good as 1. Life Animal Life one of the best good things in the World yet very short and very uncertain Job 14. 1. James 4. 14. What is our life It is but a Vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away Psal 39. 4 5. 2. The Accommodations of Life as Riches but uncertain 1 Tim. 6. 17. Corruptible 1 Pet. 1. 17 18. Deceitful Matth. 13. 22. 3. Pleasures they are but for a season Heb. 11. all lawful Pleasures such as Solomon had all but vanity and vexation Health and Strength Friends and Relations all are but for a time a very short uncertain time Abraham had his Sarah and David his Jonathan and Jacob his Rachel but for a time daily Experience proves all this all visible good is but temporal 2. Evil things that are visible are but temporal also Heaviness endureth but for a moment Sickness Pain Poverty Disgrace Persecution Afflictions are but for a moment Tribulation ten days an hour of Temptation Desertion but a little moment and because this is the Nature and Property of all visible things that they are transitory temporal things not lasting much less everlasting therefore we that are enlightned by Grace and that have true understandings and right apprehensions of these things and which have also had the experience of their shortness and uncertainty both of the good and evil things of this World we do not look unto them that is we look beyond them and above them those visible temporal things do not lye so near our Hearts nor take up so much room in our Minds nor so much place in our Affections as invisible eternal things do nor as those visible temporal things do in the Hearts and Minds of others whose Hope and Portion is in this Life and whose Minds the God of this World hath blinded No no we look not upon those earthly things with such an Eye of Love Desire and Delight the visible good things of this World do not raise or delight our Souls nor seek we that content in them that others do nor have we such dreadful thoughts of the evil things of this World as to perplex our selves with the fears of them before they come nor with immoderate sorrow and grief when they come nor are we so dejected and troubled when we part with the visible Comforts of this Life because we have right Apprehensions of them and therefore we faint not under our Afflictions From hence two Points of Doctrine are observable 1 Doct. That because all visible things are Temporal and of no long continuance therefore gracious Souls engage not their Hearts too much in them nor concern themselves too much for them or about them 2 Doct. That a right and true Judgment of earthly things will help much to support and uphold the Lord's Servants in and under all the Afflictions of this Life 1 Doct. 1. First That because all visible things are temporal but for a short time therefore they must not be much minded nor regarded This is the Character and the Duty of all gracious Souls 1 Cor. 7. 29 30. Because the time is short therefore they that have wives must be as if they had none and they that weep as if they wept not c. Joh. 6. 27. Labour not for that meat which perisheth And Phil. 4. 6. Be careful in nothing c. Q. But must we cast off all care of earthly things 〈◊〉 not mind them at all Ans Not so neither for we are commanded to work and use lawful Callings and to abide in our Callings but the meaning is 1. That we must not mind and regard visible things earthly things Then when we are to mind invisible and heavenly things see Isa 58. 13. Upon the holy day of God and when we are in holy Duties praying hearing reading meditating then our Hearts Thoughts and Minds should be wholly taken up with invisible heavenly things and visible earthly things laid aside 2. Nor must we mind them so heartily seriously delightfully as we must mind heavenly things we must be fervent in Spirit serving the Lord Rom. 12. 11. and strive as in an Agony to enter in at the â—â—ait gate Luk. 13. 24. and give all diligence to make your calling and election sure and to serve the Lord with our whole heart and with all our might but we are never commanded to mind and pursue the things of the World so nor with such eagerness and fervency The Lord chargeth it as a grievous Crime on Israel that they panted after the Dust of the Earth Amos 2. 7. But gracious souls pant after God Psal 42. 1 2. 63. 1 2 8. Their souls follow hard after God and blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness Matth. 5. Not they that hunger and thirst after the Honours Pleasures and Riches of this World 1 John 2. 14 15. Love not the world nor the things of the world 3. Nor must we mind these visible temporal things firstly principally and chiefly but only secondarily and in subserviency to heavenly things Matth. 6. 33 34. First seek the kingdom of God first in the beginning of your Life first in the morning of the day first in your Affections 4. Nor mostly God is to be loved with all our hearts with all our souls with all our minds and with all our strength Matth. 22. 37. Psal 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me as the most worthy object of my continual love desire fear and delight 5. Nor must we so mind visible things at all as to be taken off from minding heavenly things or to be hindred from or to be unficted for minding heavenly things 6. Nor must we mind them but with heavenly Hearts and for heavenly ends still minding God in them how to glorifie him by them 1 Cor. 10. 31. Whether ye eat or drink or whatever ye do do all to the glory of God Q. But when do we mind visible temporal things us much Ans 1st When we mind them unseasonably as noted before 2dly When we mind them inordinately out of order that is firstly and principally 3dly When we mind them immoderately Let your moderation be known unto all men saith the Apostle Phil. 4. Q. But when do we mind them immoderately Ans 1. When our minding of these visible temporal things hinders us from minding those invisible and eternal things This was the Sin of Demas his embracing this World made him forsake Paul So that when the Service of Christ must give place to the Service of the World when the Farm the Oxen the Wife must be preferred before the Feast and good Duties laid aside while the World is served when the call of God is neglected and the call of the World obeyed then do we mind Earthly things immoderately In some cases I confess that is in Cases of Necessity to shew Mercy to any in Misery to save or preserve Life God will have mercy and not sacrifice but out of those
World to him one that looks not on the things which are seen that sets not his Heart and Affections upon them III. The Reasons of the Point why gracious Souls do not so much regard and mind visible things are those that follow Reason 1. One Reason is in the Text which is because they are temporal fading perishing transitory momentany things All flesh is grass and the glory thereof as the flower of the field All are dying things and therefore no suitable Objects for never-dying Souls to spend themselves upon All our Relations how dear and near soever our Health Estate Liberty yea our Life is but a Vapour that appears but a little time and then vanisheth away therefore not fit for immortal Souls to fix upon Reas 2. Because these visible temporal things the outward good things of this World are most times great Enemies to our Souls and have proved very hurtful and prejudicial to them that have had the greatest confluence of them but beneficial to very few Deut. 32. 15. Oh how few have been the better for Prosperity Now this damage and hurt to mens Souls cometh not from those good things themselves for they are good in themselves and are God's Blessings but this hurt comes partly from the Devil and partly from mens own Corruptions 1st From the Devil the god of this World 2 Cor. 4. 4. who causeth Mischief to the Souls of Men by the good things of this world these ways 1. He misrepresents the things of this world to Men the Riches Honours and Pleasures of it Liberty Health Ease Money Estates the Devil shews them in false glasses and not as the God of Truth in his Word declares them to be and indeed so they are and not otherwise but Satan represents them not as vain deceitful vexatious and uncertain things but as brave glorious satisfying things and thence men promise themselves so much Content in them 2. He lays Snares Baits and Temptations in all visible temporal things 1 Tim. 6. 9. There is not any visible Comfort but there is some Snare some Temptation attending it 3. He over-values all temporal things to us making them to be worth all our Affections Strength Time and Pains but undervalues Heaven Grace and Glory there he saith why so much ado time enough hereafter 4. He greatens present Evils as Shame Poverty Sickness Losses c. Oh! these must be avoided by any means but lesseneth eternal Evils God's Wrath and Vengeance and eternal Damnation Thus the Devil makes these visible temporal things hurtful to men 2dly This hurt comes to men through their own Lust and Corruptions within them without which the Devil could not hurt them if Men had 〈◊〉 the Spirit of this World within them 1 Cor. 2. 〈…〉 a worldly Spirit a vain Mind a foolish Mind an earthly Mind darkned and corrupted 〈…〉 earthly things which complieth with 〈…〉 unto Satan's Temptations without 〈…〉 their Hearts are carried our 〈…〉 these earthly things else Satan 〈…〉 Now the great Mischiefs 〈…〉 do to Mens-Souls through the 〈…〉 and Mens own Corruptions 〈…〉 First These Earthly thing◠〈…〉 coming to Christ as they 〈…〉 Matth. 19. 22. by darkning their 〈…〉 their Minds that they cannot see that transcendent Beauty and unspeakable Amiableness and Comeliness that is in Jesus Christ nor their own absolute necessity of him and their undone estate without him by filling their Hearts Heads Hands and Time and all so that there is no room for Christ nor time to mind Christ Profits and Pleasures take up all their time and carry away their Hearts Secondly They hinder men from following Christ Phil. 2. 21. All seek their own not the things of Christ at least they hinder men from following Christ fully and wheresoever he goes as Joshua and Caleb did and those in the Revelations 14. 4. Thirdly They hinder men from owning Christ and his Truths and Saints and from suffering for Christ when called thereunto as it hath millions of Professors in time of Persecution Now from the consideration of the danger we are in from visible temporal things we have good reason to draw off our Hearts and Affections from them and not much to mind or regard them And indeed our Souls are in danger on both hands both from the good and from the evil things of this World Prosperity and Adversity 1. From Prosperity we are in danger to have our Hearts divided and estranged from God and so to commit spiritual Idolatry setting up our Enjoyments for Idols in our Hearts taking more pleasure and delight in them than in God and his Service We are in danger of forgetting God and of falling into sinful security in danger of being lifted up with Pride and Vain-glory and thereby provoke God and in danger of growing careless and negligent in the Service of God And these are great Evils 2. From Adversity there is danger also as in case of loss of Friends Estate Liberty Health c. We are in danger of Impatience Discontent Despondency c. And therefore gracious Souls labour to get off their Hearts as much as they can from all visible temporal things and to be as indifferent and as unconcern'd to them as possibly and to be as dead to them as they can 3 Reas Because of the Vanity utter Insufficiency and Impotency of all earthly things without God either to preserve from the least Evil or to procure the least good All the Riches in the world cannot cure an aking Tooth Haman's Honour could not save him from the Gallows nor Herod from the Worms See Prov. 11. 4. Eccl. 1. 2. 5. 10. Isa 55. 2. There is no satisfaction to be had in them or from them 4 Reas Because there is not the least true happiness in having the greatest abundance of earthly things for if there were then Reprobates and Cast-aways should have the greatest share in Happiness for they have most of those things 5 Reas Because every gracious Soul is in Covenant with God united to Christ partaker of his Spirit and so made like unto God and like unto Christ The Great God is his and all the great things of the Covenant are his Christ and all his Benefits are his and alas what mean low base things are all the visible temporal things of this World in comparison of God of Christ and Glory Besides all gracious Souls are in measure made like God And we read what a low esteem God hath of these things Luke 16. 15. Those things that are highly esteemed amongst men are an abomination to the Lord. And our Lord Jesus had a very low esteem of them being contented to be without house or home or a penny in his Purse And every true Christian hath the Spirit of Christ in some measure and the same mind that He had Rom. 8. 9. Gal. 4. 6. 6 Reas Because gracious Souls are born of God and that unto far higher and better things than these visible temporal things are at their best 1 Pet.
for the flesh and blood the Scripture gives us many Epithetes of it as Houses of Clay Earthly Tabernacles Dust and Ashes earthen vessels c. And these Bodies are 1. Vile bodies Phil. 3. 21. because made of vile and base materials subject to vile diseases to vile abuses to vile abominations and to a vile dissolution at last sowen indishonour shall end in Corruption great hinderances to the Soul many waies 2. The outward Man is the mortal Man that of Necessity must dye and return to dust from whence it came this cannot possibly live alway There is an irreversible Sentence of Death past upon it Hebr. 9. 27. and for these reasons the Body is the worst part of Man the worst by far and should be least esteemed and such as is the Body even such are all bodily Comforts and Accommodations Health Strength Beauty Liberty Friends Honours Estate c. all mortal mutable decaying fading dying things daily experience confirmeth this I need say no more 2. But for the inner Man the Soul that is 1. Precious so precious that it is more worth than all the World Math. 16. 26. Psal 49. 8. having the blessed Image of the glorious God stamped on it at first being capable of knowing and injoying the true and living God and when sin had spoil'd and captivated it it could not be redeemed but by the precious Blood of the Son of God So are all the Concernments of the Soul precious also 2. It is immortal also it never dies it lives for ever None can nothing can kill the Soul that is cause it not to be and for these reasons it is the noblest chiefest and best part of Man and hence also the Concernments of the Soul are more excellent more noble and precious than those of the outward Man the Graces and Comforts the Strength and Beauty of the Soul the Priviledges and Peace and Wellfare of the Soul are more excellent and precious as will more appear in the next particular 2. The second thing to be considered is That the outward Man is subject to decline and perish The Body it self all its Beauty Strength Health c. is subject to decay The Bodies even of the best Saints that shall one day be made like unto Christ's glorious Body are subject to vile Infirmities and Diseases What is become of Sampson's Strength and Saul's Beauty Job and David will tell us of their decays in all these their Friends Estates Relations their Health and all their outward Comforts failed them and how can we possibly hope that we shall keep them All outward things are dying Vanities we are all of us travelling to the Land of forgetfulness They that live longest go the farthest way about and they that dye soonest gâ— the shortest way home Our greatest Care should be to be sure that we are in the right way to Eternal Life But now the inner Man is capable of growing increasing and renewing our inner Man is reneweâ— day by day saith the Text Grace and Peace Spiritual Life inward Strength and Comfort are capable of increasing For 1. This God commandeth That Christian should grow and increase 2. Pet. 1. 5. and 3. 1â— and that they should abound and go forward and be strengthned 2. This is God's Promise to his People that they shall grow and flourish Psal 92. 14. Isa 14. 40. 29 30 31. They that wait on the Lorâ— shall renew their strength 3. This is the Character of a gracious Soul Prov. 4. 18. and 24. 5. Coll. 1. 10. and 2. 1â— Eph. 4. 16. And this the Apostle prays for 1 Thess 3. 12. and 4. 16. 3 Epist Johnâ— This the Soul is capable of being deformed iâ— sin and God's Image defaced on it it is capable of being renewed and of having God's blesse Image repaired on it which is begun in Regeneration and is still carried on and promoted â—â— God 's Ordinances and his Providences his Spiâ— working in them and with them upon his People All afflictions being intended for and sanctifie unto this end to make Souls more and more 〈◊〉 unto Jesus Christ Those weaknings and pershings of the outward Man being by the love at wisdome of God designed to strengthen repair and better the inner Man that the Soul may bâ— made and must be made more holy more humble more heavenly more like God it must group in all things like unto Christ Ephes 4. 12 13. The Soul the inner Man may and must get more strength against Corruption and Temptation it must get more Victory over the World and over it self it must grow in self-denyal in faith in patience in hope in Communion with God it must increase in knowledge and experience it must get nearer God and more weaned from the World and better prepared to put off this earthly Tabernacle of the Body Wherefore is the Christian train'd up in Christ's Schools his School of Ordinances and of Providences but that the Soul the inner Man may be made better That Grace may grow for it is the Growth of Grace that evidenceth the Truth of it And why doth our heavenly Father chastise us in our outward Comforts but to better us in our inward Man But before I proceed let me pause a little and commune with my own heart O my Soul Thou hast been under the blastings and witherings of thy outward Man these many years thou hast been in the School of Correction Thy God hath made many breaches upon thy earthly Comforts stript thee of thy dearest Relations of thy Liberty of thy Estate of opportunities of serving thy God in thy place deprived thee of thy Health and Strength c. yet hath he dealt with thee infinitely better than thy Sins have deserved It is his mercy thou art not consumed not in Hell not in thy Grave but O my Soul what art thou the better for all those stroaks upon thy outward Man What hast thou gained by all thy losses It is true Afflictions are dry Rods and my heart a dead heart there can be no blossoms nor fruit without God's Blessing and the Word and Spirit 's working in and by Affliction but what blessing upon all thy troubles canst thou discern What good to the inner Man have these afflictions done thee Art thou more sensible of the evil of Sin more weary of it and more grieved with it Is thy Heart more tender thy Spirit more humble thy will more subdued to Gods will Art thou more Crucified to the Creature thy inordinate Affections mortified thy unruly Passions subdued Art thou more meek and patient Are thy Affections raised and more inlarged after God and Christ and Heaven Is Jesus Christ more precious to thee And dost thou pant and thirst more after the manifestations of his Love to thy Soul Art thou more watchful over thy thoughts words and actions More careful to please God more fearful to displease him More tender of his Honour More sensible of the Afflictions of Joseph More diligent in holy
cases God and his Service must be preferred before all visible temporal things But when earthly things so fill up our Heads Hearts Minds Thoughts Hands Time and all that we have none left to spend or bestow on heavenly things then we mind visible things immoderately 2. When our minding visible temporal things unfits and indisposeth us for minding invisible and eternal things when earthly things have so entred our Hearts and so engaged our Minds that they deaden and dull clog and cloy our Spirits so entangle and perplex our Thoughts as that thereby we are put out of frame and temper and made unfit to mind or meddle with Divine and Heavenly things Luke 21. 34. Take heed lest at any time your hearts be over-charged with surfeiting und drunkenness and cares of this life saith our Lord. 3. When we are less tired and wearied in the thoughts of visible temporal things than in the thoughts of invisible eternal things When we can plot study cark care think muse ponder upon freely talk of earthly things without weariness but with much delight as being very suitable to our Minds and therefore very pleasing and grateful to us we can think and speak of earthly things from morning till night without weariness but are soon weary of the study and meditation of heavenly things nay are meer Strangers to heavenly Meditation and heavenly Discourse Mal. 1. 13. When we are in company where there is heavenly talk we are soon weary of such company and of such talk and are willing to break off such Discourse and to entertain the talk of worldly things 4. When we are more attentive unto more intent upon more seriously affected with and more strongly impressed by those visible temporal things than we are with and by invisible and eternal things When good News from Sea or Land a good bargain good success in our Worldly business doth more heartily affect us and rejoyce us thâ—â— good News from Heaven or any spiritual Mercy then we do immoderately mind earthly things It was far otherwise with holy David Psal 4. 6 7. Many say Who will show us any good any visible temporal good but Lord lift thou vp the light of thy countenance upon us Thou hast put more gladness into my heart than when their corn and wine encreased And so it is with all gracious Souls 5. When the gain of visible temporal things brings more joy and the loss of them breeds more sorrow than the gain or loss of invisible eternal things when the gain of an Estate of Honour of the Favour of a great person doth more rejoice the Heart than the gain of the Pearl of Price and the loss of an Estate or Friend doth more cast down than the loss of God or a good Conscience 6. When we are more afraid of Suffering than of Sin and would rather venture the loss of invisible eternal things than the loss of visible temporal things Surely it was not thus with the Apostles and Primitive Christians they looked not on those visible temporal things they did not mind them unseasonably inordinaiely immoderately and so comparatively they are said to mind them not at all The Proof of this 〈◊〉 will appear I by express Precept H. bâ— the 〈◊〉 of Gospel-Christians III. by solid Reasons I. By express Precepts besides 〈…〉 before John 6. 27. 1 Cor. 7. 31 〈…〉 that in Col. 3. 1 2 3 5. Set your affections 〈…〉 things above and not on things below and 〈…〉 inordinate affections 1 John 2. 〈…〉 would nor the things of the 〈…〉 the love of the father is 〈…〉 〈◊〉 in lay that to Heart the love 〈◊〉 World is utterly inconsistent with the love of 〈…〉 that in Jam. 4. 4. He that is 〈…〉 is the Enemy of God the 〈…〉 is enmity to God It is a dangerous 〈…〉 to be the Enemy of God nothing is so dangerous See Nahum 1. 2. God is jealous and the Lord revengeth the Lord revengeth and is furious the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and reserveth wrath for his enemies What a dreadful Text is this And who are the Lord's Enemies Why those that are the friends of the world saith the Spirit of God Although but few think or believe so yet so it is and it is a most dreadful thing to be the Enemies of God for then God is our Enemy and that is most dreadful Now he that is a friend to the world is the enemy of God World in that place I take to be the same that is here in my Text called Visible temporal things the good things of this World Such as are the friends of these things saith the Apostle are the enemies of God and this is no small matter let us all therefore look well to it that we be not such Q. But who are the friends of this World you will ask A. First All such as love this World and the things of it more than God and Christ and Heavenly things this is most clear So Matth. 10. 37. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me saith our Lord. 2 Tim. 3. 4. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God What do most People mind most and think most upon and speak most of Is it not the World things that are seen What is most in their Thoughts Mornings soon and Evenings late Where are their Hearts and Affections most Let our Consciences speak Whom do we serve most follow and pursue most God or the World Christ or the Creature Who hath the precedency and supremacy in our Hearts What Interest is uppermost in our Souls This is a plain Rule of Tryal and if we will suffer our own Consciences to speak plainly and tell us the truth we may know whether we be Friends of the World or no. Let us deal faithfully with our selves in this great Case and not flatter and deceive our selves as most do and so mistake our selves by taking our selves to be the Lord's Servants when indeed we are his real Enemies because we are Friends of the World and by this mistake may we ruine our selves for ever Secondly All such as covet desire seek after the World the Profits and Pleasures and Favours of it more than after God and Christ after Grace and Glory Such as pant after the Dust of the Earth that make haste to be rich that load themselves with yellow Clay such are Friends of the World Whereas gracious Souls are like those in Isa 26. 8. Yea in the way of thy judgments O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early So Psal 73. 25 26. Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever So Psal 42. 1 2. As the hart panteth
Perswasions will prevail they turn the deaf Ear to all But for the World how soon are People perswaded to embrace it to follow hard after it to count no Time nor Pains too much to attain it What is there in those visible temporal things in those glittering vanities that should so allure entice and seduce rational Souls and such as profess that they believe all those better things But indeed they do not believe them whatever they profess Infidelity is the Root of all Men do not believe what they profess to believe It were impossible that the World should be so heartily so eagerly follow'd and pursued if the vanity and vexation of it the emptiness and insufficiency of it the uncertainty and transitoriness of it were indeed believed It were impossible that the great and glorious God the Alsufficient Good that blessed Jesus that Heaven and Eternal Happiness should be so slighted and neglected if they were truly really and heartily believed It is most strange and yet most true that People should yield up their Hearts unto and spend their best Affections upon the things of this present evil World and can think and speak delightfully of them but have no mind to think or speak of eternal things Oh this beguiling bewitching and deceiving World and oh these corrupt carnal deceitful Hearts of ours that suffer the World thus to deceive us It cost the Heart-blood of Christ to deliver his People from this present evil World Gal. 1. 4. Could we apprehend the Mischief this World hath done us and doth still do us we should have but little kindness for it and if once we could attain the Assurance of our title to that World above we should not care how soon we were gone out of this 3 Inf. Thirdly Hence appears the Unreasonableness of immoderate Worldly Joy Sorrow Fear Cares about visible temporal things Being they are but temporal passing transient momentany things why then so much care to get and keep them Why so much fear of losing them Why so much Joy in possessing and why so much Trouble in parting with them Why so much Care and Fear about Life it self which is but a Vapour Jam. 4. 14. Alas we rejoice in things of nought and are grieved for the loss of Shadows for such and no better at best are all visible temporal things in comparison of invisible eternal things Let us all bewail this Folly O when shall we be wise How long shall we simple ones love this our sinful Simplicity Prov. 1. 22. Oh how long e're we be able to discern between Good and Evil till we know the one thing needful and approve and pursue the things which are most excellent and give up our Hearts entirely to God and Christ 4 Inf. Fourthly Hence appears the absolute Necessity of Regeneration Seeing we are by Nature so ignorant dark blind stupid and dead that we cannot see nor understand the things of God nor the things that belong to our own Eternal Peace Therefore we should earnestly seek and pray for Renewing Grace and that Christ would give us the Light of Life and that God would beget us anew and give us his sanctifying quick'ning Spirit and infuse new spiritual Principles of the Divine Nature into our Hearts and thereby take us off from inordinate minding visible temporal things and turn our minds another way even towards Himself and towards Christ and Heaven that there we may center and place all the Affections of our Hearts all the Desires and Delights of our Souls This must be done by the mighty power of God and we must seek him diligently to effect this work upon us and we must also attend on his Word preached and read and diligently and conscientiously read the Word searching the Scriptures for this very end and purpose and servently beg God's Blessing on the Word that it may prove to us a Word of Grace a renewing converting sanctifying Word the Seed of Regeneration Jam. 1. 17 18. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth John 17. 17. Thus must we Labour to be regenerated or else we shall never get off our Minds from earthly things Second Vse by way of Examination We All hope to go to Heaven when we dye and to enjoy all those invisible eternal good things do we not Let us be so kind to our own Souls as to try our Title and the grounds of our Hopes Sure here is one Mark by which we may know whether our Hopes be well grounded or no to wit by our Heavenly-mindedness What do we aim at mainly mind chiefly look on and look after principally Is it Heaven or Earth Visibles or Invisibles Let us examine our selves Which way runs the Stream of our Thoughts the Current of our Affections the Tide of our Discourses Which way runs it strongest steddiest Put this Question close to our Consciences and require a direct Answer Let us not dally and shuffle but be serious Our Apostle makes this a discriminating Character of a Child of God of one in Christ and above the power of Condemnation of one that is born again Rom. 8. 5. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh the Profits Honours Pleasures Ease Health Liberty of the Flesh that is they mind these things mainly mostly principally chiefly most heartily most seriously most affectionately most delightfully These visible temporal things lye most upon their Thoughts and lye nearest their Hearts This is their Character and it appears in all their Words and Actions But they that are after the Spirit that is are born of the Spirit born of God are in Christ they mind the things of the Spirit the grace the work the witness the comfort and joy or the Spirit they mind the things which the Spirit hath revealed in the Word God and Peace with him Christ and Union with him God's Covenant and Interest therein Eternal Life and Title thereto these invisible eternal things they mind these mainly chiefly mostly principally most heartily affectionately and most delightfully and constantly This is their Character and this is manifest also in their Words and Actions Now let us try our selves What Character have we Which of these two If we will not do so much for our own Souls as to take a little pains in trying we have not much love to them A man may know very much of his State by this And is it not worth a little Labour to know whether we be in Christ or no and whether we shall be Saved or Damned eternally Let us put it home to our Consciences Say O my Soul what dost thou mind most What are thy Thoughts most exercised about Whereupon are thy Affections most fixedly set This is a searching mark oh that we did all try our selves by it we should be much more heavenly than we are The best of us all will have cause of shame and sorrow cause of self-suspicion and jealousie when we strictly compare our selves with
then Heirs Heirs of all those invisible eternal things Rom. 8. 17. Now if we be the Children of God we are led by the Spirit of God Rom. 8. 15. As many as are led by the Spirit of God just so many and no more are the Children of God If we have the Image of our Heavenly Father on us and do love him with all our Hearts and can trust him and depend on him in all things and for all things and are most careful to obey him in all things if it be so with us in Sincerity then have we a good and firm Right and Title to all those great and glorious things in the other World And when we can prove our Right to them and can call them our own then surely we shall think on them our Hearts and Minds will be set upon them all our Affections will be carried out after them Psal 73. 24 25 26. Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon Earth that I desire besides thee My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever When a Soul can in truth and upon good grounds say My God my Lord my Jesus then he will in earnest mind them Psal 63. 1 2 3 4 5 6. O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee To see thy power and thy glory because thy loving kindness is better than life my lips shall praise thee Thus will I bless thee while I live My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night-watches And v. 7 8. Because thou hast been my help therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce My soul followeth hard after thee thy right hand upholdeth me And the ground of all this was his Interest in God O God thou art my God 2. If we would have our Hearts and Minds set and fixed on invisible eternal things let us seriously consider the nearness of those things of those invisible eternal things unto us and of us to them things that are great but at a distance from us seem but small things to us and but little affect us The time of our departure hence is at hand and then farewel for ever to all visible temporal things our Houses our Honours Estates and Friends shall know us no more we shall have no more converse with or enjoyment of any visible temporal thing for ever And it will not be long e're this parting come God is near to every one of us Christ is nigh the Holy Spirit is nigh stirring and striving with us the Word is nigh us even in our Mouths and in our Hearts Rom. 10. 1. Heaven and Glory are nigh to us if we be Saints we are not far from our Father's House not far from the Kingdom Hell and Destruction nigh to us if we be wicked but a Breach between us and everlasting Damnation and if we be Saints and Believers the day of our full Redemption draws nigh the Coming of Christ is at hand our Salvation at the very Door As it is dangerous for the Wicked to put far off the evil day Amos 6. 3. so it is disadvantagious to the Godly to put far off the good day We shall shortly very shortly enter the Conâ—â—nes of Eternity and converse with nothing but invisible eternal things those things that now are out of our sight and too much out of our minds but it were our great Wisdoms to look on them as night at hand and to spend our Thoughts and Affections upon them We are displeased with our Friends that when we are out of their sight we should be out of their Minds And may not God and Christ our best Friends be justly displeased with us that they are so much out of our Minds But though God and Christ be invisible to our bodily Eyes they are nigh unto us therefore we should still mind them Psal 16. 8. I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand c. Psal 109. 2 3 4 5. 3. Let us be often discoursing and speaking of those invisible eternal things let those things be often in our Mouths Should not the Children of God be often talking of their Heavenly Father and of their Father's House and of that Kingdom and Inheritance which he hath prepared for them Should not the Heirs of Salvation be often speaking of that Crown of Glory of Life of Righteousness that is purchased for them and promised to them and of that incorruptible Inheritance that they are born unto 1 Pet. 1. 2 3 4 5. Oh! can we have any Title to all the Promised Glory and not speak often of it How much is it to be lamented that those that profess themselves Children of God and Heirs of Heaven when they come together that they speak so little of God and Heaven This is our great Sin and should be our great Shame and Sorrow Whither are we bound Where are we travelling Where is our Home our long Home our last our everlasting Home Where is our Treasure Where lies our Inheritance Is it above or below Where is our Country Where is our Father our Redeemer Where are all our pious Relations that slept in Jesus Are not all these above And do we so seldom think or speak of these Shame shame on us Are we born of God born from above and do we belong to that City that hath Foundations to that heavenly Canaan to that New Jerusalem What! and our Minds so glued our Hearts so fastened to Earthly things and our Tongues so constantly employed about earthly things Oh our idle words Matth. 12. 36. Can our Treashres be in Heaven and our Hearts not there And can our Hearts be there and nothing appear in our words Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Surely the earthliness vanity empriness unfavoriness frothiness of our common ordinary Talk doth but too much discover the vanity and earthliness of our Hearts Oh that we did all of us lay this to our Hearts The more we talk of these invisible eternal things the more we shall mind them 4. Consider it is the express Duty of every true Christian to set his affections upon things above and not upon things below Col. 3. 1 2. Charge the Command of God upon your Consciences accustom and inure your selves to it O my Soul this is as much thy Duty as to pray or hear or read how long wilt thou neglect it O dare not neglect it any longer begin it presently call upon God to renew and raise thy Heart 5. Let us learn that blessed Art of Spiritualizing earthly things every earthly Mercy to a Child of God is a taste of Eternal Mercy every visible temporal thing discovers somewhat of invisible eternal things This is a sweet
own hearts more than ever they saw before then they find and feel their Spiritual Wants Diseases Dangers the treachery falseness deceitfulness of their own Hearts their often grieving quenching resisting of God's Spirit in time of Prosperity their inordinate Self-love Flesh-pleasing and Gratifyings then they see their former spiritual sloth and negligence their backwardness to and weariness in God's Service their formality deadness customariness in holy Duties their impatience of reproof their hastiness of Spirit their want of tenderness towards and of sympathy with those that were afflicted not weeping with those that wept their censuring and judging others their want of Charity then they see how badly they improved their healthful and youthful time their Talents and their Enjoyments with many other Evils are discovered As also in times of Affliction there is a discovery of the vanity and emptiness of the Creature when all Comforts of Life fail as Health Wealth Friends Liberty Estate c. then the Soul is convinced of the vanity and uncertainty of all these The Rod discovers both Heart and Life and what the Creature is And also then the Souls of God's People come to see the surpassing Excellency of God and Christ and of the Promises and of the great Importance of the things of the World to come O now the Soul can prize an Interest in God and in his Christ and his Covenant and is hereupon stirred up to mind God more and Heaven more and to bestir it self in the use of all Means and to get Assurance of an Interest in God Now all this tends very much to the Welfare of the inner man and if we well and wisely consider this Benefit which our merciful Father grants us by blasting and withering our outward Comforts thus to enlighten and convince us of all those things we shall have cause to Adore and Admire his Goodness towards us in taking such course with us and to cry out with Job 7. 17 18. What is man that thou shouldest magnifie him and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him and that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment Thirdly The Adversity of the outward man promotes the Prosperity of the inner man by taking away the Idols of the Soul which divided the Soul from God The best of us are apt to make Idols of every Creature-enjoyment very apt to let out our Hearts in inordinate Affection to Husbands Wives Children c. and suffer them to have more of our Hearts Loves and Delights than God and Christ and Heaven over-prizing and over-loving them taking too much content in them and expecting too much from them and so make Idols of them and then God withdraws his gracious Influences from us those quickning strengthning and comfortable Influences of his Spirit from us and hides his face and then our poor Souls languish and we grow weak and feeble so it was with David Psalm 30. 6 7. but this withdrawing of God from us we do not many time perceive and feel while our earthly Comfort continue with us though our Graces be weak Faith and Love weak our Passions and Corruptions strong and are too often too hard for us and we are carried captive by them and although wâ— decay in spiritual strength and grow dead in holy Duties careless and watchless in our Conversations and want that vigour spirit and life which sometime we had which are the effects of the absence of God's Spirit that we grow cold in on Affections to heavenly things I say these saâ— effects of God's withdrawment from us are noâ— perceived and felt by us so long as our bodiâ—â— Comforts continue with us but then it pleased our gracious God to send some awakening Providences upon us he sends Adversity and remove these our Idols and then through God's assisting Grace we come to see our sin and the fruits of it then we see our folly in letting out of our Hearts upon the vain Creature and that then God did withdraw and that our Souls did wither and languish upon which by the special Grace of God we lament our folly beg forgiveness through the blood of Christ and the Lord being gracious and merciful returns to the Soul again and then the Soul begins to recover it self and to grow better Fourthly Adversity is a means of bringing afresh to our Remembrance those particular special Sins which in Prosperity were forgot and which while they lye on us without Repentance they waste and weaken hurt and corrupt our Souls Adversity as was said before puts God's People upon the search of their Hearts and Lives now they say unto themselves what have we done now their Spirits do or should make diligent search now they do or should commune with their own Hearts and examine their ways and seek for the plague of their Hearts their Dalilah's their Jonah's their darling their beloved Sins which they did not or would not see in their Prosperity nor were willing to be reproved for but did over-look them or forgot them or look'd on them as little ones and common Infirmities humane Frailties and could study shifts to cover and excuse them Such as Pride and Passion inordinate Affection Unthankfulness Hypocrisie Covetousness Selfishness vain Thoughts idle Words Omissions Unfaithfulness breaking Vows and Promises Earthly mindedness Security hardness of Heart unprofitableness under the means of Grace and many other Heart-evils that scarce appear in time of Prosperity that in time of trouble upon a through search we may find out as our Unbelief want of love to God and Christ want of love to God's Word insensibleness of Sin and want of hatred to it want of fervent Charity to others with many others which upon a consciencious search and by the help of God's Spirit we shall find out in our selves which lay hid in us corroding and putrifying our poor Souls which were never so heartily confess'd and lamented as they should But when the Spirit and the Word comes with Affliction there is a discovery made of those lurking Lusts the filthy corners of our false Hearts opened and every gracious Soul is willing to be convinced of every sin and begs God heartily to search him and to rip him up and to shew him all the Evils of his Heart and Life with all their aggravating Circumstances being committed against much Love and Light against Conscience Conviction Resolution after many Confessions of them before the Lord and many times those Sins are brought to remembrance which were quite forgotten as sins of Youth fleshly Lusts excess in Meat Drink Apparel Disobedience to Parents mispending Time foolish jesting rash Anger sinful Silence Cowardize in God's Cause neglect of Reproof neglect of relational Duties Sabbath-sins with multitudes of others which will appear upon a diligent search many omissions of Spiritual Duties as Heavenly Meditations Self-examination self-denial Watchfulness all which the gracious Soul being convinced of repents of mourns for before the Lord and by Faith in the
blood of Jesus obtains Pardon of them and by the Spirit of Jesus obtains power against them and so the Soul being pardoned and healed recovers and is renewed day by day whereas before it lay pining and laâ—â—â—ithing this blessed fruit is produced by the blessing of our most gracious God upon the perishings and wastings of our outward man Fifthly By disingaging and weaning the Hearts of God's People from all the things of this World mortifying and crucifying their Affections to things below drawing off the Heart from Creature-comforts weaning the Soul from those dry Breasts In Prosperity the best of us think little on Mortification and on crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts of it although the very Life and power of true Christianity lies in these as Rom. 8. 13. Galat. 5. 24. but then we are for pleasing and gratifying the flesh Oh how tender are we of our flesh and how loth to be cross'd how deeply are our Affections engaged to the Vanities of the World how do our Hearts cleave and cling to the Creature even as our Skin to our Body how seldom do we think seriously of parting with our Relations our Health c. or of putting off our earthly Tabernacles and of our â—ying down our Heads in the dark Grave How are we afraid of Dangers to our outward man and troubled at evil tydings how thoughtfully careful to preserve our Creature-comforts with us not taking so much care to enâ—oy God in them and to enjoy them for God as to enjoy them our selves and for our selves How â—ear do they lie to our Hearts Now our loving Father seeing all this he takes it very ill at our â—ands that the Creature should be so near and â—ear to us and have so much room in our Hearts and therefore in love to our Souls blasts and wastes these our Comforts to draw off our Hearts from them that we may not set our Affections upon them Sixthly The perishing of the outward man furthers the flourishings of the inward man not only by bringing our Sins to our remembrance as was shewed but now but also as being a means of God's appointment and blessing both to purge away Sin past and to prevent Sin for the future as Isa 27. 9. the Lord speaking of Afflictions there upon the Church saith By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his Sin O blessed design of our good and gracious God O blessed fruit So Job 33. 17 18. To withdraw man from his purpose and to hide Pride from Man Are not many of God's People sensible of this how that be their Afflictions they have been kept from many Sins that without their Afflictions they haâ—â— been liable to have fallen into and committed Surely they will acknowledge it and give Goâ— thanks Sin is the Sickness and plague of the Souâ— which corrupts the Spirit wounds the Conscience weakneth Grace now in time of Prosperity wheâ— there is no Plague nor Sickness in Town or Couâ—try but all things belonging to the outward mâ—â— flourish even then is the very Air most spiritual infectious and most places then and most peoples breath then most infectious then the conâ—gion of Sin spreads most let a man then go in what place he will into what Company almost I will his Soul is in danger of Infection by Siâ— what Contentions Pride Envy Censuring Bad biting unjust Dealing and at best but vain idiâ— unprofitable Discourse is to be heard among most and how little of promoting the power of Godliness or mutual edification Now in such a time the poor Soul gets falls and wounds gets many a disease and Spiritual distemper which it perceives not now it gathers much Rust much Dross and it may carry the infection of sin a long time and is weakned and wasted by it which it may be others see by him more than himself his Passions and Corruptions get ground upon him and he pines day by day he grows more worldly froward proud c. and yet perceives it not and thus the inner Man is much damnified by the advantages of the outward All this the wise God seeth and observeth and out of his pity and tender compassion to the precious Souls of his poor Servants seeing them thus captivated by their Corruptions and diseased with so many spiritual Distempers and that they stand in great need of Physick lest they should perish thinks fit to break their worldly prosperity to give them the bitter purge of affliction to cast them into the Furnace that they may be purified and purged and so recovered and saved Zachar. 13. 9. Thus God ordereth the fire of affliction as a means to cleanse and purify his people from their filthiness and to make them pure and white Dan. 11. 35. Seventhly By exercising the Graces of God's people which in time of their prosperity were as it were laid asleep and for want of use and exercise did decay and scarce appear for it is not Grace â—n the habit that doth so much comfort the Soul â—s Grace in exercise now Adversity serves to draw â—ut Grace into act and exercise as Faith Repentance Hope Patience and other Graces now if ever the Christian labours to put forth his faith on God in Christ and on the Covenant and Promises Oh! now God and Christ and the Covenant and the promises signify something indeed to the Soul to these the poor Soul now flies as it was with Micah 7. 7. When all outward Comforts failed then he acted his Faith Hope and Patience I will look unto God I will wait for the God of my Salvation my God will hear me So Habb 3. 17. 18. Then also God's People renew their Repentance search their Hearts and Ways and turn to God as Ephraem Jerem. 31. 18 19. And then they act their Hope upon the promises of future Glory and then their Patience appears and standâ— them in great stead and their tender-heartedness their love to God his Word and People their contempt of the World yea every Grace is exercised mostly in time of affliction and this is the rare and special excellency of true Grace that â— thrives most and prospers best in the worst time for the most part Grace is strengthned and faâ—ned when sensible Comforts are withered anâ— starved and thus the inner man is renewed wheâ— the outward doth decay and perish Eightly The perishings of the outward Man he forward the flourishing of the inward by makit room and place and preparation in the Souls oâ— God's People for the gracious Communications Spiritual Mercies to them as is evident from thaâ— Scripture Hos 2. 6. and 14 compared Theâ—â— Creature-enjoyments stood in the way before fillâ— up all the room in the Hearts now these must bâ— removed to make way for better Mercies the too-well-beloved guests must be discarded that thâ— King of Glory may come in Other lovers had thâ— heart before these must be divorced that
it is renewing day by day as in the Text. But the Fruit of Affliction upon others is like a morning dew or early cloud which the Sun-blast of Prosperity dries all up and blows all off Those seeming Fruits of Humility of Sensibleness Patience Inclinations to good Duties Resolutions against Sin c. which appear in some in time of their Affliction are all blasted and withered again when their Afflictions are removed Hos 6. 4. Thirdly The Fruit of Affliction upon the Godly is more afterward than at present Heb. 12. 11. â—ut on others 't is most at present even while the Affliction is upon them then they will seek God early and earnestly but when the Affliction is over they grow remiss and careless And oh that this were not the fault of too many of the Godly It is the After-fruit of Righteousness the exemplary Holiness of our Lives afterwards that â—s the good Fruit of sanctified Afflictions which we must bring forth to evidence the Love of our Father to us in his Chastnings of us and our spiritual Profit by those Chastisements It is not so â—uch how we behave our selves in the time of our Afflictions though that must be minded also and â—â—reful we must be to carry our selves as Christians under the Cross for an Ahab may then â—ehave himself well but the great matter is how â—e carry our selves after our Afflictions that â—â—en we bear and bring forth the quiet and peaceâ—ble Fruits of Righteousness that we shew forth our Conversations the singular good and spiritual profit that we have got by our Afflictions at we are become more holy more heavenly â—umble meek lowly more tender-hearted more â—â—tchful and circumspect more zealous of good â—orks more charitable more careful in all things please God This is that will clearly prove That Afflictions have done us good and then we shall have cause to bless God for them Fourthly The promised Good and Blessing â—â— Affliction is the main thing which the graciouâ— Soul mostly desireth prayeth for and hopes and expects Thus he breaths O that this strokâ— may be a stroke of Love O that this Affliction may do good to my inward man O that my Sâ—â— may flourish and prosper and be a Gainer by a my outward Losses and Crosses O that my Soâ— may be purged in those Fires and cleansed iâ— those Waters of Affliction that I may bring for all the blessed Fruits of Affliction and O thâ— God would accomplish all his gracious ends upâ—â— my Soul by his Chastisements but it is not with others they cry Lord remove thy haâ—â— take away my Affliction Fifthly The gracious Soul understands God's a sign in Affliction and earnestly desires to kâ—â— the whole Mind of God and why the Lord oâ— tendeth with him and hears the Voice of Rod searcheth for his Sin for the Plague of own Heart repents and turns to God through casts away the Idols of his heart resolves agaâ—â— his Corruptions prays and hopes for the bleâ—â— of his Affliction and thereupon he labours submit to the holy Will of God and patiently bear his Afflictions But it is not so with othâ—â— they are not sollicitous about the attaining of spiritual good to their Souls so they can get the Affliction they care for no more Wheâ— the gracious Soul is afraid that he shall lose â— benefit of his Afflictions and therefore is nâ— earnest with God for it Sixthly The gracious Soul seeks a â—â—eparation of all his Losses and a Balance to all his Troubles in God through Christ and in God's Covenant 2 Sam. 23. 5. and there he finds it in some measure which stayeth and quieteth him When the streams of all Creature-comforts fail him he repairs to God the Fountain and there he lies for all Supplies Psalm 31. 14. Psalm 142. 4 5. Refuge failed me no man cared for my Soul I cried unto thee O Lord I said thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living But the Ungodly are strangers to this course in the time of their trouble Now these things considered we may by them attain in some measure the knowledge of our estate whether we be godly or no in a state of Grace or no to wit by the real good our Souls have gotten by our bodily troubles So much for Information II. Thesecond Vse is of Counsel to God's afflicted People when their earthly Comforts wither and decay 1. Bear the Indignation of the Lord take his blows with patience acknowledge his hand stoop and submit to his Will He is your gracious wise merciful Father that smites you he intends you no hurt He that loves you better than you can love your selves He that Redeemed you and he that knows what is best for you He that intends all for your good and will cause all things to work for your good therefore in your patience possess ye your Souls and quietly submit to his good Will 2. Search your Hearts and try your Ways and turne him that smiteth you Commune with your oâ— Hearts call to remembrance your neglects â—â— Duty to God and Man your neglect of the Soâ—â— of your Relations your careless performance â— holy Duties your mis-spending your Talents your earthly and unprofitable Discourses c. Thâ—â— is a time for Heart-searching a time for the trâ— of your ways Lamentat 3. 40. In the day of Adversity consider Consider wherefore God afflicts you consider what you have done against God aâ— what your present Duty is Repent of your fâ—â—mer miscarriages hurable your selves under God mighty hand and act Faith on the Lord Jesus â—â— Remission and by Faith labour to draw strengâ— of Grace to reform and amend and so compâ— with God's design in his Corrections which iâ— to take away your Sin and to make you partake of his Holiness 3. In your Afflictions consult God's Word aâ— be conversant therewith and conform thereâ—â— Now learn to kep God's Precepts Psalm 119. â— Now set straight steps to your feâ—t Heb. 12. 12. â— God 's Word you will finâ— sweet Counsels and Coâ—solations precious Promises encouraging â— amples of Faith and Patience supporting quiâ—ning and strengthning Arguments Had it â—â— been for God's Word David had perished in his â— fliction O therefore now study the Scripturâ— and make them your Meditation Night and Daâ— acquaint your selves with God's Word and appâ— it and yield up your selves to the obedience of â— holy Job in his Affliction esteemed the Word of Gâ—â— above his necessary Food and David above Gold â—â— Silver 4. Learn and comply with God's Designs in chastening you His main Designs are these To take away our Sins Isa 27. 9. He takes away our Isaacs to destroy our Dalilahs he removes the desire of our Eyes to consume the Defilements of our Hearts God designs the purifying of us to make us clean and holy and fit Vessels for himself to dwell in to make us partakers of his holiness and conformable to his Son to make our
real Union of the Saints with the Blessed God and the Blessed Jesus such a Union as is between the Head and the Members and between Husband and Wife yea such as is between God and Christ and a participation of the same Glory that Christ himself doth possess and an enjoyment of the same Love that Christ himself doth enjoy yea the Saints shall then be made like unto Christ both in Soul and Body Lord help me to believe all this and to be fully perswaded of it that my Heart may be kindly affected and filled with enflamed affections towards my Blessed Jesus who hath purchased all this Glory for us with his most precious Blood Oh let me attain the full assurance of my true Title thereto that I may praise thee and may long for the full possession of it O my base unbelieving Heart Lord subdue my unbelief Oh what pains should we take to be assured of this Glory and how patiently and cheerfully should we bear our Afflictions that are designed to prepare us for it But I cannot break off here This weight of Glory is by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture represented to us by all the most excellent and delightful things among Men speaking to our Capacities and after the manner of Men. Hence it is called a Kingdom It is your Father's good pleasure saith our Lord to give you a Kingdom I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me a kingdom The Kingdom of Heaven a Kingdom that cannot be moved a Kingdom of Glory a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away a Crown of Righteousness a Crown of Life Christ hath made us Kings and Priests to God Here in this World the Saints have the Cross Fire Faggot Halters Gibbets c. let them wait but a while and they shall hear the Judge of the whole World say unto them Come ye blessed of my Father enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world Now you are abused reproached imprisoned impoverished despised shortly you shall all be crowned This Glory is called the Inheritance of the Saints in light an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for you You that now may have no House nor Home of your own no certain Dwelling-place and you that now dwell in Houses of Clay tottering every moment being the Children of God you shall shortly enter into everlasting Habitations and possess those glorious Mansions in the Father's House you shall shortly inhabit that House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens God hath prepared for you a City that hath Foundations of his own building and making Hold out Faith and Patience you shall shortly be translated into the Paradise of GOD above the reach of Men and Devils Moreover for methinks it is good to be here when Christ who is our Life shall appear we shall also appear with him in Glory with Palms in our Hands and Crowns on our Heads and with everlasting Joy and Songs of Praises in our Hearts and Mouths This Glory is called Life Everlasting Life Eternal Salvation Everlasting Peace and Everlasting Rest the purchased Possession that which cost the most precious Blood of the only Son of God to procure surely it must be a far more exceeding weight of Glory that cost such a price this Glory is the Fruit of Christ's Blood and of all his cruel Sufferings Oh that some Beams of it might be darted in upon my dark Heart by the Spirit while I am writing this to quicken and enlarge it It is Everlasting Rest Rest from all Sin the greatest burden to a gracious Soul and from all Sufferings from all doubts of God's love from all sense of God's Displeasure from all Temptations of Satan of the World and Flesh Rest from all Persecutions Now they that have suffered with Christ shall be glorified with him no Prisons Banishments Burnings Hangings Quarterings then Rest from all our sad and sinful Divisions and from all our personal Sufferings Pains Diseases Losses of dear Relations ill Tydings Rest from all Vain Thoughts from all the pain of Duty from all our Labours Let us a little further consider I. The Preparatives to this Glory and II. The Properties of it that so our Hearts may be the more affected with it and the more carried out with all Love and Desires after him that purchased it for us and with all labour and diligence to secure our title to it and may also the better bear all our Afflictions which prepare us for it and lead us to it I. Of the Preparations to this Glory and these are 1. The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Tit. 2. 13. Our blessed Lord will most certainly come again from Heaven with Power and great Glory attended by his mighty Angels to receive his People to himself that where he is there they may be also Joh. 14. 3. to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all those that believe 2 Thess 1. 10. Alas what Comfort should we have in this life if it were not for the Hope of Christ's second coming He will not leave us here still sinning suffering groaning dying no no the day of our full Redemption will come our Lord will come again and set all his poor Captives free but a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry He will come for our Salvation Heb. 9. 28. And for our great Comfort let us know and believe that however we now live as Lambs amongst Wolves when our glorious Lord Jesus the Lord of Glory and the Prince of the Kings of the Earth the chief Shepherd shall appear we shall receive a crown of glory that fedeth not away 1 Pet. 5. 4. It should be then the Character of a Christian as it is his Duty to love to long and look and wait for the Son of God from â—eaven even Jesus whom he raised from the dead which by bearing the most dreadful Wrath of his Father hath delivered us from the Wrath to come 1 Thess 1. 10. Act. 1. 12. And while we are on Earth we should have our conversations in Heaven and from thence look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile bodies and make them like his glorious body Phil. 3. 20 21. being assured that then we shall receive that Crown of Righteousness which the righteous Judge shall give at that day to all those that love his appearing 2 Tin 4. 8. Oh then seeing we look for such things what manner of persons ought we to be in all manner of holy Conversation and Godliness giving all diligence that we may be found of him in Peace without spot and blameless O what unspeakable Comfort will the Coming of Christ bring to all his poor suffering Saints the fore-thoughts of which should support us under all our present Troubles Although it may be now we are destitute of all Creature-comforts our
Flesh and Fleshly Relations fail us our Outward-man perisheth daily our Bodily strength decays our Friends fail us our own Hearts fail us this should comfort us that our Lord is gone to Heaven to prepare a place for us and he is now preparing us for that place by his Spirit by his Word and Rod and when he hath prepared us he will come again and take us to himself that where he is we may be also And where is that but at his Father's right hand in Glory Col. 3. 3 4. 2. The second Preparative to this far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory is that great and glorious Work of Christ in raising our Bodies from the Dust and uniting them again to our Souls the wonderful Effect of Almighty Power and Love Read 1 Cor. 15. 1 Thess 4. 15. Death shall not dissolve the Union between Christ and us not turn away his Affections from us but in the morning of Eternity he will send his Angels yea come himself and roll away the Stone and unseal our Graves and awake us out of our long sleep and call us forth to receive our own Souls again and oh what a joyful Meeting will that be and what unspeakable comfort will that produce The Devil had the power of Death till he was overcome by Death Heb. 2. 14 15. but he that liveth and was dead and is alive for evermore hath now the Keys of Death and Hell Rev. 1. 18. The Saints Resurrection to Glory is only the fruit of Christ's Death and this fruit they shall certainly partake of The Promise is sure Joh. 5. 28. All that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth Joh. 6. 39. And this is the Father's will which hath sent Christ that of all which he hath given him he should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day So Ver. 40. Joh. 14. 19. As sure as Christ is risen we shall rise also because he lives we shall live also Besides this mortal life we now live we have a life that 's hid with Christ in God And when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Col. 3. 3 4. Oh then beloved Fellow-christians Let us be stedfast unmovable alwaies abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Let us never look at the Grave but let us look to the Resurrection beyond it Let us contentedly commit these Carcasses to the Dust that dark Prison shall not long contain them Let us lye down in Peace and take our Rest it will not be an everlasting Night nor endless Sleep no no there will come a most joyful and glorious Morning What if we go out of the Stirs and Troubles of this World and enter into those Chambers of Dust and the Doors be shut upon us and we hide our selves as it were for a little moment until the indignation be overpast as sure as we awake in the morning after we have slept out the night so sure shall we then awake And what if in the Grave we become loathsome Dust cast out of the sight of Men as not fit to be endured among the Living What if our Bones be digged up and scattered about the Pits brink and Worms consume our Flesh yet we know our Redeemer liveth and we shall see him with these Eyes And why should we be loth to lay down these Bodies of Flesh how comely or fair soever they are they have been but the Prisons of our Souls Clogs and Hinderances to our Souls in the Work of God and Way to Heaven What care labour grief and sorrow have they cost us How many a weary painful tedious Day and Night Grudge not O my Soul that God should disburthen thee of all this and free thee from thy Fetters and break open thy Prison door remember that when this Earthly House of thy Tabernacle is dissolved thou hast a Building of God an House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens O my Soul labour now to have thy part in the first Resurrection now labour to get into Christ and to live in him by Faith and Love now labour to know O my Soul the Power of his Death and Resurrection in thy dying to Sin and living to Righteousness now act thy Faith on Jesus and thy Love to him and let Jesus live in thee and manifest his Life in thy mortal Flesh and let thy Thoughts and Affections be set on things above let thy Conversation be in Heaven and let thy Heart be where thy Treasure is now live to him that dyed for thee and rose again and then fear not Death but be confident that as sure as Jesus dyed and rose again so sure shall all they that sleep in Jesus rise also and that altho' thy Body be sown in Dishonour it shall be raised in Glory 1 Cor. 15. 43. This is the Second Preparative 3. The Third Preparative to this far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory is that great Assize and general Judgment when the Lord Jesus shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory with all the innumerable Host of glorious Angels about him and all the Sons and Daughters of Men that ever lived upon Earth shall stand before him Rom. 2. 16. 14. 10. to be judged by him and to receive their final Doom Rev. 20. 12 13. Matth. 25. 31. at which time there will be made an exact separation between the Sheep and the Goats between the precious and the vile and then the Saints shall be first acquitted and justified and then with Christ shall judge the World Those that have truly repented and sincerely believed in the Lord Jesus they that have chosen the Lord for their God and Chief Good and Portion placing all their Happiness in him and have unfeignedly accepted of the Lord Jesus for their only Lord and Saviour and have unfeignedly given themselves wholy up to his Government by his Word and Spirit and entred cordiasly into Covenant with him and became entirely his these shall sit on his Right hand these have often judged themselves iâ— Heart-breaking Confessions and therefore shall not be then judged to Condemnation by the Lord for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh hut after the spirit Rom. 8. 1. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect Shall the Law These are not under the Law but under Grace their Surely hath fulfilled and satisfied the Law for them the Law of the Spirit of Life which is in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the Law of Sin and Death it is God that justifieth who shall condemn The Judge himself hath said That he that believeth is him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life he shall not come into condemnation Joh. 3. 16 17 36. but will say to all such You have confessed me before men and
day enjoy it It will be but small Comfort to hear of all this Blessedness and Happiness if we our selves have no right to it And of this briefly Certainly this most blessed state is not for all not for most but only for a few Few saith our Lord shall be saved and those are the Children of God only they are Heirs to this Glory Rom. 8. 17. If Children then Heirs not else and such we are not by Nature Joh. 8. 44. Eph. 2. 2 3 12. But all that are the Children of God are made so by Grace they are made so by Faith in Christ Gal. 3. 26. We are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ And if we are Christ's by Faith then are we the Heirs of the Promise ver 29. That is we are Heirs of this promised Glory So Heb. 6. 17 18. Also we are made the Children of God by Regeneration by the blew-birth Full is that Text John 1. 12 13. As many as received him that is Christ to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to as many as believe in his name which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God So 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. we are said to be begotten to this Inheritance Jam. 1. 17 18. Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth So 1 Pet. 1. 23. And our Lord who is Truth it self hath assured us that except a man be born again he can never see the kingdom of God that is he shall never inherit this Glory It is prepared for none but God's Children and none are his Children but true Believers in Christ none but such as are truly regenerate and born again by the Word and Spirit now all such as are in Christ have his Spirit living and ruling in them Rom. 8. 9. If any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his And 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature all old things are past away and all things are become new And such as are born again they have the Image of God repaired in them the Divine Nature communicated to them the Life of God planted in them and are thereby enabled to live unto God and to walk as his Children in sincere Obedience to all his Commandments in resemblance of their Heavenly Father in most hearty and superiative love to him and in an holy confidence in him and entire dependance on him as their most gracious Father Almighty in and through their most dear Lord Jesus Christ These are the Persons and these only that shall be advanced to this exceeding weight of glory Moreover we are made the Children of God by Covenant God the All-sufficient Good of his infinite Love and Grace condescends to poor Sinners and freely bestows himself upon them becomes their God in Christ and takes them into Covenant with himself and makes them his Sons and Daughters 2 Cor. 6. 17 18. communicating to them his Spirit working in them all sanctifying Graces pardoning their Iniquities giving them new Hearts new Spirits soft and tender Hearts Hearts to tremble at his Word to mourn for Sin their own and others tender of God's Honour Hearts to love him Hearts to fear him c. and enabling them to give up their whole selves unfeignedly and unreservedly unto the Lord Jesus Christ taking him for their only Lord and Saviour and as the only way and means to bring them unto God and to his glory submitting themselves to his gracious government in all things and trusting in him for Life and Salvation These are the Children of God which shall certainly inherit this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory They are the People of God that shall possess this glory who are described by a famous Divine thus They are a part of the Externally called who being by the Spirit of Christ throughly though imperfectly regenerate are hereupon convinced and sensible of that evil iâ— Sin that misery in themselves that vanity in the Creature and that necessity sufficiency and excellency of Jesus Christ that they abhor that evil bewail that misery and turn their Hearts from that vanity and most affectionately accepting of Christ for their Saviour and Lord to bring them unto God the Chief Good and present them perfectly just before him do accordingly enter into a cordial Covenant with him and so deliver up themselves unto him and herein persevere unto their lives end Now all thâ— Children of God all the People of God may be assured of this glory for First God hath ordained and prepared this glory for his People This Kingdom is prepared before the foundation of the World Mat. 25. God hath predestinated his Children to this glorious Inheritance Eph. 1. 5 11. Rom. 8. 29 30. 2 Thess 2. 13. God hath prepared for them a City Heb. 11. 16. 1 Cor. 2. 9. Matt. 20. 23. The Saints are Vessels of Mercy before prepared unto glory Rom. 9. 23. And those in time he translates out of Satan's Kingdom into the Kingdom of his dear Son and by his Spirit of Grace by his Word of Grace by his Fatherly Chastisements by his Mercies he doth by degrees make meet and fit for this glorious Inheritance with his Saints in light Col. 1. 12 13. And surely God's Counsel shall stand and his Decrees be fulfilled Therefore blessed are they whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his Inheritance Psal 33. 11 12. Secondly This Glory is purchased also as was said before It is alone by the Blood of Jesus that we have entrance into Heaven therefore do the Saints sing forth his Praises for that he hath redeemed them out of every Nation by his Blood and made them Kings and Priests to God Rev. 5. 9 10. So that either Christ must lose the price of his Blood and Sufferings and never see the Travel of his Soul but all his pain and expectations be lost or else for certain there remains for the Saints this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Thirdly This Glory is promised also God that cannot lye hath promised Eternal Life Tit. 1. 2. Luk. 12. 32. 22. 19. I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me a kingdom 2 Thess 1. 7. Matth. 25. 34. Jam. 2. 5. Rev. 2. 7 10 11 17. Heb. 10. 34. with many other places So that if the Purpose and Decree of God be certain if the Purchase of Christ be certain if the Promises of the faithful God be certain all which are most sure and certain then also it is most sure and certain that the Children of God shall most assuredly one day receive this far more exceeding and eternal weigh of glory And now O my Soul how long shall thy foolish Heart deceive thee how long wilt thou set thy Affections on things below upon lying dying Vanities When wilt thou draw
off and mind thy Everlasting Rest in good-earnest and lay out thy self to the utmost to secure thy Title to it Lord be merciful to me according to thy loving kindness and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out all my Transgressions Thus have I said a little concerning this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory of the Preparatives to it of the Properties of it and of the People that shall certainly possess it to their everlasting consolation And what shall I say now but that Shame should cover my Face and Sorrow fill my Heart for that I am so little oh so little affected with these great things Oh what a hard earthly Heart have I Oh that all those that shall read or hear what I have written may have their Hearts more affected with these things and that they may be perswaded and enabled in the strength of God to put forth all their Power in the use of all means while they have time to be assured on good grounds that they are the persons designed for this Glory And oh that you and I would now examine our Hearts and States about this Let us in the presence of God ask our selves these few serious Questions Are we the Children of God they only are Heirs to this Glory Have we out of a true sense of our Sin and Misery heartily accepted of the Lord Jesus Christ for our only Lord and Saviour really yielded up our whole selves to his government Are we truly regenerated our Natures changed God's Image repaired on us and his Spirit living and ruling in us Do we hold out the Life of Christ in our Life and are we like God Have we actually entred into Covenant with God in Christ and chosen him for our only Happiness and Portion giving up our selves unfeignedly to be the Lord's Let us deal uprightly with our selves and if our Consciences can witness for us that it is thus with us then may we be confident that all our Afflictions shall work and prepare us for that Glory I proceed now to shew how those light and short Afflictions of the People of God in this World are singularly useful and influential to work them for and to work for them this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And that these waies First By discovering imbittering curing and removing those things which undiscovered uncured and uncleansed would utterly deprive us of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory What those things are you may easily judge they are our Sins our Corruptions our Iniquities the Evils of our Hearts and Lives the filthiness of Flesh and Spirit these not purged away will most certainly exclude from Glory as 1 Cor. 6. 9 10. Col. 3. 5 6. Rev. 21. 27. No unclean thing shall ever enter into the New Jerusalem Now Afflictions are useful to discover Sin to aggravate and imbitter Sin to cleanse and cure the Soul and so to prepare it for Glory 1. To discover Sin Afflictions enlighten mens Eyes One calls Afflictions the Christian's Eye-bright Man is full of Self-love and this Love is blind and blinding and Man's Heart is deceitful and ignorant his Mind is dark Man is born blind spiritually blind Men see not their Sin and Misery Rev. 3. 17. until God discover their Sins to them which He doth as by his Word and Spirit so by Afflictions Deut. 8. 2. Gen. 42. 22. 1 Kin. 17. 18. God doth by his Rod shew Men their Iniquities A very Pharoah sees and acknowledgeth his Sin in his Affliction So did the Jews Isa 59. 11. And it 's usual for men to cry out on their Sins in their Trouble Oh then my Pride my Covetousness my Prophaneness my Frowardness c. of which they would not hear before 2ly Afflictions are very useful to aggravate and imbitter Sin Those Sins that were sweet in time of Prosperity and seemed small or nothing but Mole-hills as it were light and little prove bitter and grievous even as heavy as Mountains Were not David's Sins so to him See Psal 38. 3 4 5. Our Lord Jesus in Matth. 11. 28 29. maketh this sense of the bitterness of Sin a fit qualification of Souls to come to him that in him they may find Rest which Rest is the beginning at least of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory When and where Sin is aggravated and becomes bitter and burdensome to a Soul then and there Christ Grace and Glory becomes sweet and amiable Usually in Prosperity Sin is sweet or at least accounted small Is it not a little one Oh the Excuses Shifts Evasions and Pleas that in Prosperity men study to extenuate and lessen Sin They feel but little weight in great Sins the Sins of Youth Vain-talking Jesting officious Lying neglect of Duty worldly Talk on the Lord's day c. who feels the ponderous weight of such Sins in time of Prosperity Now Afflictions serve to imbitter sweet Sins and to aggravate small sins Job 13. 26 27. then he remembers the Sins of his Youth and looks on them otherwise than he did before In Youth great Sins seem small as Disobedience to Parents wasting time prophaning the Lord's day Lying c. but in Afflictions they lyo heavy as we see in Joseph's Brethren Gen. 42. 22. 3ly To cure and cleanse Sin Psal 119. 67. Jerem. 31. 18. Eminent is the Example of Manasses on whom Afflictions wrought a wonderful change 2 Chron. 33. And this comes to pass in that Afflictions when God blesseth them they work Repentance This is one of God's ends in sending Afflictions upon his People his Children whom he loves dearly Dan. 11. 33 34 35. It is to make them white and clean to purge away their Iniquity Isa 27. 9. And thus Afflictions are influential on God's People to work them for and to work for theâ—â— a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory for none are fit for this glory until sin be imbittered to them and they purged and cleansed from their Sins in the Fornace of Affliction but all through the vertue of the Blood of Christ 1 Joh. 1. 7 9. Secondly Afflictions are useful to prepare for Glory by being means of God's Appointment and Blessing to work gracious and happy Changes on men without which they can never come to glory All men must have mighty great and wonderful Changes made upon them before they can be glorified Now to effect these gracious Changes God useth various means as principally his Spirit his Word his Rod and many times he makes his Rod to do that and to work that great Change on Men which his Spirit and Word without the Rod could not do because of Mens resistance of the Spirit and Word but when the Rod comes they cannot resist that By the Rod he makes the Proud to stoop and become humble as in Nebuchadnezzar's Case c. The Rod and the Word work Wonders when God by his Spirit works in them and with them
Afflictions change even such as were Beasts into Men yea into Saints Jer. 31. 18. I was saith Ephraim as a Bullock a Beast before I was chastized but being chastized I spake like a man yea like a child of God Afflictions working effectually work this Change Psal 119. 67. so on Manasses many a Child of God can witness this Truth Thirdly Afflictions both drive and draw God's People nearer to him they wandered before they went a whoring from God after other Lovers but Afflictions bring them home Psal 142. 4 5. As the natural Spirits in the Body retire inward and get close to the Heart in cold weather and in any danger outward so the Souls of God's People draw nearest to God in times of Storms and Tempests in the World Psal 31. from ver 9 to 16. his Troubles made him take Sanctuary in God and to trust in him I trusted in the Lord I said Thou art my God Fourthly Afflictions destroy that great Impediment that unfits for Glory and that is Earthly-mindedness inordinate Love of the Creature Phil. 3. 19. Earthly-mindedness fits for Destruction and not for Salvation Afflictions are intended to wean our Hearts from the World to crucifie our Affections to Earthly things And this effect they had on our Apostle here and upon the Primitive Christians as Verse the last We look not say they on those things which are seen for they are temporal All Creature-enjoyments which Worldlings set their Hearts upon and labour so eagerly after we value them not we care not much for them our Hearts are weaned from them we are crucified to the World and the World is crucified to us but we look to those things which are not seen we mind and think on and hope and believe and joy in those things which are not seen our Hearts are in Heaven set upon the unseen God the unseen Glory there the unseen Jesus And whence came they to be wrought into this blessed heavenly frame but much by the Blessing of God on their Afflictions God's Spirit working in and with their Afflictions this deadness of Affection to the World and raising up their Hearts towards Heaven So their Afflictions were useful to them to prepare them for Glory Fifthly By working in us and exercising in us those Graces to which Glory is promised Rom. 5. 3 5. Tribulation worketh Patience and Patience Experience and Experience Hope Yea God's Spirit makes Afflictions useful to work Holiness Heb. 12. 10. to make God's Children partakers of his Holiness without which no man shall see God So Jam. 1. 12. Happy is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tryed he shall receive a crown of glory which God hath promised to them that love him And in hope of this glory God's People rejoyce in their Tribulations Sixthly Afflictions quicken God's People to all diligence and seriousness in the use of all God's means to obtain Glory they quicken to Self-examination I considered my ways saith David They make them search their Hearts and try their ways Afflictions make them put away their Idols helping on the work of Reformation quicken them to Prayer then they cry unto the Lord and pour out their Hearts before him and God loves to hear their Cries then they wrestle with God in Prayer and then they are serious in their Reproofs Admonitions and Instructions of others then also they labour to act their Faith and their Love to God and Christ and to set their Affection upon things above and to look to their Sincerity and Uprightness Unto all those things we are too backward in time of Prosperity but in trouble we are awakened and quickened Lastly Afflictions prepare God's People for glory by working in them strong Desires fervent Pantings and Breathings after that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory When holy David was in a barren Wilderness where no Waters of Earthly Comforts were to be had oh then his Soul and Flesh and all did thirst after God Psal 63. 1 2 3 8. then his Soul followed hard after God So Psal 42. 1 2 3 4. in Prosperity our Souls follow too hard after the Creature after the lying dying vanities of this World Oh how are we enamoured with these fading Beauties and Braveries How eagerly do we pursue the Profits and Pleasures of the World we may with Shame and Sorrow confess it but when our Heavenly Father strips us of all our pleasant things plucks our fairest Flowers out of our Hands and snatches our dearest Comforts out of our Bosoms oh then what Breathings and Pantings after God the light of his Countenance and the manifestations of his Love When Earth is gone then Heaven is welcome when the Creature is gone then Christ is sweet Before I come to the Application three Questions shall be resolved Q. 1. How must Afflictions be so born as that they may thus work 2. How must they be improved to attain this end 3. Who are the People interested in this Priviledge Q. 1. How must Afflictions be born that they may work thus to prepare us for that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Of all these Questions I have treated on other Texts which may be seen in my Notes Yet briefly Answ That our Afflictions may thus work we must be sure to bear them as Christians our Carriage and Deportment in them and under them must be as becometh Christians that is in such a Christian manner as Christ did bear his Sufferings We must set Christ before us for our Example to imitate him and we must set the Saints of God before us for our Example also and bear our Afflictions as they bore theirs And also we must bear them according to the Rules of Christianity set down in the Gospel and that is we must bear our Afflictions quietly silently patiently submissively contentedly willingly cheerfully and constantly So did our Lord Jesus and so did the Saints and so must we if we will have this great benefit by them that they may prepare us for Glory Q. 2. How must we improve them Ans By the conscientious practice of these Duties First Serious Consideration In the day of Adversity consider Eccles 7. 14. Do we suffer Let us consider for whom for what from whom we suffer Consider what our Lord hath suffered for us what our Sins have deserved and what our special Duties are in time of Afflictions Let us fill up our Thoughts with these serious considerations and dwell some time in the Meditations of them and let them sink into our Minds and it will much help us in the spiritual improvement of our Afflictions for our great advantage The want of this due consideration God chargeth on the Jews as a very great Sin Jer. 5. 3. I have smitten them but they have not grieved c. God expects that when he smites us we should lay it to Heart ponder upon it and consider it or else know this that there is a more dreadful stroke of hardness
the Lord taketh up his Rod he will never lay it down if he have Love to thy Soul he will smite thee deeper and deeper until he have stript thee of all thy dearest Enjoyments and leave thee stark naked that he may separate thee and thy Sin But when the Lord intends to punish a Soul eternally in Hell he will not do so but whom he loves and intends to save eternally he will smite and smite and never leave smiting until he separate them and their Lusts 7. Lastly give up your whole Hearts entirely to God in Christ for this end God cuts off our choicest earthly Mercies that we may entirely give up our selves to Christ These things stood in the way of Jesus Christ therefore God removes them and so makes room in the Heart for himself and for Christ O now say O my Soul thou hast wasted too much of thine Affections on those poor perishing things this Mercy and that Enjoyment hath taken off thy Heart from Jesus Christ this Relation hath lain between thy Heart and Christ Well now the Lord hath taken these away oh now my Soul let Jesus Christ stand in the Breach that is made and let him fill it up Let him come in the room of that Mercy that is gone If we labour thus to make up the Breach the stroke will be a stroke of Love and by this we may know that Affliction comes in love to our Souls when it makes us love God better and stick faster to God than before and cleave more to Duty than before That which endeth in our Love to God did come from God's Love to us These are the strokes from a Father's Hand and he will heal them in his due time which is the best time So much of the Second Thirdly If we would improve our Afflictions so as that they may be means of preparing us for that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory we must carefully avoid the usual Extreams that men are liable to in times of Affliction that is neither to slight them nor to sink under them Prov. 3. 11. Despise not thou the chastnings of the Lord neither faint when thou art corrected of him 1. Slight not Afflictions but value them for Afflictions are of God's sending they arise not oâ—â— of the Dust they are God's Messengers yea sufferings for Christ are God's gifts Phil. 1. 29. 2. They are Love-tokens sent us from a loving Father Heb. 12. 6. Whom he loveth he corrected 3. They are wholsom Physick needful for us to cure the mortal Diseases of our Souls sent us from a most wise and faithful Physician who prescribes and orders every Ingredient in our Potioâ— 4. They are Marks of the true way to Heaven Act. 14. 22. 5. Preservatives against the Venoâ— of Sin to prevent the infection of it 6. They are Covenant-Mercies Psal 89. 32. 7. Means tâ— prepare us for glory and to prevent our eternal condemnation 1 Cor. 11. 32. Oh could we bâ—â— thus receive our Afflictions and so take and bâ—â— them and so improve them after this manner what singular good would they do us and what Comfort might we have in them And as we must not despise them so we must not faint under them neither but patiently and quietly submit to the holy will of God and resign up our selves to his Good-will and Pleasure â—â— was shewed before Fourthly We improve Afflictions when we are exercised by them Heb. 12. 10. then we shall reap the Fruit of them Now this Exercise consists as a worthy Divine observes in these things Jer. 9. 24. Ezek. 22. 29. Isa 64. 5. to wit 1st About the Affliction that smarts 2dly About our Hearts that feel 3dly About the Hand that smites 1st About the Affliction itself the Rod that is upon us we must be exercised in hearing Work in bearing Work and in doing work 1. In hearing Work Mic. 6. 9. Hear ye the rod and him that hath appointed it The voice of the Rod is the whole Word of God Three words saith he especially the Rod speaks 1. Thou hast sinned 2. God is displeased 3. Return and Repent We must hear and obey these Voices 2dly In bearing Work Mic. 7. 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord. Jam. 1. 4. Lam. 3. 27. Bear thy affliction feelingly freely willingly Jerem. 10. 24. waitingly not growing weary 3dly In doing Work three things are to be done 1. Kiss the Rod in your Father's Hand honour it as your Father's Scepter fear it as his Sword love it as his Physick 2. Cast away the Sin that hath provoked it Isa 30. 22. Hos 14. 8. Job 34. 31. 3. Embrace the Covenant of God for which he pleads Thus must we be exercised about our Affliction Secondly We must be exercised about our Hearts thus 1. Heart-Consideration of the Rod Eccles 7. 14. Weigh well what it is we suffer whence it comes by what provoked and to what intended of which before 2. Heart-breaking under it Jer. 4. 3. Hos 10. 12. 3. Heart-bending Our Spirits must stoop to the Will of God Thirdly We must be exercised about the Hand that smites Isa 24. 15. to glorifie God in the Fires 1st By abasing our selves Job 42. 5 6. I abhor my self in dust and ashes said holy Job 2ly By justifying God in all his Dealings Jer. 12. 1. Lam. 3. 39. Righteous art thou O Lord. 3ly By yielding Reverence Fear Obedience Faith 4ly Going to God for the Blessing of the Rod And thus exercising our selves these ways we shall improve our Afflictions for our spiritual Advantage Q. 3. But who are the People interested in this great Priviledge that those short and light Afflictions shall work for them and work them for this far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Answ Surely not all that are afflicted all shall not receive this Blessing for some grow worse by Affliction but only the Saints and true Believers such only as are the Children of God and such as hold forth the Life of Christ in their mortal Flesh as Vers 10 11. of this 2 Cor. 4. such as walk as Christ walked that follow his Steps such as look aim at and follow after invisible eternal things principally and chiefly as Verse 18 even such and such only as are exercised by Affliction as was shewed before they and they only shall reap the quiet and peaceable Fruits of Righteousness here and receive that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory hereafter They that bear Afflictions as Christians and improve them as Christians and partake of the Blessings of them they shall partake of this Priviledge of being prepared by them for this weight of glory The Application First for Information 1 Inf. I. Then God's Children must take heed that they do neither despise the Chastnings of the Lord nor faint when they are rebuked of him Prov. 3. 11. Seeing they are designed for such good â—â—ds as to fit us for glory we should not slight the â—ast Affliction
out more after God to love God more to fear to please to follow after God more it is in love If thou are more fearful of Sinning against God and more careful to glorifie him it is in love Psal 116. 1 2 3 4 5. 2. If you enjoy the gracions Presence of God with you in your Affliction his teaching strengthning sanctifying quieting satisfying humbling comforting Presence with you then you may conclude it is in love Isa 43. 2. Psal 94. 19. 2 Cor. 4. 16. when your inward man is renewed as your outward perisheth 3. If your Afflictions make you more conformable to Christ in Meekness Humility Heavenlyness Patience Self-denyal c. 4. If you be taught by the Spirit and Word when afflicted by the Rod how to hate Sin more to dye to Self and the Vanities of the World more how to dye to all Relations and Creature-Comforts mâ—re and how to list up Christ more and love him more to prepare for Death more and mind Heaven more then you are afflicted in Love Blessed are they that are thus taught by Affliction Psal 94. 12. 5. If God lay no more on you than he enables you to bear Isa 27. 8. Jer. 30. 11. 46. 28. 1 Cor. 10. 13. 6. If you can be willing to lye in the Furnace until your dross be consumed Job 23. 10. Mic. 7. 9. Can you cry out Lord remove the Cause rather than the Effect take away my Corruption rather than my Affliction A Cure Lord a Cure of the Distempers of my vile Heart good Lord a Cure 7. If you can live by Faith on the Promises in your Affliction Isa 41. 10. 43. 1 2 3. 57. 15. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Psal 50. 15. Joh. 10. 17 27 28. Isa 26. 3. Matth. 11. 28 29. Heb. 12. 10. Hos 2. 14. Heb. 13. 5. Rom. 8. 28. Zech. 13. 9. Psal 34. 8. 84. 11. Let us labour to find these sweet Fruits of God's Fatherly Love to us in our Afflictions and then we shall not grow weary 2 Obj. But my Afflictions have been long upon me Ans 1. Not so long as thy Mercies have been Canst thou number the days of thy Health Have not thy good days been many more than thy evil days 2. Nor so long as thy Sins have been Thou hast been a Transgressor from the Womb a Sinner from thy Conception Psal 51. 5. 3. Nor so long as the Afflictions of others it may be far better than you See the 77th and 88th Psalms Gen. 15. 12 13. Four hundred years Exod. 12. 40 41. Job 21. 25. Some have not had a day of health or pleasure many years no not in their Lives Oh how should this quiet us under our Troubles that we may not complain that they are long 4. The longer thy Afflictions have been on thee the sweeter will Heaven at last be to thee Psal 126. 1 2 5 6. compared The longer the Storm the sweeter the Calm the longer in the Tempest the more welcome the Harbour 5. Thy Afflictions are not long but short if compared with that Eternity of Glory reserved in Heaven for you as in the Text Everlasting Habitations Eternal Life a Crown of Glory that fadeth not away Have an Eye fixed on the Crown while thou bearest the Cross One moments being in the Bosom of Christ will make thee forget all thy Misery oh long for that good hour 6. The longer you are in Afflictions the more spiritual Experiences you have of the Love and Care of Christ towards you 2 Cor. 1. 5. 2 Cor. 12. 5. O the Love-tokens that Christ sends his Spouse in the Furnace of Affliction then he speaks most kindly to her The blessed Martyn found it so 7. Long Afflictions are but Preparatives sometimes to long-liv'd Mercies as in Joseph and David Isa 54. 11 12 13 14. If by my long Affliction God make more room in my Heart for himself Son and Spirit his Word if he crucifie my Affections more to the World and make me more conformable to Christ I shall for ever bless his Name for them 8. The more Afflictions here the more Glory hereafter 2 Cor. 4. 16. Matth. 5. 10. For 1st the more Affliction the more Grace is exercised and the more Grace here the more Glory hereafter 2dly The more Afflictions the more religious Duties will be performed Psal 109. 4. Isa 26. 16. Psal 42. 1 2 3. Now God will reward every into according to his works though not for them 1 Cor. 15. last 2 Cor. 9. 6. 9. Impatience will but lengthen our Affliction God's time is the best for deliverance Affliction shall last no longer than need Act. 27. 13 15. Psal 23. 1 2. 94. 9. Rom. 8. 28. Moreover that we may bear up as Christians and not grow weary and so may find that all our Afflictions are blessed to us to prepare us for that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory let us dwell on a few more Considerations 1. That these our Troubles are all the Hell we shall have 2. Think much on the real spiritual Advantages we shall have by Affliction Have we not had some bless God for them 3. Your choicest and chiefest Treasure is safe your God your Christ your Portion your Crown your Inheritance is safe your Graces your Souls are safe 4. Consider it is our unmortified Lust that is the sting of all our Afflictions its Sin adds gall to our wormwood Let us set our selves in earnest to the mortifying of our Sins apply the Blood of Christ beg his Spirit Rom. 8. 13. 5. That all our Afflictions come to us through the Covenant of Grace Psal 89. 30 c. 6. That they do but reach our worser our baser part our Bodies 2 Cor. 4. 6. our Souls may grow better 7. Labour to live by Faith and keep it as much in exercise as possible for Faith in exercise 1st shews the extreme vanity of all earthly things for the Soul by Faith seeth them as God seeth them to be all vanity and vexation and so it overcometh the World 1 Joh. 5. 4. 2dly Faith presents to the Soul greater sweeter better things in God and Christ than can possibly be found in the Creature Faith looks and feeds on Invisibles 3dly By enabling the Soul to center it self on God and to be satisfied with the naked enjoyment of him God is All to the Soul that trusteth in him Joh. 14. 8. Psal 17. 15. Phil. 3. 8 9. 8. Labor every day to be more humble low and little in your own Eyes Who am I I am not worthy of the least of God's Mercies I have forfeited all I have improved none it is Pride only that brings Discontent 9. Consider the worst that God doth to his People here is but to do them good in the latter end Hos 2. 14. Heb. 12. 10. 10. What God wills is best God is Wisdom it self and he is Goodness it self when he sends Sickness Sickness is best 11. That God will be with us
in all our Afflictions that his Ends in afflicting us are all good and gracious that the best way to have our wills is entirely to submit them to God's Will 12. Think much on the shortness and uncertainty of Life Life is not vita but via ad vitam Hold out Faith and Patience thy Troubles and thy Life will shortly end together Let us most seriously and often speak thus to our selves I have great Works to do great Matters to dispatch a God to be reconciled to a Christ to close with a Soul to save a Race to run a Crown to win a Pardon to get an Hell to escape a Body of Sin to destroy a World to conquer a Heaven to secure and I have but a little short uncertain time for all this I have one Foot in the Grave I am just going ashore on Eternity what time have I to stand poring on my Troubles Oh! let my whole Soul be taken up with my most necessary Work oh let me engage all the powers of my Soul and Members of my Body in studying and labouring to secure my eternal Happiness how to improve all my Afflictions to the good of my Soul how to glorifie God in those Fires how to enjoy Communion with God in every condition how to live so this little short time that I may dye in Peace and enter into my Master's Joy to be with my dearest Lord in glory for ever and ever Oh! these things should take up our Thoughts and possess our Minds And thus if we endeavour in the Strength of Christ so to manage our Afflictions so to carry our selves under them and so to improve them as we have been directed we shall find by the Blessing of our good God and gracious Father in Christ that all our light Afflictions which are but for a moment shall work for us that far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory to which purpose that Christians may be able to hear up under all their Troubles the Apostle subjoins a notable and singular help which himself and the Primitive Christians had found very useful by their own experience which is expressed in the following Verse And so much for this 17th Verse PART III. Heaven and Earth EPITOMIZ'D OR INVISIBILITIES THE Greatest Realities 2 COR. iv 18. While we look not at those things which are seen but at those things which are not seen for those things which are seen are temporal but those things which are not seen are eternal WE have seen in the former Discourse how bravely the Apostle and Primitive Christians bore up under all their cruel Sufferings and got advantage by them as Ver. 16 17. and what means they used to attain this holy Courage besides all which here is another singular Help they made use of to get this gracious frame of Spirit and that is in these words Verse 18. We faint not they say but gather strength and get ground inwardly while we look not at those things which are seen but at those things which are not seen So long as we shut out visible things of our Minds and shut our Eyes at them and so long as we apprehend and mind things invisible and fix our Eyes on unseen things while we do so we faint not under all our Sufferings but profit by them Here is looking off and looking on a double Act of Faith a looking off seen things things visible to the Eye of Sence we look off these and a looking on things not seen but invisible to the Bodily Eye Here is a double work one negative the other affirmative For the negative part observe 1. the Act if I may properly so call it a looking off or a looking away from a withdrawing of their sight 2. An Object things that are seen visible things things obvious to bodily right 3. The Reason annexed for they are are temporal All things that are seen are temporal things that will last but for a time a short time they are fading fleeting things transitory momentany things Be they good things or evil things be they prosperous or adverse be they sweet or bitter things if they be seen things visible things they are but temporal 2. A positive practice but we look unto those things which are not seen 1st Here is the Act we look Actus Animae it is the Act of the Understanding Will and Affections all are set and fixed on and employed about 2dly The Object things that are not seen things invisible and the Reason is added for they are eternal And because these unseen things are eternal therefore are they most worthy of our most serious thoughts and best affections And both these Acts of looking off from visible temporal things and looking on upon invisible eternal things have a very great influence in supporting Christians under all their Sufferings in this World as will manifestly appear in the following Discourse 1. First What is here negatively expressed We look not at these things which are seen the meaning is not that they did shut their Eyes upon all earthly things and take no notice at all of them for that was not their Duty The Apostle-himself laboured with his Hands and exhorteth all Christians to be diligent in their Callings which they could not be if they did not look upon the things of this World but he means this that their hearts minds and affections were weaned and taken of from earthly things they were not earthly minded They minded not the things of the flesh Rom. 8. 5 6. that is 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 yea not at all in comparison of invisible and eternal things So our Lord is to be understood Joh. 6. 27. Labour not for that meat which perisheth That is not so much not so earnestly as for that which endureth to Eternal Life Col. 3. 2. Set your affections â—â— things above not on things below that is comparatively but let the strongest steddiest stream of your Affections run Heaven-ward Let your Affections be set that is placed setled fixed upon things above Not that we should not at all mind things below but we must not set our Hearts upon them nor fix and place our Loves and Delights in them So here we look not on things that are seen that is we place not our Affections on them visible things are not the chief and principal things that we mind nor do we exercise and spend our most serious and chief thoughts about these visible things they are not the main study and care of our Souls I am saith this Apostle crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me Gal. 6. 14. There are two kinds of visible things visible good things and visible evil things neither of which was the object of their principal thoughts and cares and they give a good Reason for it because they are temporal they are short-liv'd and but for the present and therefore we do not much mind them nor look after them 1. Visible good things simply and in themselves
after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O Lord. The strongest steddiest Streams of his Desires and Loves did run after God and his Favour Thirdly He that is commanded by the World is a Friend of the World one Friend can command another so all Friends profess to one another and if they mean not so they basely dissemble Can the Profits and Pleasures of the World command your Hearts Thoughts Affections Time and Strength yea and your Consciences too Can the World keep you from serving God Can you dispense with the Service of God to attend the World then sure you are the Friends of it Fourthly Are you more intimate friendly and familiar more pleasant and joyful in the company of the People of the World And in your dealings with the things of the World are you more delighted and pleased and are as it were more in your Element and where you would be than when you are in the company of the Saints and than when you are dealing with God and Christ and heavenly things David who delighted greatly in God and in his Word and in his Saints professed himself to be a Stranger in the Earth as Psal 119. 19. When the Lord's Servants are in his work and among his People then they are in their Element then they are where they would be One day in thy House is better than a thousand Psal 84. Fifthly He that seeks the Worlds Favours and fears the Worlds Frowns more than God's is a Friend of the World A gracious Soul seeks nothing so much as God's Favour O how doth David pant after God's Favour and the light of his Countenance In thy favour saith he is life Psal 30. 6. and thy loving-kindness better than life Psal 63. 3. And how earnestly and frequently doth he pray that God would not hide his Face from him Sixthly He that is troubled more for the loss of those visible temporal things than for the loss of God or his Gospel and complains more for the want and absence of these things than for the want and absence of God such in such a degree are Friends of the World and being Friends of the World are Enemies of God Seventhly He that gives the World most Respect and best Entertainment we give our Friends most respect and best entertainment How oft hath Christ knock'd at our Doors in the Ministry of the Word and Motions of his Spirit begging our acceptance How oft hath Christ called to us in Ordinances and Providences for entertainment and we have shut our Hearts against him How oft hath the Holy Spirit been striving with us but we have grieved and quenched him by our Resistance But how easily have we entertained the Enticements of the World How readily have we embraced the Motions of the World This proves us to be Friends of the World and such are the Enemies of God By these things let us try our selves and we may know whether we be the Friends of the World or the Friends of God II. This Point is proved by Example Take our Apostle as a pregnant Instance as in the Text saying We look not at those things which are seen So in Gal. 2. 20. 6. 14. I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me As if he had said I am in the Eye of the World as contemprible despicable and abominable a thing as one hanged on the Cross as a Malefactor on the Gallows an Object that Passengers care not to look upon but turn away their sight from Such a one am I saith this blessed Apostle for the World said of him Away with such a fâ—llow he is not worthy to live And the world is crucified to me saith he I have a â—ow and base thoughts of the World as the World hath of me the World is as despicable and contemptible to me as I am to it I look no more upon the World than it doth upon me I do as little value the World as it doth value me And this is a full explication of his sence in the Text We look not on those things which are seen for they are temporal This is the Character of truly-gracious Souls So Gal. 5. 24. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof Q. But how shall we know when we are crucified to the World Ans 1 When our care for visible temporal things doth not consume and eat out our care for invisible and eternal things when our care for our Bodies doth not destroy our care for our Souls Deut. 4. 9. Only take heed and keep thy soul diligently Our Souls must have our greatest care and all other cares we must cast on God Matth. 6. 33. First seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all other things shall be added 2. When the work of the World is neglected that the work of God may be attended See this in Martha's Case Luke 10. 40 41. one thing is needful 3. When altho' our Hands may be full of visible temporal things yet our Hearts are not entangled nor over-charged with them 2 Tim. 2. 4. Luke 21. 34. When our Engagements about visible temporal things do not hinder us from minding our concernments about invisible eternal things 1 Tim. 6. 19. When matters and businesses of the World are made to stand by and give place to the Service of God When praying times hearing reading meditating times are duly attended and observed And indeed we have need work while our day lasteth for there is no work wisdom or device in the Grave whither we are going All that is to be done for Eternity must be done in this world John 9. 4. 4. A man is then crucified to the world and to these visible things when he is content to be without these good things of the world when the will of the Lord is so Content to be without Friends Health Liberty Wealth Honours Pleasures Phil. 4. 11 12. Contentment is the Hearts Ease well-pleasedness with our condition without vexation or distraction to acquiesce in the holy will of God Godliness and Contentment grow both together if Contentment be little Godliness is not much if thou be truly godly then God the All-sufficient and Chief Good is thy Portion and so thou hast enough to content thee enough to make thee happy for ever It is a Paradox to the World That a gracious Soul cannot be content with the whole world only and yet can be content without it Let us seek Content where we will out of God and we shall never find it 5. And lastly when a man can patiently bear the loss of all visible temporal things then he is crucified to the world when Losses and Crosses do not sink him and make him faint as those Saints in this Chapter ver 16. and those in Heb. 10. 34. who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods And thus we have the description of a person that is crucified to the World and the
may be poor in this World yet rich in Faith and an Heir of the Kingdom as James 2. 5. and a man may be rich in this World yet poor in Soul and an Heir of Hell as we see in Dives 6. Faith is a powerful a victorious conquering Grace This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith Stephen was full of Faith and Power Acts 6. 8. The work of faith with power 2 Thess 1. 11. Faith brings all visible temporal things under the Believer's Feet it gives the Believer power to use the World and not to abuse it not seeking Rest and Contentment in it to use it moderately without damage and detriment to the Soul to use it for God's honour it s own spiritual advantage and the good of others and power to keep it out of the Heart Christ dwelling there by Faith to use the World and not losing our Hearts our Peace nor our Consciences in it Faith gives the Soul power to withstand the Threats and Temptations of the World and power to be willing to leave it and to go to a better World Oh the mighty power of Faith and by the Power of this Faith gracious Souls are taken off from those visible temporal things And so much for the Doctrinal Part. The Application follows First for Information If it be the Character and Duty of gracious Souls because visible things are temporal therefore they must not they do not much mind or regard them I. It follows then that Earthly-mindedness worldliness is a great Evil and very unbecoming true Christians for their minds and conversations are it Heaven Phil. 3. 19 20. There is the discriminating Character both of the gracious and ungracious a vast difference between them the one mind Earthly things the otherâ— have their conversation it Heaven Most People look on those things which are seen all seek their own things those that they count their own and those are mostly â—hiefly and principally minded as appears manifestly thus 1. By the stream of their Thoughts which runs steddily upon visible temporal things having vain Minds 2. By the common current of their Discourses their Talk is all of the World 3. By the tide of their Affections Love Joy Fear Sorrow Delight all run strongly Worldâ—â—rd 4. By the course of their Actions their Time Pain Care all is spent about the World rising early going to Bed late eating the Bread of Carefulness and all about the World This is a great Evil because expresly forbidden Matth. 6. 19. Lay not up for your selves treasures on earth Joh. 6. 27. Labour not for that meat which perisheth Col. 3. 2. Set your affections upon things above and not upon things below And this Worldly-mindedness is contrary to the Practice of true Christians as in the Text We look not on those things which are seen So Phil. 3. 20. And it is the Character of such as are in a state of Nature and that cannot please God Rom. 8. 5 8. They that are after the flesh do mind in things of the flesh Such are not crucified to the World but conquered and captivated by it yea crucified by it conquered by the Profits Honours and Pleasures of it and meer Slaves to these and crucified by the Crosses and Losses of the World their Hearts and Spirits lye under the Feet of these and are at the beck of these their Hopes and Comforts lye all at the Courtesie of the World and this is a woful Bondage Remember this we can never conclude that we are truly gracious until we have Grace enough to keep God and our Hearts together and to keep the World and our Hearts asunder 1 John 2. 14 15. Love not the world nor the things of the world for he that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him Woe to them that have their Portion in this World Psal 17. 14. who have their good things here who have laid up their Treasures upon Earth and there have their Heart That Text Phil. 3. 19. is enough to terrifie aâ— such Their end is destruction who mind earthâ—â— things Inf. II. It follows from the Premises that Contentment with our Condition and with any portion of visible temporal things is a great Virtue and well becoming Christians Discontent proceeds from our over-minding and over-valuing and over-loving earthly things and it is a very great Evil for it practically denies God's All-sufficiency his Wisdom Soveraignty Faithfulness and Mercy it disgraceth the Gospel and Godliness and is in it self a great Plague Q. But how shall I do to be content content to be deprived of my dear Relations Estate Health Liberty c A. Read Mr. Burroughs's Book of Christian Contentment Take also these Directions 1. Labour to make God your own and then you will have a full and sufficient Ballance to all your Losses He is God All-sufficient Weigh well those two Scriptures 1 Sam. 30. 6. 2 Sam. 23. 5. 2. Labour to make Christ your own he offers himself to you in the Gospel with all he is and with all he hath And in him dwelleth all fulness he is all in all Psal 23. 1. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want said David 3. Search the Scriptures and be acquainted with the many exceeding great and precious Promises that are there suitable to every Condition you can be in Act your Faith on them and apply them lye upon and suck those full Breasts of Consolation 4. Pray for Contentment and pray earnestly for the manifestation of God's Love to your Souls and that will so satisfie and content you that any measure of earthly things will content you 5. Be much in Heavenly Meditations look upon invisible and eternal things spend serious frequent fixed Thoughts on them 6. Consider your Deserts No person in the World how little soever he hath of the good things of the World but hath much more than he deserveth and more than he doth well improve and how much soever he hath of the evil things of the World he hath infinitely less than he deserved for every thing out of Hell is a Mercy It 's of the Lord's Mercy we are not consumed 7. Consider if you be true Christians you have the Spirit of Christ in you Rom. 8. 9. Jesus Christ had a most contented Spirit Contentment is the inseparable Companion of true Godliness 1 Tim. 6. 8. Having food and raiment let us be content Let us that are Christians who have the Great GOD for our Portion and Blessed Jesus for our Treasure and Heaven for our Inheritance having Food and Raiment any Food any Raiment though never so coarse let us be content content with such things as we have Heb. 13. 5. Inf. III. Thirdly hence it follows also that great is the Folly of all by Nature and great is their Blindness which appears in this that they value prize mind and follow after visible temporal things much more eagerly and earnestly than after invisible eternal things
This is but too manifest Isa 55. 2. labouring for that which is not bread not Bread for their Souls and for that which cannot satisfie their Souls God Christ Heaven is not in all scarce in any of their Thoughts Psal 10. 4. 49. 11. the god of this World blinds Mens Eyes 2 Cor. 4. 4. and the World bewitcheth Mens Minds and the Deceitfulness of Sin so strangely deludes 〈◊〉 that they become meer Slaves and Captives to the World Ask any Man or Woman what things are best Earth or Heaven God or the Creature their Souls or their Bodies Saving Grace of Worldly Goods and all will confess that God is best of all and Heaven better than Earth If it be so why then is this World minded more than God and why is Earth minded more than Heaven The Apostle tells us the true reason Rom. 8. 5. which is because Men are in the Flesh in a state of Nature under spiritual blindness and darkness This their way is their folly Psal 49. 12. It is a great Folly to chuse the worst things and refuse the best to mind Earth and forget Heaven to pursue the Creature and neglect God and Christ Folly indeed to mind day and night and follow hard after visible temporal things and neglect eternal The pleasures of sin are but for a season but a God's right hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. last O the bewitching nature of this World that it should so gain and hold the Affections of Men and Women that altho the World and the fashion of it passeth away and is but a shadow yet that Men should so drown themselves in it as to make them forget the World to come How unreasonable a thing is it to spend all our Thoughts Cares and Pains about visible temporal things seeing they are so transitory and perishing so much beneath our never-dying Souls so utterly unable to satisfie or content our Souls or to comfort us in our Troubles or to stand us in any stead in Death and Judgment Were not our Minds most strangely blinded it were impossible that having Reason and Understanding we should so waste our Time and Strength in pursuit of earthly things seeing the Great God and the Blessed Jesus offer themselves to become ours and seeing Heaven and Happiness and Glory is before us and offered to us and we may have them if we will and so be happy for ever O wonderful Folly and Blindness the Lord enlighten and convince us Inf. IV. Fourthly it follows that a true Christian lives by Faith and not by Sence for he that is a Captive to the World hath but little Faith if any 1 John 5. 4. For faith overcometh the world where Sence riseth Faith falleth Now saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 7. We walk by faith not by sence This is our Practice and this is the very meaning of the Text We look not at those things that are seen that is we live not by Sense but by Faith Q. But what is it to live or walk by Sense Ans The great good or end or happines that a carnal Heart proposeth to it self in which it expecteth Content is some good that is the object of Sense something that may be sensibly enjoyed and this they pursue and labour after The Rule by which they judge things is Sense if things please Sense and seem good to Sense to the Eye to the Ear to the Taste to the Appetite they judge them to be good things if not pleasing to the sense they are counted evil things That which affects their Hearts is Sense Sensible Comforts or Sensible Crosses Sensible Gain or Sensible Loss wanting the light of God's Spirit to open their Understandings they live only by Sense and are but Sensual Jude 19. Eccl. 11. 9. and so they walk after the Flesh and mind the things of the Flesh chiefly and principally This Life of Sense is variously expressed Prov. 3. 5. A leaning to their own understanding Psal 81. 12. A walking after their own hearts lusts and in their own counsels Jer. 9. 14. Walking after the imaginations of their own hearts Isa 65. 2. After their own thoughts in a way that is not good Isa 5. 21. This is not the way of true Christians but they walk by Faith and not by Sense Q. What is it then to walk by Faith Ans The great Good or End or Happiness that a gracious Soul aims at and seeks content in is that which is presented to him by Faith out of the Word of God and that is twofold to wit the glorifying of God and the enjoyment of him these are things not seen these are not the Objects of Sense but of Faith To glorifie God in Christ and to enjoy God in Christ this is the end of the Saints walk and way and all this is by Faith This Life of Faith is demonstrated several ways 1. He that lives by Faith is guided by the Word of Faith and that is the whole Gospel and every Truth in it such a Soul gives up it self to the conduct of the whole Word of God it walks by no other Rule 2. It yields it self up to the government of the Spirit of Faith the Holy Ghost it is obedient to the motions stirrings counsels of the Holy Spirit harkning to that word behind him Isa 30 31. not willingly grieving nor quenching it 3. It walks in the way of Holiness for this Faith purifies the Heart Acts 15. 9. 26. 18. 4. It always leans upon Christ and draws strength from him to hold on and hold out in the way of Duty by it the Soul abides in Christ John 15. 3. and by drawing of strength from Christ it can do all things Phil. 4. 13. notwithstanding all opposition 5. By Faith the Soul commits himself to God in Christ in all his ways and trusts himself and all his concernments with God Psal 37. 3 5. Prov. 16. 3. 2 Pet. 5. 7. Psal 112. 7 8. Isa 26. 2 3. Such a Soul can satisfie himself with what he receives by Faith as really and truly as others can satisfie themselves with Sense the faithful Promises of God are as sweet to him as the sensible Possessions and Enjoyments are of others Heb. 11. 13. they saw the Promises afar off and embraced them Now when a Soul can depend upon God alone for All in the want of all outward means and make progress in the ways of God through all difficulties and not draw back and doth in his whole course of Life so walk work and act as becomes one that doth believe such glorious things in the other World as he doth believe when there is a suitableness in his Life to what he believes then oh then he may truly be said to live by Faith And this is the Life that in some degree every true Christian lives and desires to live and this living by Faith and not by Sense is that which is meant in the Text. 2 Vse The second Use is
of Exhortation to us all to look off from visible temporal things Let us labour to get our Hearts crucified and our Affections mortified to all earthly things to draw away our Minds as much as possible from the things of this Life A great part of the Gospel and of the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles tend to this to take off our Hearts and Minds from setling and fixing upon earthly things I. Some Motives to this II. Some Directions I. Motives 1. Consider it is the express Command of God Col. 3. 1 2. Set not your affections on things below 1 John 2. 14 15. Matth. 6. 19. Lay not up for your selves treasures on earth This we should urge on our Hearts 2. Consider the vanity emptiness insufficiency unsatisfactoriness to the Soul of all earthly things Eccl. 5. 10. 3. The great inconstancy and uncertainty of them 1 Tim. 6. 17. Prov. 23. 5. 1 Cor. 7. 31. Riches and Honours go from one man to another as Birds hop from Tree to Tree 4. How prejudicial they have been to those that have had the most of them but beneficial to very few 5. That these earthly things are all defiling things like Pitch and corruptible and corrupting things being full of Snares and Temptations are but like Thorns to most 6. No real Happiness in them for Reprobates may have them and they may consist with Gods Wrath therefore we should not set our Hearts upon them II. Directions shewing how we may get off our Hearts and draw off our Minds from them for our Hearts are so glued to them we cannot but look on them and mind them It is not easie work to do but let us use the means that God hath appointed and try what we can do 1. First Let us labour to be transformed in the Image of our Minds renewed in the Spirit of our Minds Rom. 12. 1. Eph. 4. 23. New Natures we must get this must be done our Old Minds are vain and altogether suitable to earthly things Q. But how shall we get New Minds A. 1st Pray earnestly to God to give you new Hearts to repair his Image on you to create a clean Heart in you as David did Psal 51. 10. to give you his Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 12. to sanctifie you throughout 1 Thess 5. 23. to regenerate you by his Word and Spirit Jam. 1. 17 18. Tit. 3. 3 4 5. Oh pray pray that God would cast you into a new Mould to root out the old corrupt Principles of Nature in you and to plant new heavenly Principles of the Divine Life and Nature in you to work a real change in you Go to Jesus beg his Spirit He was crucified to all visible temporal things beg of him to give you those Waters of Life Joh. 4. 14. which he hath promised to them that hunger and thirst after them Beg of him to make you of his mind labour to put him on by imitation 2ly Look up to God's Covenant and lay hold on God's Covenant Ezek. 11. 19. and most earnestly beg the Lord to take you into his Covenant and to remember his Covenant and to perform it to you and wait upon God continually Study the Covenant of Grace and lay hold on it for in the Covenant God promiseth to become our God and Portion and if once God be ours all the good of Heaven and Earth is ours and then we shall but little mind visible temporal things 3ly If we would be regenerated we must search the Scriptures diligently attend on the Word preached and read for the Word of God is the Seed of Regeneration the Word of Grace ordained to work Grace in Souls Acts 26. 18. Look often into the glass of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3. 17 18. and look thorow it unto the glory of the Lord that shines forth in it the glory of his Love and Grace and Mercy and Wisdom and Power and Holiness and Righteousness and Faithfulness all which are wonderfully displayed in the Face of Jesus Christ in this glass of the Gospel and by frequent serious believing fixed looking into this glass and upon the glory of God in Christ therein represented we shall be changed into the same Image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. 4ly Study Jesus Christ much set him still before you for a Pattern labour to imitate him and to be like him and to walk as he walked And this is the way to get new Minds 2 Direct Secondly If we would get off our Hearts from earthly things let us labour for a clear knowledge and a firm belief of and familiar acquaintance with invisible eternal things take a few instances The Resurrection of the Body as fet out in 1 Cor. 15. The second Coming of the Lord Jesus the manner and ends of it 2 Thess 1. 6 7 8 9. The glorious manifestation of the Sons of God and their full Redemption That when Christ who is their Life shall appear they shall appear with him in glory Col. 3. 3. The Day of Judgment the separation of the Sheep from the Goats the final irrevocable Sentence that shall then pass on all Mankind the Saints passing into Heaven with Christ their Souls and Bodies united and their triumphant entrance with the Captain of their Salvation into the Paradise of God to see the Blessed God face to face to live in his presence in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore to live with God in perfect Light Love Purity Rest and Peace for ever and ever fully and for ever freed from all Sin and Misery Oh these are the things most worthy of all our most serious most fixed and most constant Meditations We should first labour to get those things into our Heads fully and clearly to understand them and should not be contented with a dark confused knowledge of them but should labour for a distinct knowledge of them and therefore should earnestly beg the light and assistance of the Holy Spirit to instruct and teach us as Eph. 1. 18. and look up to God's Promise which is that all his People shall be taught of him that we may have a spiritual knowledge of them And then we should labour to draw these invisible eternal things down into our Hearts and labour to draw up our Hearts to them for with the Heart Man believeth We should beg of God to open our Hearts wide to embrace them to relish and savour and be affected with them and exercise our loves hopes desires delights hunger and thirst after them considering also the transcendant Excellencies of those invisible eternal things above all visible temporal things and our own real concernment in them and likewise their nearness to us they are not far off we shall shortly possess that Kingdom promised and inherit that Glory purchased for us if we be true Believers But a little while and he that shall come will come and will not tarry Considering also that all our Thoughts
〈…〉 and that Earthly things were temporal 〈…〉 and therefore not so â—e command 〈…〉 less to be valued or 〈…〉 Heavenly things Q. 1. But how 〈…〉 of Earthly things A. 1. We must judge of 〈…〉 only wise judgeth of them 〈…〉 judge truly and rightly of them Now God hath declared in his Word his Judgment of them Isa 4. 6 7. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken this The voice said Cry and he said What shall I cry All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth Psal 39. 5 6. Verily every man at his best estate is altogether vanity Surely every man walketh in a vain shew Psal 103. 14 15. we are but Dust As for man his days are as grass as a flower of the field so he flourisheth For the wind passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more Job 14. 1 2. Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not So 1. Pet. 1. 24. Jam. 1. 10. 4. 14. What is our life It is but even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away This is the Judgment of God concerning Man all Men They are but Dust but a Shadow but Grass and the Life of Man very short and full of trouble but even as a bubble but a vapour and we may be sure that the Judgment of God is according to Truth And then for all the things of this World Solomon by the Spirit of God hath declared what they all are Eccles 1. 2. Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher vanity of vanities all is vanity Vanity and Vexation Riches Honours Pleasures Relations Friends Liberty all pleasant Accommodations all is vanity and vexation of spirit This is the true and right Judgment we should have of all earthly things 2. We must judge of these earthly things by the experience of the best and wisest men that ever lived upon Earth they will tell us from their own experience that they are all vanity and vexation So Solomon Job David Moses Psal 90 4 5 6. Yea we all know this by our own Experiences every day that all flesh is as grass and as the flower of the field How soon do all our earthly Comforts wither and perish our dearest and nearest Relations wither and dye away our Health and Strength our Life and all still withering and perishing See largely of this in Dr. Reynold 's Three Treatises the first part concerning the vanity of the Creature 3. Once more judge of Earthly things by the evil use we make of them while we have them through Satan's Temptations and our own Corruptions as was shewed before and also what cloggs and hinderances they are to our Souls in our way to Heaven Altho' Life and all the Accommodations of Life as Health Strength Liberty Estate Friends are good things in themselves and given us to be helps to Holiness and to Heaven yet we must confess to our shame that all our Earthly Comforts yea and our animal Life it self doth very much most times hinder our Communion with God hinder us in the Service of God keep our Hearts at too great a distance from God and many more Evils they bring upon us all which considered we have but little reason so to value them as we do nor to let our Hearts and Affections so to run out after them Thus let us take a right judgment of all Earthly things It is true that so far forth as these Earthly things are useful to us in the Service of God and further the good of our Souls so far forth we ought to love and prize them and praise God for them and pray for the continuance of them but so far forth as they are hinderances to us in Holiness and bring Sin and Guilt on our Souls as too oft they do so far forth and in that respect we had better be without them than with them their Room would be better than their Company And when they prove Snares to us and like Solomon's Wives draw away our Hearts from God and like Dalilah to Sampson betray our Souls into the hands of our spiritual Enemies then surely it is the goodness of God to separate them from us and strip us of them and we shall have cause to bless God for so doing Sickness and Weakness improved is better for our Souls than Health and Strength abused Restraint and Confinement improved better than Liberty abused Solitariness improved is better than a Family and Company abused Poverty improved better than Riches abused c. Thus you may get a right Judgment of Earthly things Q. 2. But how will this right Judgment of Earthly things help us to bear our Troubles in this World A. 1. By acting our Faith upon the Word of God Believe and be fully perswaded of the truth which God the God of Truth hath spoken concerning all Earthly things Believe that all flesh is grass that life is but a vapour c. here lies the root of all our Impatience and Discontent under our Losses and Earthly Comforts even our Unbelief we do not fully and firmly believe they are such vain things that we are deprived of out grass but as the flowers of the field Just like a man that finds a Box or Bag of Counters and takes them to be all pure Gold and greatly rejoycech in what he hath found then after a short time he loseth his Counters and then he is exceedingly troubled for the loss of them because all this while he took them for Gold but if once he comes to believe that it was but a Box or Bag of Counters then he grieves no more So it is with us we believe not that all our Comforts are vanity and vexation we look not on them to be so but that there is much contentment and sweetness and satisfaction to be had in them And therefore we grieve immoderately when we lose our Counters but if we did firmly believe they are but Counters Shadows Grass Vapours we should not be so cast down 2. Meditation and Consideration of the true nature of all Earthly things as God hath shewed us in his Word often thinking pondering and meditating on their vanity uncertainty transitoriness and deceitsulness Without this due and serious Meditation a right Judgment of them will do us no good When God smites our Comforts maketh our fairest Flowers to wither blasteth our flourishing Grass then let us consider what God hath smitten and blasted nothing but grass but flowers What have we lost Nothing but Shadows but Counters This deep Consideration will support us under our Losses Consider also the Experience of the Saints who in all Ages have found these things to be but vanity and vexation 3. Add Prayer to God That He will throughly convince your Minds of the
excellency and highest concernment And saith the Apostle we that are Gospel-christians we look to these things upon these we spend our most serious thoughts and our best affections these possess our hearts and minds and we live in the continual prospect of these unseen and eternal things Before I come to the Reasons of the Point a little more to open this Act of gracious Souls and the Object of it I. For the Act Looking which may note these things 1. It notes Reality it is no Fancy Dream or empty Imagination but we look we see we behold them the Eyes of our Understandings being enlightned and our Minds illuminated by the Spirit of God and having the Spirit of Faith in us we discern and behold those invisible and eternal things Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen We do as fully believe them as if they were visible to our Bodily Eyes 2. It notes Certainty what we see with our Eyes we are certain of we are fully perswaded of them Heb. 11. 13. hence this Sight is called Knowledge 2 Cor. 5. 1. 3. Fixedness it is not glancing or casting an Eye on them but we look on them that is fixedly and stedfastly we aim at them we lock on them as our Mark and End Thus for the Act. II. For the Object they are things that are not seen What they are hath been showed the Properties are these 1. They are spiritual things so in their Nature and revealed by the Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 8. and they are spiritually discerned and not otherwise 2. They are all high great and glorious things yea the highest the greatest and the most glorious things All other things are but Dross and Dung in comparison of them 3. They are the choicest and the best things most worthy of our Hearts and Minds and of our choicest Affections What is the Chaff to the Wheat What is the Dross to the Gold What is Earth to Heaven or the Creature to God 4. They are Heart-transforming Heart-gladding Heart-elevating Heart-strengthning things 2 Cor. 3. 17 18. 1 Pet. 1. 8. These things looked unto by the Eye of Faith will change the Heart and cause joy unspeakable and glorious 5. They are real solid substantial things not Shadows as visible temporal things are Hebr. 10. 34. They joyfully took the spoiling of their goods for they were but Shadows Trifles because they had in Heaven substantial things The things of this World are all vain lying Vanities things that are not Prov. 23. 5. 6. They are Soul-satisfying and Heart-contenting things such as have them shall never thirst more John 4. 14. that is inordinately and immoderately after Earthly things 7. And Lastly They are eternal things permanent abiding lasting everlasting things eternal Life eternal Glory everlasting Consolation everlasting Rest We shall ever be with the Lord. O my Soul Can I be a true Christian and be a Stranger to this Practice of conversing with those invisible eternal things Can I be regenerate born of God born from above and be a Stranger to this Practice Can I be quiet in Conscience so long as I live in the neglect of this Can I groundedly hope to live and converse with God and Christ for ever hereafter and be such a Stranger to this converse with him here Can I have any Support in Trouble without this Can I have any true Comfort in Life or Death or bid Sickness or Death welcome and be a Stranger to this Certainly no Therefore O my Soul labour for more familiar Acquaintance with those invisible eternal things and exercise thy self more in the Meditations of them The Grounds and Reasons of the Point Why gracious Souls do most seriously mind intend and aim at invisible eternal things Reas I. Because they are commanded so to do Col. 3. 1 2. Set your affections upon things above not on things below Mat. 6. 19 20. Lay up for your selves treasures in Heaven not in Earth 1 Tim. 6. 19. II. Because truly-gracious Souls are endued with invisible divine and eternal Principles which do encline dispose and suit them to those invisible and eternal things Jam. 1. 17 18. They are begotten of God born of God their extraction is heavenly 1 Pet. 1. 23. 2 Pet. 1. 4. They must needs mind God for they are begotten of him He is their Father they have his Image on them and they must needs mind Christ for he is formed in them and the Spirit for they are born of the Spirit Heaven is their Father's House their own Home their Inheritance the Principles of the Divine Nature enclines and disposeth them to mind things above As they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh so they that are after the spirit do mind the things of the spirit for this is the characteristical difference between the carnal and the spiritual man Rom. 8. 5 6. 1 John 5. 4. Every thing acts according to its Principles If Men and Women have no other Principles in them but such as they brought into the World with them which are only earthly and have no other Spirit than the Spirit of the World iâ— them they cannot mind heavenly things for such as is the earthly such are they that are earthly Heavenly things are contrary to their Natures and to their Principles and therefore they cannot mind them But holy Souls have Principles of the Divine Life and they live the Life of God III. Because their Hopes are set grounded fixed on those invisible eternal things their hopes are not in this Life but in God in Christ Glory Heaven and Eternal Life are the Objects of the hopes of all truly-gracious Souls 1 Cor. 15. 19. Rom. 5. 2. Heb. 6. 18 19. Tit. 2. 14. Tit. 1. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 13. 1 John 3. 3. We must needs mind them and set our Affections upon them because we hope to enjoy them for ever Phil. 3. 20 21. IV. Because the People of God have had experience in some measure of the sweet and powerful Influences and Operations of those invisible eternal things on their own Hearts and Spirits they have tasted that the Lord is gracious they have had fellowship with the Father and the Son in some degree they have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost in many saving fruits and effects on them they have felt the power efficacy and comfort of the Word and Promises and they have in some measure received the first-fruits and earnest of their Inheritance Rom. 8. 23. Eph. 1. 13 14. V. Because by all these things gracious Souls live and in all these things is the Life of their Souls Their Life is hid with Christ in God and should they not mind God and Christ Christ liveth in them and they in him Gal. 2. 20. They live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit Gal. 5. They live by and live upon the Promises Job 23. 12. They live by Faith in the purchased
this Rule we shall find our Hearts so earthly so carnal our Minds so fleshly so set upon visible temporal things but our Thoughts on invisible eternal things so short so weak so inconstant so seldom so soon tired and our Affections so unsetled so unfixed that we shall have great cause to bewail our selves and cry out with St. Paul O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 24. And this will make us cry to God also to renew the Spirits of our Minds and to transform the Image of our Minds and this should make us look up to God's Covenant for new Hearts for Hearts joyned and united to the Lord Psal 86. 11. Psal 57. 7. 108. 1. Oh what cause have we to bewail the frequent departings and wandrings of our Hearts from God their slidings from God and to cry with holy David Quicken me uphold me Our Hearts are not fixed nor stayed on God we do not abide with God Third Vse of Exhortation To this great Duty of most serious minding of and looking unto invisible eternal things O let us mind and look unto and aim at God Christ the Spirit the Word the Promises the great and glorious things purchased by Christ and prepared for us in the other World Oh mind the full enjoyment of God and Christ in Heaven for ever and ever to dwell with him in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore Let us mind eternal things in good earnest with all our Hearts and Souls Look off look off visible temporal things shut your Eyes to the World turn away your Eyes from beholding Vanity But open your Eyes towards Heaven hold your Eyes to invisible eternal things Here I shall shew I. The Hinderances to this Duty II. Means to help us to perform it III. Motives to perswade to it I. The Hinderances which are many and which must be avoided 1st Hinderance is living in any known or beloved Sin this will keep us down from heavenly Meditation Heb. 12. 1. No looking unto Jesus except we lay aside the Sin that doth so easily beset us in some Passion in some Weariness of well-doing in others Pride or Covetousness is the Sin that doth easily beset them This must be hid aside whatever it be it must be repented of and reformed 1 Thess 5. 22. Abstain from all appearance of Evil Sin interposeth between God and our Souls and hides his Face from us If we would mind the Heavenly Word of God so as to profit by it in hearing or reading of it we must lay aside all known Sin 1 Pet. 2. 1 2. Sin divides us from God and heavenly things If we regard any Iniquity in our Hearts God will not hear our Prayers The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. 2ly Worldly Cares Fears Joys Sorrows If we suffer these to take up our Hearts and to fill our Minds and Thoughts there will be no room for heavenly things We must therefore be watchful to cast out and keep out those bad guests Luke 21. 34. Phil. 4. 6. Be careful in nothing If our Affections be set on visible temporal things they cannot be set on invisible eternal things No man can serve two Masters God and Mammon saith our Lord. If the World be Master of our Hearts and Minds of our Thoughts and Affections then surely they cannot be set on GOD and things above 3ly Worldly Company where is nothing but Earthly Discourse They that are of the Earth are earthly Worldly Company will cool the Affections and dull and deaden the Heart and draw it from God Therefore is that Exhortation and Prohibition Eph. 5. 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them True Christians are Christ's Doves his Turtle-Doves they have no Society with the Birds of Prey They are Christ's Sheep what have they to do among Swine They are his Children what have they to do among his Enemies We are not aware of the very great mischief that carnal company doth bring to our Souls If at any time we have had any communion with God in any Ordinance and Duty and then presently go into vain carnal Company we shall quickly lose all savour and relish of God and Heavenly things as if you eat Hony and presently eat Gall after you lose all the taste of Hony And that 's not all but by being in worldly Company you will soon be infected and will bring away on your Spirits the ill savour of the Earth and filthy World as a man that comes out of a Garden of sweet Flowers goes and wallows on a stinking Dunghil The best of us should not go into worldly Company but as Physicians into a Pest-house when lawfully called and with our Preservatives with us We having so much Flesh and Earth in us Worldly Company will make us more fleshly and earthly 4ly Pride and High-mindedness God resisteth the proud 1 Pet. 5. 5. Psal 10. 4. There are many precious Promises made to the humble Job 22. 29. God will dwell with the humble teach them save them None have so sweet Communion with God as humble Souls Heavenly things and humble Souls are things very suitable and agreeable one to the other 5ly Sloth and Idleness 'T is easie we say to go down the Hill but not so easie to go up 'T is easie because natural and usual and ordinary to mind visible temporal things but there must be Pains-taking Industry and Labour used to raise up our Hearts to invisible eternal things a stirring up our selves 2 Tim. 1. 6. And we must often call upon our own Souls and provoke one another and ill too little We must have Resolution and Zeal 6ly The greatest Hinderance of all is Vnbelief Men do not fully believe nor are fully perswaded of the Reality and transcendent Excellency of invisible eternal things This is the grand Impediment Why is not the great God the good God the Fountain of all Goodness the Alsnfficient Good minded thought on loved feared trusted served no more but because He is not believed He is not believed to be that which he is indeed and which he hath revealed himself to be Heb. 11. 6. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Oh the cursed rooted Atheism and Unbelief that is in all our Hearts more or less Why is not Jesus Christ Precious Jesus Blessed Jesus Lovely altogether Lovely Jesus the Brightness of his Father's Glory the Chiefest of Ten thousands the fairest of all the Sons of Men is whom dwells all fulness oh why is he no more minded thought on spoken of why no more admired loved and sought after but because He is not believed To them to all them that believe he is precious most precious 1 Pet. 2. 7. And why is not Heaven and Happiness that far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory that Everlasting Rest in the full and perfect enjoyment of the Blessed God for ever thought on minded and laboured after more but because these things are not fully believed O cursed Unbelief Men believe that Life Liberty Health Honour Estate c. are good things and therefore they mind them and labour after them and count no Pains too much to obtain them labouring as it were in the Fire to get those things Those that believed those better things in the other World counted those visible temporal things of this World but Toyls and Trifles Heb. 10. 34. 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 3 4. So Heb. 11. throughout It is our Unbelief is the cause why God and Christ and Heaven have so little of our hearts and minds so little of our thoughts and affections Oh let us all bitterly bewail our Unbelief Lord subdue and pardon it These are the Hinderances II. The Means to help us to this Work that we may most seriously and most heartily mind invisible eternal things 1. First We must labour clearly to know and understand the Truth and Reality the exceeding Greatness and Excellency of those invisible eternal things as was hinted before Our ignorance of them is much the cause why we mind them no more Ignoti nulla Cupido No man minds or loves what he knows not Let us set our Hearts in earnest to consider what it is to enjoy God who is All-fulness what it is to have Fellowship with the Father and the Son what it is to have Communion with the Holy Ghost to have the gracious Presence of the Holy Spirit to feel the Work the Witness the Sealing the Joy the Consolation of the Holy Spirit all which all true Christians know and feel in some measure and rejoice in them Consider also what it is to live in Christ and to have Christ to live in us to dwell in our Hearts to manifest his Love to us to come in to us to sup with us and we with him to take up his Abode with us what it is to know the Power of his Death and the Vertue of his Resurrection to be made one with him joyned married to him made one Spirit with him and what it is to be made like him here and what it is to be made like him hereafter both in Soul and Body â—ad to appear with him in Glory at last and to be for ever glorified with him what it is to see this Face and to dwell in his presence for ever Oh chese are the only things that are worthy of all our Hearts and Minds most worthy of all our Affections and Desires of all our Labourings Longings Pantings Breathings Hungrings and Thirstings of Soul Oh shame on us all that we spend our Affections on Toys and Trifles on Dreams Fancies and Shadows Oh that such Folly and Madness such Brutishness should possess us Let us lament and lament it And let us labour to know and understand those high and excellent things and let us be fully perswaded of them and of their infinite worth and value These things are worth glorying and rejoycing in Jer. â—â— 23 24. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness judgment and righteousness in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Let us consider also the exceeding-great and precious Promises and what our Blessed Jesus hath purchased and what God hath prepared for his People in the other World and let us ponder upon and by Meditation work these things into our Hearts and Minds Labour for a distinct knowledge of all those things Labour to prove your particular Right and Title to all those invisible eternal good things and then you will mind them indeed A bare Knowledge of them without an Interest in them will do you no good No wise man will much mind those things in which he hath no Interest let us then search and try whether we have any true Title to these things whether we have any good and solid ground to hope that we shall one day be possest of them and shall certainly enjoy them Then we shall think of them and speak of them with Joy and Comfort when we can say with Paul There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness And we know that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens We all hope to enjoy that promised purchased Inheritance all hope to see God in Glory and to be happy but let us try our Title by the Word of God by that Word which must judge us all at the last day We may easily deceive our selves as those in Matth. 7. 21 22. and as the foolish Virgins no Deceit so easie nor so common nor so dangerous for it is irrecoverable and a little serious tryal might prevent this Self-deceiving Self-searching may prevent Self-deceiving and Self-undoing Briefly then let us ask our selves Is Jesus Christ ours Then All is ours All depends on this If Christ be ours God is ours Pardon Life Salvation Heaven and Earth is ours 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. Are we Christ's really and sincerely his Then He is ours My beloved is mine and I am his Are we his all we are his Hearts Heads Tongues Time Talents are we all his Are we new Creatures 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature Mark it a new Creature all old things are pass'd away and behold all things are become new new Insides new Out-sides new Principles new Ends new Affections new Desires new Delights new Company new Language all new if new Creatures Have we the Spirit of Christ in us If any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Doth Christ live in us Is Christ most precious to us Do we believe in him Let us try the truth of our Faith doth it purifie our Hearts Doth it work by Love by Love to Christ to all that hath the Image of Christ on it Doth it overcome the World Doth it support under Trouble Let us see that it be Faith unfeigned the Faith of God's Elect. Have we with all our Hearts chosen the Lord for our Portion and placed our Happiness in him fixed our best Loves Desires and Delights in him and have we resigned up our whole selves cordially and unreservedly to him Have we broken our League with all Sin and with all the Idols of our Hearts Do we hate and detest all Sin and do we keep a continual watch and war against all Sin Have we an equal respect to all God's Commandments Can we deny our selves and part with all things for Christ Are we the Heirs of the Promises If we be really Christ's then are we Heirs of the Promises Gal. 3. 29. Are we the Children of God If Children
work to converse with God and Heaven in the Creatures As for instance When we sit down at Table remember there is a time coming when we shall sit down with Christ and eat and drink at his Table in his Kingdom that is we shall enjoy free and intimate Communion with him in Heaven And let us labour to raise our Hearts from temporal to spiritual things and be much in praising adoring and admiring God in the Creatures 6. Be convinced also that all our happiness and comfort both here and hereafter for ever lyeth not in any or all of the sensible temporal things but all lyeth in those invisible eternal things It lyeth not in having Honours Riches Pleasures c. for a man may be happy without them as Job and Lazarus were and miserable with them as Haman Ahab Dives and others were Psal 144. 15. Yea happy are the people whose God is the Lord. Happy indeed if God Christ and Heaven be ours happy for ever or else miserable for ever 7. And Lastly Let us labour to be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds or else we shall never seriously and heartily mind invisible eternal things as was shewed before We must get those invisible eternal Principles of Renewing Grace planted in our Hearts the Divine Nature the Life of God the Spirit of our heavenly Father to renew our Spirits or else we shall never mind those things in good earnest for which purpose let us go to God call cry to him for Renewing Grace Psal 51. 10. Let us look up to and lay hold on God's Covenant Ezek. 11. 19. go to the Promise Luke 11. 13. If you being evil know how to give good things to your children how much more will your heavenly Father give his spirit to those that ask him A precious Promise indeed let us rest upon this Promise and most earnestly beg God to perform it to us Old Bottles will not hold new Wine nor old Hearts retain Heavenly things New Hearts we must have heavenly holy Hearts or we shall never mind heavenly things as we ought III. Motives to this Duty 1. Consider that thus to look unto and mind invisible eternal things is the express Character of every true Christian No man can approve himself to be a true Christian and be a total Stranger to this Work for to be a true Christian is to be like Christ Now Jesus Christ minded those invisible eternal things as is most evident in the whole course of his Life his Heart was in Heaven while his Body was on Earth John 3. 13. Shall we profess our selves Christians and not be like Christ nor have the Character of Christians 2. Consider this will be a sure sign and clear evidence to us of our interest in and title to all those invisible eternal good things in the other World Matth. 6. 20 21. Where the Heart is there the Treasure is If our Hearts and Minds Thoughts and Affections are on God on Christ and Heaven it is a sure sign that these are ours An heavenly Mind is as good a sign that we belong to Heaven as any is as was also shewed before 3. This will begin our Heaven upon Earth these heavenly things minded affected delighted in will yield such joy and comfort as to begin our very Heaven here when Faith and Hope Joy and Praise Love Desire and Delight are exercised on God and on Christ and Glory we shall be filled with Joy and Peace as Rom. 15. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 8. Psal 31. 7. Oh then let us labour to begin our Heaven here by our Heavenly-mindedness 4. This will yield Contentment and Comfort Satisfaction and Peace to our Souls in every condition It will sweeten every bitter Cup To think on God as our Father and on Christ as our Redeemer Head and Husband and on all the sweet Promises of which we are Heirs what comfort will this bring to our Souls Lam. 3. 33. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Isa 63. 9. In all their afflictions he was afflicted and the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the days of old Rom. 8. 28. All things shall work together for good to them that love God With many other exceeding great and precious Promises which our good God hath made that our Faith might feed upon them and find satisfaction or else our Souls would faint 5. This will fit us for every Duty to God and man The more we think on God and heavenly things the more conscientious shall we be in our Duties to Man because it is for the Lord's sake from whom we look for the Reward as the Apostle speaks to Servants Eph. 6. 5 6 7. And for Duties to God it will make us serve God cheerfully delightfully and constantly having the Glory of God the enjoyment of him and the Recompence of Reward in our Eye Oh how will it quicken raise animate and encourage us For why are all those great and glorious invisible eternal things proposed and promised to us but that we should mind them aim at them and live in the lively hopes and comfortable expectations of enjoying them Heb. 11. 6 24. 1. 1 2 3. 1 Cor. 15. last Therefore be stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as ye know your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. 6. This will serve to encrease and strengthen Grace for the more we mind those invisible eternal things the stronger will be our Love our Faith our Hope and our Patience yea the more heavenly and spiritual we shall grow and the more useful savory and profitable in all our Discourses By our heavenly-mindedness we shall smell of Heaven in all our Converses and Communications to the advantage of others 7. This is one principal way of enjoying Communion with God here in this World for by this we open our hearts to God raise up our Desires after him spend our Thoughts and Affections upon him and in these heavenly Meditations God communicates his Light and Love his Grace and Peace to our Souls By these Meditations on invisible eternal things our Souls converse with God talk with God walk with God have our conversations with God and this is most sweet and contentful to gracious Souls this is to live in God and to live the Life of God and it is the sum of all our happiness here and hereafter The enjoyment of God's good presence here in acts of Communion with him will produce greatness of Joy and the enjoyment of God's glorious presence hereafter in the uninterrupted Acts of Communion with him in Heaven will produce fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Psal 16. last 8. By this looking to and affectionately minding invisible eternal things we shall be more and more changed into the image and likeness of them 2 Cor. 3. 18. We all with open face beholding as in
the Reality of those things Who hath believed our Report Isa 53. 1. and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed to make Souls believe and to work effectual Faith in them Surely to very few A very bare historical Faith is wanting but much more a cordial practical Perswasion of those things for by true Faith we come to have an Interest in all these eternal good things and if we had an Interest in them we should mind them more Those invisible eternal things spoken of in the holy Scripture signifie no more to most of us than those Mountains of Spices and Mines of Gold do that are in the Indies which we never hope to see or possess and for which none of us will part with our poor Cottages Alas alas it were impossible if we did really believe those things above and that they may be had by us but that we should take more pains to get a Title to them and having once got a Title surely we should mind them more than we do Now the grand Reasons why we that profess that we know and believe those great things of the other World yet take so little pains to be assured of our Right to them are these viz. our false Faith our false Hope and our inordinate Love of the World Cou'd we get these three Thieves out of our hearts it wou'd be otherwise with us 1. Our False Faith building our Faith on the Mercy of God and Merits of Christ in general not considering whether those Conditions are wrought in us to which the Mercy of God is promised and to which the Merits of Christ do belong Isa 1. 16. 55. 7. Rom. 8. 9. 2 Cor. 5. 17. 1 Cor. 6. 17. Heb. 5. 9. Matth. 11. 28 29. 16. 24. 10. 34. By all which places we shall find that the Mercy of God belongs to the penitent returning Sinner and that those only can truly claim an Interest in Christ that submit to his Yoke that have his Spirit that are new Creatures that deny themselves and give up themselves to the Government of Christ 2. Our False Hope that deceived those eminent Professors in Matth. 7. 21. and the foolish Virgins Matth. 25. and which deceives all Hypocrites and formal Christians that build their Hopes upon outward Profession Priviledges the performance of religious Duties outward Reformation c. not minding that express word in 1 John 3. 3. Every one that hath this hope that is to see Christ in Glory and to be made like unto him purifieth himself even as he is pure Col. 1. 27. Christ in you the hope of glory Not Christ without you professed by you but Christ in you formed in you dwelling in your Hearts by Faith living and reigning in you by his Word and Spirit that is the Hope of Glory the true and only ground of true Hope of Glory 3. Inordinate Love of the World 1 John 2. 14 15. If we be friends of this world we are enemies to God Too much love of Life Liberty Ease Relations c. our Hearts are let out strongly after these therefore our good God doth oftentimes strip his dearest Children of these in love to their Souls to take off their Affections from them that they may place them on better things where they are better bestowed III. It is Lamentable also that those invisible eternal great and glorious things should be no more minded thought upon considered and spoken of by Professors that hope shortly to enjoy them God Christ Glory Heaven are seldom in mens Minds and Thoughts What are most Peoples Morning and Evening Thoughts Psal 49. 11. What vain Thoughts lodge in our Hearts Jer. 4. 14. Oh how little talk is there of these things amongst us Is God our Father Is Christ our Head and Husband Is the Holy Ghost our Counsellour and Comforter Is the Word of God our Rule and Guide our spiritual Food and Nourishment our Comfort and Consolation Are the Promises our great Charter Heaven and Glory our Inheritance And do we indeed hope to enjoy all these things for ever and ever and yet think no more and speak no more of them Can this be so Can our hopes be good and well grounded Let us not deceive our selves IV. It is Lamentable that those great things should be no more laboured after Joh. 6. 27. Labour not for that meat which perisheth but for that which endureth to eternal life Prov. 2 2 3 4. Isa 55. 2 3. We labour for that which is not Bread not Bread for our Souls and spend that which is better than Mony our Spirits and Time for that which doth not cannot satisfie Why should visible temporal things have so much of our hearts heads tongues hands time strength and all and those invisible eternal things have so little Is there any colour of Reason for it Are not those invisible eternal things infinitely better than the other Certainly it is because they are not known nor believed nor minded that they are no more laboured after How do we dishonour God and Christ and the Promises how do we undervalue Christ's Purchase and Eternal Life when we lay out our selves so much for the World and so little for these How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation Heb. 2. 3. V. It 's lamentable also that the loss of the means of the discovery of those invisible eternal things should no more affect and trouble us Lam. 1. 7. Jerusalem remembred in the days of her affliction all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old A Famine of the Word is the worst Amos 8. VI. And it is lamentable that those who know believe desire and labour after those things themselves should be no forwarder and readier to commend those things to others and should take no more pains to perswade and draw others to look after them Oh how few cry out to others with holy David Come and I will tell you what God hath done for my soul VII And no less lamentable is it that those who claim an Interest in all those great and glorious good things and hope to enjoy them hereafter that those persons should no more express the power of them in their Lives that they should no more rejoyce in them and be no more raised in their Spirits and gladded in their Hearts with the fore-thoughts of them and that they should live no more comfortably upon them It 's sad that those thus interested in God and Christ and Glory and that are the Expectants of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory should not live better lives more exemplary shining profitable joyful lives We that look for such things what manner of persons ought we to be in all manner of holy conversation It 's sad also that such should bear up with no more strength holy courage and confidence in the midst of the Troubles of this short Life seeing they hope for such glorious things in the other World
We see how bravely the Primitive Christians carried themselves in all their Sufferings by looking unto minding and thinking upon those invisible eternal things Oh could we keep them in our view and keep our Eye on them we should not faint nor sink under any of our Troubles We look too much on and mind too much those visible temporal things and look too little to the Invisible God to our Blessed Jesus and Eternal Glory Oh that God would encrease and strengthen our Faith and help us to live in the lively actings and exercise of it By it we stand Oh that we could live more by Faith and less by Sense 2 Cor. 5. 7. Fifth Vse for Instruction If we would set our Hearts and Minds on those invisible eternal things we must 1. Be much in Prayer Pray oh pray for new Hearts old Hearts will not hold heavenly things Pray for Saving Light and Knowledge Ephes 1. 17 18. Pray that ye may clearly apprehend and understand those things Pray for Faith that you may really believe them and may be fully perswaded of the Truth and Excellency of them Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Pray for Love that your Hearts may be throughly and truly affected with them that you may relish and savour them and may feel taste and see the goodness of them Pray for strength of Faith and Love that you may act those and other Graces as Hope Joy Desire and Delight upon those heavenly things Pray without ceasing pray fervently for these things and never leave praying till you obtain Tell God that an earthly empty carnal Heart you have and how impossible it is for you your selves to make â—t heavenly Complain to the God of all Grace who can make all Grace to abound 2. Search the Scriptures diligently Read the Word of God conscientiously for there all those great and glorious things are discovered And labour to believe what you hear and read and to get the power and efficacy of God's Truths on â—â—our Spirits 2 Cor. 4. 4 6. 3. Be watchful against all Sin and against the World and the Lusts of the Flesh Be much in mortification of your inordinate Affections Col. 3. â—1 2 5. compared Watch against vain thoughts and strive in God's strength to draw up your â—earts to Heaven and hold them there 4. Seriously and often consider the great and â—â—al difference between visible and invisible things between temporal and eternal things uncertain and certain things transitory and permanent things between those things that respect the mortal Body and those that concern the immortal Soul between those things that are the Portion of Reprobates and those that are the Portion of God's Elect. Oh consider the great difference between those things which are the Effects of Common Providence and those that are the Fruits of God's everlasting Love and Christ's most precious Blood Surely a due and deep consideration of the vast difference which is between these things would help us to mind eternal things 5. Consider what taste these visible temporal things will have in a dying hour surely either none at all or a bitter one Oh then what will Honours Riches Pleasures signifie Oh then how much better and sweeter will those invisible eternal things be to a poor Soul Oh then an Interest in God and in Christ a Pardon a Title to Eternal Life Assurance of Salvation will be things of value And why should they not be so now 6. Converse much with heavenly-minded Christians but alas where shall we find them Let us all bewail our horrible Earthliness our Earthly Discourse all Earth in our Thoughts Earth in our Mouths and yet hope to go to Heaven at last and live in Heaven for ever O how unlikely Surely if I am not very much mistaken I think a great many of our Professors will be mistaken at last and that will be dreadful because irrecoverable O Lord give thy poor Servant an heavenly Heart Sixthly The Last Vse is for Comfort to those that do mind and look unto those invisible eternal things in good earnest For your Comfort consider 1. This is to you an Evidence of your Interest in all those great and glorious things That you do thus mind and converse with heavenly things with God and Christ and Glory it is a good sign that these are all your own that you have a good Title to them An heavenly Mind is a very good sign of one that belongs to Heaven 2. You shall shortly enjoy and possess them all Where Christ is there shortly shall his Servants be He will not always dwell in Heaven without you nor will he always be absent from you no but he will come again and receive you to himself that where he is there you may be also John 14. 1 2 3. And where is he but at the right hand of the Throne of his Father and there you shall be also when Christ who is our life shall appear we shall appear with him also in glory Col. 3. 3 4. Now you can see and think on those invisible eternal things but darkly and confusedly but then you shall see clearly yea possess and enjoy them for ever 3. This your minding of heavenly things will very much sweeten your present Sufferings And this brings me to the consideration of the last thing in the scope of the Text namely the help or benefit those Primitive Christians had by their looking unto those invisible eternal things which was that thereby they were supported under their present Sufferings Ver. 16. We faint not while we look not on things that are seen but on things that are not seen Hence may we observe this Doctrinal Conclusion Doct. That a believing sight and serious minding of unseen eternal things is a singular means of sweet support to poor Christians under all their Troubles This flows from the scope of the Text We faint not say they but rather we gather strength and courage and our inner man is renewed day by day while we look not at those things which are seen but at those c. Looking off from visible temporal things doth much help to support God's People under their Troubles but looking on upon invisible eternal things doth help more Crucifixion of our Affections to visible temporal things is very useful but the fixation of our Affections on invisible eternal things is more useful to our Support and Comfort Psal 27. 13. I had 〈…〉 believed to see the goodness of God in the land of 〈…〉 Ver. 14. So Heb. 11. 26 27. By Faith Moses endured as seeing him that is invisible Moses could never have endured all those hard things if he had looked only on those things which are seen but he looked on the invisible God and the unseen Jesus and on the Promises the Recompence of Reward he had a fixed Eye to those great things his mind was setled on these and that carried him through all
So Heb. 10. 34. They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves they had in Heaven a better and a more enduring substance So Heb. 11. 9 10 13. they endured the condition of Strangers and Pilgrims usually a sad and troublesome condition because they looked for a City an invisible eternal City They embraced the Promises and minded them And to this our Lord leads us in pronouncing those Blessings Mat. 5. 10 12. That great should be their reward in Heaven Reas 1. Because the blessed tendency the powerful efficacy and sweet fruits of all a Christians Troubles as to our part much depends on this Work and Duty performed by us Let us mind this What is the tendency and fruit of a Christian's Troubles See the foregoing Verse They work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory A blessed tendency indeed sweet fruit Q. But how are Afflictions useful and effectual to produce those sweet fruits Ans Some things are done on God's part and some on our part On God's part He makes Afflictions useful to fit us for that weight of Glory as was shewed before by following those Afflictions with the Blessing of his Word and Power of his Spirit and so makes them useful to those happy ends Psal 94. 12. as 1st By discovering imbittering and cleansing them from Sin Deut. 8. 2. Gen. 41. 21. 1 Kin. 17. 18. Isa 59. 11 12. 2ly By drawing Souls nearer to God Psal 142. 4 5. Psal 31. 11 12 13 14. 3ly By crucifying their Affections to the things of this Life 4ly By making them more diligent and serious in their preparation for that state of Blessedness Thus God blesseth Afflictions But all doth not lye on God's part this Blessing is attained by us while we look not at those things which are seen which are temporal but at those things which are not seen which are eternal Those Blessings of Afflictions are not received nor those Benefits and Advantages obtained by us while we stand looking and musing poring and pondering open those things which are seen So long as our Hearts and Minds are still fixed upon our visible Losses and Crosses and upon the earthly Comforts that we are deprived of and so long as our Thoughts and Affections are still set on and glued to those visible temporal things so long we go without those Blessings and Benefits But we must look off those things and look up and mind and meditate on those invisible eternal things we must set Faith and Love and Hope on work in viewing and reviewing in considering and contemplating in apprehending and applying that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Now while we do so we are in the right and realy way to obtain the rich Blessings of all our Afflictions and so we receive Comfort and Support under them all It is the plentiful Harvest hoped for and believed that sweetens the stormy Seed-time It ' is a dangerous mistake to expect too much from the Creature and too much comfort here in this World for here is not our Rest All men would have Peace Comfort and Happiness but they would have it from the Creature rather than from God Psal 4. 6. Believers themselves that would have their Comforts from God yet would have them here also and would not stay for them till hereafter saying with the Disciples upon the Mount It is good to be here whereas here in this World we are to have but sips crumbs drops glances glimpses at most but some First-fruits of Canaan that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory is reserved for the other World The Inheritance is reserved in Heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 4 5. and we must wait for our Harvest is not here we are not come home It doth not yet appear what we shall be the quiet and peaceable Fruits of Righteousness come not till afterwards the great Reward the full Reward is in Heaven not here 2d Reason is Because as I think the Work of Saving Faith by which mainly we are supported doth not consist only in looking backward on the Cross of Christ and his payment of our Ransom by his precious Blood but also in looking forward on the Crown of Christ and the Glory he hath purchased for us Heb. 11. 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Saving Faith is not only to believe what our dear Lord hath already done on Earth for us in the great work of Redemption but also unfeignedly and firmly to believe those things which we never saw nor did ever Man see and to hope and look for them so really as to let go all worldly Hopes and Happiness rather than hazard the loss of those invisible things This is an eminent part of Faith whereby the Just do live 1 Pet. 1. 8. It is upon our clear Apprehensions and firm Expectations of that unseen and eternal Felicity in the full enjoyment of the Blessed God that both our Peace and Safety doth depend We can have no solid Peace while we look for much Comfort and Content from the Creature in this our present Pilgrimage and Prison for in doing so we looking for more in the Creature than is in it we lose our Comforts and then complain for want of them for our looking for so much from them and looking so much on them provokes God to take them from us and when they are gone we are troubled If eternal Joys and everlasting Consolations were more in our Minds if the Joy of our Lord Matt. 25. 21. were more in our Thoughts and Affections surely spiritual Joy would more at present abound in our Hearts Rom. 15. 13. The God of consolation would fill us with joy and peace in believing Believing Apprehensions of those invisible eternal Joys would breed in us some refreshing Joys for the present So 1 Pet. 1. 8. No wonder we are so comfortless and walk so sadly while those things which should raise us and comfort us are so little in our Minds and Thoughts and we such Strangers above We must needs faint when we lay by our Cordials and make no use of them and when we lay by our Supports and mind them not Temporal things most needs affect us and afflict us when eternal things are out of sight and out of mind Mark this When Christians do not only let fall their expectations and hopes of the unseen promised Glory and let the thoughts of them decay and dye away in them but also heighten their hopes and expectations from the Creature and earnestly and eagerly pursue the same then do they most certainly prepare for their own Disquiets Fears and Troubles and with both Hands draw Calamity on themselves because they forsake the fountain of living waters and hew out to themselves cisterns broken cisterns that will hold no water All Creature-comforts are at best but Cisterns and when too much loved but broken Cisterns in which are no Waters of
delight upon him Always minding that it is God in Christ that we must thus look unto and mind in all these particulars God in Christ not God singly considered but God in Christ for God cannot be comfortably thought upon out of Christ our Mediator in whom alone he is well pleased No Communion with God but in Christ no Communication of any good from God to us but in Christ and by his Spirit It is the invisible eternal God by the invisible eternal Son of God and through the invisible eternal Spirit that we must make all our Addresses unto and expect all Communications of good from It is Christ alone that must bring God and the Soul together In Christ we are reconciled to him even by the Blood of his Cross 2 Cor. 5. 19. Col. 1. 21. And being reconciled to God by him we have Peace with God and then have Communion with him In Christ God's Nature becomes lovely to us and ours to God otherwise there is an utter Enmity betwixt his pure and our impure Nature Christ hath made up the vast gulf between God and us He drank of the brook in the way Psal 110. last Aim at and thirst after Communion with God in Christ in all your receipts of Mercies from him and in all your returns of Duty to him Pray and pant that all that you receive from him may come to you from his Love in Christ Oh that this Mercy that this Affliction may proceed from God's Fatherly Love in Christ Jesus so in all your Approaches to God in Ordinances and Duties pray and pant after Communion with God in Christ Oh that I may meet with God in this Ordinance and in this Duty without which we should not be satisfied in any Ordinances and Duties and all outward Blessings are but visible temporal things we must look beyond them and above them unto God in Christ for the invisible eternal love and grace and blessing of God in them So holy David Psal 63. 1 2 3. That I may see thy power and thy glory saith he And Vers 8. My soul followeth hard after God to see God's power and love and grace in Ordinances So Psal 42. 1 2. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God This is the marrow and fatness of God's Ordinances and this is that will satisfie the Soul therefore this is the thing that our Souls should long and breath after that we may have sights sweet sights of the invisible eternal God in Christ in Ordinances and Duties and tasts of his love and goodness in them And if we have Communion with God in our Mercies we shall be able thankfully to receive them and fruitfully to improve them for God And also we shall be enabled patiently and comfortably to bear all our Afflictions and profitably to improve them Now if we would have Communion with God in Christ we must look well to these things viz. 1st We must labour to be pure in Heart for such as are pure in Heart and they only shall see God God in his Son God in his Ordinances in his Providences and in Glory at last If we regard Iniquity in our Hearts God will not hear our Prayers nor afford us any Communion with him Mat. 5. 8. A pure Heart is a new Heart an Heart purged by the Blood of Christ from the guilt of Sin and purified by his Spirit Acts 15. 9. An Heart renewed and sanctified a single sincere and upright Heart that hath pure Principles planted in it the Spirit of God the Fear of God the Love of God Faith in God and Christ Christ formed there the Image of God stamped there the Kingdom of God set up there These are the true Principles of Purity of Heart and Life and also an Heart set and bent by the Rules of God's pure Word that pure Rule and that acteth for pure ends to please God to bring Glory to him to do good to others and to enjoy God in our Salvation Such may expect sweet Communion with God 2 Cor. 6. 16 17. the Lord God Almighty will walk and dwell with such 2ly We must labour to be poor in Heart poor in Spirit Mat. 5. 3. broken in Heart contrite in Spirit Isa 57. 15. O the wonderful condescension of the high and lofty one who dwelleth in the Heavens that He should stoop so low as to dwell in the broken Heart to revive such Hearts such Spirits O the Revivings of God they are Soul-satisfying things The Consolations of God are not small Happy indeed are those Souls in whom the great and glorious God dwells Blessed Souls that are the Temple of the holy God Habitations of God by the Spirit 1 Cor. 3. 16. Eph. 2. 22. Isa 66. 2. To the man will God look that is poor and of a contrite Spirit and God's looks on such are sweet looks Love-looks such shall have much communion with God and Christ for Christ was sent to bind up the broken hearted Luke 4. 18. What a comfortable support is this to a poor afflicted Christian that is poor in this World destitute of Friends and earthly Comforts restrained and shut up in Prison or otherwise confined to Chamber or Sick-bed and withal is poor in Spirit is content in this condition Yet now in this his desolate condition he may have Communion with the great God he may enjoy the blessed and sweet Company of the Lord Jesus by day and by night even when Lover and Friend is put far from him even then his God is near him his everlasting Father is with him his dear Lord and Redeemer his â—â—eet Saviour and loving Husband is with him Psal 25. 15 16 17. Psal 102. 17. He will regard â—e prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer He will never leave them nor forsake them Yea He will then speak most comfortably to their poor Souls Hos 2. 14. He will speak to their Hearts He knows their Souls best in Adversity and their Souls know him best then Jesus Christ will then â—hew them his Love and manifest it unto them and support them 3ly If we would have Communion with God â—n every condition we must labour to be upright in Heart Psal 125. The Lord is nigh unto them that call upon him in truth they shall have Communion with him He loveth truth in the inner parts He that walketh uprightly shall dwell in God's tabernacle and abide in his holy hill Psal 15. 1 2. God hates Hypocrisie Oh the guile and falshood of our hearts let us bewail it and cry to God with David Make my heart sound in thy statutes 4ly Be heavenly in heart be heavenly-minded such shall have sweet Communion with God such as have their Conversation in Heaven have converse with God Phil. 3. 20. We must be very watchful that the World do not lye too near our hearts nor lodge too long in our hearts for that will steal away our hearts from God and hinder our Communion with him We must take
heed that our hearts be not at any time over-charged with the Cares of this Life but let us labour to keep the World and our Hearts asunder for those things that are visible and temporal will darken our sight of God if we let them into our hearts and they will drive God out of our hearts if we entertain the inordinate love of them Covetousness is Idolatry because it sets up the Creature for a God in the Heart 1 John 2. 14 15. He that loveth the world the love of the Father is not in him Keep a strong Watch then against this present evil World and suffer it not to get into your Hearts if you will maintain your Communion with God in Christ 5ly Be much in the acting of Faith Love Hope Joy in the Lord Be much in praising God By the exercises of these graces we enjoy God and God communicates himself to us Oh labour to live in the lively exercise of Faith Christ dwells in the Heart by Faith Eph. 3. 17. Gal. 2. 20. Labour to believe the Love of God in Christ to your Souls in giving his Son to be a Sin-offering for us John 3. 16. 2 Cor. 5. 21. And this believing it will warm and enflame your Hearts with Love to God again and so you may enjoy much sweet Communion with God and Christ John 14. 21 23. In the Actings of our Love to God we shall meet with more Manifestations of God's Love to us Where and when we open our Hearts to God and Christ and give them our Loves there and then will God and Christ open their Hearts to us and give us their Loves Cant. 1. 2 3. Cant. 7. 10 11. There is a mutual Manifestation of Love to each other no Love is lost between Christ and his Spouse If any man open to me saith Christ I will come in unto him and sup with him and he with me Rev. 3. 18. Now by the exercise of Faith and Love we open to Christ he is always ready to come in Open your everlasting doors that the king of glory may come in Ps 24. 6ly Be very watchful Watch and keep your hearts with all diligence Prov. 4. 23. Take heed let not the World nor Vain Thoughts lodge there Take heed of wandring from God watch your words watch your steps take heed grieve not quench not resist not the Holy Spirit for by him God communicates himself to your Souls carefully observe all his Motions and still beg his assistance in all your Duties and rest upon his Aid without which you can do nothing 7ly And lastly If we would maintain our Communion with God which is our Heaven upon Earth we must look well to our whole Conversation that that be ordered aright for to such God will shew his salvation Psal 50. 23. God looks for a well-order'd Conversation a Life order'd by the Rule of his Word setting narrow Steps to our Feet looking straight on not turning aside to the right or left hand Prov. 4. 25 26 27. nor wickedly departing from his way Psal 18. 21 22 23. but to be righteons just honest saithful upright charitable in all our dealings with Men and carefully performing all our Duties to GOD and Man in singleness and integrity of Heart This is a well-order'd Conversation Also in our Conversation we must mind two things 1. That we have no fellowship with the unfruitful Works of Darkness Ephes 5. 11. that is no more than need no intimate Familiarity and Communion with them lest thereby we lose our Communion with God no more Communion with the Wicked than Piety Charity and Necessity will allow Too many have lost Communion with GOD by their too intimate Communion with the Wicked Away from me saith holy David all ye workers of iniquity 2. That we break not Fellowship with nor withdraw Communion from the People of God from those that bear his Image although differing from us in some circumstances In the Communion of Saints we may have Communion with God Psal 16. 2. God is among his People he walks in them and dwells in them Our Love must be not only to those of our own Opinion but to all Saints and professing Christians and must hold Communion with all those with whom we may charitably judge that Christ holds Communion were this well minded it would do much to heal our sad and sinful Breaches Heb. 10. 24 25. And thus we have seen how that our looking unto invisible eternal things especially unto God in Christ and maintaining our Communion with them we may be sweetly born up and comfortably supported under all our Troubles O Most holy most merciful most gracious Lord God Father Almighty and my most loving and tender-hearted Father in my most dear and sweet Redeemer Jesus Christ I render Thee my most humble and hearty Thanks and Praise for lengthning my days and for supporting me with thy Special Goodness in this poor Work for giving me sometimes hours sometimes half-hours and sometimes days of some Strength and Ease between those many sad and painful Distempers upon me since I began it And I most humbly beseech thee to write these Truths on my Heart and keep them there that by the assistance of thy good Spirit they may be effectual to spiritualize raise and fix my poor cold dead carnal Heart upon thy blessed Self in Christ and be pleased to vouchsafe me sweet sensible and constant Communion with thy self in Christ for thy Mercies sake that thereby I may glorifie thee in this my day of thy Visitation and may be throughly sanctified by and comfortably supported under all my Troubles Amen TO ALL MY Christian Friends IN DARTMOVTH Or elsewhere That desire to know the true state of their never-dying Souls In order to their making clear and sure their Interest in the Lord Jesus Grace and Peace BEfore I had finish'd the foregoing Treatise there came to my hands by God's good Providence some Papers of very great concernment to all our Souls for Eternity being the Conclusion of a Discourse by that Eminent Learned and Pious Servant of the Lord Jesus Mr. John Flavel whose Works praise him and of whose Presence and Labours we that knew him by Face or Works have continual cause to lament our Loss which Discourse was from 2 Cor. 13. 5. concerning Self-examination about a Man's Interest in Christ Which Papers when I viewed and reviewed I bless God I felt so much power in the Contents of them and so much sweetness that I thought not fit to eat my Morsels alone but was strongly imprest to make them publick which here by the consent of his dear Relations I presume to do hoping it will awaken those that did hear those close-trying Truths to be more exact in their trying Work and may also excite others to due diligence in that so profitable and too much neglected Duty of Self-examination Those Characters in this will help us against Self-deceiving Do not read only but pray earnestly for