for money than for teaching them how to want it § 1. Direct 1. Understand first the use and estimate of all earthly things that they were never made Direct 1. to be your portion and felicity but your provision and helps in the way to Heaven And therefore they Prov. 28. 6. Jam. 2. 5. are neither to be estimated nor desired simply for themselves for so there is nothing good but God but only as they are Means to the Greatest Good Therefore neither Poverty nor Riches are simply to be rejoyced in for themselves as any part of our happiness But that condition is to be desired and rejoyced in which affordeth us the greatest helps for Heaven and that condition only is to be lamented and dislikt which hindereth us most from Heaven and from our duty § 2. Direct 2. See therefore that you really take all these things as matters in themselves indifferent Direct 2. and of small concernment to you and as not worthy of much love or care or sorrow further than they conduce to greater things We are like runners in a race and Heaven or Hell will be our End and therefore woe to us if by looking aside or turning back or stopping or trifling about these matters or burdening our selves with worldly trash we should lose the race and lose our souls O Sirs what greater matters than poverty or riches have we to mind Can those souls that muâ—â— shortly be in Heaven or Hell have time to bestow any serious thoughts upon these impertinencies Shall we so much as look at the temporal things which are seen instead of the things eternal that are unseen 2 Cor. 4. 18. Or shall we whine under those light afflictions which may be so improved as to work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory v. 17. Our present life is not in the abundance of the things which we possess Much less is our eternal life Luke 12. 15. § 3. Direct 3. Therefore take heed that you judge not of Gods Love or of your happiness or misery by Direct 3. your riches or poverty prosperity or adversity as knowing that they come alike to all and Love or hatred Eccles. 2. 14. 9. 2. 9. 3. is not to be discerned by them except only Gods Common Love as they are common mercies to the body If a Surgeon is not to be taken for a hater of you because he letteth you blood nor a Physicion because he purgeth his Patient nor a Father because he
neer another world and must so quickly appear before the Lord that methinks a dead and sensless heart should no longer be able to make you sleight your God your Saviour and your endless life And one would think that the flesh and world should never be able to deceive you any more O happy soul if yet at last you are not only frightened into an unsound Repentance but can hate all sin and Love the Lord and trust in Christ and give up your self entirely to him and set your heart upon that blessed life where you may see and Love him perfectly for ever § 10. Quest. But will so late Repentance serve the turn for one that hath been so long ungodly Quest. 1. Answ. Yes if it be sincere But there 's all the doubt and that 's it that your salvation now dependeth Oâ— late Repentance on Quest. But how many I knâ—w whether it be sincere Quest. 2. Answ. 1. If you be not only â—rightened into it but your very heart and will and Love is changed 2. If it extend both to the end and the necessary means so that you Love God and the Ioyes of ☞ Heaven above all earthly prosperity and pleasure and also you had rather be perfectly Holy than live in all the delights of sin and if you hate every known sin and Love the holy wayes and servants of God and this unfeignedly this is a true change 3. And if this Repentance and change be such as will hold if God should recover you and would shew it self in a new and holy and self-denying life which certainly it will do if it come not only from fear but from Love But if you renounce the world and the flesh against your wills because you know there is no remedy and if you bid farewell to your worldly sinful pleasures not because you love God better but because you cannot keep them though you would and if you take not God and Hâ—aven as your Best but only for Better than Hell but not as Better than worldly prosperity which yet you would choose if you had your choice This kind of Repentance will never save you and if you should recover it would vanish away and come to nothing as soon as your fears of death are over and you are returned to your worldly delights again Though now in your extremity you cry out never so confidently O I had rather have Heaven than Earth and I had rather have Christ and Holiness than all the pleasures and prosperity of sinners yet if it be not from a renewed sanctified Heart that had rather be such indeed but from meer necessity and fear and against the Habit of your Hearts and wills this is but such a Repentance as Iudas had that is neither sincere at present nor if you recover will hold you to a holy life II. Directions to the Sanctified for a safe departure § 1. When the soul is truly Converted and Sanctified the principal business is dispatched that is necessary to a safe departure But yet I cannot say that there is no more to be done They were Godly persons that are exhorted 2 Pet. 1. 10. to give diligence to make their calling and election sure which being as the Greek importeth not only to make it known or certain but to make it firm doth signifie more than barely to discern it These following duties are yet further necessary § 2. Direct 1. Satisfie not your selves that once you found your selves sincere but if your understandings Direct 1. he clear and free renew the tryal and if you are insufficient for it of your self make use of the help of a faithful judicious Minister or friend For when a man is going to the bar of God it concerneth him to make all as sure as possibly he can § 3. Direct 2. Review your lives and renew your universal Repentance for all the sins that ever you Direct 2. committed and also let your particular Repentance extend to every particular sin which you remember but especially Repent of your most aggravated soul-wounding sins For if your Repentance be universal and true it will also be particular and you will be specially humbled for your special sins And search deep and see that none escape you And think not that you are not called to Repent of them or ask forgiveness because you have Repented of them long agoe and received a pardon For this is a thing to be done even to the last § 4. Direct 3. Renew your faith in Iesus Christ and cast your souls upon his Merits and Mediation Direct 3. Satisfie not your selves that you have a habit of Faith and that formerly you did Believe but fly to your trusty Rock and refuge and continue the exercise of your faith and again give up your souls to Christ. § 5. Direct 4. Make it your chief work to stir up in your Hearts the Love of God and a desire to Direct 4. live with Christ in glory Let those comforting and encouraging objects which are the instruments of this be still in your thoughts And if you can do this it will be the surest proof of your title to the Crown § 6. Direct 5. If you have wronged any by word or deed be sure that you do your best to right Direct 5. them and make them satisfaction and if you have fallen out with any be reconciled to them Leave not other mens goods to your Heirs or Executors Restore what you have wrongfully gotten before you leave your Legacies to any Confess your faults where you can do no more And ask those forgiveness whom you have injured and leave not mens names or estates or souls under the effects of your former wrongs so far as you are able to make them reparation Direct 6. § 7. Direct 6. Be still taken up in your duty to God even that which he now calleth you to that you may not be found idle or in the sins of omission but may be most holy and fruitful at the last Though sickness call you not to all the same duties which were incumbent on you in your health yet think not therefore that there is no duty at all expected from the sick Every season and state hath its peculiar duties and it s peculiar mercies which it much concerneth us to know I shall anon tell you more particularly what they are § 8. Direct 7. Be specially fortified and vigilant against the most dangerous Temptations of Satan by Direct 7. which he useth to assault the sick Pray now especially that God would not lead you into Temptation but deliver you from the Evil one For in your weakness you may be less fit to wrestle with them than at another time O beg of God that as he hath upheld you and preserved you till now he would not forsake you at last in your extremity Particularly § 9. Tempt 1. One of the most dangerous Temptations of the enemy is to take the
the greatness of those sins which you before accounted small the benefit may be very great For it will help to a more deep and sound repentance and to a stronger Resolution against all sins if you recover And affliction is a very great help to us in this Many a man hath been ashamed and deeply humbled for that same sin when sickness did awake him which he could make his play-fellow before as if there had been neither hurt nor danger in it § 3. Direct 3. There is many a deep corruption in the heart which affliction openeth and discovereth Direct 3. which deceitfulness bid in the time of prosperity And the detecting of these is no small benefit to the soul. When you come to part with wealth and honour you shall better know how much you loved them than you could before Mark therefore what corruptions appear in your affliction and how the heart discloseth its deceits that you may know what to repent of and reform § 4. Direct 4. When affliction calleth you to the use and exercise of your graces you have a great Direct 4. help to be better acquainted with the strength or weakness of them When you are called so lowdly to the use of Faith and love and patience and heavenly-mindedness you may better know what measure of every one of these you have than you could when you had no such help Mark therefore what your hearts prove in the tryal and what each Grace doth shew it self to be in the exercise § 5. Direct 5. You have a very great help now to be throughly acquainted with the vanity of the Direct 5. world and so to mortifie all affections unto the things below Now judge of the value of wealth and honor of plenty and high-places Are they a comfort to a dying man that is parting with them Or is it any grief to a poor man when he is dying that he did not enjoy them Is it not easie now to rectifie your errors if ever you thought highly of these transitory things O settle it now in your firm Resolution that if God should restore you you would value this world at a lower rate and set by it and seek it but as it deserveth § 6. Direct 6. Also you have now a special help to raise your estimation of the happiness of Direct 6. the Saints in Heaven and of the necessity and excellency of a holy life and of the wisdom Luke 10. 42. Phil. 1. 19. 23. of the Saints on earth and to know who maketh the wisest choice Now you may see that it is nothing but Heaven that is worth our seeking and that is finally to be trusted to and will not fail us in the hour of our distress Now you may discern between the Righteous and the Wicked between those that serve God and those that serve him not Mal. 3. 17 18. Now judge whether a loose and worldly life or a holy heavenly life be better and resolve accordingly § 7. Direct 7. You have also now a very great help to discern the folly of a voluptuous life and Direct 7. to mortifie the deeds and desires of the flesh when God is mortifying its natural desires it may help you in mortifying its sinful desires Now judge what Lust and Playes and Gaming and Feasting and Drunkenness and Swaggering are worth You see now the end of all such pleasures Do you think them better than the Joyes of Heaven and worthy the loss of a mans salvation to attain them Or better than the pleasures of a holy life § 8. Direct 8. Also now you have a great advantage for the quickning of your hearts that have lost Direct 8. their Zeal and are cold in Prayer and dull in Meditation and regardless of holy conference If ever you will pray earnestly sure it will be now If ever you will talk seriously of the matters of salvation sure it will be now Now you do better understand the reason of servent prayer and serious Religion and circumspect walking than you did before And you can easily now confute the scorns or railings of the loose ungodly enemies of holiness even as you consute the dotage of a fool or the ravings of a man beside himself § 9. Direct 9. You have a great advantage more sensibly to perceive your Dependance upon God Direct 9. alone and what reason you have to please him before all the world and to regard his favour or displeasure more than all the things or persons upon earth Now you see how vain a thing is man and how little the favour of all the world can stand you instead in your greatest necessity Now you see that it is God and God alone that is to be trusted to at last And therefore it is God that is to be obeyed and pleased what ever become of all things in the world § 10. Direct 10. You have now a great advantage to discern the Pretiousness of Time and to see how Direct 10. carefully it should be redeemed and to perceive the distractedness of those men that can waste it in pastimes and curiosity of dressings and needless complements and visits and a multitude of such vanities as rob the world of that which is more pretious than Gold or treasure Now what think you of idling and playing away your Time Now do you not think that it is wiser to spend it in a holy preparation for the life to come than to cast it away upon childish fooleries or any unnecessary worldly things § 11. Direct 11. Also you have now a special help to be more serious than ever in your preparations for Direct 11. death and in your thoughts of Heaven and so to be readier than you were before And if sickness help you to be readier to dye and more to set your hearts above whether you live or dye it will be a profitable sickness to you § 12. Direct 12. Let your friends about you be the witnesses of your open Confessions and Resolutions Direct 12. and engage them if God should restore you to your health to remember you of all the promises which you have made and to watch over you and tell you of them when ever there is need By these means sickness may be improved and be a mercy to you § 13. I might next have given some special Directions to them that are Recovered from sickness Directions to them that recover But because I would not be needlesly tedious I refer such to what is here said already 1. Let them but look over these twelve Directions and see whether these benefits remain upon their hearts 2. Let them call to their lively remembrance the sense which they had and the frame they were in when they made these Resolutions 3. Let them remember that sickness will come again even a sickness which will have no cure And 4. Let them bethink themselves how terribly Conscience will be wounded and their souls dismayed
grace and hopes which he hath given you through Christ I know that a pained languishing body is undisposed to express the comforts of the soul But yet as long as the soul is the Commander they may be expressed in some good measure though not with such vivacity and alacrity as in health Behave your selves before all as those that are going to dwell with Christ If you shew them that you take Heaven for a real felicity it will do much to draw them to do so too Shew them the difference between the death of the righteous and of the wicked and that may so draw them to desire to dye the death of the Righteous that it may draw them also to resolve to live their lives How many souls might it win to God if they saw in his dying servants such confidence and joy as beseemeth men that are entering into a world of joy and peace and blessedness If we went out of the body as from a Prison into liberty and from a tedious journey to our desired home it would invite sinners to seek after the same felicity and be a powerful Sermon to convert the inconsiderate § 4. Direct 3. Now tell poor sinners of the vanity of the world and of all its glory wealth and pleasure Direct 3. and of the mischief and deceitfulness of sin Say to them O Sirs you may see in me what the world is worth If you had all the wealth and pleasure that you desire thus it would turn you off and forsake you in the end It will ease no pain It will bring no peace to a troubled soul It will not lengthen your lives an hour It will not save you from the wrath of God It maketh your death the sadder because you must be taken from it Your account will be the more dreadfull O Love not such a vain deceitful world Sell not your souls for so poor a price Forsake it before you are forsaken by it O make not light of any sin Though the wanton flesh would have you take it for a harmless thing you cannot imagine when the pleasure is gone how sharp a sting is left behind Sin will be then no jeasting matter when your souls are going hence into the dreadful presence of the Most Holy God § 5. Direct 4. Now tell those about you of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God of Heaven Direct 4. of Christ and of a holy life Though these may be made light of at a distance yet a soul that is drawing near them will be more awakened to understand their worth say to them O friends I find now more than ever I did before that it is only God that is the end and happiness of souls Nothing but his favour through Iesus Christ can comfort and content a dying man And none but Christ can reconcile us to God and answer for our sins and make us acceptable And no way but that of faith and holiness will end in happiness Opinions and customary forms in Religion will not serve the turn To be of this or that Party or Church or Communion will not save you It is only the soul that is justified by Christ and sanctified by his Spirit and brought up to the Love of God and holiness that shall be saved What ever Opinion or Church you are of without Holiness you shall never see God to your comfort as without faith it is impossible to please him Heb. 12. 14. 11. 6. Rom. 8. 6 7 8 9. O now what a miserable case were I in if I had all the wealth and honour in the world and had not the favour of God and a Christ to purchase it and his Spirit to witness it and prepare me for a better life Now I see the difference between spending time in Holiness and in sin between a godly and a worldly fleshly careless life Now I would not for a thousand worlds that I had spent my life in sensuality and ungodliness and continued a stranger to the life of faith Now if I had a world I would give it to be more holy O Sirs believe it when you come to dye sin will be then sin indeed and Christ and Grace will be better than riches and to dye in an unregenerate unsanctified state will be a greater misery than any heart can now conceive § 6. Direct 5. Endeavour also to make men know the difference between the godly and the wicked Direct 5. Tell them I nâ—w see who maketh the wisest choice O happy men that choose the joyes which have no end and lay up their treasure in Heaven where rust and moths do not corrupt and thieves do not break through and steal and labour for the food that never perisheth Matth. 6. 19 20. John 6. 27. O foolish sinners that for an inch of fleshly filthy pleasure do lose everlasting Rest and joy What shall it profit them that win all the world and lose their souls § 7. Direct 6. Labour also to convince men of the pretiousness of Time and the folly of putting off Direct 6. Repentance and a holy life till the last Say to them O friends it is hard for you in the time of health and prosperity to judge of Time according to its worth But when Time is gone or near an end how pretious doth it then appear Now if I had all the Time again which ever I spent in unnecessary sleep or sports or curiosities or idleness or any needless thing how highly should I value it and spend it in another manner than I have done Of all my life that is past and gone I have no comfort now in the remembrance of one hour but what was spent in obedience to God O take Time to make sure of your salvation before it s gone and you are left under the tormenting feeling of your loss § 8. Direct 7. Labour also to make them understand the sinfulness of sloth and of loytering in the Direct 7. matters of God and their salvation and stir them up to do it with all their might Say to them I have often heard ungodly people deride or blame the diligence and zeal and strictness of the godly But if they saw and felt what I see and feel they could not do it Can a man that is going into another world imagine that any thing is so worthy of his greatest zeal and labour as his God and his salvation Or blame men for being loth to burn in Hell Or for taking more pains for their souls than for their bodies O friends let fools talk what they will in their sleep and frenzy as you love your souls do not think any care or cost or pains too great for your salvation If they think not their labour too good for this world do not you think yours too good for a better world Let them now say what they will when they come to dye there is none of them all that is not quite forsaken of
sense and reason but will wish that they had Loved God and sought and served him not formally in hypocritical complement but with all their heart and soul and might § 9. Direct 8. Labour also to fortifie the minds of your friends against all fears of suffering for Direct 8. Christ and all impatience in any of their afflictions Say to them The sufferings as well as the pleasures of this life are s◠short that they are not worthy once to be compared with the durable things of the life to come If I have past through a life of want and toil if my body hath endured painful sickness if I have suffered never so much from men and been used cruelly for the sake of Christ what the worse am I now when all is past Would an easie honourable plentiful life have made my death either the safer or the sweeter O no! It is the things eternal that are indeed significant and regardable Neither pleasure nor pain that is short is of any great regard Make sure of the Everlasting pleasures and you have done your work O live by faith and not by sense Look not at the temporal things which are seen It is not your concernment whether you are rich or poor in honour or dishonour in health or sickness but whether you be justified and sanctified and shall live with God in Heaven for ever Such serious counsels of dying men may make their sickness more fruitful than their health CHAP. XXXI Directions to the Friends of the Sick that are about them § 1. Direct 1. WHen you see the sickness or death of your friends take it as Gods warning Direct 1. to you to prepare for the same your selves Remember that thus it must be with you Thus are you like to lye in pain and thus will all the world forsake you and nothing of all your honour or wealth will afford you any comfort This will be the end of all your pleasures of your greatness and your houses and lands and attendance and of all your delicious meats and drinks and of all your mirth and play and recreations Thus must your carkasses be forsaken of your souls and laid in a grave and there lie rotting in the dark and your souls appear before your Judge to be sentenced to their endless state This certainly will be your case and O how quickly will it come Then what will Christ and Grace be worth Then nothing but the favour of God can comfort you Then whether will it be better to you to look back on a holy well-spent life or upon a life of fleshly ease and pleasure Then had you rather be a Saint or a Sensualist Lay this to heart and let the house of mourning make you better and live as one that looks to dye § 2. Direct 2. Use the best means for the recovery of the sick which the ablest Physicions shall advise Direct 2. you to as far as you are able Take heed of being guilty of the Pride and folly of many self-conceited ignorant persons who are ready to thrust every Medicine of their own upon their friends in sickness when they neither know the nature of the sickness or the cure Many thousands are brought to their death untimely by the folly of their nearest friends who will needs be medicining them and ruling them and despising the Physicion as if they were themselves much wiser than he when they are meerly ignorant of what they do As ignorant Sectaries despise Divines and set up themselves as better Preachers so many silly Women despise Physicions and when they have got a few Medicines which they know not the nature of nor how to use they take themselves for the better Physicions and the lives of their poor friends must pay for their pride and folly No means must be trusted to instead of God but the best must be used in subservience unto God And one would think that a small measure of wit and humility might serve to make silly women understand that they that never bestowed one year in the study of Physick are not so likely to understand it as those that have studied and practised it a great part of their lives It is sad to see people kill their dearest friends in kindness even by that ignorance and proud selfconceitedness which also maketh them the destroyers of their own souls § 3. Quest. But seeing God hath appointed all mens time what good can Physick do If God hath Quest. appointed them to live they shall live and if he have appointed them to dye it is not Physick that can save them Answ. This is the foolish reasoning of wicked people about their salvation If God have appointed Answ. me to salvation I shall be saved if he have not all my diligence will do no good But such people know not what they talk of God hath made your duty more open and known to you than his own decrees And you separate those things which he hath joyned together As God hath appointed no man to salvation simply without respect to the means of salvation so God hath appointed no man to live but by the means of life His Decree is not Such a man shall be saved or Such a man shall live so long only But this is his Decree Such a man shall be saved in the way of faith and holiness and in the diligent use of means and Such a man shall live so long by the use of those means which I have fitted for the preservation of his life So that as he that liveth a holy life may be sure he is chosen to salvation if he persevere and he that is ungodly may be sure that he is in the way to Hell so he that neglecteth the means of his health and life doth shew that it is unlike that God hath appointed him to live and he that useth the best means is liker to recover though the best will not cure uncurable Diseases nor make a man immortal The reasoning is the same as if you should say If God have appointed me to live so long I shall live though I neither eat nor drink But if he have not eating and drinking will not prolong my life But you must know that God doth not only appoint you to live that is but half his Decree but he decreeth that you shall live by eating and drinking § 4. Direct 3. Mind your friends betimes to make their Wills and prudently by good advice to settle Direct 3. their estates that they may leave no occasion of contending about it when they are dead This should be done in health because of the uncertainty of life But if it be undone till sickness it should then be done betimes The neglect of it oft causeth much sinful contending about worldly things even among those near relations who should live in the greatest amity and peace § 5. Direct 4. Keep away vain company from them as far as you can conveniently
breach almost uncurable because no professions of repentance or future fidelity can be trusted Thus I have partly shewed you the Malignity of Perjury and Covenant-breaking § 3. Direct 2. Be sure that you make no Vow or Covenant which God hath forbidden you to keep Direct 2. It is rash vowing and swearing which is the common cause of Perjury You should at the making of your Vow have seen into the bottom of it and foreseen all the evils that might follow it and the Temptations which were like to draw you into perjury He is virtually perjured as soon as he hath sworn who sweareth to do that which he must not do The preventive means are here the best § 4. Direct 3. Be sure you take no Oath or Vow which you are not sincerely resolved to perform Direct 3. They that Swear or Vow with a secret reserve that rather than they will be ruined by keeping it they will break it are Habitually and Reputatively perjured persons even before they Lege distinctionem Grotii inter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aanot. in Matth. 5. 33. Modern Policy supposed Dr. Sand rosts Princ. 7. 1. We are ready to interpret the words too kindly especially if they be ambiguous and its hard to find terms so positive but that they may be eluded indeed or seem to us to be so if we be disposed 2. Some are invited to illicite promises qua illicite because they know them to be invalid 3. Some are frighted into these bonds by threats and losses and temporal concernments and then they please themselves that they sweâ—r by Duâ—eâ—s and so are disengaged 4. Some are Oath-proof c. break it Besides that they shew a base hypocritical profligate conscience that can deliberately commit so great a sin § 5. Direct 4. See that all fleshly worldly interest be fully subdued to the interest of your souls Direct 4. and to the will of God He that at the heart sets more by his body than his soul and loveth his worldly prosperity above God will lye or swear or forswear or do any thing to save that carnal interest which he most valueth He that is carnal and worldly at the heart is false at the heart The Religion of such an Hypocrite will give place to his temporal safety or commodity and will carry him no further than the way is fair It is no wonder It is one of Solons sayings in Laertius p. 51. Probiâ—itateâ—n â—uâ—â—â—â—rando certiorem habe What will not an Atheistical impious person say or swear for advantage that a proud man or a worldling will renounce both God and his true felicity for the World seeing indeed he taketh it for his God and his felicity even as a Believer will renounce the world for God § 6. Direct 5. Beware of inordinate fear of man and of a distrustful withdrawing of your hearts Direct 5. from God Else you will be carryed to comply with the will of man before the will of God and to avoid the wrath of man before the wrath of God Read and fear that heavy curse Ier. 17. 5 6. God is unchangeable and hath commanded you so far to imitate him as If a man Vow a Vow unto the Lord or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond he shall not break his word he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth Numb 30. 2. But man is mutable and so is his interest and his affairs And therefore if you are the servants of men you must swear one year and for swear it or swear the contrary the next when their interest requireth it you must not be thought worthy to live among men if you will not promise or swear as they command you And when their interest altereth and requireth the contrary you must hold all those bonds to be but straws and break them for their end◠§ 7. Direct 6. Be sure that you lose not the fear of God and the tenderness of your consciences Direct 6. When these are lost your understanding and sense and life is lost and you will not stick at the greatest wickedness nor know when you have done it what you did If faith see not God continually present and foresee not the great approaching day Perjury or any villany will seem tolerable for worldly ends For when you look but to mens present case you will see that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hands of God no man knoweth Love or hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and the wicked to the good and to the clean and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not as is the Good so is the sinner and he that sweareth as he that feareth an â—ath Eccles. 9. 1 2. But in the end men shall discern between the righteous and the wicked Mal. 3. 18. Therefore it is the believing foresight of the end that by preserving the fear of God and tenderness of Conscience must save you from this and all other heynous sin § 8. Direct 7. Be not bold and rash about such dreadful things as Vows Run not as fearlesly Direct 7. upon them as if you were but going to your dinner The wrath of God is not to be jeasted with Usq ad aras was the bounds even of a Heathens kindness to his friend Meddle with Oathes with the greatest fear and caution and circumspection It 's terrible here to find that you were mistaken through any temerity or negligence or secret seduction of a carnal interest § 9. Direct 8. Especially be very fearful of owing any publick doctrine or doing any publick act Direct 8. which tendeth to harden others in their Perjury or to encourage multitudes to commit the sin To be Nunc nunâ— qui sâ—dera rumpit Ditatur Qui servat â—get Claud. anâ— forsworn your selves is a dreadful case but to teach whole Nations or Churches to forswear themselves or to plead for it or justifie it as a lawful thing is much more dreadful And though you teach not or own not Perjury under the name of Perjury yet if first you will make plain perjury to seem no Perjury that so you may justifie it it is still a most inhumane horrid act God knoweth I insult not over the Papists with a delight to make any Christians odious But with grief I remember how lamentably they have abused our holy profession while not only their great Doctors but their approved General Council at the Laterane under P. Innocent the third in the third Canon hath Decreed that the Pope may depose Temporal Lords from their Dominions and give them unto others and discharge their Vassals from their Allegiance and fidelity if they be hereticks or will not exterminate Hereticks even such as the holy men there condemned were in the Popes account To declare to
see how millions are there safely landed that once were in as dangerous a station as you are Through many tribulations and temptations they arrived at the Heavenly Rest Satan once did his worst against them They were tost on the Seas of this tempestuous world But they were kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation and so may you 1 Pet. 5. 1. § 19. Direct 19. When you would duly value all your present means and mercies and see whither Direct 19. they tend look up then to the souls with Christ and see whither the like mercy hath conducted them The poorest Cottage and the hardest fare are great mercies as they tend to endless blessedness This now and Heaven after is great though the thing in it self be never so small Heaven puts the value and signification upon all your mercies The wicked make Cyphers of their greatest blessings by separating them in their esteem and use from God and Heaven which is the measure of their estimate § 20. Direct 20. When you see Divisions among believers and hear one for this party and another Direct 20. for that and hear them bitterly censuring each other look up then to the Saints with Christ and think what perfect Love and Peace and Concord i◠among them Consider how unlike our factions and Schisms are to their fervent Love and Unity And how how unlike our jarring strifes and quarrels are to their harmonious Praise of God Remember in what work it is that they are so happily united even Love and Praise uncessant to Jehovah And then think whether it would not unite the Saints on earth to lay by their contendings for the preheminence in knowledge covered with the guilded name of Zeal for the Truth of God and to employ themselves in Love and Praise and to shew their emulation here in striving who shall Love God and each other with the more pure heart and fervent Love 1 Pet. 1. 22. and who shall Praise him with the most heavenly alacrity and delight Consider whether this work of blessed souls be not like to be more desirable and excellent than the work of self-conceited wrangling Sophisters And whether there be any danger of falling into Sects and Factions or falling out by emulations or contentions while we make this work of Love and Praise the matter of our religious converse And consider whether almost all the Schisms that ever vext the Church of God did not arise either by the Pastors striving who should be the greatest Luk. 22. 24 26. or by the rising up of some Sciolist or Gnostick proudly pretending to know more than others and to vindicate or bring to light some excellent Truth which others know not or oppose And when you see the hot contendings of each party about their pretended Orthodoxness or wisdom which Iam. 3. is purposely written against remember how the concord of those blessed souls doth shame this work and should make it odious to the heirs of Heaven § 21. Direct 21. When you are afraid of Death or would find more willingness to dye look up to Direct 21. the blessed souls with Christ and think that you are but to pass that way which all those souls have gone before you and to go from a world of enmity and vanity to the company of all those blessed spirits And is not their blessed state more desirable than such a vain vexatious life as this There is no malice nor slandering nor cruel persecuting no uncharitable censures contentions or divisions no ignorance nor unbelief nor strangeness unto God nothing but Holy Amiable and Delightful Joyn your selves daily to that Coelestial Society suppose your selves spectators of their Order Purity and Glory and Auditors of their harmonious Praises of Jehovah Live by faith in a daily familiarity with them say not that you want company or are alone when you may walk in the Streets of the Heavenly Ierusalem and there converse with the Prophets and Apostles and all the glorious Hosts of Heaven Converse thus with them in your Life and it will overcome the fear of death and make you long to be there with them Like one that stands by the River side and seeth his friends on the further side in a place of pleasure while his enemies are pursuing him at his back how gladly would he be over with them And it will embolden him to venture on the passage which all they have safely past before him Thus Death will be to us as the Red Sea to pass us safe to the Land of Promise while our pursuers are there overthrown and perish We should not be so strange to the World above if we thus by faith conversed with the blessed ones § 22. Direct 22. When you are overmuch troubled for the death of your Godly friends look up to Direct 22. that world of blessed souls to which they are translated and think whether it be not better for them to be there than here and whether you are not bound by the Law of Love to rejoyce with them that are thus exalted Had we but a sight of the world that they are in and the company that they are gone to we should be less displeased with the will of God in disposing of his own into so Glorious a state § 23. All these improvements may be made by a Believer of his daily converse with the souls above This is the Communion with them which we must hold on earth Not by Praying to them which God hath never encouraged us to do nor by praying for them For though it be lawful to pray for the Resurrection of their Bodies and the perfecting of their blessedness thereby yet it being a thing of absolute certainty as the day of Judgement is we must be very cautelous in the manner of our doing this lawful act it being a thing that their happiness doth not at all depend on and a thing which will-worshippers have shewed themselves so forward to abuse by stepping further into that which is unlawful as the horrid abuses of the Names and dayes and shrines and relicts of real or supposed Saints in the Papal Kingdom sadly testifieth But the necessary part of our Communion with the Saints in Heaven being of so great importance to the Church on Earth I commend it to the due consideration of the faithful whether our forgetfulness of it is not to be much repented of and whether it be not a work to be more seriously minded for the time to come § 24. And I must confess I know not why it should be thought unlawful to celebrate the memorial of the life or martyrdome of any extraordinary servant of God by an Anniversary solemnity on a set appropriate day It is but to keep the thankful remembrance of Gods mercy to the Church and sure the life and death of such is not the smallest of the Churches mercies here on earth If it be lawful on the 5 of November to celebrate the memorial of
individual Christians Therefore if one particular Church may so narrow the door of its Communion then another and another and every one may do so if not by the same particular impositions yet by some other of the like nature For what power one Church hath herein others have And then Catholick Communion will be scarce found existent externally in the world but a meer Catholick Christian would be denyed Communion in every particular Church he cometh to And how do you hold Catholick Communion when you will admit no meer Catholick Christian as such to your Communion but only such as supererogate according to your private Church-terms 2. But grant that every Church may impose more upon its members it must be only that which is Necessary to those common things which all agree in And then the necessity will be discernable to all sober minded persons and will prevent divisions As it is Necessary that he that will communicate with our Churches do joyn with them in the same Translation of Scripture and Version of Psalms and under the same Pastor as the rest of the Church doth For here the Church cannot use variety of Pastors Translations Versions c. to fit the variety of mens humours There is an evident necessity that if they will be one Society they must agree in the same in each of these Therefore when the Church hath United in one if any man refuse that one person or way which the Church is necessarily United in he refuseth communion with that Church and the Church doth not excommunicate him But if that Church agree on things hurtful or unnecessary as necessary to its communion it must bear the blame of the separations it self 3. And grant yet that some Churches cannot admit such scrupulous persons to her communion as dare not joyn in every punctillio circumstance or mode It doth not follow that those persons must therefore be excommunicated or forbidden to worship God among themselves without that which they scruple or to joyn in or with a Congregation which imposeth no such things upon them Persecution will unavoidably come in upon such domineering narrow terms as those The man is a Christian still though he scruple one of our modes or ceremonies and is capable of Catholick Communion And if private and little inconveniencies shall be thought a sufficient cause to forbid all such the publick worshipping of God on pretence that in one Nation there must not be variety of modes this is a dividing principle and not Catholick and plungeth men into the guilt of persecution It was not so in the Churches of the Roman Empire In the dayes of Basil his Church and that at Neocaesarea differed and ordinarily several Bishops used several forms of prayer and worship in their several Churches without offence And further § 37. Direct 16. Different faults must have different penalties And excommunication or forbidding Direct 16. men all publick worship of God must not be the penalty of every dissent Is there no smaller penalty sufficient if a doubtful subscription or ceremony be scrupled than to silence Ministers therefore from preaching the Gospel or excommunicating men and forbidding them to worship God at all except they can do this This is the highest ecclesiastical penalty that can be laid on men for the greatest heresie or crime Doubtless there are lesser punishments that may suffice for lesser faults § 38. Direct 17. Every friend of Christ and the Church must choose such penalties for Ministers and Direct 17. private Christians who offend as are least to the hinderance of the Gospel or hurtful to the peoples souls Therefore silencing Ministers is not a fit penalty for every fault which they commit The providence of God as I said before hath furnished the world with so few that are fit for that high and sacred work that no man can pretend that they are supernumeraries or unnecessary and that others may be substituted to the Churches profit For the number is so small that all are much too few and so many as are silenced so many Churches either the same or others must be unsupplyed or ill-supplyed And God working ordinarily by means we may conclude that silencing of such Preachers doth as plainly tend to mens damnation as the prohibiting of Physicions doth to their death and more And it is not the part of a friend either of God or men to endeavour the damnation of one soul much less of multitudes because a Minister hath displeased him If one man must pay for another mans sins let it be a pecuniary mulct or the loss of a member rather than the loss of his soul. It is more merciful every time a Minister offendeth to cut off a hand or an arm of some of his flock than to say to him Teach them no more the way to salvation that so they may be damned If a Father offend and his children must needs pay for â—ll his faults it is better beat the children or maim them than forbid him to feed them when there is none else to do it and so to famish them What Reason is there that mens souls should be untaught because a Minister hath offended I know still those men that care not for their own souls and therefore care as little for others will say What if the People have but a Reader or a weak ignorant lifeless Preacher Doth it follow that therefore the people must be damned I answer no No more than it followeth that the City that hath none but Women Physicions must dye of their sicknesses or that they that live only upon Grass or Roots must famish Nature may do more to overcome a disease without a Physicion in one than in another Some perhaps are converted already and have the Law written in their hearts and are taught of God and can make shift to live without a Teacher But for the rest whose diseases need a skilful diligent Physicion whose ignorance and impenitence extreamly needeth a skilful diligent lively Teacher he that depriveth them of such doth take the probable course to damn them And it is the same course which the Devil himself would take and he partly knoweth what tendeth to mens damnation He that knoweth what a case the Heathen Infidel Mahometan world is in for want of Teachers and what a case the Greek Church the Moscovites the Abbassines Syrians Armenians Papists and most of the Christians of the world are in for want of able skilful godly Pastors will lay his hand on his mouth and meddle with such reasonings as these no more Object But by this devise you will have the Clergie lawless or as the Papists exempt them from the Magistrates punishments for fear of depriving the people of instruction Answ. No such matter It is the contrary that I am advising I would have them punished more severely than other men as their sins are more aggravated than other mens Yea and I would have them silenced when it is meet and that
enough to implant it in all the hearers why do your Children go so long to School and after that to the Universities and why are you so long Preaching to all your Parishioners Sure you preach not novelties to them as long as you live And yet thirty or fourty years painful preaching even of the same fundamentals of Religion shall leave many ignorant of them in the best Parishes in the Land There must be a right and ripe disposition in the hearers or else the clearest reasoning may be uneffectual A disused or unfurnished mind that hath not received all the truths which are presupposed to those which you deliver or hath not digested them into a clear understanding may long hear the truest reasons and never apprehend their weight There is need of more adoe than a bare unfolding of the truth to make a man receive it in its proper evidence Perhaps he hath been long pre-possessed with contrary opinions which are not easily rooted out Or if he be but confident of the truth of some one opinion which is inconsistent with yours no wonder if he cannot receive that which is contrary to what he so verily believeth to be the truth There is a marvellous variety of mens apprehensions of the same opinions or reasons as they are variously represented to men and variously pondered and as the natural capacity of men is various and as the whole course of their lives their education company and conversation have variously formed their minds It is like the setting together all the parts of Watch when it is in pieces If any one part of many be misplaced it may necessitate the misplacing of those that follow without any wilful obstinacy in him that doth it If in the whole frame of sacred Truth there be but some one misunderstood it may bring in other mistakes and keep out many truths even from an honest willing mind And who is there that can say he is free from errour Have not you perceived in your selves that the truths which you heard an hundred times over to little purpose when you were Children were received more convincingly and satisfyingly when you were men And that you have found a delightful clearness in some points on a sudden which before you either resisted or held with little observation or regard And yet it is common with the scandalizers of souls to cry out against all that conform not to their opinions and will as soon as they have heard their reasons that they are stubborn and refractory and wilful and factious and so turn from arguments to Clubs as if they had never known themselves or others nor how weak and dark the understandings of almost all men are But they shall have judgement without mercy who shew no mercy And when their own errours shall all be opened to them by the Lord they will be loth they should all be imputed to their wilful obstinacy And perhaps these very censorious men may prove themselves to have beenonthe wrong side For Pride and uncharitableness are usually erroneous § 34. Direct 12. Engage not your selves in an evil cause For if you do it will engage you to Direct 12. draw in others You will expect your friends should take your part and think as you think and say as you say though it be never so much against truth or righteousness § 35. Direct 13. Speak not rashly against any cause or persons before you are acquainted with Direct 13. them or have well considered what you say Especially take heed how you believe what a man of any Sect in Religion doth speak or write against his Adversaries of a contrary sect If experience had not proved it in our dayes beyond contradiction it would seem incredible how little men are to be believed Psal. 119. 69. in this case and how the falsest reports will run among the people of a Sect against those whom the interest of their opinion and party engageth them to mis-represent Think not that you are excusable for receiving or venting an ill report because you can say he was an honest man that spoke it For many that are otherwise honest do make it a part of their honesty to be dishonest in this They think they are not zealous enough for those opinions which they call their Religion unless Vix equidem credar sed cum sint praemia falsi Nulla â—atam dâ—bet testis habere fidem Oâ—iâ— l. Rom. 3. 7 8. Jam. 3. 14. â—â—â—â—â— â— 8. they are easie in believing and speaking evil of those that are the Adversaries of it When it may be upon a just tryal all proveth false And then all the words which you ignorantly utter against the truth or those that follow it are scandals or stumbling blocks to the hearers to turn them from it and make them hate it I am not speaking against a just credulity There must be humane belief or else there can be no humane converse But ever suspect partiality in a party For the interest of their Religion is a more powerful charm to the Consciences of evil speakers than personal interest or bribes would be How many Legends tell us this how easily some men counted Godly have been prevailed with to Lie for God § 36. Direct 14. Take heed of mocking at a Religious life yea or of breaking any jeasts or scorns Diâ—â—â—â— 14. at the weaknesses of any in Religious exercises which may possibly reflect upon the exercises themselves Many a thousand souls have been kept from a holy life by the scorns of the vulgar that speak of it as a matter of derision or sport Reading the Scriptures and holy conference and prayer and instructing our families and the holy observation of the Lords day and Church-discipline are commonly the derision of ungodly persons who can scorn that which they can neither confute nor learn And weak people are greatly moved by such senseless means A mock or jear doth more with them than an argument They cannot endure to be made a laughing-stock Thus was the name of a Crucified God the derision of the Heathens and the scandal of the World both Jews and Gentiles And there is scarce a greater scandal or stumbling block at this day which keepeth multitudes from Heaven than when the Devil can make it either a matter of danger or of shame to be a Christian or to live a holy mortified life Persecution and Derision are the great successful scandals of the World And therefore seeing men are so apt to be turned off from Christ and Godliness never speak unreverently or disrespectfully of them It is a prophane and scandalous course of some that if a Preacher have but an unhansome tone or gesture they make a jeast of it and say He whined or he spoke through the nose or some such scorn they cast upon him which the hearers quickly apply to all others and turn to a scorn of Preaching or Prayer or Religion it self Or if men differ from each other
Superiour must be reproved by a private inferiour And when it is done it must be done with great submission and respect An angry pievish person must be dealt with tenderly as you handle thorns but a duller sottish person must be more earnestly and warmly dealt with So also a greater sin must be roughly handled or with greater detestation than a less § 6. Direct 6. Take a fit season Not when a man is in drink or passion or among others Direct 6. where the disgrace will vex and harden him but in secret between him and you if his conversion be your end § 7. Direct 7. Do all in love and tender pity If you convince not the hearer that you do it in unfeigned Direct 7. love you must usually expect to lose your labour because you make not advantage of 2 Thess. 3. 15. 2 Cor. 2. 4. Gal. ◠1. 2 Tim. 2. 25. 1 Thess 5 13. his self-love to promote your exhortations Therefore the exhorting way should be more frequent than the reproving way For reproof disgraceth and exasperateth when the same thing contrived into an exhortation may prevail § 8. Direct 8. Therefore be as much or more in shewing the Good which you would draw them to as Direct 8. the evil which you would turn them from For they are never savingly converted till they are won to the Love of God and Holiness Therefore the opening of the riches of the Gospel and the Love of God and the Joyes of Heaven must be the greatest part of your treaty with a sinner § 9. Direct 9. And labour so to help him to a true understanding of the nature of Religion that Direct 9. he may perceive that it is not only a necessary but a pleasant thing All love delights It is the slander and misrepresentation of godliness by the Devil the World and the Flesh which maketh mistaken sinners shun it The way to convert them and win their hearts to it is to make them know how good and pleasant it is and to confute those calumnies § 10. Direct 10. Yet alwayes insert the remembrance of death and judgement and of Hell For Direct 10. the drowsie mind hath need to be awakened and Love worketh best when fear subserveth it It s hard to procure a serious audience and consideration of things from hardened hearts if the sight of death and Hell do not help to make them serious Danger which must be escaped must be known and thought on These things put weight and power into your speech § 11. Direct 11. Do all as with Divine authority and therefore have ready some plain Texts Direct 11. of Scripture for the duty and against the sin you speak of Shew them where God himself hath Col. 3. 16. said it § 12. Direct 12. Seasonable expostulations putting themselves to judge themselves in their answer Direct 12. hath a convincing and engaging force As when you shew them Scripture ask them Is not this the Word of God Do you not believe that its true Do you think he that wrote this knoweth not better than you or I c. § 13. Direct 13. Put them on speedy practice and prudently engage them to it by their promise Direct 13. As if you speak to a drunkard draw him to promise you to come no more at least of so long time into an Ale-house Or not drink Ale or Wine but by the consent of his Wife or some sober houshold friend who may watch over him Engage the voluptuous the unchaste and gamester to forsake the company which ensnareth them Engage the ungodly to read the Scripture to frequent good company to pray morning and night with a Book or without as they are best able Their promise may bring them to such a present change of practice as may prepare for more § 14. Direct 14. If you know any near you who are much fitter than your selves and liker to Direct 14. prevail procure them to attempt that which you cannot do succesifully At least when sinners perceive Ezek. 33. 34. Gal. 6. 1. Tit. 2. 4. that it is not only one mans opinion it may somewhat move them to reverence the reproof § 15. Direct 15. Put some good Book into their hands which is fittest to the work which you would Direct 15. have done And get them to promise you seriously to read it over and consider it As if it be for the conversion of a careless sinner Mr. Whateleys or Mr. Swinnocks Treatise of Regeneration or some other Treatise of Repentance and Conversion If it be for one that is prejudiced against a strict Religious life Mr. Allens Vindication of Godliness If it be an idle voluptuous person who wasteth pretious Time in Playes or needless recreations in gaming or an idle life Mr. Whateleys Sermon called The Redemption of Time If it be a prayerless person Dr. Prestons Saints Daily Exercise If it be a drunkard Mr. Harris Drunkards Cup And for many reigning particular sins a Book called Solomons Prescription against the Plague For directions in the daily practice of Godliness The Practice of Piety or Mr. Thomas Gouges Directions c. Such Books may speak more pertinently than you can and be as constant food to their sober thoughts and so may further what you have begun § 16. Direct 16. When you cannot speak or where your speaking prevaileth not mourn for them Direct 16. and earnestly pray for their recovery A sad countenance of Nehemiah remembered Artaxerxes of his Ezek. 9. 4. 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. duty A sigh or a tear for a miserable sinner may move his heart when exhortation will not He hath a heart of stone who will have no sense of his condition when he seeth another weeping for him § 17. Quest. But it is alwayes a duty to reprove or exhort a sinner How shall I know when it is Quest. my duty and when it is not Answ. It is no duty in any of these cases following 1. In general When you have sufficient reason to judge that it will do more harm than good and will not attain its proper end For God hath not appointed us to do hurt under pretence of duty It is no Means which doth cross the end which it should attain As prayer and preaching may be a sin when they are like to cross their proper end so also may reproof be 2. Therefore it must not be used when it apparently hindereth a greater good As we may not pray or preach when we should be quenching a fire in the Town or saving a mans life So when reproof doth exclude some greater duty or benefit it is unseasonable and no duty at that time Christ alloweth us to forbear the casting of pearls before Swine or giving that which is holy to Prov. 9. 7. 8. Matth 7. 6. Dogs because of these two Reasons forementioned It is no means to the contemptuous and they will turn again and all to
the truth yet it is seldome the way of doing good to those whom you dispute with It engageth men in partiality and passionate provoking words before they are aware And while they think they are only pleading for the truth they are militating for the honour of their own understandings They that will not stoop to hear you as learners while you orderly open the truth in its coherent parts will hardly ever profit by your contendings when you engage a proud person to bend all his wit and words against you The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach c. 1 Tim 6. 4 5 6. 2 Tim. 2. 24. § 9. Direct 8. Have as little to do with men in matters which their commodity is concerned in Direct 8. as you can As in chaffering or any other thing where Mine and Thine is much concerned For few men are so just as not to expect that which others account unjust And the nearest friends have been alienated hereby § 10. Direct 9. Buy peace at the price of any thing which is not better than it Not with the Direct 9. loss of the favour of God or of our innocency or true peace of conscience or with the loss of the Gospel or the ruine of mens souls But you must often part with your Right for peace and put up wrongs in word or deed Money must not be thought too dear to buy it when the loss of it will be worse than the loss of money to your selves or those that you contend with If a soul be endangered by it or societies ruined by it it will be dear bought money which is got or saved by such means He is no true friend of Peace that will not have it except when it is cheap § 11. Direct 10. Avoid Censoriousness which is the judging of men or matters that you have no Direct 10. call to meddle with and the making of matters worse than sufficient proof will warrant you Be neither busie-bodies meddling with other mens matters nor pievish aggravaters of all mens faults Iudge not that ye be not judged for with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again Matth. 7. 1 2. You shall be censured if you will censure And if Christ be a true discerner of minds it is they that have beams in their own eyes who are the quickest perceivers of the motes in others Censorious persons are the great dividers of the Church and every where adversaries to peace while they open their mouths wide against their neighbour to make the worst of all that they say and do and thus sow the seeds of discord amongst all § 12. Direct 11. Neither talk against men behind their backs nor patiently hearken to them that Direct 11. use it Though the detecting of a dangerous enemy or the prevention of anothers hurt may sometimes make it a duty to blame them that are absent yet this case which is rare is no excuse to the backbiters sin If you have any thing to say against your neighbour tell it him in a friendly manner to his face that he may be the better for it If you tell it only to another to make him odious or hearken to backbiters that defame men secretly you shew that your business is not to do good but to diminish love and peace § 13. Direct 12. Speak more of the good than of the evil which is in others There is none so Direct 12. bad as to have no good in them Why mention you not that which is more useful to the hearer than to hear of mens faults But of this more afterward § 14. Direct 13. Be not strange but lovingly familiar with your neighbours Backbiters and slanders Direct 13. and unjust suspicions do make men seem that to one another which when they are acquainted they find is nothing so Among any honest well meaning persons familiarity greatly reconcileth Though indeed there are some few so proud and fiery and bitter enemies to honest peace that the way to peace with them is to be far from them where we may not be remembred by them But it is not so with ordinary neighbours nor friends that are fallen out nor differing Christians Its nearness that must make them friends § 15. Direct 14. Affect not a distance and sowre singularity in lawful things Come as near them Direct 14. as you can as they are men and neighbours and take it not for your duty to run as far from them lest you run into the contrary extream § 16. Direct 15. Be not over-stiff in your own opinions as those that can yield in nothing to another Direct 15. Nor yet â—o facile and yielding as to betray or lose the truth It greatly pleaseth a proud mans mind when you seem to be convinced by him and to change your mind upon his arguments or to be much informed and edified by him But when you deny this honour to his understanding and contradict him and stifly maintain your opinion against him you displease and lose him And indeed a wise man should gladly learn of any that can teach him more and should most easily of any man let go an error and be most thankful to any that will increase his knowledge And not only in errors to change our minds but in small and indifferent things to submit by silence beseemeth a modest peaceable man § 17. Direct 16. Yet build not Peace on the foundation of impiety injustice cruelty or faction Direct 16. for that will prove but the way to destroy it in the end Traytors and Rebells and Tyrants and Persecutors and ambitious covetous Clergy men do all pretend peace for their iniquity But what peace will Iezebels Whoredoms bring Satans Kingdom is supported by a Peace in sin which Christ came to break that he might destroy it while this strong man armed keepeth his house his goods are in peace till a stronger doth bind him overcome him and cast him out Deceitful sinful means of Peace have been the grand Engine of Satan and the Papal Clergy by which they have banished and kept out Peace so many ages from most of the Christian world Impiis mediis Ecclesiae paci consulere was one of the three means which Luther foretold would cast out the Gospel Where perjury or false doctrine or any sin or any unjust or inconsistent terms are made the condition of Peace men build upon stubble and bryars which God will set fire to and soon consume and all that peace will come to nought Directions for Church-peace I have laid down before to which I must refer you CHAP. XVIII Directions against all Theft and Fraud or injurious getting and keeping that which is anothers or desiring it § 1. HE that will know what Theft is must know what Propriety is And it is that plenary title to a thing by which it is called Our Own It is that right to any
and Dice and Stage-playes and so much on Hounds and needless pleasures c. Or rather So much to promote the preaching of the Gospel so much to set poor children to Prentice or to School so much to relieve distressed families c. Let Matth. 25. be well read and your account well thought on § 27. Direct 5. Keep an account of your expences and peruse them before a Fast or a Sacrament Direct 5. and ask conscience how it judgeth of them Yea ask some holy prudent friend Whether such proportions are allowable before God and will be comfortable to you in the day of your extremity If you are but willing to be cured such means as these will not be in vain CHAP. XXII Cases and Directions against injurious Law-Suits Witnessing and Iudgement Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Law-Suits and Proceedings Quest. 1. IN what cases is it lawful to go to Law with others Quest. 1. Answ. 1. In case of necessary defence when the Plaintiff doth compell you to it 2. When you are entrusted for Orphans or others whom you cannot otherwise right 3. When your Children or the Church or poor whom you should do good to are like to suffer iâ— you recover not your talent that God hath trusted you with for such uses from the hands of unjust men And they refuse all just arbitrations and other equal means which might avoid such suits 4. When your own necessity constraineth you to seek your own which you cannot get by easier means 5. When your forbearance will do more hurt by encouraging Knaves in their injustice than it will do good 6. When ever your cause is just and neither Mercy peace nor the avoiding of scandal do forbid it That is when it is like to do more good than harm it is then a lawful course But it is unlawful to go to Law 1. When you neglect just arbitrations patience and other needful means to avoid it 2. When your Cause is unjust 3. When you oppress the poor by it 4. When it is done in Coveâ—ousness revenge or pride 5. When the scandal or hurt to your Brother is like to be a greater harm than the righting of your self is like to do good Then must you not go willingly to Law Quest. 2. May I sue a poor man for a debt or trespass Quest. 2. Answ. 1. If he be so poor as that he cannot pay it nor procure you satisfaction the Suit is vain and tendeth but to cruelty 2. If he have no means to pay but that which will deprive him of food and rayment and the necessaries of his life or comfort you may not sue him unless it be for the supply of as great necessities of your own or in a trust for Orphans where you have no power to remit the debt yea and for them no cruelty must be used 3. If your forbearance be like to make him ableâ— by his diligence or other means you should forbear if possible 4. But if he be competently able and refuse to pay through knavery and injustice and you have better wayes to use that money if scandal forbid not you may seek by Law to recover your own from him Quest. 3. May I sue a Surety whose interest was not concerned in the case Quest. 3. Answ. If his poverty make it not an act of cruelty nor scandal prohibite it you may Because he was willing and declared his consent that you should have the debt of him if the principal pay not To become Surety is to consent to this And it is no injury to receive a mans money by his own consent and Covenant He knew that you had not lent it but on those terms and you had reason to suppose that he who would undertake to pay another mans debt had sufficient reason for it either in relation or counter-security But as you must use mercy to the principal debtor in his poverty so must you also to the surety Quest. 4. May I sue for the use of money as well as for the principal Quest. 4. Answ. This dependeth on the Case of Usury before resolved In those cases in which it may not be taken it may not be sued for Nor yet when the scandal of it will do more harm than the money will do good But in other cases it may be sued for on the terms as the Rent of Lands may Quest. 5. May Law-Suites be used to disable or humble an insolent wicked man Quest. 5. Answ. You may not take up an ill cause against him for any such good end But if you have a good cause against him which otherwise you would not have prosecuted you may make use of it to disable him from doing mischief when really it is a probable means thereto and when neither scandal nor other accidents do prohibite it Quest. 6. May a rich man make use of his friends and purse in a just cause to bear down or tire Quest. 6. out a poorer man that hath a bad cause Answ. Not by bribery or any evil means For his proceeding must be just as well as his cause But if it be an obstinate knave that setteth himself to do hurt to others it is lawful to make use of the favour of a righteous Judge or Magistrate against him And it is lawful to humble him by the length and expensiveness of the Suit when that is the fittest means and no unjust action is done in it Still supposing that scandal prohibit it not But let no proud or cruel person think that therefore they may by purse and friends and tedious Law-Suits oppress the innocent and attain their own unrighteous wills Quest. 7. May one use such forms in Law-Suits as in the literal sense are gross untruths in Declaratitions Quest. 7. Answers or the like Answ. The use of words is to express the mind And common use is the interpreter of them If they are such words as the notorious common use hath put another sense on than the literal one they must be taken in the sense which publick use hath put upon them And if that publick sense be true or Quest. 8. false accordingly they may or may not be used Quest. 8. May a guilty person plead not guilty or deny the fact Answ. Common use is the interpreter of words If the common use of those words doth make their publick sense a lye it may not be done But if the forinsick common use of the denyal is taken to signifie no more but this Let him that accuseth me prove it I am not bound to accuse my self or In foro I am not guilty till it be proved then it is lawful to plead Not-guilty and deny the fact except in cases wherein you are bound to an open confession or in which the scandal will do more hurt than the denyal will do good Quest. 9. Is a man ever bound to accuse himself and seek Iustice against himself Quest. 9. Answ. 1. In many cases a
your selves into snares by meer inconsiderateness and prepare not for perplexities and repentance Direct 2. Be very careful what persons you commit either trusts or secrets to And be sure they be trusty Direct 2. by their wisdom ability and fidelity Direct 3. Be not too forward in revealing your own secrets to anothers trust For 1. You cannot be Direct 3. certain of any ones secresie where you are most confident 2. You oblige your self too much to please Quod â—aâ—itum esse velis nemini diâ—eris Si â—bi non imperastâ— quomodo ab alto silentium speras Martiâ— Dumiens de morib that person who by revealing your secrets may do you hurt And are in fear lest carelesness or unfaithfulness or any accident should disclose it 3. You burden your friend with the charge and care of secresie Direct 4. Be faithful to your friend that doth entrust you remembring that perfidiousness or Direct 4. falseness to a friend is a crime against humanity and all society as well as against Christianity and stigmatizeth the guilty in the eyes of all men with the brand of an odious unsociable person Direct 5. Be not intimate with too many nor confident in too many For he that hath too many Direct 5. intimates will be opening the secrets of one to another Direct 6. Abhor Covetousness and ambition Or else a bribe or the promise of preferment will Direct 6. tempt you to perfidiousness There is no trusting a selfish worldly man Direct 7. Remember that God is the avenger of perfidiousness who will do it severely And that even Direct 7. they that are pleased and served by it do yet secretly disdain and detest the person that doth it because they would not be so used themselves Direct 8. Yet take not friendship or fidelity to be an obligation to perfidiousness to God or the King or Direct 8. Common-wealth or to another or to any sin whatsoever CHAP. XXVI Directions against Selfishness as it is contrary to the Love of our Neighbours § 1. THE two Tables of the Law are summed up by our Saviour in two comprehensive precepts Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might and Thou shalt Love thy neighbour aâ— thy self In the Decalogue the first of these is the true meaning of the first Commandment put first because it is the principle of all obedience And the second is the true meaning of the tenth Commandment which is therefore put last because it is the comprehensive sum of all other duties to our Neighbour or injuries against him which any other particular instances may contain and also the principle of the duty to or sin against our Neighbour The meaning of the tenth Commandment is variously conjectured at by Expositors Some say that it speaketh against inward concupiscence and the sinful thoughts of the heart But so do all the â—est in the true meaning of them and must not be supposed to forbid â—he outward action only nor to be any way defective Some say that it forbiddeth â—oveâ—ing and commandeth contentment with our state so doth the eighth Commandment yet there is some part of the truth in both these And the plain truth is as far as I can understand it that the sin forbidden is SELFISHNESS as opposite to the Love of others and the duty commanded is to LOVE our Neighbours and that it is as is said the sum of the second Table Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self As the Captain leadeth the Van and the Lieutenant bringeth up the rear so Thou shalt Love God above all is the first Commandment and Thou shalt Love thy Neighbour as thy self is the last for the aforesaid reason I shall therefore in these following Directions speak to the two parts of the tenth Commandment Direct 1. The first help against SELFISHNESS is to understand well the nature and malignity Direct 1. of the sin For want of this it commonly prevaileth with little suspicion lamentation and opposition Let me briefly therefore anatomize it § 3. 1. It is the Radical positive sin of the soul comprehending seminally or causally all the rest The corruption of mans nature or his radical sin hath two parts The Positive part and the Privâ—tive part The Positive part is SELFISHNESS or the inordinate Love of Carnal Self The Privative part is UNGODLINESSE or want of the LOVE of GOD. Mans fall was his turning from GOD to HIMSELF And his regeneration consisteth in the turning of him from HIMSELF to GOD or the generating of the LOVE of GOD as comprehending faith and obedience and the mortifying of SELF-LOVE SELFISHNESSE therefore is all positive sin in One as want of the LOVE of GOD is all privative sin in One. And SELFDENYAL and the LOVE of GOD are all duties virtually For the true LOVE of MAN is comprehended in the LOVE of GOD. Understand this and you will understand what original and actual sin is and what Grace and duty is § 3. 2. Therefore SELFISHNESSE is the cause of all sin in the world both Positive and Privative and is virtually the breach of every one of Gods Commandments For even the want of the LOVE of GOD is caused by the inordinate LOVE of SELF As the consuming of other parts is caused by the Dropsie which â—umiâ—ieth the belly It is only selfishness which breaketh the fifth Commandment by causing Rulers to oppress and persâ—â—ute their Subjects and causeth subjects to be seditious and rebellious and causâ—â—â—â— all the bitterness and quarrellings and uncomfortableness which ariseth among all relations It is only selfishness which causeth the cursed Wars of the earth and desolation of Countreys by plundering and burning the murders which cry for revenge to Heaven whether Civil Military or Religious Which causeth all the railings fightings envyings malice the Schisms and proud overvaluings of mens own understandings and opinions and the contending of Pastors who shall be the greatest and who shall have his Will in proud usurpations and tyrannical impositions and domination It is selfishness which hath set up and maintaineth the Papacy and causeth all the divisions between the Western and the Eastern Churches and all the cruelties lyes and treachery exercised upon that account It is selfishness which troubleth families and Corporations Churches and Kingdoms which violateth Vows and bonds of friendship and causeth all the tumults and strises and troubles in the world It is selfishness which causeth all Covetousness all Pride and Ambition all Luxury and Voluptuousness all surfetting and drunkenness chambering and wantonness time-wasting and heart-corrupting sports and all the royots and revellings of the sensual all the contendings for honours and preferments and all the deceit in buying and selling the stealing and robbing the bribery and Simony the Law-suits which are unjust the perjuries false witnessing unrighteous judging the oppressions the revenge and in one word all the uncharitable and unjust actions in the world This is the true
own case whatever censures for it I incur When I was first awakened to the regard of things spiritual and eternal I was exceedingly inclined to a vehement Love to those that I thought the most serious Saints and especially to that intimacy with some one which is called Friendship By which I found extrordinary benefit and it became a special mercy to my soul. But it was by more than one or two of the fore-mentioned wayes that the strict bond of extraordinary Friendship hath been relaxed and my own excessive esteem of my most intimate friends confuted And since then I have learned to love all men according to their real worth and to let out my love more extensively and without respect of persons acknowledging all that is good in all But with a double Love and honour to the excellently wiâ—e and good and to value men more for their publick usefulness than for their private suitableness to me and yet to value the ordinary converse of one or a few suitable friends before a more publick and tumultuary life except when God is publickly Worshipped or when publick service inviteth me to deny the quiet of a private life And though I more difference between man and man than ever I do it not upon so slight and insufficient grounds as in the time of my unexperienced credulity nor do I expect to find any without the defects and blots and failings of infirm imperfect mutable man Quest. 10. What qualifications should Direct us in the choice of a special bosome friend Quest. 10. Answ. 1. He must be one that is sincere and single hearted and not given to affectation or any thing that is much forced in his deportment plain and open hearted to you and not addicted to a hiding fraudulent or reserved carriage 2. He must be one that is of a suitable temper and disposition I mean not guilty of all your own infirmities but not guilty of a crosness or contrariety of disposition As if one be in love with plainness of Apparel and frugality in dyet and course of life and the other be guilty of curiosity and ostentation and prodigality If one be for few words and the other for many If one be for Labour and the other for Idleness and frequent interruptions If one be for serving the humours of men and the other for a contempt of humane censure in the way of certain duty these disparities make them unfit for this sort of bosome friendship 3. He must not be a slave to any vice For that which maketh him false to God and to betray his own soul may make him false to man and to betray his friend 4. He must not be a selfish person that is corruptly and partially for himself and for his own Carnal ends and interest For such a one hath no true love to others but when you seem cross to his Own interest his pleasure wealth or honour he will forsake you For so he doth by God himself 5. He must be Humble and not notably proud For Pride will make him quarrelsome disdainful impatient and quite unsuitable to a humble person 6. He must be one that 's throughly and resolvedly Godly For you will hardly well center any where but in God nor will he be useful to all the ends of friendship if he be not one that Loveth God and holy things and is of a pious conversation Nor can you expect that he that is false to God and will sell his part in him for the pleasure or gain of sin should long prove truly faithful unto you 7. He must be one that is judicious in Religion that is not of an erroneous heretical wit nor ignorant of those great and excellent Truths which you should ost confer about But rather one that excelleth you in solid understanding and true judgement and a discerning head that can teach you somewhat which you know not and is not addicted to corrupt you with false opinions of his own 8. He must be one that is not Schismatical and embodied in any dividing Sect For else he will be no longer true to you than the interest of his party will allow him And if you will not follow him in his conceits and singularities he will withdraw his love and despise you And if he do not yet he may endanger your stedfastness by the temptation of his love 9. He must be one that hath no other very intimate friend unless his friend be also as intimate with you as with him Because else he will be no further secret and trusty to you than the interest or will of his other friend will allow him 10. He must be one that is Prudent in the management of business and especially those which your converse is concerned in else his indiscretion in words or practice will not suffer your friendship to be long entire 11. He must be one that is not addicted to loquacity but can keep your secrets Otherwise he will be so untrustly as to be uncapable of doing the true office of a friend 12. He must have a zeal and activity in Religion and in all well-doing Otherwise he will be unfit to warm your affections and to provoke you to love and good works and to do the principal works of friendship but will rather cool and hinder you in your way 13. He must be one that is not addicted to levity unconstancy and change or else you can expect no stability in his friendship 14. He must not much differ from you in Riches or in poverty or in quality in the world For if he be much Richer he will be carryed away with higher company and converse than yours and will think you fitter to be his servant than his friend And if he be much poorer than you he will be apt to value your friendship for his own commodity and you will be still in doubt whether he be sincere 15. He must be one that is like to live with you or near you that you may have the frequent benefit of his converse counsel example and other acts of friendship 16. He must be one that is not very covetous or a Lover of Riches or preferment For such a one will no longer be true to you than his Mammon will allow him 17. He must be one that is not pievish passionate and impatient but that can both bear with your infirmities and also bear much from others for your sake in the exercise of his friendship 18. He must be one that hath so good an esteem of your person and so true and strong a Love to you as will suffice to move him and hold him to all this 19. He must be yet of a publick Spirit and a lover of good works that he may put you on to well doing and not countenance you in an idle self-pleasing and unprofitable life And he ought to be one that is skilful in the business of your Calling that may be fit to censure your work and amend it and
As no man can serve two Masters so no man can well please two contrary friends And if you whisper to one the failings of another it tendeth directly to the dissolution of your friendship Direct 12. Think not that love will warrant your partial erroneous estimation of your friend Direct 12. You may judge him fittest for your intimacy but you must not judge him better than all other men unless you have special evidence of it as the reason of such a judgement Direct 13. Let not the love of your friend draw you to love all or any others the less and below Direct 13. their worth Let not friendship make you narrow hearted and confine your charity to one But give all their due in your valuation and your conversation and exercise as large a charity and benignity as possibly you can Especially to Societies Churches and Common-wealth and to all the world It is a sinful friendship which robbeth others of your charity Especially those to whom much more is due than to your friend Direct 14. Exercise your friendship in Holiness and well-doing Kindle in each other the Love of Direct 14. God and Goodness and provoke each other to a heavenly conversation The more of God and Heaven is in your friendship the more holy safe and sweet and durable it will prove It will not wither when an everlasting subject is the fewel that maintaineth it If it will not help you the better to Holiness and to Heaven it is worth nothing Eccles. 4. 11. If two lye together then they have heat but how can one be warm alone See that your friendship degenerate not into common carnal love and evaporate not in a barren converse instead of prayer and heavenly discourse and faithful watchfulness and reproof Direct 15. Prepare each other for suffering and death and dwell together in the house of mourning Direct 15. where you may remember your nearer everlasting friendship and not only in the house of mirth as if it were your work to make each other forget your latter end CHAP. XXIX Cases and Directions for Loving and doing good to enemies MOst which belongeth to this subject is said before Chap. 9. about forgiving enemies and therefore thither I refer the Reader Tit. 1. Cases about loving and doing good to enemies Quest. 1. WHom must I account an enemy and love under that name Quest. 1. Answ. 1. Not every one that is angry with you or that giveth you soul words or that undervalueth you or that speaketh against you or that doth you wrong But he that hateth you and seeketh or desireth your destruction oâ— your hurt as such designedly 2. And no man must be taken for such that doth not manifest it or by whom you cannot prove it 3. But if you have reasonable suspicion you may carry your self the more warily for your own preservation lest he should prove your enemy and his designs should take you unprovided Quest. 2. With what kind of Love must an enemy be loved and on what accounts Quest. 2. Answ. Primarily with a love of Complacence for all the good which is in him natural or moral He must be loved as a man for the goodness of his nature and his understanding and virtues must be acknowledged as freely and loved as fully as if he were no enemy of ours Emnity must not blind and pervert our judgement of him and hinder us from discerning all that is amiable in him nor must it corrupt our affections and hinder us from loving it and him 2. Secondarily we must love him with a love of benevolence desiring him all that happiness which we desire to our selves and endeavouring it according to our opportunities Quest. 3. Must I desire that God will pardon and save him while he repeuteth not of the wrong he doth Quest. 3. me and being impenitent is uncapable of pardon Answ. 1. You must desire at once that God will give him repentance and forgiveness 2. If he be impenitent in a state and life of ungodliness or in a known and wilful sin he is indeed uncapable of Gods pardon and salvation in that case But if you know him not to be ungodly and if mistake or passion only or some personal offence or falling out have made him your enemy and you are not sure that the enmity is so predominant as to exclude all true charity or if he think you to be a bad person and be your enemy on that account you must pray for his pardon and salvation though he should not particularly repent Quest. 4. What if he be my enemy upon the account of Religion and so an enemy to God Quest. 4. Answ. There are too many who have too much enmity to each other upon the account of different opinions and parties in Religion in an erroneous zeal for Godliness who are not to be taken for enemies to God What acts of hostility have in this age been used by several Sects of zealous Christians against each other 2. If you know them to be enemies of God and Godliness you must hate their sin and love their humanity and all that is good in them and wish their repentance welfare and salvation Quest. 5. What must I do for an enemies good when my benefits are but like to embolden encourage Quest. 5. and enable him to do hurt to me or others Answ. 1. Usually kindness tendeth to convince and melt an enemy and to hinder him from doing hurt 2. Such wayes of kindness must be chosen as do most engage an enemy to returns of kindness without giving him ability or opportunity to do mischief in case he prove implacable You may shew him kindness without putting a Sword into his hand Prudence will determine of the way of benefits upon consideration of circumstances Quest. 6. May I not defend my self against an enemy and hurt him in my own defence And may I Quest. 6. not wish him as much hurt as I may do him Answ. When you can save your self by fair words or flight or some tolerable loss without resisting him to his hurt you should rather choose it and Resist not evil Matth. 5. 39. When you cannot do so you must defend your self with as little hurt to your enemy as you can And if you cannot save your self from a lesser hurt without doing him a greater you must rather suffer it Object But if I hurt him in my own defence it is his own fault Answ. So it may and yet be yours too you are bound to Charity to your enemy and not to Iustice only Object But if I run away from him or resist him not it will be my dishonour And I may defend my honour as well as my life Answ. Such objections and reasonings which the Jesuites use against Jesus were fitter for the mouth of an Atheist than of a Christian. It is Pride which setteth so much by the esteem of men yea of bad and foolish men as to plead
or others from a possible hurt Direct 3. Be not desirous or inquisitive to know what men think or say of you unless in some special Direct 3. case where your duty or safety requireth it For if they say well of you it is a temptation to pride and if they say ill of you it may abate your love and tend to enmity Eccles. 7. 21. Also take no heed to all words that are spoken lest thou hear thy servant curse thee For oft-times also thy own heart knoweth that thou thy self likewise hast cursed or spoken evil of others It is strange to see how the folly of men is pleased with their own temptations Direct 4. Frown away those flatterers and whisperers who would aggravate other mens enmity to Direct 4. you or injuries against you and think to please you by telling you needlesly of other mens wrongs While they seem to shew themselves enemies to your enemies indeed they shew themselves enemies consequently to your selves For it is your destruction that they endeavour in the destruction of your Love Prov. 16. 28. If a whisperer separate chief friends much more may he abate your love to 2 Cor. 12. 20. enemies Let him therefore be entertained as he deserveth Direct 5. Study and search and hearken after all the good which is in your enemies For nothing will Direct 5. be the object of your Love but some discerned good Hearken not to them that would extenuate and hide the good that is in them Direct 6. Consider much how capable your enemy and Gods Enemy is of being better And for Direct 6. ought you know God may make him much better than your selves Remember Pauls case And when such a one is converted forethink how penitent and humble how thankful and holy how useful and serviceable he may be And love him as he is capable of becoming so lovely to God and man Direct 7. Hide not your love to your enemies and let not your minds be satisfied that you are Direct 7. Conscious that you love them But manifest it to them by all just and prudent means For else you are so uncharitable as to leave them in their enmity and not to do your part to cure it If you could help them against hunger and nakedness and will not how can you truly say you love them And if you could help them against malice and uncharitableness and will not how can you think but this is worse If they knew that you love them unfeignedly as you 'l say you do it 's two to one but they would abate their enmity Direct 8. Be not unnecessarily strange to your enemies but be as familiar with them as well you can Direct 8. For distance and strangeness cherish suspicious and false reports and enmity And converse in kind familiarity hath a wonderful power to reconcile Direct 9. Abhor above all enemies that pride of heart which scorneth to stoop to others for love and Direct 9. peace It is a Devilish language to say Shall I stoop or crowch to such a fellow I scorn to be so base Humility must teach you to give place to the pride and wrath of others and to confess it when you have wronged them and ask them forgiveness And if they have done the wrong to you yet must you not refuse to be the first movers and seekers for reconcilation Though I know that this rule hath some exceptions as when the enemies of Religion or us are so malicious and implacable that they will but make a scorn of our submission and in other cases when it is like to do more harm than good it is then lawful to retire our selves from malice Direct 10. However let the Enmity be in them alone Watch your own hearts with a double carefulness Direct 10. as knowing what your temptation is and see that you Love them whether they will love you or not Direct 11. Do all the good for them that lawfully you can For benefits melt and reconcile And Direct 11. hold on though ingratitude discourage you Direct 12. Do them good first in those things that they are most capable of valuing and relishing That Direct 12. is ordinarily in corporal commodities or if it be not in your power to do it your selves provoke others to do it if there be need And then they will be prepared for greater benefits Direct 13. But stop not in your enemies corporal good and in his reconciliation to your self For then Direct 13. it will appear to be all but a selfish design which you are about But labour to reconcile him to God and save his soul and then it will appear to be the Love of God and him that moved you Direct 14. But still remember that you are not bound to Love an enemy as a friend but as a man Direct 14. so qualified as he is nor to Love a wicked man who is an Enemy to Godliness as if he were a Godly man but only as one that is capable of being Godly This precept of Loving enemies was never intended for the levelling all men in our Love CHAP. XXX Cases and Directions about works of Charity Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Works of Charity Quest. 1. WHat are the grounds and reasons and motives to charitable works Quest. Answ. 1. That doing good doth make us likest to God He is the universal Father Motives and benefactor to the world All good is in him or from him and he that is best and doth most good is likest to him 2. It is an honourable employment therefore It is more honourable to be the Best man in the Land than to be the greatest Greatness is therefore honourable because it is an ability to do good And Wisdom is honourable because it is the skill of doing good so that Goodness is that end which maketh them honourable and without respect to which they were as nothing A power or skill to do mischief is no commendations 3. Doing good maketh us pleasing and amiable to God because it maketh us like him and because it is the fulfilling of his will God can love nothing but Himself and his own excellencies or image appearing in his works or his works so far as his attributes appear and are glorified in them 4. Good works are profitable to men Tit. 3. 8. Our brethren are the better for them The bodies of the poor are relieved and mens souls are saved by them 5. In doing good to others we do good to our selves because we are living members of Christs body and by Love and Communion feel their joys as well as pains As the hand doth maintain it self by maintaining and comforting the stomach so doth a Loving Christian by good works 6. There is in every good nature a singular delight in doing good It is the pleasantest life in all the World A Magistrate a Preacher a Schoolmaster a Tutor a Physicion a Judge a Lawyer hath so much
that you sinned with must by all importunity be follicited to repentance and the sin must be confessed and pardon craved for tempting them to sin 2. Where it can be done without a greater evil than the benefit will amount to the Fornicators ought to joyn in marriage Exod. 22. 16. 3. Where that cannot be the man is to put the Woman into as good a case for outward livelyhood as she would have been in if she had not been corrupted by him by allowing her a proportionable dowry Exod. 22. 17. and the Parents injury to be recompensed Deut. 22. 28 29. 3. The Childs maintenance also is to be provided for by the fornicator That is 1. If the man by fraud or sollicitation induced the Woman to the sin he is obliged to all as aforesaid 2. If they sinned by mutual forwardness and consent then they must joyntly bear the burden yet so that the Man must bear the greater part because he is supposed to be the stronger and wiser to have resisted the temptation 3. If the Woman importuned the man she must bear the more but yet he is responsible to Parents and others for their damages and in part to the Woman her self because he was the stronger vessel and should have been more constant And volenti non fit injuria is a rule that hath some exceptions Quest. 12. In what case is a man excused from restitution and satisfaction Quest. 12. Answ. 1. He that is utterly disabled cannot restore or satisfie 2. He that is equally damnified by the person to whom he should restore is excused in point of real equity and Conscience so be it that the Reasons of external order and policy oblige him not For though it may be his sin of which he is to repent that he hath equally injured the other yet it requireth eonfession rather than restitution or satisfaction unless he may also expect satisfaction from the other Therefore if you owe a man an hundred pound and he owe you as much and will not pay you you are not bound to pay him unless for external order sake and the Law of the Land 3. If the debt or injury be forgiven the person is discharged 4. If Nature or common-custome do warrant a man to believe that no restitution or satisfaction is expected or that the injury is forgiven though it be not mentioned it will excuse him from restitution or satisfaction As if Children or friends have taken some trifle which they may presume the kindness of a Parent or friend will pass over though it be not justifiable Quest. 13. What if the Restitution will cost the restorer far more than the thing is worth Quest. 13. Answ. He is obliged to make Satisfaction instead of Restitution Quest. 14. What if the confessing of the fault may enrage him that I must restore to so that he will Quest. 14. turn it to my infamy or ruine Answ. You may then conceal the person and send him satisfaction by another hand or you may also conceal the wrong it self and cause satisfaction to be made him as by gift or other way of payment Tit. 2. Directions about Restitution and Satisfaction Direct 1. FOresee the trouble of restitution and prevent it Take heed of Covetousness which would Direct 1. draw you into such a snare What a perplexed case are some men in who have injured others so far as that all they have will scarce make them due satisfaction Especially publick oppressours who injure whole Nations Countreys or communities and unjust Judges who have done more wrong perhaps in one day or week than all their estates are worth and unjust Lawyers who plead against a righteous cause and false witnesses who contribute to the wrong and unjust Juries or any such like Also oppressing Landlords and Souldiers that take mens goods by violence and deceitful tradesmen who live by injuries In how sad a case are all these men Direct 2. Do nothing which is doubtful if you can avoid it lest it should put you upon the trouble of Direct 2. restitution As in case of any doubtful way of Usury or other gain consider that if it should hereafter appear to you to be unlawful and so you be obliged to restitution though you thought it lawful at the taking of it what a snare then would you be in when all that use must be repayed And so in other cases Direct 3. When really you are bound to restitution or satisfaction stick not at the Cost or Suffering be Direct 3. it never so great but be sure to deal faithfully with God and Conscience Else you will keep a thorn in your hearts which will smart and fâ—ster till it be out And the ease of your Consciences will bear the charge of your costlyest restitution Direct 4. If you be not able in your life time to make restitution leave it in your willâ— as a debt upon your Direct 4. Estates but never take it for your own Direct 5. If you are otherwise unable to satisfie offer your labour as a servant to him to whom you Direct 5. are indebted if at least by your service you can make him a compensation Direct 6. If you are that way unable also beg of your friends to help you that Charity may Direct 6. enable you to pay the debt Direct 7. But if you have no means at all of satisfying confess the injury and crave forgiveness Direct 7. and cast your self on the mercy of him whom you have injured CHAP. XXXIII Cases and Directions about our obtaining Pardon from God Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about obtaining pardon of sin from God Quest. 1. IS there pardon to be had for all sin without exception or not Quest. 1. Answ. 1. There is no pardon procured nor offered for the final non-performance of the conditions of pardon that is for final impenitency unbelief and ungodliness 2. There is no pardon for any sin without the conditions of pardon that is without true faith and repentance which is our conversion from sin to God 3. And if there be any sin which certainly excludeth true Repentance to the last it excludeth pardon also which is commonly taken to be the case of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost of which I have written at large in my Treatise against Infidelity But 1. All sin except the final non-performance of the conditions of pardon is already conditionally pardoned in the Gospel that is If the sinner will repent and believe No sin is excepted from pardon to penitent believers 2. And all sin is actually pardoned to a true penitent believer Quest. 2. What if a man do frequently commit the same heynous sin may he be pardoned Quest. 2. Answ. Whilest he frequently committeth it being a mortal sin he doth not truly repent of it And while he is impenitent he is unpardoned But if he be truly penitent his heart being habitually and actually turned from the sin it will be forgiven
your sins and to that life of Holiness Righteousness Love and Sobriety which is contrary to them Otherwise your Repentance is fraudulent and insufficient These means and no less than all these must be used by him that will make sure of the pardon of his sins from God And he that thinketh all these too much must look for pardon some other way than from the mercy of God or the Grace of Christ For Gods pardon is not to be had upon any other terms than those of Gods appointment He that will make new Conditions of his own must pardon himself if he can on those conditions For God will not be tyed to the Laws of sinners CHAP. XXXIV Cases and Directions about Self-judging Tit. 1. Cases of Conscience about Self-judging BEcause I have said so much of this subject in the third Part of my Saints Rest and in a Treatise of Self-acquaintance and in my Directions for Peace of Conscience and before in this Book I shall be here the briefer in it Quest. 1. What are the uses and reasons of self-judging which should move us to it Quest. 1. Answ. In the three foresaid Treatises I have opened them at large In a word without it we shall be strangers to our selves we can have no well grounded comfort no true repentance and humiliation no just estimation of Christ and Grace no just observance of the motions of Gods Spirit no true application of the Promises or Threatnings of the Scripture yea we shall pervert them all to our own destruction no true understanding of the Providence of God in prosperity or adversity no just acquaintance with our duty A man that knoweth not himself can know neither God nor any thing aright nor do any thing aright he can neither live reasonably honestly safely nor comfortably nor suffer or dye with solid peace Quest. 2. What should ignorant persons do whose natural capacity will not reach to so high a work as Quest. 2. to try and judge themselves in matters so sublime Answ. 1. There is no one who hath reason and parts sufficient to Love God and hate sin and live a holy life and believe in Christ but he hath reason and parts sufficient to know by the use of just means whether he do these things indeed or not 2. He that cannot reach assurance must take up with the lower degrees of comfort of which I shall speak in the Directions Quest. 3. How far may a weak Christian take the judgement of others whether his Pastor or judicious Quest. 3. acquaintance about his justification and sincerity Answ. 1. No mans judgement must be taken as infallible about the sincerity of another nor must it be so far rested on as to neglect your fullest search your self And for the matter of fact what you have done or what is in you no man can be so well acquainted with it as your selves 2. But in judging whether those acts of Grace which you describe be such as God hath promised salvation to and in directing you in your self-judging and in conjecturing at your sincerity by your expressions and your lives a faithful friend or Pastor may do that which may much support you and relieve you against inordinate doubts and fears and shew you that your sincerity is very probable Especially if you are assured that you tell him nothing but the truth your selves and if he be one that is acquainted with you and your life and hath known you in temptations and one that is skilful in the matters of God and conscience and one that is truly judicious experienced and faithful and is not byassed by interest or affection and especially when he is not singular in his judgement but the generality of judicious persons who know you are of the same mind In this case you may take much comfort in his judgement of your justification though it cannot give you any proper certainty nor is to be absolutely rested in Tit. 2. Directions for Self-judging as to our Actions Direct 1. LEt watchfulness over your hearts and lives be your continual work Never grow Direct 1. careless or neglective of your selves Keep your hearts with all diligence As an unfaithful servant may deceive you if you look after him but now and then So may a deceitful heart Let it be continually under your eye Object Then I must neglect my Calling and do nothing else Answ. It need not be any hinderance to you at all As every man that followeth his Trade and labour doth still take heed that he do all things right and every Traveller taketh heed of falling and he that eateth taketh heed of poysoning or choking himself without any hinderance but to the furtherance of that which he is about So is it with a Christian about his heart Vigilant heedfulness must never be laid by what ever you are doing Direct 2. Live in the light as much as is possible I mean under a judicious faithful Pastor Direct 2. and amongst understanding exemplary Christians For they will be still acquainting you with what you should be and do and your errors will be easily detected and in the light you are not so like to be deceived Direct 3. Discourage not those that would admonish or reprove you nor neglect not their opinion Direct 3. of you No not the railings of an enemy For they may tell you that in anger much more in fidelity which it may concern you much to hear and think of and may give you some light in judging of your selves Direct 4. If you have so happy an opportunity engage some faithful bosome friend to watch over you Direct 4. and tell you plainly of all that they see amiss in you But deal not so hypocritically as to do this in the general and then be angry when he performeth his trust and discourage him by your proud impatience Direct 5. Put your selves in anothers case and be impartial When you cannot easily see the Direct 5. faults of others enquire then whether your own be not as visible if you were as ready to observe and aggravate them And surely none more concern you than your own nor should be so odious and grievous to you nor are so if you are truly penitent Direct 6. Understand your natural temper and inclination and suspect those sins which you are naturally Direct 6. most inclined to and there keep up the strictest watch Direct 7. Understand what temptations your Place and Calling and Relations and Company do most Direct 7. subject you to and there be most suspicious of your selves Direct 8. Mark your selves well in the hour of temptation For then it is that the vices will appear Direct 8. which before lay covered and unknown Direct 9. Suspect your selves most heedfully of the most common and most dangerous sins Especially Direct 9. Unbelief and want of Love to God and a secret preferring of earthly hopes before the hopes of the life to come and
by his best hours and of a good man by his worst is the way to be deceived in them both Direct 14. Look not unequally at the good or evil that is in you but consider them both impartially Direct 14. as they are If you observe all the good only that is in you and overlook the bad or search after nothing but your faults and overlook your graces neither of these wayes will bring you to true acquaintance with your selves Direct 15. Look not so much either at what you should be or at what others are as to forget Direct 15. what you are your selves Some look so much at the glory of that full perfection which they want as that their present grace seemeth nothing to them like a candle to one that hath been gazing on the Sun And some look so much at the debauchery of the worst that they think their lesser wickedness to be holiness Direct 16. Suffer not your minds to wander in confusion when you set your selves to so great a Direct 16. work But keep it close to the matter in hand and drive it on till it have come to some satisfaction and conclusion Direct 17. If you are not able by meditation to do it of your selves get the help of some able Direct 17. friend or Pastor and do it in a way of conference with him For conference will hold your own thoughts to their task and your Pastor may guide them and tell you in what order to proceed and confute your mistakes besides confirming you by his judgement of your case Direct 18. If you cannot have such help at hand write down the signs by which you judge either Direct 18. well or ill of your self and send them to some judicious Divine for his judgement and counsel thereupon Direct 19. Expect not that your assurance should be perfect in this life For till all grace be perfect Direct 19. that cannot be perfect Unjust expectations disappointed are the cause of much disquietment Direct 20. Distinguish between the knowledge of your justification and the comfort of it Many Direct 20. a one may see and be convinced that he is sincere and yet have little comfort in it through â— sad or distempered state of mind or body and unpreparedness for joy or through some expectations of enthusiastick comforts Direct 21. Exercise grace when ever you would see it Idle habits are not perceived Believe and Direct 21. repent till you feel that you do believe and repent and Love God till you feel that you love him Direct 22. Labour to increase your grace if you would be sure of it For a little grace is hardly Direct 22. perceived when strong and great degrees do easily manifest themselves Direct 23. Record what sure discoveries you have made of your estate upon the best enquiry Direct 23. that it may stand you in stead at a time of further need For though it will not warrant you to search no more it will be very useful to you in your after doubtings Direct 24. What you cannot do at one time follow on again and again till you have finished A Direct 24. business of that consequence is not to be laid down through weariness or discouragement Happy is he that in all his life hath got assurance of life everlasting Direct 25. Let all your discoveries lead you up to further duty If you find any cause of doubt Direct 25. let it quicken you to diligence in removing it If you find sincerity turn it into joyful thanks to your Regenerater and stop not in the bare discovery of your present state as if you had no more to do Direct 26. Conclude not worse of the effects of a discovery of your bad condition than there is Direct 26. cause Remember that if you should find that you are unjustified it followeth not that you must continue so you search not after your disease or misery as uncurable but as one that hath a sufficient remedy at hand even brought to your doors and cometh a begging for your acceptance and is freely offered and urged on you And therefore if you find that you are unregenerate thank God that hath shewed you your case for if you had not seen it you had perished in it And presently give up your selves to God in Jesus Christ and then you may boldly judge better of your selves It is not for despair but for recovery that you are called to try and judge Nay if you do but find it too hard a question for you whether you have all this while been sincere or not turn from it and resolvedly give up your selves to God by Christ and place your hopes in the life to come and turn from this deceitful world and flesh and then the case will be plain for the time to come If you doubt of your former repentance Repent now and put it out of doubt from this time forward Direct 27. When you cannot at the present reach assurance undervalue not a true probability or Direct 27. hope of your sincerity And still adhere to universal grace which is the foundation of your special grace and comfort I mean 1. The infinite Goodness of God and his mercifulness to man 2. The sufficiency of Jesus Christ our Mediator 3. The universal gift of Pardon and Salvation which is conditionally made to all men in the Gospel Remember that the Gospel is glad tidings even to them that are yet unrecovered Rejoice in this universal mercy which is offered you and that you are not as the Devils shut up in despair And much more rejoice if you have any probability that you are truly penitent and justified by faith Let this support you till you can see more Direct 28. Spend much more time in doing your duty than in trying your estate Be not Direct 28. so much in asking How shall I know that I shall be saved as in asking What shall I do to be saved Study the duty of this day of your visitation and set your selves to it with all your might Seek first the things that are above and mortifie your fleshly lusts Give up your selves to a Holy Heavenly life and do all the good that you are able in the World Seek after God as revealed in and by our Redeemer And in thus doing 1. Grace will become more notable and discernable 2. Conscience will be less accusing and condemning and will easilier believe the reconciledness of God 3. You may be sure that such labour shall never be lost and in well doing you may trust your souls with God 4. Thus those that are not able in an argumentative way to try their state to any full satisfaction may get that comfort by feeling and experience which others get by ratiocination For the very exercise of Love to God and man and of a Heavenly mind and holy life hath a sensible pleasure in it self and delighteth the person who is so employed As if a man were to take the comfort of his Learning or Wisdom one way is by the discerning his learning and wisdom and thence inferring his own felicity But another way is by exercising that learning and wisdom which he hath in reading and meditating on some excellent Books and making discoveries of some mysterious excellencies in Arts and Sciences which delight him more by the very acting than a bare conclusion of his own Learning in the general would do What delight had the inventers of the Sea-Chart and magnetick traction and of Printing and of Guns in their inventions What pleasure had Galileus in his Telescopes in finding out the inequalities and shady parts of the Moon the Medicean Planets the adjuncts of Saturn the changes of Venus the Stars of the Via lactea c. Even so a serious holy person hath more sensible pleasures in the right exercise of faith and Love and holiness in Prayer and Meditation and converse with God and with the Heavenly hosts than the bare discerning of sincerity can afford Therefore though it be a great important duty to examine our selves and judge our selves before God judge us and keep close acquaintance with our own hearts and affairs yet is it the addition of the daily practice of a Heavenly life which must be our chiefest business and delight And he that is faithful in them both shall know by experience the excellencies of Christianity and Holiness and in his way on Earth have both a prospect of Heaven and a foretaste of the Everlasting Rest and Pleasures FINIS
this to encrease and multiply your pleasure Is not health and friends and food and convenient habitation much sweeter as the â—ruit of the Love of God and the fore-tastes of everlasting mercies and as our helps to Heaven and as the means to spiritual comfort than of themselves alone All your mercies are from God He would take nâ—ne from you but sanctifie theâ— and give you more § 26. Direct 5. See that Reason keep up its authority as the Governour of sense and appetite And Direct 5. so take an accounâ— whatâ—ver the Appetite would have of the Ends and Reasons of the thing and to what it doth câ—â—duce Take nothing and do nothing meerly because the sense or appetite would have it but because you have Reason so â—â— do and to gratifie the appetite Else you will deal as Brutes if Reason be laid by in humane acts § 27. Direct 6. Go to the Gâ—ave and see there the end of fleshly pleasure and what is all that it Direct 6. will do for you at the last One would think iâ— should cure the mad desire of plenty and pleasure to see where all our wealth and mirth and sport and pleasure must be buryed at last § 28. Direct 7. Lastly be still sensible that flesh is the grand Enemy of your souls and flesh-pleasing Direct 7. the greatest hinderance of your salvation The Devils enmity and the worlds are both but subordinate to this of the Flesh For its Pleasure is the End and the world and Satans temptations are both but the means to attain it Besides the malignity opened before consider 1. How contrary a voluptuous life is to the blessed example of our Lord and of his servant Paul The enmity of the Flesh. and all the Apostles Paul tamed his body and brought it into subjection left having preached to others himself should be a castaway 1 Cor. 9. 27. And all that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Gal. 5. 24. This was signified in the antient manner of baptizing and so is still by Baptism it self when they went over head in the water and then rose out of it to signifie that they were dead and buried with Christ Rom. 6. 3 4. and rose with him to newness of life This is called our being Baptized into his death And seems the plain sense of 1 Cor. 15. 29. of being Baptized for the dead that is for dead or to shew that we are dead to the world and must dye in the world but shall rise again to the Kingdom of Christ both of Grace and Glory 2. Sensuality sheweth that there is no true belief of the life to come and proveth so far as it prevaileth the absence of all grace 3. It is a home-bred continual traytor to the soul A continual tempter and nurse of all sin The great withdrawer of the heart from God and the common cause of Apostacy it self It still fighteth against the Spirit Gal. 5. 17. And is seeking advantage from all our Liberties Gal. 5. 13. 2 Pet. 2. 10. 4. It turneth all our outward mercies into sin and strengthneth itself against God by his own benefits 5. It is the great cause of our afflictions For God will not spare that Idol which is set up against him Flesh rebelleth and flesh shall suffer 6. And when it hath brought affliction it is most impatient under it and maketh it seem intollerable A flesh-pleaser thinks he is undone when affliction depriveth him of his pleasure 7. Lastly It exceedingly unfitteth men for Death For then Flesh must be cast into the dust and all its pleasure be at an end O doleful day to those that had their good things here and their portion in this life When all is gone that ever they valued and sought and all the true felicity lost which they brutishly contemned If you would joyfully then bear the dissolution and ruine of your flesh O master it and mortifie it now Seek not the ease and pleasure of a little walking breathing clay when you should be seeking and fore-tasting the everlasting pleasure Here lyeth your danger and your work Strive more against your own flesh than against all your Enemies in Earth and Hell If you be saved from this you are saved from them all Christ suffered in the flesh to tell you that it is not pampering but suffering that your flesh must expect if you will reign with him CHAP. V. Further Subordinate Directions for the next great duties of Religion necessary See the Directions how to spend every day Tom. 2. Chap. 17. to the right performance of the former Directions for REDEEMING or well improving TIME § 1. TIME being Mans opportunity for all those works for which he liveth and which his Creator doth expect from him and on which his endless life dependeth the REDEEMING or well improving of it must needs be of most high importance to him And therefore it is well made by holy Paul the great mark to distinguish the Wise from fools Ephes. 5. 15 16. See then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise Redeeming the time So Col. 4. 5. I shall therefore give you special Directions for it when I have first opened the nature of the duty to you and told you what is meant by Time and what by Redeeming it § 2. Time in its most common acception is taken generally for all that space of this present life What 's meant by Time which is our opportunity for all the works of life and the measure of them Time is often taken more strictly for some special Opportunity which is fitted to a special work which we call the season or the fittest time In both these senses Time must be Redeemed § 3. As every work hath its season which must be taken Eccles. 3. 1. So have the greatest works What are the special seasons of duty assigned us for God and our souls some special seasons besides our common time 1. Some Times God hath fitted by Nature for his service So the Time of Youth and health and strength is specially fit for holy work 2. Some Time is made specially fit by Gods Institution As the Lords Day above all other dayes 3. Some Time is made fit by Governours appointment as the hour of publick Meeting for Gods Worship and Lecture-dayes and the hour for family-worship which every Master of a family may appoint to his own houshold 4. Some Time is made fit by the temper of mens Bodies The Morning hours are best to most and to some rather the Evening and to all the Time when the Body is freest from pain and disabling weaknesses 5. Some Time is made fit by the course of our necessary natural or civil business as the day is fitter than the sleeping time of the night and as that hour is the fittest wherein our other imployments will least disturb us 6. Some Time is made fit by a special showr of Mercy publick
is not wholly dispossessed of those objects which are against its work nor delivered from those Principles which have an Enmity against it The love of the world and flesh was in the heart before the love of God and holiness and ignorance was before knowledge and Pride before humility and selfishness before self-denyal And these are not wholly rooted out We have dealt so gently with them as the Israelites with the Canaanites Iebusites and other Inhabitants of the Land that they are left to try us and to be thorns in our sides And the Garrison is not free from danger that hath an enemy alwayes lodged within Our enemies are in the house with us They lye down and rise up with us and are as near us as our flesh and bones we can never be where they are not nor leave them behind us whithersoever we go or whatever we Mar. 13. 12. Matth. 10. 21. do No marvel if Brother be against Brother and the Father against the Son when we are so much against our selves And are we yet secure § 11. 8. And the number of the snares that are still before us and of the subtile malitious enemies of our souls may easily convince us that we are wholly free from danger How subtile and diligent is the Devil How much do his servants imitate him Every creature or person that we have to do with and every common mercy which we receive hath matter of danger in it which calleth us to fear and watch § 12. 9. Perseverance is nothing else but our continuance in the grace which we received And this grace consisteth in Act as well as in Habit And the Habit is for Action and the Act is it that increaseth and continueth the habit And the Fear of God and the belief of his threatnings and repentance and watchfulness and diligent obedience are a great part of this grace And the Acts are ours performed by our selves by the helps of God God doth not Believe and Repent and Obey in us but causeth us our selves to do it Therefore to grow cold and secure and sinful upon preâ—ence that we are sure to persevere this is to cease persevering and to fall away because we are sure to persevere and not to fall away which is a meer contradiction § 13. 10. Lastly Bethink you well what is the meaning of all these Texts of Scripture and the Reason that the Holy Ghost doth speak to us in this manner Col. 1. 21 22 23. And you hath he reconciled to present you holy if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel John 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you 6. If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and withered 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in yâ—u ye shall ask what ye will Heb. 4. 1. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Cor. 10. 4 5 12. They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ But with many of them God was not well pleased Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall Rom. 11. 20 21. Be not high-minded but fear For if God spared not the natural branches take heed lest he spare not thee Gal. 5. 4. Ye are fallen from grace Matth. 10. 22. He that endureth to the end shall be saved Matth. 24. 13. Heb. 3. 6 14. Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoycing of hope firm unto the end For we are partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end Heb. 4. 11. Let us labour therefore to enter into that Rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief Rev. 2. 25. Hold fast till I come 26. And he that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations Rev. 3. 2 3. 2. 4. § 14. Take heed therefore of that Doctrine which telleth you that sins to come are all pardoned to you before they are committed and that you are Justified from them and that it is unlawful to be afraid of falling away because it is impossible c. For no sin is pardoned before it is committed though the Remedy be provided For it is then no sin And you are Justified from no sin any further than it is pardoned Suppose God either to decree or but to fore-know the freest most contingent act and there will be a Logical impossibility in order of Consequence that it should be otherwise than he so decreeth or foreseeth But that inferreth no natural impossibility in the thing it self For God doth not Decree or foresee that such a mans fall shall be Impossible but only non-futurum § 15. Direct 4. In a special manner take heed of the company and doctrine of deceivers yea though Direct 4. they seem most Religious men and are themselves first deceived and think they are in the right And take heed of falling into a dividing party which separateth from the generality of the truly wise and Ephes. 4. 14. 1 Thesâ— 5. 12 13. godly people For this hath been an ordinary introduction to backsliding False doctrine hath a mighty power on the heart And he that can separate one of the sheep from the rest of the flock hath a fair advantage to carry him away See Rom. 16. 16 17. § 16. Direct 5. Be very watchful against the sin of Pride especially pride of gifts or knowledge or Direct 5. holiness which some call spiritual Pride For God is engaged to cast down the proud Prov. 16. 18. Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall Satan assaulted our first Parents by that way that he fell himself and his success encourageth him to try the same way with their posterity And alas how greatly hath he succeeded through all ages of the world till now § 17. Direct 6. Take heed of a divided hypocritical heart which never was firmly resolved for Direct 6. God upon expectation of the worst and upon terms of self-denyal nor was ever well loosed from the Love of this present world nor firmly believed the life to come For it is no wonder that he falleth from grace who never had any grace but common which never renewed his soul. It is no wonder that false hearted friends forsake us when their interest requireth it Nor that the seed which never had depth of earth do bring forth no fruit but what will wither when persecution shall arise or that Luke 14. 26 29 33. which is sown among thorns be choaked Matth. 13. Sit down and count what it will cost you to be Christians and receive not Christ upon mistakes or with reserves § 18. Direct 7. Take heed lest the world or any