acquainted then in their own brests 3. Besides many come to the work with forestalling conclusions They are resolved what to judge before they Try They use the duty but to strengthen their present conceits of themselves and not to find out the truth of their condition Like a bribed Judge who examines each party as if he would Judge uprightly when he is resolved which way the cause shall go before hand Or as perverse disputers who argue only to maintain their present opinions rather then to try those opinions whether they are right or wrong Just so do men examine their hearts 4. Also men are partial in their own Cause They are ready to think their great sins small and their small sins to be none their gifts of nature to be the work of Grace and their gifts of common grace to be the special grace of the Saints They are straight ways ready to say All these have I kept from my youth And I am rich and increased c. Rev. 3.17 The first common excellency that they meet with in themselves doth so dazle their eyes that they are presently satisfied that all is well and look no further 5. Besides most men do search but by the halves If it will not easily quickly be done they are discouraged and leaveoff Few set to it and follow it as beseems them in a work of such moment He must give all diligence that means to make sure 6. Also men try themselves by false Marks and Rules not knowing wherein the truth of Christianity doth consist some looking beyond and some short of the Scripture standard 7. Moreover there is so great likeness betwixt the lowest degree of special grace and the highest degree of Common Grace that it is no wonder if the unskilful be mistaken It is a great Question whether the main difference between special grace and common be not rather gradual then specifical If it should be so as some think then the discovery will be much more difficult However to discern by what principle our affections are moved and to what ends and with what sincerity is not very easie there being so many wrong Ends and motives which may excite the like Acts. Every grace in the Saints hath its counterfeit in the Hypocrite 8. Also men use to Try themselves by unsafe Marks either looking for a high degree of grace instead of a lower degree in sincerity as many doubting Christians do or else enquiring only into their outward Actions or into their inward Affections without their ends motives and other qualifications The sure evidences are Faith Love c. that are Essential parts of our Christianity and that lie neerest to the heart 9. Lastly Men frequently miscarry in this work by setting on it in their own strength As some expect the Spirit should do it without them so others attempt it themselves without seeking or expecting the help of the Spirit both these will certainly miscarry in their Assurance How far the Spirits Assistance is necessary is shewed before and the several Acts which it must perform for us SECT X. FUrther Causes of doubting among Christians Because the Comfort of a Christians life doth so much consist in his Assurance of Gods Special Love and because the right way of obtaining it is so much controverted of late I will here proceed a little further in opening to you some other Hinderances which keep true Christians from Comfortable Certainty besides the forementioned Errors in the Work of Examination Though I would still have you remember and be sensiâ—le That the neglect or slighty performance of that great duty and not following on the seaâ—ch with Seriousness and Constancy is the most common Hinderance for ought I have yet found I shall add now these Ten more which I find very ordinary Impediments and therefore desire Christians more carefully to Consider and Beware of them 1. One Common and great Cause of doubting and uncertainty is The weakness and small measure of our Graces A little Grace is next to None Small things are hardly discerned He that will see a small needle a hair a mote or atome must have clear light and good eyes But houses and Towns and Mountains are easily discerned Most Christians content themselves with a small measure of Grace and do not follow on to spiritual strength and manhood They Believe so weakly and Love God so little that they can scarce find whether they Believe and Love at all Like a man in a swoun whose pulse and breathing is so weak and obscure that it can hardly be perceived whether they move at all and consequently whether the man be alive or dead The chief Remedy for such would be To follow on their duty till their Graces be increased Ply your work Wait upon God in the use of his prescribed means and he will undoubtedly bless you with Increase and Strength Oh that Christians would bestow most of that time in getting more Grace which they bestow in Anxious doubtings whether they have any or none And that they would lay out those Serious Affections in Praying and seeking to Christ for more Grace which they bestow in fruitless Complaints of their supposed Gracelesness I beseech thee Christian take this advice as from God And then when thou Believest strongly and Lovest fervently thou canst not doubt whether thou do Believe and Love or not No more then a man that is burning hot can doubt whether he be warm or a man that is strong and lusty can doubt whether he be alive Strong Affections will make you feel them Who loveth his friend or wife or child or any thing strongly and doth not know it A great measure of Grace is seldom doubted of Or if it be you may quickly find when you seek and try SECT XI 2. ANother Cause of uncomfortable living is That Christians look more at their present Cause of Comfort or Discomfort then they do at their Future Happiness and the way to attain it They look afâ—er Signs which may tell thâ—m what they are more then they do at Pâ—ecepts which tell them what they should do They are very desirous to know whether they are Justified and beloved or not but they do not think what course they should take to be Justified if they be not As if their present Case must needs be their Everlasting Case and if they be now unpardoned there were no Remedy Why I beseech thee consider this Oh doubting Soul What if all were as bâ—d as thou dost fear and none of thy sins were yet pardoned Is not the Remedy at hand May not all this be done in a moment Dost thou not know that thou mayst have Christ and pardon when ever thou wilt Call not this a loose or strange doctrine Christ is willing if thou be willing He offereth himself and all his benefits to thee He presseth them on thee and urgeth thee to accept them He will condemn thee and destroy thee if thou
he hath chosen him for his Portion his thoughts are on Eternity his desires there his dwelling there he cryes out O that I were there he takes that day for a time of imprisonment wherein he hath not taken one refreshing view of Eternity I had rather dye in this mans condition and have my soul in his souls case then in the case of him that hath the most eminent gifts and is most admired for parts and dutie whose heart is not thus taken up with God The man that Christ will finde out at the last day and condemn for want of a wedding Garment will be he that wants this frame of heart The question will not then be How much you have known or professed or talked but How much have you loved and where was your heart Why then Christians as you would have a sure testimony of the love of God and a sure proof of your title to Glory labor to get your hearts above God will acknowledg that you really love him and take you for faithful friends indeed when he sees your hearts are set upon him Get but your hearts once truly in Heaven and without all question your selves will follow If sin and Satan keep not thence your affections they will never be able to keep away your persons SECT IIII. 2. COnsider A heart in Heaven is the highest excellency of your spirits here and the noblest part of your Christian disposition As there is not only a difference between men and beasts but also among men between the Noble and the Base so there is not only a common excellency whereby a Christian differs from the world but also a peculiar nobleness of spirit whereby the more excellent differ from the rest And this lyes especially in a higher and more heavenly frame of spirit Only man of all inferior creatures is made with a face directed heaven-ward but other creatures have their faces to the earth As the Noblest of Creatures so the Noblest of Christians are they that are set most direct for Heaven As Saul is called a choice and goodly man higher by the head then all the company so is he the most choice and goodly Christian whose head and heart is thus the highest Men of noble birth and spirits do mind high and great affairs and not the smaller things of low poverty Their discourse is of the councels and matters of State of the Government of the Common-wealth and publike things and not of the Countrey-mans petty imployments O to hear such an heavenly Saint who hath fetcht a journey into heaven by faith and hath been wrapt up to God in his contemplations and is newly come down from the veiws of Christ what discoveries he will make of those Superior regions What ravishing expressions drop from his lips How high and sacred is his discourse Enough to make the ignorant world astonished and say Much study hath made them mad And enough to convince an understanding hearer that have seen the Lord and to make one say No man could speak such words as these except he had been with God this This is the noble Christian. As Bucholcers hearers concluded when he had preached his last Sermon being carried between two into the Church because of his weakness and there most admirably discoursed of the Blessedness of souls departed this life Caeteros concio naetores a Bucholcero semper omnes illo autem die etiam ipsum a sese superatum That Bucholcer did ever excel other preachers but that day he excelled himself so may I conclude of the heavenly Christian He ever excelleth the Rest of men but when he is neerest Heaven he excelleth himself As those are the most famous mountains that are highest and those the fairest trees that are talest and those the most glorious Pyramides and buildings whose tops do reach neerest to Heaven so is he the choisest Christian whose heart is most frequently and most delightfully there If a man have lived neer the King or have travelled to see the Sultan of Persia or the great Turk he will make this a matter of boasting and thinks himself one step higher then his private neighbors that live at home What shall we then judg of him that daily travels as far as Heaven and there hath seen the King of Kings That hath frequent admittance into the Divine presence and feasteth his soul upon the tree of life For my part I value this man before the ablest the richest the most learned in the world SECT V. 3. COnsider A heavenly minde is a joyful minde This is the neerest and the truest way to live a life of comfort And without this you must needs be uncomfortable Can a man be at the fire and not be warm or in the Sun-shine and not have light Can your heart be in Heaven and not have comfort The countreys of Norway Island and all the Northward are cold and frozen because they are farther from the power of the Sun But in Egypt Arabia and the Southern parts it is far otherwise where they live more neer its powerful rayes What could make such frozen uncomfortable Christians but living so far as they do from heaven And what makes some few others so warm in comforts but their living higher then others do and their frequent access so neer to God When the Sun in the Spring draws neer our part of the earth how do all things congratulate its approach The earth looks green casteth off her mourning habit the trees shoot forth the plants revive the pretty birds how sweetly sing they the face of all things smile upon us and all the creatures below reioyce Beloved friends if we would but try this life with God and would but keep these hearts above what a Spring of joy would be within us and all our graces be fresh and green How would the face of our souls be changed and all that is within us rejoyce How should we forget our winter sorrows and withdraw our souls from our sad retirements How early should we rise as those birds in the spring to sing the praise of our Great Creator O Christian get above Believe it that Region is warmer then this below Those that have been there have found it so and those that have come thence have told us so And I doubt not but that thou hast sometime tryed it thy self I dare appeal to thy own experience or to the experience of any soul that knows what the true Joys of a Christian are When is it that you have largest comforts Is it not after such an exercise as this when thou hast got up thy heart and converst with God and talkt with the inhabitants of the higher world and veiwed the mansions of the Saints and Angels and filled thy soul with the forethoughts of Glory If thou know by experience what this practice is I dare say thou knowest what spiritual Joy is David professeth that the light of Gods countenance would make his
lye by thee as if thou hadst forgot it O that our hearts were as high as our Hopes and our Hopes as high as these infallible Promises SECT XII 10. COnsider It is but equal that our hearts should be on God when the heart of God is so much on us If the Lord of Glory can stoop so low as to set his heart on sinful dust sure one would think we should easily be perswaded to set our hearts on Christ and Glory and to ascend to him in our daily affections who vouchsafeth to condescend to us O If Gods delight were no more in us then ours is in him what should we do what a case were we in Christian dost thou not perceive that the Heart of God is set upon thee and that he is still minding thee with tender Love even when thou forgettest both thy self and him Dost thou not finde him following thee with daily mercies moving upon thy soul providing for thy body preserving both Doth he not bear thee continually in the arms of Love and promise that all shall work together for thy good and suit all his dealings to thy greatest advantage and give his Angels charge over thee And canst thou finde in thy heart to cast him by and be taken up with the Joyes below and forget thy Lord who forgets not thee Fye upon this unkinde ingratitude Is not this the sin that Isaiah so solemnly doth call both heaven and earth to witness against The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass his Masters Crib but Israel doth not know my People doth not consider If the Ox or Ass do straggle in the day they likely come to their home at night but we will not so much as once a day by our serious thoughts ascend to God When he speaks of his own respects to us hear what he saith Isai. 15.16 When Zion saith The Lord hath forsaken me my Lord hath forgotten me Can a woman forget her sucking childe that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me But when he speaks of our thoughts to him the case is otherwise Jer. 2.32 Can a Maid forget her Ornaments or a Bride her Attire yet my People have forgotten me days without number As if he should say you would not forget the cloathes on your backs you will not forget your braveries and vanities you will not rise one morning but you will remember to cover your nakedness And are these of more worth then your God or of more concernment then your eternal life and yet you can forget these day after day O brethren give not God cause to expostulate with us as Isai. 65.11 Ye are they that have forsaken the Lord and that forget my holy Mountain But rather admire his minding of thee and let it draw thy minde again to him and say as Job 7.17 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 ver 18. So let thy soul get up to God and visit him every morning and thy heart be towards him every moment SECT XIII 11. COnsider Should not our interest in Heaven and our Relation to it continually keep our hearts upon it Besides that excellency which is spoken of before VVhy there our Father keeps his court Do we not call him our Father which art in Heaven Ah ungratious unworthy children that can be so taken up in their play below as to be mindless of such a Father Also there is Christ our Head our Husband our Life and shall we not look towards him and send to him as oft as we can till we come to see him face to face If he were by Transubstantiation in the Sacraments or other ordinances and that as gloriously as he is in Heaven then there were some reason for our lower thoughts But when the Heavens must receive him till the restitution of all things let them also receive our hearts with him There also is our Mother For Jerusalem which is above is that mother of us all Gal. 4.26 And there are multitudes of our elder Brethren There are our friends and our ancient acquaintance whose society in the flesh we so much delighted in and whose departure hence we so much lamented And is this no attractive to thy thoughts If they were within thy reach on earth thou wouldst go and visit them and why wilt thou not oftner visit them in Spirit and rejoyce beforehand to think of thy meeting them there again Saith old Bullinger Socrates gaudet sibi moriendū esse propterea quod Homerum Hesiodum alios praestantissimos viros se visurum crederet quanto magis ego gaudeo qui certus sum me visurum esse Christum servatorem meum aeternum Dei filium in assumtâ carne praeterea tot sanctissimos eximios Patriarchas c. Socrates rejoyced that he should die because he believed he should see Homer Hesiod and other excellent men how much more do I rejoyce who am sure to see Christ my Saviour the eternal Son of God in his assumed flesh and besides so many holy and excellent men When Luther desired to dye a Martyr and could not obtain it he comforted himself with these thoughts and thus did write to them in prison Vestra vincula mea sunt vestri carceres ignes mei sunt dum confiteor praedico vobisque simul compatior congratulor Yet this is my comfort your Bonds are mine your Prisons and Fires are mine while I confess and Preach the Doctrine for which you suffer and while I suffer and congratulate with you in your sufferings Even so should a Believer look to heaven and contemplate the blessed state of the Saints and think with himself Though I am not yet so happy as to be with you yet this is my daily comfort you are my Brethren and fellow Members in Christ and therefore your joyes are my joyes and your glory by this neer relation is my glory especially while I believe in the same Christ and hold fast the same Faith and Obedience by which you were thus dignified and also while I rejoyce in Spirit with you and in my daily meditations congratulate your happiness Moreover our house and home is above For we know if this earthly house of our Tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens Why do we then look no oftner towards it and groan not earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven 2 Cor. 5.1 2. Sure if our home were far meaner we should yet remember it because it is our home You use to say Home is homely be it never so poor and should such a home then be no more remembred If
shall now lay thee down some positive helps and conclude with a Directory to the 〈◊〉 in duty it self But first I expect that thou resolve against the forementioned impediments that thou read them seriously and avoid them faithfully or else thy labor will be all in vain thou dost but go about to reconcile Light and Darkness Christ and Belial and to conjoyn Heaven and Hel in thy spirit thou maist sooner bring down Heaven to earth then do this I must tell thee also that I here expect thy promise faithfully to set upon the helps which I shall prescribe thee and that the Reading of them will not bring heaven into thy heart but in their constant practice the Spirit will do it It were better for thee I had never written them and thou hadst never seen this Book nor read them if thou do not buckle thy self to the duty As thou valuest then the delights of these foretastes of Heaven make conscience of performing these following duties SECT II. 1. KNow Heaven to be the onely Treasure and labor to know also what a Treasure it is be convinced once that thou hast no other happiness and then he convinced what happiness is there If thou do not soundly believe it to be the chiefest good thou wilt never set thy heart upon it and this conviction must sinke into thy affections for if it be onely a notion it will have little operation And sure we have reason enough to be easily convinced of thiâ—â—s as you may see in what hath been spoken already Read over the Description and Nature of this Rest in the beginning of this Book and the Reasons against thy Resting below in Chapter First and conclude That this is the onely Happiness As long as your judgments do undervalue it your affections must needs be cold towards it If your judgments do mistake Blear-eyed Leah for Beautiful Rachel so will your affections also mistake them If Evah do once suppose she sees more worth in the forbidden fruit then in the love and fruition of God no wonder if it have more of her heart then God If your judgments once prefer the delights of the Flesh before the delights in the Presence of God its impossible then your hearts should be in heaven as it is the ignorance of the emptiness of things below that makes men so overvalue them so it is ignorance of the high delights above which is the cause that men so little minde them If you see a purse of gold and believe it to be but Stones or Counters it will not intice your affections to it it is not a things excellency in it self but it s an excellency known that provokes desire If an ignorant man see a Book containing the secrets of Arts or Sciences yet he values it no more then a common piece because he knows not what is in it but he that knows it doth highly value it his very minde is set upon it he can pore upon it day and night he can forbear his meat and drink and sleep to read it As the Jews enquired after Elias when Christ tells them that verily Elias is already come and ye knew him not but did unto him whatsoever ye listed so men enquire after Happiness and Delight when it is offered to them in the promise of Rest and they know it not but trample it under foot and as the Jews killed the Messiah while they waited for the Messiah and that because they did not know him For had they known him they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory Acts 13.27 1 Cor. 2.8 So doth the world cry out for Rest and busily seek for Delight and Happiness even while they are neglecting and destroying their Rest and Happiness and this because they throughly know it not for did they know throughly what it is they could not so sleight the everlasting Treasure SECT II. 2. LAbor as to know Heaven to be the onely happiness so also to be thy happiness Though the knowledg of excellency and suitableness may stir up that love which worketh by desire yet there must be the knowledg of our interest or propriety to the setting awork of our love of complacency We may confess Heaven to be the best condition though we despair of enjoying it and we may desire and seek it if we see the obtainment to be but probable and hopeful But we can never delightfully rejoyce in it till we are somewhat perswaded of our title to it What comfort is it to a man that is naked to see the rich attire of others or to a man that hath not a bit to put in his mouth to see a feast which he must not taste of What delight hath a man that hath not a house to put his head in to see the sumptuous buildings of others Would not all this rather increase his anguish and make him more sensible of his own misery So for a man to know the excellencies of Heaven and not to know whether he shall ever enjoy them may well raise desire and provoke to seek it but it will raise but little joy and content Who will set his heart on another mans possessions If your houses your goods your cattel your children were not your own you would less minde them and delight less in them O therefore Christians rest not till you can call this Rest your own sit not down without assurance get alone and question with thy self bring thy heart to the bar of tryal force it to answer the interrogatories put to it set the conditions of the Gospel and qualifications of the Saints on one side and thy performance of those conditions and the qualifications of thy soul on the other side and then judg how neer they resemble Thou hast the same word before thee to judg thy self by now by which thou must be judged at the great day Thou art there before told the questions that must then be put to thee put these questions now to thy self Thou mayst there read the very Articles upon which thou shalt be tryed why try thy self by those Articles now Thou mayst there know beforehand on what terms men shall be then acquit and condemned why try now whether thou art possessed of that which will acquit thee or whether thou be upon the same terms with those that must be condemned and accordingly acquit or condemn thy self Yet be sure thou judg by a true touchstone and mistake not the Scriptures description of a Saint that thou neither acquit nor condemn thy self upon mistakes For as groundless hopes do tend to confusion and are the greatest cause of most mens damnation so groundless doubtings do tend to discomforts and are the great cause of the disquieting of the Saints Therefore lay thy grounds of tryal safely and advisedly proceed in the work deliberately and methodically follow it to an issue resolutely and industriously suffer not thy heart to give thee the â—lip and get away before a judgment
make use of discovering Signs drawn from the Nature Properties Effects Adjuncts c. 4. So far as this Trial hath discovered thy neglect and other sins against this Rest proceed to the reprehension and censuring of thy self chide thy heart for its Omissions and Commissions and do it sharply till it feel the smart as Peter Preached Reproof to his Hearers till they were pricked to the heart and cried out And as a Father or Master will chide the childe till it begin to cry and be sensible of the fault so do thou in chiding thy own heart This is called a use of Reproof Here also it will be very necessary that thou bring forth all the aggravating Circumstances of the sin that thy heart may feel it in its weight bitterness and if thy heart do evade or deny the sin convince it by producing the several Discoveries 5. So far as thou discoverest that thou hast been faithful in the duty turn it to Incouragement to thy self and to Thanks to God where thou maist consider of the several aggravatiors of the mercy of the Spirits enabling thee thereto 6. So as it respects thy duty for the future consider how thou maist improve this comfortable Doctrine which must be by strong and effectual perswasion with thy heart First By way of Dehortation from the forementioned sins Secondly By way of Exhortation to the severall duties And these are either first Internal or secondly External First Therefore admonish thy heart of its own inward neglects and contempts Secondly And then of the neglects and trespasses in thy practice against this blessed state of Rest. Set home these severall Admonitions to the quick Take thy heart as to the brink of the bottomless pit force it to look in threaten thy self with the theatnings of the Word tell it of the torments that it draweth upon it self tell it what joyes it is madly rejecting force it to promise thee to do so no more and that not with a cold and heartless promise but earnestly with most solemn asseverations and engagements Secondly The next and last is to drive on thy soul to those positive duties which are required of thee in relation this to Rest As first to the inward duties of thy heart and there first To be diligent in making sure of this Rest secondly To Rejoyce in the expectation of it This is called a use of Consolation It is to be furthered by first laying open the excellency of the State and secondly the certainty of it in it self and thirdly our own interest in it by clearing and proving all these and confuting all sadning objections that may be brought against them thirdly So also for the provoking of Love of Hope and all other the Affections in the way before more largely opened And secondly press on thy heart also to all outward duties that are to be performed in thy way to Rest whether in worship or in civil conversation whether publike or private ordinary or extraordinary This is commonly called A use of Exhortation Here bring in all quickning Considerations either those that may drive thee or those that may draw which work by Fear or which work by Desire These are commonly called Motives but above all be sure that thou follow them home Ask thy heart what it can say against them Is there weight in them or is there not and then what it can say against the duty Is it necessary is it comfortable or is it not when thou hast silenced thy heart and brought it to a stand then drive it further and urge it to a Promise As suppose it were to the duty of Meditation which we are speaking of Force thy self beyond these lazy purposes resolve on the duty before thou stir Enter into a solemn Covenant to be faithful let not thy heart go till it have without all halting and reservations flatly promised thee That it will fall to the work write down this promise shew it to thy heart the next time it loiters then study also the Helps and Means the Hinderances and the Directions that concern thy duty And this is in brief the exercise of this Soliloquy or the Preaching of Heaven to thy own Heart SECT III. BUt perhaps thou wilt say Every man cannot understand this Method this is for Ministers and learned men every man is not able to play the Preacher I Answer thee First There is not that ability required to this as is to the work of publike Preaching here thy thoughts may serve the turn but there must be also the decent Ornaments of Language here is needful but an honest understanding heart but there must be a good pronunciation and a voluble tongue here if thou miss of the Method thou maist make up that in one piece of Application which thou hast neglected in another but there thy failings are injurious to many and a scandal and disgrace to the Work of God thou knowest what will fit thy own heart and what Arguments take best with thy own Affections but thou art not so well acquainted with the dispositions of others Secondly I answer further Every man is bound to be skilful in the Scriptures as wel as Ministers Kings and Magistrates Deut. 17.18 19 20. Josh. 1.8 And the people also Deut. 6.6 7 8. Do you think if you did as is there commanded Write it upon thy heart lay them up in thy soul binde them upon thy hand and between thine eyes meditate in them day and night I say if you did thus would you not quickly understand as much as this See Psal. 1.3 Deut. 11.18 6.6 7. Doth not God command thee to teach them diligently to thy children and to talk of them when thou sittest in thy house when thou walkest by the way when thou lyest down and when thou risest up And if thou must be skilled to teach thy children much more to teach thy self and if thou canst talk of them to others why not also to thine own heart Certainly our unskilfulness and disability both in a Methodical and lively teaching of our Families and of our selves is for the most part meerly through our own negligence and a sin for which we have no excuse You that learn the skil of your Trades and Sciences might learn this also if you were but willing and painful And so I have done with this particular of Soliloquy SECT IV. 2. ANother step to arise by in our Contemplation is from this speaking to our selves to speak to God Prayer is not such a stranger to this duty but that ejaculatory requests may be intermixed or added and that as a very part of the duty it self How oft doth David intermix these in his Psalmes sometime pleading with his soul and sometime with God and that in the same Psalme and in the next verses The Apostle bids us speak to our selves in Psalms and Hymns and no doubt we may also speak to God in them this keeps the soul in minde of the Divine Presence
necessary That thy Lord had sweeter ends and meant thee better then thou wouldst believe And that thy Redeemer was saving thee as well when he crossed thy desires as when he granted them and as well when he broke thy Heart as when he bound it up Oh no thanks to thee unworthy Self but shame for this received Crown But to Jehovah and the Lamb be Glory for ever Thus as the memory of the wicked will eternally promote their torment to look back on the pleasures enjoyed the sin committed the Grace refused Christ neglected and time lost So will the Memory of the Saints for ever promote their Joys And as it 's said to the wicked Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst Thy good things So will it be said to the Christian Remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thine evils but now thou art comforted as they are tormented And as here the Remembrance of former good is the occasion of encreasing our grief I remembred God and was troubled I called to Remembrance my Songs in the night Psal. 77.3 6. So there the Remembrance of our former sorrows addeth life to our Joys SECT VIII BUt Oh the full the near the sweet enjoyment is that of the Affections Love and Joy It 's near for Love is of the Essence of the Soul and Love is the Essence of God For God is Love 1 John 4.8 16. How near therefore is this Blessed Closure The Spirits phrase is God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Vers. 16. The acting of this affection wheresoever carryeth much delight along with it Especially when the object appears deserving and the Affection is strong But O what will it be when perfected Affections shall have the strongest perfect incessant actings upon the most perfect object the ever Blessed God Now the poor soul complains Oh that I could love Christ more but I cannot alas I cannot Yea but then thou canst not chuse but love him I had almost said forbear if thou canst Now thou knowest little of his Amiableness and therefore lovest little Then thine eye will affect thy heart and the continual viewing of that perfect beauty will keep thee in continual ravishments of Love Now thy Salvation is not perfected nor all the mercies purchased yet given in But when the top stone is set on thou shalt with shouting cry Grace Grace Now thy Sanctification is imperfect and thy pardon and Justification not so compleat as then it shall be Now thou knowest not what thou enjoyest and therefore lovest the less But when thou knowest much is forgiven and much bestowed thou wilt Love more Doth David after an imperfect deliverance sing forth his Love Psal. 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard my voyce and supplications What think you will he do eternally And how will he love the Lord who hath lifted him up to that Glory Doth he cry out O how I love thy Law My delight is in the Saints on earth and the excellent Psal. 16.3 How will he say then O how I love the Lord and the King of Saints in whom is all my delight Christians doth it not now stir up your love to remember all the experiences of his Love To look back upon a life oâ— mercies Doth not kindness melt you and the Sun-shine of Divine Goodness warm your frozen hearts What will it do then when you shall live in Love and have All in him who is All O the high delights of Love of this Love The content that the heart findeth in it The satisfaction it brings along with it Surely Love is both work and wages And if this were all what a high favour that God will give us leave to love him That he will vouchsafe to be embraced by such Arms that have embraced Lust and Sin before him But this is not all He returneth Love for Love nay a thousand times more As perfect as we shall be we cannot reach his measure of Love Christian thou wilt be then brim full of Love yet love as much as thou canst thou shalt be ten thousand times more beloved Dost thou think thou canst overlove him What! love more then Love it self Were the Arms of the Son of God open upon the Cross and an open passage made to his Heart by the Spear and will not Arms and Heart be open to thee in Glory Did he begin to love before thou lovedst and will he not continue now Did he love thee an enemy thee a sinner thee who even loathedst thy self and own thee when thou didst disclaim thy self And will he not now unmeasurably love thee a Son thee a perfect Saint thee who returnest some love for Love Thou wast wont injuriously to Question his Love Doubt of it now if thou canst As the pains of Hell will convince the rebellious sinner of Gods wrath who would never before believe it So the Joys of Heaven will convince thee throughly of that Love which thou wouldst so hardly be perswaded of He that in love wept over the old Hierusalem neer her Ruines with what love will he rejoyce over the new Hierusalem in her Glory O methinks I see him groaning and weeping over dead Lazarus till he force the Jews that stood by to say Behold how he loved him Will he not then much more by rejoycing over us and blessing us make all even the damned if they see it to say Behold how he loveth them Is his Spouse while black yet comely Is she his Love his Dove his undefiled Doth she ravish his heart with one of her eyes Is her Love better then wine O believing soul study a little and tell me What is the Harvest which these first fruits foretel and the Love which these are but the earnest of Here O here is the Heaven of Heaven This is the Saints fruition of God! In these sweet mutual constant actings and embracements of Love doth it consist To Love and be beloved These are the Everlasting Arms that are underneath Deut. 33.27 His left hand is under their heads and with his right hand doth he embrace them Cant. 2.6 Reader stop here and think a while what a state this is Is it a small thing in thine eyes to be beloved of God to be the Son the Spouse the Love the delight of the King of Glory Christian believe this and think on it Thou shalt be eternally embraced in the Arms of that Love which was from everlasting and will extend to everlasting Of that Love which brought the Son of Gods Love from Heaven to Earth from Earth to the Cross from the Cross to the Grave from the Grave to Glory That Love which was weary hungry tempted scorned scourged buffetted spit upon crucified pierced which did fast pray teach heal weep sweat bleed dye That Love will eternally embrace thee When perfect created Love and most perfect uncreated love meet together O the blessed meeting It will
And seldom doth a Minister live to see the ripeness of his people but one soweth and planteth another watereth and a third reapeth and receiveth the increase Yet were all this Duty delightful had we but a due proportion of strength But to informe the old ignorant sinner to convince the stubborne and worldly wise to perswade a wilful resolved wretch to prick a stony heart to the quick to make a rock to weep and tremble to set forth Christ according to our necessity and his Excellency to comfort the soul whom God dejecteth to clear up dark and difficult Truths to oppose with convincing Arguments all gainsayers to credit the Gospel with exemplary Conversations when multitudes do but watch for our halting O who is sufficient for these things So that every Relation State Age hath variety of Duty Every conscientious Christian cryes out O the burden or O my weakness that makes it so burdensom But our remaining Rest will ease us of the burden Then will that be sound Doctrine which now is false that the Law hath no more to do with us that it becomes not a Christian to beg for pardon seeing all his sins are perfectly pardoned already that we need not fast nor mourn nor weep nor repent and that a sorrowful Countenance beseems not a Christian Then will all these become Truths SECT XVIII 10. ANd lastly we shall Rest from all those sad affections which necessarily accompany our absence from God The trouble that is mixt in our desires and hopes our longings and waitings shall then cease We shall no more look into our Cabinet and miss our Treasure look into our hearts and miss our Christ nor no more seek him from Ordinance to Ordinance and enquire for our God of those we meet our heart will not lie in our knee nor our souls be breathed out in our requests but all concluded in a most full and blessed Fruition But because this with the former are touched before I will say no more of them now So you have seen what we shall Rest from SECT XIX NInthly The ninth and last Jewel in our Crown and blessed Attribute of this Rest is That it is an Eternal Rest. This is the Crown of our Crown without which all were comparatively little or nothing The very thought of once leaving it would else imbitter all our joys and the more would it peirce us because of the singular excellencies which we must forsake It would be a Hell in Heaven to think of once loosing Heaven As it would be a kinde of Heaven to the damned had they but hopes of once escaping Mortality is the disgrace of all sublunary delights It makes our present life of little value were it not for the reference it hath to God and Eternity to think that we must shortly lay it down How can we take delight in any thing when we remember how short that delight would be That the sweetness of our Cups and Morsels is dead as soon as they are once but paâ—â— our taste Indeed if man were as the beast that knows not his suffering or death till he feel it and little thinks when the knife is whetting that it is making ready to cut his throat then might we be merry till death forbids us and enjoy our delights till they shall forsake us But alas we know both good and evil and evil foreknown is in part endured And thus our knowledg encreaseth our sorrows Eccles. 1.18 How can it chuse but spoil our pleasure while we see it dying in our hands how can I be as merry as the jovial World had I not mine eye fixed upon eternity when methinks I foresee my dying hour my friends waiting for my last gasp and closing mine eyes while tears forbid to close their own Methinks I hear them say He is dead Methinks I see my Coffin made my Grave in digging and my Friends there leaving me in the dust And where now is that we took delight in O but methinks I see at the same view that Grave opening and my dead revived Body rising Methinks I hear that blessed voyce Arise and live and die no more Surely were it not for eternity I should think man a silly piece and all his life and honor but contemptible I should call him with David A vain shadow and with the Prophet Nothing and less then nothing and altogether lighter then vanity it self It utterly disgraceth the greatest glory in mine eyes if you can but truly call it Mortal I can value nothing that shall have an end except as it leads to that which hath no end or as it comes from that love which neither hath beginning nor end I speak this of my deliberate thoughts And if some ignorant or forgetful soul have no such sad thoughts to disturb his pleasure I confess he may be merrier for the present But where is his mirth when he lieth dying Alas it s a poor happiness that consists onely in the Ignorance or Forgetfulness of approaching misery But O blessed eternity where our lives are perplexed with no such thoughts nor our joys interrupted with any such fears where we shall be pillars in Gods Temple and go out no more O what do I say when I talk of Eternity Can my shallow thoughts at all conceive what that most high expression doth contain To be eternally blessed and so blessed Why surely this if any thing is the resemblance of God Eternity is a piece of Infiniteness Then O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Days and Nights and Yeers Time and End and Death are words which there have no signification nor are used except perhaps to extol eternity as the mention of Hell to extol Heaven No more use of our Calendars or Chronology All the yeers of our Lord and the yeers of our lives are lost and swallowed up in this Eternity While we were servants we held by lease and that but for the term of a transitory life but the Son abideth in the House for ever Our first and earthly Paradise in Eden had a way out but none that ever we could finde in again But this eternal paradise hath a way in a milky way to us but a bloody way to Christ but no way out again For they that would pass from hence to you saith Abraham cannot A strange phrase would any pass from such a place if they might Could they endure to be absent from God again one hour No but upon supposal that they would yet they could not O then my soul let go thy dreams of present pleasures And loose thy hold of Earth and Flesh. Fear not to enter that estate where thou shalt ever after cease thy Fears Sit down and sadly once a day bethink thy self of this Eternity Among all thine Arithmetical numbers study the value of this infinite Cypher which though it stand for nothing in the vulgar account doth yet contain all our Millions
his name there was scorning at his worship and swearing by his name And now Hell must therefore be their habitation for ever where they shall never be troubled with that worship and duty which they abhorred but joyn with the rest of the damned in blaspheming that God who is avenging their former impieties and blasphemies Can it probably be expcted that they who made themselves merry while they lived on earth in deriding the persons and families of the godly for their frequent worshiping and praising God should at last be admitted into the Familie of Heaven and joyn with those Saints in those more perfect praises Surely without a sound change upon their hearts before they go hence it is utterly impossible It is too late then to say Give us of your oyl for our Lamps are out Let us now enter with you to the marriage feast let us now joyn with you in the joyfull Heavenly melody You should have joyned in it on earth if you would have joyned in Heaven As your eyes must be taken up with other kinde of sights so must your hearts be taken up with other kinde of thoughts and your voices turned to another tune As the doors of heaven will be shut against you so will that joyous imployment be denied to you There is no singing the songs of Zion in the land of your thraldome Those that go down to the pit do not praise him Who can rejoyce in the place of sorrows And who can be glad in the land of confusion God suits mens imployments to their natures The bent of your spirits was another way your hearts were never set upon God in your lives you were never admirers of his Attributes and works nor ever throughly warmed with his love you never longed after the enjoyment of him you had no delight to speak or to hear of him you were weary of a Sermon or Prayer an hour long you had rather have continued on earth if you had known how you had rather yet have a place of earthly preferment or lands and lordships or a feast or sports or your cups or whores then to be interessed in the Glorious Praises of God and is it meet then that you should be members of the Celestiall Quire A Swine is fitter for a Lecture of Philosophy or an Ass to build a City or govern a Kingdom or a dead Corps to feast at thy Table then thou art for this work of Heavenly Praise SECT VI. FOurthly They shall also be deprived of the Blessed society of Angels and glorified Saints Instead of being companions of those happy spirits and numbred with those Joyful and Triumphing Kings they must now be members of the corporation of hell where they shall have companions of a far different nature and quality While they lived on earth they loathed the Saints they imprisoned banished them and cast them out of their societies or at least they would not be their companions in labour and in sufferings And therefore they shall not now be their companions in their Glory Scorning them and abusing them hating them and rejoycing in their calamities was not the way to obtain their blessedness If you would have shined with them as Stars in the Firmament of their Father you should have joyned with them in their holiness and faith and painfulness and patience you should have first been ingraffed with them into Christ the common stock and then incorporated into the fraternity of the members and walked with them in singleness of heart and watched with them with oyl in your Lamps and joyned with them in mutuall exhortation in faithfull admonitions in conscionable reformation in prayer and in praise you should have travelled with them out of the Egypt of your naturall estate through the Red Sea and Wilderness of humiliation and affliction and have cheerfully taken up the Cross of Christ as well as the name prefession of Christians and rejoyced with them in suffering persecution and tribulation All this if you had faithfully done you might now have been triumphing with them in glory and have possessed with them their masters joy But this you could not you would not endure your souls loathed it your flesh was against it and that flesh must be pleased though you were told plainly and frequently what would come of it and now you pertake of the fruit of your folly and endure but what you were foretold you must endure and are shut out of that company from which you first shut out your selves and are separated but from them whom you would not be joyned with You could not endure them in your houses nor in your Towns nor scarce in the Kingdom you took them as Ahab did Elias for the troublers of the land and as the Apostles were taken for men that turned the world upside down If any thing fell out amiss you thought all was long of them When they were dead or banished you were glad they were gone and thought the Countrey was well rid of them They molested you with their faithfull reproving your sin Their holy conversations did trouble your consciences to see them so far excell your selves and to condemn your loosness by their strictness and your prophaness by their conscionable lives and your negligence by their unwearyed diligence You scarce ever heard them pray or sing praises in their families but it was a vexation to you And you envyed their liberty in the worshipping of God And is it then any wonder if you be separated from them hereafter I have heard of those that have said that if the Puritans were in Heaven and the good fellows in Hell they had rather go to Hell then to Heaven And can they think much to have their desires granted them The day is neer when they will trouble you no more betwixt them and you will be a great gulf set that those that would pass from thence to you if any had a desire to ease you with a drop of water cannot neither can they pass to them who would go from you for if they could there would none be left behinde Luk. 16.26 Even in this life while the Saints were imperfect in their passions and infirmities cloathed with the same frail flesh as other men and were mocked destitute afflicted and tormented yet in the judgment of the Holy Ghost they were such of whom the world was not worthy Heb. 11.36 37 38. Much more unworthy are they of their fellowship in their Glory CHAP. II. The aggravations of the loss of Heaven to the ungodly SECT I. I Know many of the wicked will be ready to think If this be all they do not much care they can bear it well enough what care they for losing the perfections above What care they for losing God his favor or his presence they lived merrily without him on earth and why should it be so grievous to be without him hereafter And what care they for being deprived of that Love and Joy and
heart more glad then theirs that have Corn and VVine and Oyl Psal. 4.6 7. Act. 2.28 out of Psal. 16. Thou shalt fill me full of Joy with thy countenance If it be the countenance of God that fills us with Joy then sure they that draw neerest and most behold it must needs be fullest of these Joyes Sirs if you never tryed this Art nor lived this life of heavenly contemplation I never wonder that you walk uncomfortably that you are all complaining and live in sorrows know not what the Joy of the Saints means Can you have comfort from God and never think of him Can Heaven rejoyce you when you do not reâ—member it Doth any thing in the world glad you when you think not on it Must not every thing first enter your judgment and consideration before it can delight your heart and affection If you were possest of all the treasure of the earth if you had title to the highest dignities and dominions and never think on it sure it would never rejoyce you Whom should we blame then that we are so void of consolation but our own negligent unskilful hearts God hath provided us a Crown of Glory and promised to set it shortly on our heads and we will so much as think on it He holdeth it out in the Gospel to us and biddeth us Behold and Rejoyce we will not so much as look at it And yet we complain for want of Comfort What a perverse course is this both against God and our own Joyes I confesse though in fleshly things the presenting of a comforting object is sufficient to produce an answerable delight yet in spirituals we are more disabled God must give the Joy it self as well as afford us matter for Joy But yet withal it must be remembred that God doth work upon us as men and in a rational way doth raise our comforts He enableth and exciteth us to minde and study these delightful objects and from thence to gather our own comforts as the Bee doth gather her honey from the flowers Therefore he that is most skilful and painful in this gathering Act is usually the fullest of this spiritual sweetness Where is the man that can tell me from experience that he hath had solid and usual Joy in any other way but this and that God worketh it immediatly on his affections without the means of his understanding and considering It is by beleeving that we are filled with Joy Peace Rom. 15.13 and no longer then we continue our believing It is in hope that the Saints Rejoyce yea in this hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.2 and no longer then they continue hoping And here let me warn you of a dangerous snare an opinion which will rob you of all your comfort some think if they should thus fetch in their own comfort by believing and hoping and work it out of Scripture promises and extract it by their own thinking and studying that then it would be a comfort only of their own hammering out as they say and not the genuine Joy of the Holy Ghost A desperate mistake raised upon a ground that would overthrow almost all duty as well as this which is their setting the workings of Gods Spirit and their own spirits in opposition when their spirits must stand in subordination to Gods They are conjunct causes cooperating to the producing of one and the same effect Gods Spirit worketh our comforts by setting our own spirits awork upon the promises and raising our thoughts to the place of our comforts As you would delight a covetuous man by shewing him gold or a voluptuous man with fleshly delights so God useth to delight his people by taking them as it were by the hand and leading them into Heaven and shewing them himself and their Rest with him God useth not to cast in our Joys while we are idle or taken up with other things It is true he sometime doth it suddenly but yet usually in the foresaid order leading it into our hearts by our judgment and thoughts And his sometime sudden extraordinary casting of comforting thoughts into our hearts should be so far from hindring our endeavors in a meditateing way that it should be a singular motive to quicken us to it even as a tast given us of some cordial or choiser food will make us desire and seek the Rest. God feedeth not Saints as birds do their young bringing it to them and putting it into their mouths while they lye still in the nest and only gape to receive it But as he giveth to man the fruits of the earth the increase of their land in Corn and wine while we plow and sow and weed and water and dung and dress and then with patience expect his blessing so doth he give the joys of the soul. Yet I deny not that if any should so think to work out his own comforts by meditation as to attempt the work in his own strength and not do all in subordination to God nor perceive a necessity of the Spirits assistance the work would prove to be like the workman and the comfort he would gather would be like both even meer vanity Even as the husband mans labor without the sun and rain and blessing of God So then you may easily see that close meditation on the matter and cause of our Joy is Gods way to procure solid Joy For my part if I should finde my joy of another kinde I should be very prone to doubt of its sincerity If I finde a great deal of comfort in my heart and know not how it came thither nor upon what rational ground it was raised nor what considerations do feed and continue it I should be ready to question how I know whether this be from God And though as the Cup in Benjamins sack it might come from Love yet it would leave me but in fears and amazement because of the uncertainty As I think our love to God should not be like that of fond lovers who love violently but they know not why so I think a Christians Joy should be a grounded rational Joy not to rejoyce know not why Though perhaps in some extraordinary case God may cast in such an extraordinary kinde of joy yet I think it s not his usual way And if you observe the spirits of most forlorn uncomfortable despairing Christians you shall finde the Reason to be their ungrounded expectation of such unusual kinde of joys and accordingly are their spirits variously tossed and most unconstantly tempered Sometime when they meet with such Joys or at least think so then they are cheerful and lifted up but because these are usually short-lived Joys therefore they are strait as low as hell and ordinarily that is their more lasting temper And thus they are tossed as a vessel at sea up and down but still in extream whereas alas God is most constant Christ the same Heaven the same and the Promise the
sea and land and no difficulty can keep them back when they think of an uncertain perishing treasure O what life then would it put into a Christians endeavors if he would frequently forethink of his everlasting Treasure We run so slowly and strive so lazily because we so little minde the prize When a Christian hath been tasting the hidden Manna and drinking of the streams of the Paradise of God what life doth this Ambrosia and Nectar put into him How fervent will his spirit be in prayer when he considers that he prayes for no less then Heaven If Henoch Elias or any of the Saints who are now in Heaven and have partaked of the vision of the living God should be sent down to the earth again to live on the tearmes as we now do would they not strive hard and pray earnestly rather then lose that blessed Rest No wonder for they would know what it is they pray for It s true we cannot know it here so throughly as they yet if we would but get as high as we can and study but that which may now be known it would strangely alter both our spirits and our duties Observe but the man who is much in heaven and you shall see he is not like other Christians There is somewhat of that which he hath seen above appeareth in all his duty and conversation Nay take but the same man immediatly when he is returned from these views of Bliss and you shall easily perceive that he excels himself as if he were not indeed the same as before If he be a Preacher how heavenly are his Sermons what clear descriptions what high expressions what savory passages hath he of that Rest If he be a private Christian what heavenly conference what heavenly prayers what a heavenly carriage hath he May you not even hear in a preachers Sermons or in the private duties of another when they have been most above When Moses had been with God in the mount he had derived so much glory from God that made his face to shine that the people could not behold him Beloved friends if you would but set upon this employment even so would it be with you men would see the face of your conversation shine and say surely he hath been with God As the body is apt to be changed into the temper of the air it breaths in and the food it lives on so will your spirits receive an alteration according to the objects which they are exercised about If your thoughts do feed on Christ and heaven you will be heavenly if they feed on Earth you will be earthly It s true a heavenly Nature goes before this heavenly imployment but yet the work will make it more heavenly There must be life before we can feed but our life is continued and increased by feeding Therefore Reader let me here inform thee That if thou lie complaining of deadness and dulness that thou canst not love Christ nor rejoyce in his Love that thou hast no life in prayer nor any other duty and yet never tryedst this quickning course or at least art careless and unconstant in it Why thou art the cause of thy own complaints thou deadest and dullest thine own heart thou deniest thy self that life which thou talkst of Is not thy life hid with Christ in God Whither must thou go but to Christ for it and whither is that but to Heaven where he is Thou wilt not come to Christ that thou maist have life If thou wouldst have light and heat why art thou then no more in the Sunshine If thou wouldst have more of that Grace which flows from Christ why art thou no more with Christ for it Thy strength is in Heaven and thy life in Heaven and there thou must daily fetch it if thou wilt have it For want of this recourse to heaven thy soul is as a candle that is not lighted and thy duties as a sacrifice which hath no fire Fetch one coal daily from this Altar and see if thy offering will not burn Light thy candle at this flame and feed it daily with Oyl from hence and see if it will not gloriously shine Keep close to this reviving fire and see if thy affections will not be warm Thou bewailest thy want of love to God and well thou maist for its a hainous crime a killing sin why lift up thy eye of Faith to Heaven behold his beauty contemplate his excellencies and see whether his amiableness will not fire thy affections and his perfect goodness ravish thy heart As the eye doth incense the sensual affections by its overmuch gazing on alluring objects so doth the eye of our Faith in meditation inflame our affections towards our Lord by the frequent gazing on that highest beauty Whoever thou art that art a stranger to this imployment be thy parts and profession never so great let me tell thee Thou spendest thy life but in trifling or idleness thou seemest to live but thou art dead I may say of thee as Seneca of idle Varia Scis latere vivere nescis Thou knowest how to lurk in idleness but how to live thou knowest not And as the same Seneca would say when he passed by that sluggards dwelling Ibi fitâ—s est Varia so may it be said of thee There lies such a one but not there lives such a one for thou spendest thy days liker to the dead then the living One of Draco's Laws to the Athenians was That he who was convict of idleness should be put to death Thou dost execute this on thy own soul whilest by thy idleness thou destroyest its liveliness Thou maist many other ways exercise thy parts but this is the way to exercise thy Graces They all come from God as their Fountain and lead to God as their ultimate End and are exercised on God as their chiefest Object so that God is their All in All. From Heaven they come and heavenly their nature is and to Heaven they will direct and move thee And as exercise maintaineth appetite strength and liveliness to the body so doth it also to the soul. Vse limbs and have limbs is the known Proverb And use Grace and Spiritual Life in these heavenly exercises and you shall finde it quickly cause their increase The exercise of your meer abilities of Speech will not much advantage your graces but the exercise of these heavenly soul exalting gifts will unconceivably help to the growth of both For as the Moon is then most full and glorious when it doth most directly face the Sun so will your souls be both in gifts and graces when you do most neerly view the face of God This will feed your tongue with matter and make you abound and overflow both in Preaching Praying and Conferring Besides the fire which you fetch from Heaven for your Sacrifices is no false or strange fire As your liveliness will be much more so will it be also more sincere A man may have a
thou risest off thy knees when thou openest thy Bible or other Books let it be with this hope to meet with some passage of Divine truth and some such blessing of the Spirit with it as may raise thine affections neerer Heaven and give thee a fuller taste thereof when thou art setting thy foot out at thy door to go to the publike Ordinance and Worship say I hope to meet with somewhat from God that may raise my affections before I returne I hope the Spirit will give me the meeting and sweeten my heart with those celestial delights I hope that Christ will appear to me in that way and shine about me with light from heaven and let me hear his instructing and reviving voyce and causa the scales to fall from mine eyes that I may see more of that glory then I ever yet saw I hope before I return to my house my Lord will take my heart in hand and bring it within the view of Rest and set it before his Fathers presence that I may return as the Shepherds from the heavenly Vision glorifying and praising God for all the things that I have heard and seen Luke 2.20 and say as those that behold his Miracles We have seen strange things to day Luke 5.26 Remember also to pray for thy Teacher that God would put some Divine Message into his mouth which may leave a heavenly relish on thy spirit If these were our ends and this our course when we set to duty we should not be so strange as we are to heaven When the Indian first saw the use of Letters by our English they thought there was sure some spirit in them that men could so converse together by a paper If Christians would take this course in their duties they might come to such holy fellowship with God and see so much of the Mysteries of the Kingdom that it would make the standers by admire what is in those Lines what is in that Sermon what is in this praying that fils his heart so full of joy and that so transports him above himself Certainly God would not fail us in our duties if we did not fail our selves and then experience would make them sweeter to us SECT VI. 6. ANother help is this Make an advantage of every object thou seest and of every passage of Divine providence and of every thing that befals in thy labor and calling to minde thy soul of its approaching Rest. As all providences and creatures are means to our Rest so do they point us to that as their end Every creature hath the name of God and of our final Rest written upon it which a considerate believer may as truly discern as he can read upon a post or hand in a cross way the name of the Town or City which it points to This spiritual use of creatures and providences is Gods great End in bestowing them on man And he that overlooks this End must needs rob God of his chiefest praise and deny him the greatest part of his thanks The Relation that our present mercies have to our great Eternal mercies is the very quintessence and spirits of all these mercies Therefore do they loose the very spirits of their mercies and take nothing but the huskes and bran who do overlook this Relation and draw not forth the sweetness of it in their contemplations Gods sweetest dealings with us at the present would not be half so sweet as they are if they did not intimate some further sweetness As our selves have a fleshly and a spiritual substance so have our mercies a fleshly and spiritual use and are fitted to the nourishing of both our parts He that receives the carnal part and no more may have his body comforted by them but not his soul. It is not all one to receive six pence meerly as six pence and to receive it in earnest of a thousand pound though the sum be the same yet I trow the relation makes a wide difference Thou takest but the bear earnest and overlookest the maine sum when thou receivest thy mercies and forgettest thy crown O therefore that Christians were skilled in this Art You can open your Bibles and read there of God and of Glory O learn to open the creatures and to open the several passages of providence and to read of God and Glory there Certainly by such a skilful industrious improvement we might have a fuller tast of Christ and Heaven in every bit of bread that we eat and in every draught of Beer that we drink then most men have in the use of the Sacrament If thou prosper in the world and thy labor succeed let it make thee more sensible of thy perpetual prosperity If thou be weary of thy labors let it make thy thoughts of Rest more sweet If things go cross hard with thee in the world let it make thee the more earnestly desire that day when all thy sorrows and sufferings shall cease Is thy body refreshed with food or sleep Remember thy unconceivable refreshings with Christ. Dost thou hear any news that makes the glad Remember what glad tydings it will be to hear the sound of the trump of God and the absolving sentence of Christ our Judg. Art thou delighting thy self in the society of the Saints Remember the Everlasting amiable fraternity thou shalt have with perfected Saints in Rest. Is God communicating himself to thy spirit Why remember that time of thy highest advancement when thy Joy shall be full as thy communion is full Dost thou hear the raging noise of the wicked and the disorders of the vulgar and the confusions in the world like the noise in a crowd or the roaring of the waters Why think of the blessed agreement in Heaven and the melodious harmony in that Quire of God Dost thou hear or feel the tempest of wars or see any cloud of blood arising Remember the day when thou shalt be housed with Christ where there is nothing but calmness and amiable union and where we shall solace our selves in perfect Peace under the wings of the Prince of Peace for ever Thus you may see what advantages to a Heavenly Life every condition and creature doth afford us if we had but hearts to apprehend and improve them As it s said of the Turkes that they 'l make bridges of the dead bodyes of their men to passe over the trenches or ditches in their way So might Christians of the very ruines and calamities of the times and of every dead body or misery that they see make a bridge for the passage of their thoughts to their Rest. And as they have taught their Pigeons which they call carriers in divers places to bear letters of entercourse from friend to friend at a very great distance so might a wise industrious Christian get his thoughts carried into Heaven and receive as it were returns from thence again by creatures of slower wing then Doves by the assistance of the Spirit the Dove of God
delight thereof and taking up in the tune and melody and suffering the heart to be all the while idle which must perform the chiefest part of the work and which should make use of the melody for its reviving and exhilerating SECT VIII 8. IF thou wouldest have thy heart in Heaven keep thy soul still possessed with true believing thoughts of the exceeding infinite love of God Love is the attractive of love No mans heart will be set upon him that hates him were he never so excellent nor much upon him that doth not much love him There is few so vile but will love those that love them be they never so mean No doubt it is the death of our heavenly life to have hard and doubtful thoughts of God to conceive of him as a hater of the Creature except onely of obstinate Rebels and as one that had rather damn us then save us and that is glad of an opportunity to do us a mischief or at least hath no great good will to us This is to put the Blessed God into the similitude of Satan And who then can set his heart and love upon him When in our vile unbelief and ignorance we have drawn the most ugly picture of God in our imaginations then we complain that we cannot love him and delight in him This is the case of many thousand Christians Alas that we should thus belie and blaspheme God and blast our own joyes and depress our spirits Love is the very essence of God The Scripture tells us That God is Love it telleth us That Fury dwelleth not in him that he delighteth not in the death of him that dieth but rather that he repent and live Much more hath he testified his love to his chosen and his full resolution effectually to save them O if we could always think of God but as we do of a friend as of one that doth unfeignedly love us even more then we do our selves whose very heart is set upon us to do us good and hath therefore provided us an everlasting dwelling with himself it would not then be so hard to have our hearts still with him Where we love most heartily we shall think most sweetly and most freely And nothing will quicken our love more then the belief of his love to us Get therefore a truer conceit of the loving Nature of God and lay up all the experiences and discoveries of his love to thee and then see if it will not further thy heavenly-mindedness SECT IX 9. ANother thing I would advise you to is this Be a careful observer of the drawings of the Spirit and fearful of quenching its motions or resisting its workings If ever thy soul get above this earth and get acquainted with this living in heaven the Spirit of God must be to thee as the Chariot to Elijah yea the very living principle by which thou must move and ascend O then grieve not thy Guide quench not thy Life knock not off thy Chariot-wheels if thou do no wonder if thy soul be at a loss and all stand still or fall to the earth you little think how much the life all your Graces and the happiness of your souls doth depend upon your ready and cordial Obedience to the Spirit When the Spirit urgeth thee to secret prayer and thou refusest obedience when he forbids thee thy known transgressions and yet thou wilt go on when he telleth thee which is the way and which not and thou wilt not regard no wonder if heaven and thy soul be strange if thou wilt not follow the Spirit while it would draw thee to Christ and to thy duty how should it lead thee to heaven and bring thy heart into the presence of God O what supernatural help what bold access shall that soul finde in its approaches to the Almighty that is accustomed to a constant obeying of the Spirit And how backward how dull and strange and ashamed will he be to these addresses who hath long used to break away from the Spirit that would have guided him Even as stiffe and unfit will they be for this Spiritual motion as a dead man to natural I beseech thee Christian Reader learn well this lesson and try this course let not the motions of thy body onely but also the very thoughts of thy heart be at the Spirits beâ—k Dost thou not feel sometimes a strong impulsion to retire from the world and draw neer to God O do not now disobey but take the offer and hoâ—se up sail while thou mayst have this blessed gale When this wind blows strongest thou goest fastest either forward or backward The more of this Spirit we resist the deeper will it wound and the more we obey the speedier is our pace As he goes heaviest that hath the wind in his face and he easiest that hath it in his back SECT X. 10. LAstly I advise as a further help to this heavenly work That thou neglect not the due care for the health of thy body and for the maintaining a vigorous cheerfulness in thy spirits nor yet over-pamper and please thy flesh Learn how to carry thy self with prudence to thy body It is a useful servant if thou give it its due and but its due It is a most devouring tyrant if thou give it the mastery or suffer it to have what it unreasonably desireth And 〈◊〉 as a blunted Knife as a Horse that is lame as thy Ox that is famished if thou injuriously deny it what is necessary to its support When we consider how frequently men offend on both extreams and how few use their bodies aright we cannot wonder if they be much hindered in their heavenly conversing Most men are very slaves to their sensitive appetite and can scarce deny any thing to the flesh which they can give it on easie rates without much shame or loss or grief The flesh thus used is as unfit to serve you as a wilde colt to ride on When such men should converse in Heaven the flesh will carry them to an Alehouse or to their sports to their profits or credit or vain company to wanton practices or sights or speeches or thoughts It will thrust a whore or a pair of Cards or a good bargain into their mindes in stead of God Look to this specially you that are young and healthful and lusty As you love your souls remember that in Rom. 13.14 which converted Austin Make not provision for the flesh to fulfil its desires and that Rom. 8.4 5 6 7 8 12 13 14. Some few others do much hinder their heavenly joy by over rigorous denying the body its necessaries and so making it unable to serve them But the most by forfeiting and excess do overthrow and disable it You love to have your knife keen and every instrument you use in order when your horse goes lustily how cheerfully do you travel As much need hath the soul of a sound and cheerful body If they who
canst and say to it Behold the Ancient of days the Lord Jehovah whose name is I am This is he who made the Worlds with his Word this is the Cause of all Causes the Spring of Action the Fountain of Life the first Principle of the Creatures Motions who upholds the Earth who ruleth the Nations who disposeth of events and subdueth his foes who governeth the depths of the great Waters and boundeth the rage of her swelling Waves who ruleth the Winds and moveth the Orbs and causeth the Sun to run its race and the several Planets to know their courses This is he that loved thee from Everlasting that formed thee in the Womb and gave thee this Soul who brought thee forth and shewed thee the Light and ranked thee with the chiefest of his earthly Creatures who endued thee with thy understanding and beautified thee with his gifts who maintaineth thee with life and health and comforts who gave thee thy preferments and dignified thee with thy honors and differenced thee from the most miserable and vilest of men Here O here is an object now worthy thy love here shouldst thou even pour out thy soul in love here thou maist be sure thou caust not love too much This is the Lord that hath blest thee with his benefits that hath spred thy table in the sight of thine enemies and caused thy cup to overflow This is he that Angels and Saints do praise and the Host of Heaven must magnifie for ever Thus do thou expatiate in the Praises of God and open his Excellencies to thine own heart till thou feel the life begin to stir and the fire in thy brest begin to kindle As gazing upon the dusty beauty of flesh doth kindle the fire of carnal love so this gazing on the Glory and Goodness of the Lord will kindle this Spiritual love in the-soul Bruising will make the Spices odoriferous and rubbing the Pomander will bring forth the sweetness Act therefore thy soul upon this delightful object toss these cogitations frequently in thy heart rub over all thy Affections with them as you will do your cold hands till they begin to warm What though thy heart be Rock and Flint this often striking may bring forth the fire but if yet thou feelest not thy love to work lead thy heart further and shew it yet more shew it the Son of the living God whose name is Wonderful Counsellor The Mighty God The Everlasting Father The Prince of Peace shew it the King of Saints on the Throne of his Glory who is the first and the last who is and was and is to come who liveth and was dead and behold he lives for evermore who hath made thy peace by the blood of his Cross and hath prepared thee with himself an Habitation of Peace His office is to be the great Peace-Maker his Kingdom is a Kingdom of Peace his Gospel is the Tydings of Peace his Voice to thee now is the Voice of Peace Draw neer and behold him Dost thou not hear his voyce He that called Thomas to come neer and to see the print of the Nailes and to put his finger into his Wounds He it is that calls to thee Come neer and view the Lord thy Saviour and be not faithless but believing Peace be unto thee fear not It is I He that calleth Behold me behold me to a rebellious people that calleth not on his Name doth call out to thee a Believer to behold him He that calls to them who pass by to behold his Sorrow in the day of his Humiliation doth call now to thee to behold his Glory in the day of his Exaltation Look well upon him Dost thou not know him why it s He that brought thee up from the pit of hell It s He that reversed the sentence of thy Damnation that bore the Curse which thou shouldest have born and restored thee to the blessing that thou hadst forfeited and lost and purchased the Advancement which thou must inherit for ever And yet dost thou not know him why his Hands were pierced his Head was pierced his Sides were pierced his Heart was pierced with the sting of thy sins that by these marks thou mightest always know him Dost thou not remember when he found thee lying in thy blood and took pitty on thee and drest thy wounds and brought thee home and said unto thee Live Hast thou forgotten since he wounded himself to cure thy wounds and let out his own blood to stop thy bleeding Is not the passage to his heart yet standing open If thou know him not by the face the voyce the hands if thou know him not by the tears and bloody sweat yet look neerer thou maist know him by the Heart That broken-healed heart is his that dead-revived Heart is his that soul-pittying melting Heart is his Doubtless it can be none 's but his Love and Compassion are its certain Signatures This is He even this is He who would rather dye then thou shoulst dye who chose thy life before his own who pleads this blood before his Father and makes continual intercession for thee if he had not suffered O what hadst thou suffered what hadst thou been if he had not Redeemed thee whether hadst thou gone if he had not recalled thee there was but a step between thee and Hell when he stept in and bore the stroak He slew the Bear and rescued the prey he delivered thy soul from the roaring Lyon And is not here yet fuell enough for Love to feed on Doth not this Loadstone snatch thy heart unto it and almost draw it forth of thy breast Canst thou read the History of Love any further at once Doth not thy throbbing heart here stop to ease it self and dost thou not as Joseph seek for a place to weep in or do not the tears of thy Love bedew these lines Go on then for the field of Love is large it will yield thee fresh contents for ever and be thine eternal work to behold and love thou needest not then want work for thy present Meditation Hast thou forgotten the time when thou wast weeping and he wiped the tears from thine eyes when thou wast bleeding and he wiped the blood from thy soul when pricking cares and fears did grieve thee and he did refresh thee and draw out the Thorns Hast thou forgotten when thy folly did wound thy soul and the venomous guilt did seize upon thy heart when he sucked forth the mortal poyson from thy soul though therewith he drew it into his own I remember it s written of good Melancthon that when his childe was removed from him it pierced his heart to remember how he once sate weeping with the Infant on his knee and how lovingly it wip't away the tears from the fathers eyes how then should it pierce thy heart to think how lovingly Christ hath wip't away thine O how oft hath he found thee sitting weeping like Hagar
while thou gavest up thy state thy friends thy life yea thy soul for lost and he opened to thee a Well of Consolation and opened thine eyes also that thou mightest see it How oft hath he found thee in the posture of Elias sitting down under the tree forlorn and solitary and desiring rather to dye then to live and he hath spread thee a Table of relief from Heaven and sent thee away refreshed and encouraged to his VVork How oft hath he found thee in the trouble of the Servant of Elisha crying out Alas what shall we do for an Host doth compass the City and he hath opened thine eyes to see more for thee then against thee both in regard of the enemies of thy soul and thy body How oft hath he found thee in such a passion as Jonas in thy peevish frenzy aweary of thy life and he hath not answered passion with passion though he might indeed have done well to be angry but hath mildely reasoned thee out of thy madness and said Dost thou well to be angry or to repine against me How oft hath he set thee on watching and praying on repenting and beleeving and when he hath returned hath found thee fast asleep and yet he hath not taken thee at the worst but in stead of an angry aggravation of thy fault he hath covered it over with the mantle of Love and prevented thy over-much sorrow with a gentle excuse The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak He might have done by thee as Epaminondas by his Souldier who finding him asleep upon the VVatch run him through with his Sword and said Dead I found thee and dead I leave thee but he rather chose to awake thee more gently that his tenderness might admonish thee and keep thee watching How oft hath he been traduced in his Cause or Name and thou hast like Peter denied him at lest by thy silence whilst he hath stood in sight yet all the revenge he hath taken hath been a heart-melting look and a silent remembring thee of thy fault by his countenance How oft hath Law and Conscience haled thee before him as the Pharisees did the adulterous woman and laid thy most hainous crimes to thy charge And when thou hast expected to hear the sentence of death he hath shamed away thy Accusers and put them to silence and taken on him he did not hear thy Inditement and said to thee Neither do I accuse thee Go thy way and sin no more And art thou not yet transported and ravished with Love Can thy heart be cold when thou think'st of this or can it hold when thou remembrest those boundless compassions Remembrest thou not the time when he met thee in thy duties when he smiled upon thee and spake comfortably to thee when thou didst sit down under his shadow with great delight and when his fruit was sweet to thy taste when he brought thee to his Banqueting House and his Banner over thee was Love when his left hand was under thy head and with his right hand he did embrace thee And dost thou not yet cry ouâ— Stay me comfort me for I am sick of Love Thus Reader I would have thee deal with thy heart Thus hold forth the goodness of Christ to thy Affections plead thus the case with thy frozen soul till thou say as David in another case My heart was hot within me while I was musing the fire burned Psal. 39.3 If these forementioned Arguments will not rouse up thy love thou hast more enough of this nature at hand Thou hast all Christs personal excellencies to study thou hast all his particular mercies to thy self both special and common thou hast all his sweet and neer relations to thee and thou hast the happiness of thy perpetual abode with him hereafter all these do offer themselves to thy Meditation with all their several branches and adjuncts Only follow them close to thy heart ply the work and let it not cool Deal with thy heart as Christ did with Peter when he asked him thrice over Lovest thou me till he was grieved and answers Lord thou knowest that I love thee So say to thy Heart Lovest thou thy Lord and ask it the second time and urge it the third time Lovest thou thy Lord till thou grieve it and shame it out of its stupidity and it can truly say Thou knowest that I love him And thus I have shewed you how to excite the affection of Love SECT VI. 2. THe next Grace or Affection to be excited is Desire The Object of it is Goodness considered as absent or not yet attained This being so necessary an attendant of Love and being excited much by the same forementioned objective considerations I suppose you need the less direction to be here added and therefore I shall touch but briefly on this If love be hot I warrant you desire will not be cold When thou hast thus viewed the goodness of the Lord and considered of the pleasures that are at his right hand then proceed on with thy Meditation thus Think with thy self Where have I been what have I seen O the incomprehensible astonishing Glory O the rare transcendent beauty O blessed souls that now enjoy it that see a thousand times more clearly what I have seen but darkly at this distance and scarce discerned through the interposing clouds What a difference is there betwixt my state and theirs I am sighing and they are singing I am sinning and they are pleasing God I have an ulcerated cancrous soul like the lothsome bodyes of Job or Lazarus a spectacle of pitty to those that behold me But they are perfect and without blemish I am here intangled in the love of the world when they are taken up with the love of God I live indeed amongst the means of grace and I possess the fellowship of my fellow-believers But I have none of their immediate views of God nor none of that fellowship which they possess They have none of my cares and fears They weep not in secret They languish not in sorrows These tears are wiped away from their eyes O happy a thousand times happy souls Alas that I must dwell in dirty flesh when my Brethren and companions do dwell with God! Alas that I am lapt in earth and tyed as a mountain down to this inferior world when they are got above the Sun and have laid aside their lumpish bodyes Alas that I must lye and pray and wait and pray and wait as if my heart were in my knees when they do nothing but Love and Praise and Joy and Enjoy as if their hearts were got into the very breast of Christ and were closely conjoyned to his own heart How far out of sight and reach and hearing of their high enjoyments do I here live when they feel them and feed and live upon them What strange thoughts have I of God What strange conceivings What strange affections I am fain
Glory VVhy think then with thy self If this grain of Mustard seed be so precious what is the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God If a spark of life which will but strive against corruptions and flame out a few desires and groans be so much worth how glorious then is the Fountain and End of this life If we be said to be like God and to bear his Image and to be holy as he is holy when alas we are pressed down with a body of sin Sure we shall then be much liker God when we are perfectly holy and without blemish and have no such thing as sin within us Is the desire after Heaven so precious a thing what then is the thing it self which is desired Is the love so excellent what then is the beloved Is our joy in foreseeing and believing so sweet what will be the joy in the full possessing O the delight that a Christian hath in the lively exercise of some of these affections VVhat good do's it to his very heart when he can feelingly say He loves his Lord what sweetness is there in the very act of loving yea even those troubling Passions of Sorrow and Fear are yet delightful when they are rightly exercised How glad is a poor Christian when he feeleth his heart begin to melt and when the thoughts of sinful unkindness will dissolve it Even this Sorrow doth yield him matter of Joy O what will it then be when we shall do nothing but know God and love and rejoyce and praise and all this in the highest perfection what a comfort is it to my doubting soul when I have a little assurance of the sincerity of my graces when upon examination I can but trace the Spirit in his sanctifying works How much more will it comfort me to finde that this Spirit hath safely conducted me and left me in the arms of Jesus Christ what a change was it that the Spirit made upon my soul when he first turned me from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God To be taken from that horrid state of nature wherein my self and my actions were loathsom to God and the sentence of death was past upon me and the Almighty took me for his utter enemy and to be presently numbred among his Saints and called his Friend his Servant his Son and the sentence revoked which was gone forth O what a change was this To be taken from that state wherein I was born and had lived delightfully so many yeers and was rivetted in it by custom and engagements when thousands of sins did lie upon my score and if I had so died I had been damned for ever and to be justified from all these enormous crimes and freed from all these fearful plagues and put into the title of an Heir of Heaven O what an astonishing change was this Why then consider how much greater will that glorious change then be Beyond expressing beyond conceiving How oft when I have thought of this change in my Regeneration have I cryed out O blessed day and blessed be the Lord that I ever saw it why how then shall I cry out in Heaven O blessed Eternity and blessed be the Lord that brought me to it Was the mercy of my conversion so exceeding great that the Angels of God did rejoyce to see it Sure then the mercy of my salvation will be so great that the same Angels will congratulate my felicity This Grace is but a spark that is raked up in the ashes it is covered with flesh from the sight of the world and covered with corruption sometime from mine-own sight But my Everlasting glory will not so be clouded nor my light be under a bushel but upon a hill even upon Sion the Mount of God SECT XIIII 12. LAstly compare the joyes which thou shalt have above with those foretastes of it which the Spirit hath given thee here Judg of the Lyon by the Paw and of the Ocean of Joy by that drop which thou hast tasted Thou hast here thy strongest refreshing comforts but as that man in Hell would have had the water to cool him a little upon the tip of the finger for thy tongue to taste yet by this little thou maist conjecture at the quality of the whole Hath not God sometime revealed himself extraordinarily to thy soul and let a drop of glory fall upon it Hast thou not been ready to say O that it might be thus with my soul continually and that I might always feel what I feel sometimes Didst thou never cry out with the Martyr after thy long and doleful expectations He is come he is come Didst thou never in a lively Sermon of Heaven nor in thy retired contemplations on that blessed State perceive thy drooping spirits revive and thy dejected heart to lift up the head and the light of Heaven to break forth to thy soul as a morning Star or as the dawning of the day Didst thou never perceive thy heart in these duties to be as the childe that Elisha revived to wax warm within thee and to recover life VVhy think with thy self then what is this earnest to the full Inheritance Alas all this light that so amazeth and rejoyceth me is but a Candle lighted from Heaven to lead me thither through this world of darkness If the light of a Star in the night be such or the little glimmering at the break of the day what then is the light of the Sun at noontide If some godly men that we read of have been overwhelmed with joy till they have cryed out Hold Lord stay thy hand I can bear no more like weak eyes that cannot endure too great a light O what will then be my joyes in Heaven when as the object of my joy shall be the most glorious God so my soul shall be made capable of seeing and enjoying him and though the light be ten thousand times greater then the Suns yet my eyes shall be able for ever to behold it Or if thou be one that hast not felt yet these sweet foretastes for every beleever hath not felt them then make use of the former delights which thou hast felt that thou maist the better discern what hereafter thou shalt feel And thus I have done with the fifth part of this Directory and shewed you on what grounds to advance your Meditations and how to get them to quicken your affections by comparing the unseen delights of Heaven with those smaller which you have seen and felt in the flesh CHAP. XII How to manage and watch over the Heart through the whole Work SECT 1. SIxthly The sixt and last part of this Directory is To guide you in the managing of your hearts through this work and to shew you wherein you have need to be exceeding watchful I have shewed before what must be done with your hearts in your preparations to the work and in your setting upon it I shall now shew
THE Saints Everlasting Rest OR A TREATISE Of the Blessed State of the SAINTS in their enjoyment of GOD in Glory Wherein is shewed its Excellency and Certainty the Misery of those that lose it the way to Attain it and Assurance of it and how to live in the continual delightful Forecasts of it by the help of Meditation Written by the Author for his own use in the time of his languishing when God took him off from all Publike Imployment and afterwards Preached in his weekly Lecture And now published by Richard Baxter Teacher of the Church of Kederminster in Worcestershire My flesh and my heart faileth but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever Psal. 73.26 If in this life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 Set your affections on things above and not on things on the Earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Col. 3.2 3 4. Because I live ye shall live also John 14.19 Jan. 15. 1649. Imprimatur Joseph Caryl London Printed by Rob. White for Thomas Vnderhil and Francis Tyton and are to be sold at the Blue-Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet near the Inner-Temple-gate 1650. To my dearly beloved Friends the Inhabitants of the Burrough and Forreign OF KEDERMINSTER Both Magistrates and People My dear Friends IF either I or my labors have any thing of publike use or worth it is wholly though not onely yours And I am convinced by Providence That it is the Will of God it should be so This I clearly discerned in my first coming to you in my former abode with you and in the time of my forced absence from you When I was separated by the miseries of the late unhappy war I durst not fix in any other Congregation but lived in a military unpleasing state lest I should forestal my return to you for whom I took my self reserved The offers of greater worldly accommodations with five times the means which I receive with you was no temptation to me once to question whether I should leave you Your free invitation of my return your obedience to my Doctrine the strong affection which I have yet towards you above all people and the general hearty return of Love which I finde from you do all perswade me that I was sent into this world especially for the service of your souls And that even when I am dead I might yet be a help to your salvation the Lord hath forced me quite besides my own resolution to write this Treatise and leave it in your hands It was far from my thoughts ever to have become thus publike and burdened the world with any writings of mine Therefore have I oft resisted the requests of my reverend Brethren and some Superiors who might else have commanded much more at my hands But see how God over ruleth and crosseth our resolutions Being in my quarters far from home cast into extream languishing by the sudden loss of about a Gallon of blood after many yeers foregoing weakness and having no acquaintance about me nor any Books but my Bible and living in continual expectation of death I bent my thoughts on my Everlasting Rest And because my memory through extream weakness was imperfect I took my pen and began to draw up my own funeral Sermon or some helps for my own Meditations of Heaven to sweeten both the Rest of my life and my death In this condition God was pleased to continue me about five moneths from home where being able for nothing else I went on with this work which so lengthened to this which here you see It is no wonder therefore if I be too abrupt in the beginning seeing I then intended but the length of a Sermon or two Much less may you wonder if the whole be very imperfect seeing it was written as it were with one foot in the grave by a man that was betwixt living and dead that wanted strength of nature to quicken Invention or Affection and had no Book but his Bible while the chief part was finished nor had any minde of humane ornaments if he had been furnished But O how sweet is this Providence now to my review which so happily forced me to that work of Meditation which I had formerly found so profitable to my soul and shewed me more mercy in depriving me of other helps then I was aware of and hath caused my thoughts to feed on this Heavenly Subject which hath more benefited me then all the studies of my life And now dear Friends such as it is I here offer it you and upon the bended knees of my soul I offer up my thanks to the merciful God who hath fetched up both me and it as from the grave for your service Who reversed the sentence of present death which by the ablest Physitians was past upon me who interrupted my publike labors for a time that he might force me to do you a more lasting service which else I had never been like to have attempted That God do I heartily bless and magnifie who hath rescued me from the many dangers of four yeers war and after so many tedious nights and days and so many doleful fights and tidings hath returned me and many of your selves and reprived us till now to serve him in peace And though men be ungrateful and my body ruined beyond hope of recovery yet he hath made up all in the comforts I have in you To the God of mercy do I here offer my most hearty thanks and pay the vows of acknowledgment which I oft made in my distress who hath not rejected my prayers which in my dolor I put up but hath by a wonder delivered me in the midst of my duties and hath supported me this fourteen yeers in a languishing state wherein I have scarce had a waking hour free from pain who hath above twenty several times delivered me when I was neer to death And though he hath made me spend my days in groans and tears and in a constant expectation of my change yet hath he not wholly disabled me to his service and hereby hath more effectually subdued my pride and made this world contemptible to me and forced my dull heart to more importunate requests and occasioned more rare discoveries of his Mercy then ever I could have expected in a prosperous state For ever blessed be the Lord that hath not onely honored me to be a Minister of his Gospel but hath also set me over a people so willing to obey and given me that success of my labors which he hath denied to many more able and faithful who hath kept you in the zealous practice of godliness when so many grow negligent or despise the Ordinances of God who hath kept you stable in his
Truth and saved you from the spirit of Giddiness Levity and Apostacy of this age who hath preserved you from those scandals whereby others have so hainously wounded their profession and hath given you to see the mischief of Separation and Divisions and made you eminent for Vnity and Peace when almost all the Land is in a flame of contention and so many that we thought godly are busily demolishing the Church and striving in a zealous ignorance against the Lord. Beloved though few of you are rich or great in the world yet for this riches of mercy towards you I must say Ye are my Glory my Crown and my Joy And for all these rare favors to my self and you as I have oft promised to publish the praises of our Lord so do I here set up this stone of remembrance and write upon it Glory to God in the highest Hitherto hath the Lord helped us My flesh and my heart failed but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever But have all these Deliverances brought us to our Rest No We are as far yet from it as we are from Heaven You are yet under oppression and troubles and I am yet under consuming sickness And feeling that I am like to be among you but a little while and that my pained body is hastening to the dust I shall here leave you my best advice for your immortal souls and bequeath you this counsel as the legacy of a dying man that you may here read it and practise it when I am taken from you And I beseech you receive it as from one that you know doth unfainedly love you and that regardeth no honors or happiness in this world in comparison of the welfare and salvation of your souls yea receive it from me as if I offered it you upon my knees beseeching you for your souls sake that you would not reject it and beseeching the Lord to bless it to you yea as one that hath received authority from Christ to command you I charge you in his name as ever you will answer it when we shall meet at judgment and as you would not have me there be a witness against you nor all my labors be charged against you to your condemnation and the Lord Jesus your Judg to sentence you as rebellious that you faithfully and constantly practise these ten directions 1. Labor to be men of knowledg and sound understandings A sound judgment is a most precious mercy and much conduceth to the soundness of heart and life A weak judgment is easily corrupted and if it be once corrupt the will and conversation will quickly follow Your understandings are the in-let or entrance to the whole soul and if you be weak there your souls are like a Garison that hath open or il-guarded Gates and if the enemy be once let in there the whole City will quickly be his own Ignorance is virtually every error therefore let the Bible be much in your hands and hearts Remember what I taught you on Deut. 6.6 7. Read much the writings of our old solid Divines such as Perkins Bolton Dod Sibbs especially Doctor Preston You may read an able Divine when you cannot hear one especially be sure you learn well the Principles of Religion Begin with the Assemblies lesser Catechism and then learn the greater and next Master Balls with the Exposition and then Doctor Ames his Marrow of Divinity now Englished or Ushers If you see men fall on Controversies before they understand these never wonder if they are drowned in errors I know your povertie and labors will not give you leave to read so much as others may do but yet a willing minde will finde some time if it be when they should sleep and especially it will spend the Lords day wholly in these things O be not ignorant of God in the midst of such light as if the matters of your salvation were less worth your study then your trading in the world 2. Do the utmost you can to get a faithful Minister when I am taken from you and be sure you acknowledg him your Teacher Overseer and Ruler 1 Thess. 5.12 13. Acts 20.28 Heb. 13.7 17. and learn of him obey him and submit to his doctrine except he teach you any singular points and then take the advice of other Ministers in trying it Expect not that he should humor you and please your fancies and say and do as you would have him that is meer Independencie for the people to rule themselves and their Rulers If he be unable to Teach and Guide you do not chuse him at first if he be able be ruled by him even in things that to you are doubtful except it be clear that â—e would turn you from the truth if you know more then he become Preachers your selves if you do not then quarrel not when you should learn especially submit to his private over-sight as well as publike Teaching It is but the least part of a Ministers work which is done in the Pulpit Paul taught them also from house to house day and night with tears Acts 20.20 31. To go daily from one house to another and see how you live and examine how you profit and direct you in the duties of your families and in your preparation for death is the great work Had not weakness confined me and publike labors forbidden me I should judg my self hainously guiltie in neglecting this In the Primitive times every Church of so many souls as this Parish had many Ministers whereof the ablest speakers did preach most impublike and the rest did the more of the less publike work which some mistake for meer Ruling Elders But now Sacriledg and Covetousness will scarce leave maintenance for one in a Church which is it that hath brought us to a loss in the nature of Government 3. Let all your Knowledg turn into Affection and Practice keep open the passage between your heads and your hearts that every Truth may go to the quick Spare not for any pains in working out your salvation Take heed of loitering when your souls lie at the stake Favor not your selves in any slothful distemper Laziness is the damnation of most that perish among us God forbid you should be of the mad opinion of the world That like not serving God so much nor making so much ado to be saved All these men will shortly be of another minde Live now as you would wish you had done at death and judgment Let no scorns dishearten you nor differences of opinion be an offence to you God and Scripture and Heaven and the Way thither are still the same It will do you no good to be of the right Religion if you be not zealous in the exercise of the Duties of that Religion Read oft the fifth and sixt Chapters of the third part of this Book 4. Be sure you make conscience of the great Duties that you are to perform in your families Teach your
want that sense by which God must be clearly known I stand and look upon a heap of Ants and see them all with one view very busie to little purpose They know not me my being nature or thoughts though I am their fellow creature How little then must we know of the great Creator though he with one view continually beholds us all Yet a knowledg we have though imperfect and such as must be done away A Glimpse the Saints behold though but in a glass Which makes us capable of some poor general dark apprehensions of what we shall behold in Glory If I should tell a Worldling but what the holiness and Spiritual Joys of the Saints on earth are he cannot know it for grace cannot be clearly known without grace how much less could he conceive it Should I tell him of this Glory But to the Saints I may be somewhat more encouraged to speak for Grace giveth them a dark knowledg and slight taste of Glory As all Good whatsoever is comprised in God and all in the creature are but drops of this Ocean So all the Glory of the blessed is comprised in their enjoyment of God and if there be any mediate Joys there they are but drops from this If men and Angels should study to speak the blessedness of that estate in one word what can they say beyond this That it is the nearest enjoyment of God Say they have God and you say they have all that 's worth a having O the full Joys offered to a beleever in that one sentence of Christs I would not for all the world that one verse had been left out of the Bible Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me John 17.24 Every word full of Life and Joy If the Queen of Sheba had cause to say of Solomons Glory Happy are thy men happy are these thy servants that stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom then sure they that stand continually before God and see his Glory and the Glory of the Lamb are somewhat more then happy To them will Christ give to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God Rev. 2.7 And to eat of the hidden Manna vers 17. Yea he will make them Pillars in the Temple of God and they shall go no more out and he will write upon them the Name of his God and the name of the City of his God New Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from his God and his own New Name Rev. 3.12 Yea more if more may be he will grant them to sit with him in his Throne Rev. 3.21 These are they who come out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb Therefore are they before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them And the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and lead them unto living fountains of water and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes Rev. 7.14 15 17. And may we not now boast with the Spouse This is my Beloved O daughters of Jerusalem and this is the Glory of the Saints Oh blind deceived world Can you shew us such a Glory This is the City of our God where the Tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his poople and God himself shall be with them and be their God Rev. 21.3 The Glory of God shall lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Vers. 24. And there shall be no more curse but the Throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads These sayings are faithful and true and these are the things that must shortly be done Rev. 22.3 4 6. And now we say as Mephihosheth Let the world take all besides if we may but see the face of our Lord in peace If the Lord lift up the light of his countenance on us here it puts more gladness in our hearts then the worlds encrease can do Psal. 4.6 7. How much more when in his light we shall have light without darkness and he shall make us full of Joy with his countenance Rejoyce therefore in the Lord O ye righteous and shout for joy all ye that are upright of heart and say with his servant David The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance The Lines are fallen to me in pleasaent places yea I have a goodly heritage I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope For he will not leave me in the grave nor suffer me for ever to see Corruption He will shew me the path of life and bring me into his presence where is fulness of joy and at his right hand where are pleasures for evermore Psal. 16.5 6 8 9 10 11. Whom therefore have I in heaven but him or in earth that I desire besides him My flesh and my heart have failed and will fail me but God is the strength of my heart and will be my Portion for ever He shall guide me with his counsel and afterward receive me to glory And as they that are far from him perish so is it Good the chief Good for us to be near to God Psal. 73.24 25 26 27 28. The Advancement is exceeding high What unreverent damnable presumption would it have been once to have thought or spoke of such a thing if God had not spoke it before us I durst not have thought of the Saints preferment in this life as Scripture sets it forth had it not been the express truth of God What vile unmannerliness to talk of being sons of God speaking to him having fellowship and communion with him dwelling in him and he in us if this had not been Gods own Language How much less durst we have once thought of being brighter then the Sun in Glory of being coheirs with Christ of judging the world of sitting on Christs Throne of being one with him if we had not all this from the mouth and under the hand of God But hath he said it and shall it not come to pass Hath he spoken it and will he not do it Yes as true as the Lord God is true thus shall it be done to the man whom Christ delights to honour The eternal God is their Refuge and underneath are the everlasting Arms And the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him and the Lord shall cover them all the day long and he shall dwell between their shoulders Deut. 33 27 12. Surely goodness
they disobeyed whose Ministers they abused whose Servants they hated now sitting to judg them When their own Consciences shall cry out against them and call to their Remembrance all their misdoings Remember at such a time such or such a sin at such a time Christ sued hard for thy Conversion the Minister pressed it home to thy heart thou wast touched to the quick with the Word thou didst purpose and promise returning and yet thou casts off all When an hundred Sermons Sabbaths Mercies shall each step up and say I am witness against the Prisoner Lord I was abused and I was neglected Oh which way will the wretched sinner look Oh who can conceive the terrible thoughts of his heart Now the world cannot help him his old companions cannot help him the Saints neither can nor will onely the Lord Jesus can but Oh there 's the Soul-killing misery he will not Nay without violating the truth of his Word he cannot though otherwise in regard of his Absolute power he might The time was Sinner when Christ would and you would not and now Oh how fain would you and he will not Then he followed thee in vain with entreaties Oh poor Sinner what dost thou Wilt thou sell thy Soul and Saviour for a lust Look to me and be saved Return why wilt thou dye But thy Ear and heart was shut up against all Why now thou shalt cry Lord Lord open to us and he shall say Depart I know you not ye workers of iniquity Now Mercy Mercy Lord Oh but it was Mercy you so long set light by and now your day of Mercy is over What then remains but to cry out to the mountains fall upon us and to the hills O cover us from the presence of him that sits upon the Throne But all in vain For thou hast the Lord of Mountains and hils for thine enemy whose voyce they will obey and not thine Sinner make not light of this for as true as thou livest except a through change and coming in to Christ prevent it which God grant thou shalt shortly to thy unconceiveable horror see that day Oh Wretch Will thy cups then be wine or gall Will they be sweet or bitter Will it comfort thee to think of all thy merry days and how pleasantly thy time slipt away Will it do thee good to think how rich thou wast and how honorable thou wast or will it not rather wound thy very Soul to remember thy folly and make thee with anguish of heart and rage against thy self to cry out Oh Wretch where was thine understanding Didst thou make so light of that sin that now makes thee tremble How couldst thou hear so lightly of the Redeeming Blood of the Son of God How couldst thou quench so many motions of his Spirit and stifle so many quickening thoughts as were cast into thy Soul What took up all that Life's time which thou hadst given thee to make sure work against this day What took up all thy heart thy love and delight which should have been layd out on the Lord Jesus Hadst thou room in thy heart for the worâ—d thy friend thy flesh thy lusts and none for Christ Oh Wretch whom hadst thou to love but him What hadst thou to do but to seek to him and cleave to him and enjoy him Oh wast thou not told of this dreadful day a thousand times till the Commonness of that doctrine made thee weary How couldst thou slight such warnings and rage against the Minister and say he preacheth Damnation Had it not been better to have heard and prevented it then now to endure it Oh now for one offer of Christ for one Sermon for one day of Grace more But too late alass too late Poor careless Sinner I did not think here to have said so much to thee for my business is to refresh the Saints But if these lines do fall into thy hands and thou vouchsafe the reading of them I here charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom that thou make hast and get alone and set thy self sadly to ponder on these things Ask thy heart Is this true or is it not Is there such a day and must I see it Oh what do I then Why trifle I Is it not time full time that I had made sure of Christ and comfort long ago should I sit still another day who have lost so many Had I not at that day rather be found one of the Holy faithful watchful Christians then a worldling a good-fellow or a man of honor Why should I not then choose it now Will it be best then and is it not best now Oh think of these things A few sad hours spent in serious fore-thoughts is a cheap prevention It 's worth this or It 's worth nothing Friend I profess to thee from the Word of the Lord That of all thy sweet sins there will then be nothing left but the sting in thy Conscience which will never out through all eternity except the blood of Christ beleeved in and valued above all the world do now in this day of grace get it out Thy sin is like a Beautiful Harlot while she is young and fresh she hath many followers but when old and withered every one would shut their hands of her she is onely their shame none would know her So will it be with thee now thou wilt venture on it what ever it cost thee but then when mens rebellious ways are charged on their Souls to death O that thou couldst rid thy hands of it O that thou couldst say Lord it was not I Then Lord when saw we thee hungry naked imprisoned How fain would they put it off Then sin will be sin indeed and Grace will be Grace indeed Then say the foolish Virgins Give us of your Oyl for our Lamps are ouâ— Oh for some of your faith holiness which we were wont to mock at But what 's the answer Go buy for your selves we have little enough would we had rather much more Then they will be glad of any thing like Grace and if they can but produce any external familiarity with Christ or Common gifts how glad are they Lord we have eat and drunk in thy presence prophecyed in thy name cast out devils done many wonderful works we have been baptized heard Sermons professed Christianity But alas this will not serve the turn He will profess to them I never knew you Depart from me ye workers of iniquity Oh dead hearted sinner is all this nothing to thee As sure as Christ is true this is true Take it in his own words Math. 25.31 When the Son of man shall come in his Glory and before him shall be gathered all Nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and he shall set the sheep on the right hand and
we do divide the spoil and partake of the prize which our Lord so dearly won we shall say indeed There 's none to that How dear was Jonathans Love to David which was testified by stripping himself of the Robe that was upon him and giving it David and his garments even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle and also by saving him from his fathers wrath How dear for ever will the Love of Christ be then to us who stripped himself as it were of his Majesty and Glory and put our man Garment of flesh upon him that he might put the Robes of his own Righteousness and Glory upon us and saved us not from cruel injustice but from his Fathers deserved wrath Well then Christians as you use to do in your Books and on your Goods to write down the price they cost you so do on your Righteousness and on your Glory write down the price The Precious Blood of Christ Yet understand this rightly Not that this highest Glory was in strictest proper sense purchased or that it was the most immediate Effect of Christs death We must take heed that we conceive not of God as a Tyrant who so delighteth in cruelty as to exchange mercies for stripes or to give a Crown on condition he may torment men God was never so pleased with the sufferings of the Innocent much lesse of his Sonne as to sell his mercy properly for their sufferings Fury dwelleth not in him nor doth he willingly correct the sons of men nor take pleasure in the death of him that dieth But the sufferings of Christ were primarily and immediatly to satisfie the justice that required blood and to bear what was due to the sinner and to receive the blow that should have fallen upon him so to restore him to the life he lost and the happiness he fell from But this dignity which surpasseth the first is as it were from the redundancy of his merit or a secondary fruit of his death The work of his Redemption so well pleased the Father that he gave him power to advance his chosen to a higher dignity then they fell from and to give them the glory which was given to himself and all this according to his counsell and the good pleasure of his own will SECT II. 2. THe Second Pearl in the Saints Diadem is that It 's Free This seemeth as Pharoahs second Kine to devour the former and as the Angell to Balaam To meet it with a drawne sword of a full opposition But the seeming discord is but a pleasing diversity composed into that harmony which constitutes the Melody These two Attributes Purchased and Free are the two chaines of Gold which by their pleasant twisting doe make up that wreath for the heads of the Pillars in the Temple of God It was deare to Christ but free to us When Christ was to buy silver and gold was nothing worth Prayers and Tears could not suffice nor any thing below his Blood But when we come to buy the price is fallen to just nothing Our buying is but receiving we have it freely without money and without price Nor doe the Gospell-conditions make it lesse Free or the Covenant tenor before mentioned contradict any of this If the Gospell-conditions had been such as are the Laws or payment of the debt required at our hands the freeness then were more questionable Yea if God had said to us Sinners if you will satisfie my Justice but for one of your sins I will forgive you all the rest it would have been a hard condition on our part and the Grace of the Covenant not so Free as our disability doth necessarily require But if all the Condition be our cordiall acceptation surely we deserve not the name of Purchasers Thankfull accepting of a free acquittance is no paying of the Debt If life be offered to a condemned man upon condition that he shall not refuse the offer I think the favour is never the lesse free Nay though the condition were that he should begge and wait before he have his pardon and take him for his Lord who hath thus redeemed him All this is no satisfying of the justice of the Law Especially when the condition is also given as it is by God to all his chosen surely then here 's all free If the Father freely give the Son and the Son freely pay the debt and if God do freely accept that way of payment when he might have required it of the principall and if both Father and Sonne do freely offer us the purchased life upon those fair conditions and if they also freely send the Spirit to inable us to perform those conditions then what is here that is not free Is not every Stone that builds this Temple Free-Stone Oh the everlasting admiration that must needs surprize the Saints to think of this Freenesse What did the Lord see in me that he should judge me meet for such a State That I who was but a poor diseaâ—ed despised wretch should be clad in the brightnesse of this Glory That I a silly creeping breathing worm should be advanced to this high dignity That I who was but lately groaning weeping dying should now be as full of joy as my heart can hold Yea should be taken from the grave where I was rotting and stinking and from the dust and darkness where I seemed forgotten and here set before his Throne that I should be taken with Mordecai from captivity to be set next unto the King and with Daniel from the Den to be made ruler of Princes and Provinces and with Saul from seeking Asses to be advanced to a Kingdom Oh who can fathom unmeasurable Love Indeed if the proud hearted selfe-ignorant selfe-admiring sinners should be thus advanced who think none so fit for preferment as themselves perhaps instead of admiring free Love they would with those unhappy Angels be discontented yet with their estate But when the selfe-denying selfe-accusing humble soule who thought himselfe unworthy the ground he trod on and the aire he breathed in unworthy to eat drink or live when he shall be taken vp into this Glory He who durst â—carce come among or speak to the imperfect Saints on earth because he was unworthy he who durst scarce hear or scarce read the Scripture or scarce pray and call God Father oâ— scarce receive the Sacraments of his Covenant and all because he was unworthy For this soul to finde it self rapt up into heaven and closed in the armes of Christ even in a moment Do but think with your selves what the transporting astonishing admiration of such a soule will be He that durst not lift up his eyes to heaven but stood a farre off smiting on his brest and crying Lord be mercifull to me a sinner now to be lift up to heaven himself He who was wont to write his name in Bradfords stile The unthankâ—full the hard-hearted the unworthy sinner And was wont to
moment he hide his face yet with everlasting compassion will he receive and imbrace us when he shall say to Sion Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Isa. 60.2 SECT XI 3. WE shall rest from all the Temptations of Satan whereby he continually disturbes our peace VVhat a grief is it to a Christian though he yield not to the temptation yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord That such a thought should be cast into his heart That he can set about nothing that is good but Satan is still disswading him from it distracting him in it or discouraging him after it VVhat a torment as well as temptation is it to have such horrid motions made to his soul such Blasphemous Idea's presented to his fantasie Sometime cruel thoughts of God sometime under-valuing thoughts of Christ sometime unbelieving thoughts of Scripture sometime injurious thoughts of Providence to be tempted sometime to turn to present things sometime to play with the baits of sin sometime to venture on the delights of flesh and sometime to flat Atheism it self Especially when we know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as Tinder or Gunpowder ready to take fire as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them O how the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness to feel these motions But more that his heart should be the soyl for this seed and the too fruitful mother of such an off-spring And most of all through fear least they will at last prevail and these cursed motions should procure his consent But here is our comfort as we now stand not by our own strength and shall not be charged with any of this so when the day of our deliverance comes we shall fully Rest from these Temptations Satan is then bound up the time of tempting is then done the time of torment to himself and his conquered captives those deluded souls is then come and the victorious Saints shall have Triumph for Temptation Now we do walk among his snares and are in danger to be circumvented with his methods and wiles but then we are quite above his snares and out of the hearing of his enticing charms He hath power here to tempt us in the VVilderness but he entereth not the Holy City He may set us on the pinacle of the Temple in the earthly Jerusalem but the new Jerusalem he may not approach Perhaps he may bring us to an exceeding high Mountain but the Mount Sion and City of the living God he cannot ascend Or if he should yet all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them will be but a poor despised bait to the soul which is possessed of the Kingdom of our Lord and the Glory of it No no here is no more work for Satan now Hopes he might have of deceiving poor Creatures on Earth who lived out of sight and onely heard and read of a Kingdom which they never beheld and had onely Faith to live upon and were incompassed with flesh and drawn aside by sense But when once they see the Glory they read of and taste the joyes they heard of and possess that Kingdom which they then believed and hoped for and have laid aside their fleshly sense its time then for Satan to have done it s in vain to offer a Temptation more What draw them from that glory draw them from the Arms of Jesus Christ draw them from the sweet praises of God draw them from the blessed Society of Saints and Angels draw them from the bosom of the Fathers Love and that to a place of Torment among the damned which their eyes behold why what charms what perswasions can do it to entice them from an unknown Joy an unknown God were somewhat hopeful but now they have both seen and enjoyed there is no hope Surely it must be a very strong temptation that must draw a blessed Saint from that Rest. We shall have no more need to pray Lead us not into Temptation nor to watch and pray that we enter not into Temptation nor shall we serve the Lord as Paul did Acts 20.19 in many tears and Temptations no but now they who continued with Christ in Temptation shall by him be appointed to a Kingdom even as his Father appointed to him that they may eat and drink at his Table in his Kingdom Luke 22.28 29 30. Blessed therefore are they that endure temptation for when they are tryed they shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Jam. 1.12 And then they shall be saved from the hour of temptation Then the malignant Planet Saturn shall be below us and loose all its influence which now is above exercising its enmity and Satan must be suffering who would have drawn us into suffering As Bucholtzer wittily Vbi Saturnus non supra nos sed infra nos conspicietur luens poenas pro sua in nos soevitia malitia SECT XII 4. WE shall Rest also from all our Temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh as well as Satan And that is a number unexpressible and a weight were it not that we are beholding to supporting grace utterly intollerable O the hourly dangers that we poor sinners here below walk in Every sense is a snare Every member a snare Every creature a snare Every mercy a snare And every duty a snare to us VVe can scarce open our eyes but we are in danger If we behold them above us we are in danger of envy If them below us we are in danger of contempt If we see sumptuous buildings pleasant habitations Honour and Riches we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires If the ragges and beggery of others we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness If we see beauty it s a bait to lust if deformity to loathing and disdain VVe can scarcely hear a word spoken but containes to us matter of temptation How soon do slanderous reports vain jests wanton speeches by that passage creep into the Heart How strong and prevalent a Temptation is our appetite and how constant and strong a watch doth it require Have we comliness and beauty What fuel for pride Are we deformed What an occasion of repining Have we strength of Reason and gifts of Learning O how hard is it not to be pufft up To seek our selves To hunt after applause To despise our brethren To mislike the simplicity that is in Christ Both in the matter and manner of Scripture In Doctrine in Discipline in Worship and in the Saints to affect a pompous specious fleshly service of God and to exalt Reason above Faith Are we unlearned and of shallow heads and slender parts How apt then to despise what we have not And to undervalue that which we do not know and to erre with confidence because of our
not be Christs Disciple It is the common mark whereby his Disciples are known to all men That they love one another Is it not his last great Legacy My peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you Mark the expressions of that command If it be possible as much as in you lieth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12.18 Follow peace with all men and holiness Heb. 12.14 O the deceitfulness of the heart of man That those same men who lately in their self-examination could finde nothing of Christ so clear within them as their love to the Brethren and were confident of this when they could scarce discover any other grace should now look so strangely upon them and be filled with so much bitterness against them That the same men who would have travelled through reproaches many miles to hear an able faithful Minister and not think the labor ill bestowed should now become their bitterest enemies and the most powerful hinderers of the success of their labors and travel as far to cry them down It makes me almost ready to say O sweet O happy days of persecution Which drove us together in a closure of Love who being now dryed at the fire of Liberty and Prosperity are crumbled all into dust by our contentions But it makes me seriously both to say and to think O sweet O happy day of the Rest of the Saints in Glory When as there is one God one Christ one Spirit so we shall have one Judgment one Heart one Church one Imployment for ever VVhen there shall be no more Circumcision and Uncircumcision Jew and Gentile Anabaptist or Poedobaptist Brownist Separatist Independent Presbyterian Episcopal but Christ is All and in All. We shall not there scruple our Communion nor any of the Ordinances of Divine Worship There will not be one for singing and another against it but even those who here jarred in discord shall all conjoyn in blessed concord and make up one melodious Quire I could wish they were of the Martyrs minde who rejoyced that she might have her foot in the same hole of the Stocks in which Master Philpots had been before her But however I am sure they will joyfully live in the same Heaven and gladly participate in the same Rest. Those whom one house could not hold nor one Church hold them no nor one Kingdom neither yet one Heaven and one God may hold One House one Kingdom could not hold Joseph and his Brethren but they must together again whether they will or no and then how is the case altered Then every man must strait withdraw while they weep over and kiss each other O how canst thou now finde in thy heart if thou bear the heart or face of a Christian to be bitter or injurious against thy Brethren when thou dost but once think of that time and place where thou hâ—pâ—â—t in the nearest and sweetest familiarity to live and rejoyce with them for ever I confess their infirmities are not to be loved nor sin to be tolerated because it s theirs But be sure it be sin which thou opâ—posest in them and do it with a Spirit of meekness and compassion that the world may see thy love to the Person while thou opposest the Offence Alas that Turks and Pagans can agree in wickedness better then Christians in the Truth That Bears and Lyons Wolves and Tygers can agree together but Christians cannot That a Legion of Devils can accord in one body and not the tenth part so many Christians in one Church Well the fault may be mine and it may be theirs or more likely both mine and theirs But this rejoyceth me That my old Friends who now look strangely at me will joyfully triumph with me in our common Rest. SECT XV. 7. WE shall then rest from all our dolorous houres and sad thoughts which we now undergo by participating with our Brethren in their Calamities Alas if we had nothing upon our selves to trouble us yet what heart could lay aside sorrows that lives in the sound of the Churches sufferings If Job had nothing upon his body to disquiet him yet the message of his Childrens overthrow must needs grieve the most patient soul. Except we are turned into steel or stone and have lost both Christian and humane affection there needs no more then the miseries of our Brethren to fill our hearts with successions of sorrows and make our lives a continued lamentation The Church on Earth is a meer Hospital which way ever we go we hear complaining and into what corner soever we cast our eyes we behold objects of pity and grief some groaning under a dark understanding some under a senseless heart some languishing under unfruitful weakness and some bleeding for miscarriages and wilfulness and some in such a Lethargy that they are past complaining some crying out of their pining Poverty some groaning under pains and Infirmities and some bewailing a whole Catalogue of Calamities especially in days of common Sufferings when nothing appears to our sight but ruine Families ruined Congregations ruined Sumptuous Structures ruined Cities ruined Country ruined Court ruined Kingdoms ruined Who weâ—ps not when all these bleed As now our friends distresses are our distresses so then our friends deliverance will be part of our own deliverance How much more joyous now to Joyn with them in their days of Thanksgiving and gladness then in the days of Humiliation in sackcloth and ashes How much then more joyous will it be to joyn with them in their perpetual praises and triumphs then to hear them bewailing now their wretchedness their want of light their want of life of joy of assurance of grace of Christ of all things How much more comfortable to see them perfected then now to see them wounded weak sick and afflicted To stand by the bed of their languishing as silly comforters being overwhelmed and silenced with the greatness of their griefs conscious of our own disability to relieve them scarce having a word of comfort to refresh them or if we have alas they be but words which are a poor relief when their sufferings are real Faine we would ease or help them but cannot all we can do is to sorrow with them which alas doth rather increase their sorrows Our day of Rest will free both them and us from all this Now we may enter many a poor Christians cottage and there see their Children ragged their purse empty their Cubbard empty their belly empty and poverty possessing and filling all How much better is that day when we shall see them filled with Christ cloathed with Glory and equalized with the richest and greatest Princes O the sad and heart-piercing spectacles that mine eyes have seen in four yeers space In this fight a dear friend fall down by me from another a precious Christian brought home wounded or dead scarce a moneth scarce a week without the sight or noise of blood Surely there is none of
is out of question seeing Faith and Repentance is every where required of them to make them capable of Baptism and to make it the end of the Ordinance to effect that in Infants which is a prerequisite condition in all others is somewhat a strange fiction and hath nothing that I know considerable to underprop it Yet will it not follow that because Baptism cannot be an instrument of Regenerating Infants that therefore they have no right to it no more then because Circumcision could not confer with Grace therefore they should omit it They are as capable of the ends of Baptism as they were then of the ends of Circumcision Christ himself was not capable of all the ends of Baptism and yet being capable of some for those was he baptized So may Infants be as capable of some though not of all This Regeneration I call Through to distinguish it from those sleight tinctures and superficial changes which other men may partake of and yet Imperfect to distinguish our present from our future condition in Glory and that the Christian may know that it is sincerity not perfection which he must enquire after in his soul. SECT III. THus far the Soul is passive Let us next see by what acts this new Life doth discover it self and this Divine Spark doth break forth and how the soul touched with this Loadstone of the Spirit doth presently move toward God The first work I call Conviction which indeed comprehends several Acts. 1. Knowledg 2. Assent It comprehends the knowledg of what the Scripture speaks against sin and sinners and that this Scripture which so speaks is the Word of God himself Whosoever knows not both these is not yet thus convinced though it is a very great Question Whether this last be an act of Knowledg or of Faith I think of both It comprehends a sincere Assent to the verity of this Scripture as also some knowledg of our selves and our own guilt and an acknowledgment of the verity of those Consequences which from the premises of sin in us and threats in Scripture do conclude us miserable It hath been a great Question and disputed in whole Volumns which Grace is the first in the Soul where Faith and Repentance are usually the onely competitors I have shewed you before that in regard of the principle the power or habit whichsoever it be that is infused they are all at once being indeed all one and onely called several Graces from the diversity of their subject as residing in the several faculties of the soul the life and rectitude of which several faculties and affections are in the same sense several Graces as the Germane French British Seas are several Seas And for the Acts it is most apparent that neither Repentance nor Faith in the ordinary strict sense is first but Knowledg There is no act of the Rational Soul about any object preceding Knowledg Their evasion is too gross who tell us That Knowledg is no Grace or but a common act When a dead Soul is by the Spirit enlivened its first act is to know and why should it not exert a sincere act of Knowing as well as Believing and the sincerity of Knowledg be requisite as well as of Faith especially when Faith in the Gospel-sense is sometime taken largely containing many acts whereof Knowledg is one in which large sense indeed Faith is the first Grace This Conviction implyeth also the subduing and silencing in some measure of all their carnal Reasonings which were wont to prevail against the Truth and a discovery of the fallacies of all their former Argumentations 2. As there must be Conviction so also Sensibility God works on the Heart as well as the Head both were corrupted and out of order The principle of new Life doth quicken both All true Spiritual Knowledg doth pass into Affections That Religion which is meerly traditional doth indeed swim loose in the Brain and the Devotion which is kindled but by Men and Means is hot in the mouth and cold in the stomack The Work that had no higher rise then Education Example Custom Reading or Hearing doth never kindly pass down to the Affections The Understanding which did receive but meer notions cannot deliver them to the Affections as Realities The bare help of Doctrine upon an unrenewed Soul produceth in the Understanding but a superficial apprehension and half Assent and therefore can produce in the Heart but small sensibility As Hypocrites may know many things yea as many as the best Christian but nothing with the clear apprehensions of an experienced man so may they with as many things be slightly affected but they give deep rooting to none To read and hear of the worth of Meat and Drink may raise some esteem of them but not such as the hungry and thirsty feel for by feeling they know the worth thereof To view in the Map of the Gospel the precious things of Christ and his Kingdom may slightly affect But to thirst for and drink of the living waters and to travel to live in to be heir of that Kingdom must needs work another kinde of Sensibility It is Christs own differencing Mark and I had rather have one from him then from any that the good ground gives the good Seed deep rooting but some others entertain it but into the surface of the soyl and cannot afford it depth of Earth The great things of Sin of Grace and Christ and Eternity which are of weight one would think to move a Rock yet shake not the heart of the carnal Professor nor pierce his soul unto the quick Though he should have them all ready in his Brain and be a constant Preacher of them to others yet do they little affect himself When he is pressing them upon the hearts of others most earnestly and crying out on the senslesness of his dull hearers you would little think how insensible is his own soul and the great difference between his tongue and his heart His study and invention procureth him zealous and moving expressions but they cannot procure him answerable affections It is true some soft and passionate Natures may have tears at command when one that is truly gracious hath none yet is this Christian with dry eyes more solidly apprehensive and deeply affected then the other is in the midst of his tears and the weeping Hypocrite will be drawn to his sin again with a trifle which the groaning Christian would not be hired to commit with Crowns and Kingdoms The things that the Soul is thus convinced and sensible of are especially these in the Description mentioned 1. The evil of sin The sinner is made to know and feel that the sin which was his delight his sport the support of his credit and estate is indeed a more loathsom thing then Toads or Serpents and a greater evil then Plague or Famine or any other calamity It being a breach of the righteous
Law of the most high God dishonorable to him and destructive to the sinner Now the sinner reads and hears no more the reproofs of sin as words of course as if the Minister wanted something to say to fill up his Sermon but when you mention his sin you stir in his wounds he feels you speak at his very heart and yet is contented you should shew him the worst and set it home though he bear the smart He was wont to marvel what made men keep such a stir against sin what harm it was for a man to take a little forbidden pleasure he saw no such hainousness in it that Christ must needs die for it and most of the world be eternally tormented in Hell He thought this was somewhat hard measure and greater punishment then could possibly be deserved by a little fleshly liberty or worldly delight neglect of Christ his Word or Worship yea by a wanton thought a vain word a dull duty or cold affection But now the case is altered God hath opened his eyes to see that unexpressable vileness in sin which satisfies him of the reason of all this 2. The Soul in this great work is convinced and sensible as of the evil of sin so of its own misery by reason of sin They who before read the threats of Gods Law as men do the old stories of forraign wars or as they behold the wounds and blood in a picture or piece of Arras which never makes them smart or fear Why now they finde it s their own story and they perceive they read their own doom as if they found their names written in the curse or heard the Law say as Nathan Thou are the man The wrath of God seemed to him before but as a storm to a man in the dry house or as the pains of the sick to the healthful stander-by or as the Torments of Hell to a childe that sees the story of Dives and Lazarus upon the wall But now he findes the disease is his own and feels the pain in his own bowels and the smart of the wounds in his own soul. In a word he findes himself a condemned man and that he is dead and damned in point of Law and that nothing was wanting but meer execution to make him most absolutely and irrecoverably miserable Whether you will call this a work of the Law or Gospel as in several senses it is of both the Law expressing and the Gospel intimating and implying our former condemnation Sure I am it is a work of the Spirit wrought in some measure in all the regenerate And though some do judg it an unnecessary bondage yet it is beyond my conceiving how he should come to Christ for pardon that first found not himself guilty and condemned or for life that never found himself dead The whole need not the Physitian but they that are sick Yet I deny not but the discovery of the Remedy as soon as the misery must needs prevent a great part of the trouble and make the distinct effects on the soul to be with much more difficulty discerned Nay the actings of the soul are so quick and oft so confused that the distinct order of these workings may not be apprehended or remembred at all And perhaps the joyful apprehensions of mercy may make the sense of misery the sooner forgotten 3. So doth the spirit also convince the soul of the creatures vanity and insufficiency Every man naturally is a flat Idolater our hearts turned from God in our first fall and ever since the Creature hath been our God This is the grand sin of Nature when we set up to our selves a wrong end we must needs erre in all the means The Creature is to every unregenerate man his God and his Christ. He ascribeth to it the Divine prerogatives and alloweth it the highest room in his soul Or if ever he come to be convinced of misery he flyeth to it as his Saviour and supply Indeed God and his Christ have usually the name and shall be still called both Lord and Saviour But the reall expectation is from the Creature and the work of God is laid upon it how well it will perform that work the sinner must know hereafter It is His Pleasure his profit and his Honour that is the natural mans Trinity and his Carnal self that is these in unity Indeed it is that Flesh that is the Principal Idol the other three are deified in their relation to our selves It was our first sin to aspire to be as Gods and it s the greatest sin that runs in our blood and is propagated in our nature from Generation to Generation When God should guide us we guide our selves when he should be our Soveraign we rule our selves The Laws which he gives us we would correct and finde fault with and if we had the making of them we would have made them otherwise When he should take care of us and must or we perish we will care for our selves when we should depend on him in daily receivings we had rather keep our stock our selves and have our portion in our own hands when we should stand to his disposal we would be at our own and when we should submit to his providence we usually quarrel at it as if we knew better what is good or fit for us then he or how to dispose of all things more wisely If we had the disposal of the events of Wars and the ordering of the affairs of Churches and States or the choice of our own outward condition it would be far otherwise then now it is and we think we could make a better disposal order and choice then God hath made This is the Language of a carnal heart though it do not always speak it out When we should study God we study our selves when we should minde God we minde our selves when we should love God we love our carnal selves when we should trust God we trust our selves when we should honor God we honor our selves and when we should ascribe to God and admire him we ascribe to and admire our selves And instead of God we would have all mens eyes and dependance on us and all mens thanks returned to us and would gladly be the onely men on Earth extolled and admired by all And thus we are naturally our own Idols But down falls this Dagon when God doth once renew the soul It is the great business of that great work to bring the heart back to God himself He convinceth the sinner 1. That the Creature or himself can neither be his God to make him happy 2. Nor yet his Christ to recover him from his misery and restore him to God who is his happiness This God doth not onely by Preaching but by Providence also Because words seem but winde and will hardly take off the raging senses therefore doth God make his Rod to speak and continue speaking till the
his own people Bruising breaking killing them with terrors and then healing rasing and filling them with Joys which they cannot utter How variously doth he mould them sometimes they are brought to the gates of Hell sometime they are ravished with the foretasts of Heaven The proudest spirits are made to stoop the lowest are raised to an invincible courage In a word The workings of God upon the souls of his people are so clear and strange that you may trace a supernaturall causality through them all SECT VI. SEcondly But though it be undeniable that all these are the extraordinary workings of God yet how do they confirm the authority of Scripture How doth it appeare that they have any such end Answ. That is it I come to shew you next First Some of these works do carry their end apparently with them and manifest it in their event The forementioned providences for raising and preserving the Church are such as shew us their own ends Secondly They are most usually wrought for the friends and followers of Scripture and against the enemies and disobeyers of it Thirdly They are the plain fulfilling of the Predictions of Scripture The Judgements on the offenders are the plain fulfilling of its threatnings And the mercies to believers are the plain fulfilling of its Promises As for example as unlikely as it was yet Christ foretold his Apostles that when he was lifted up he would draw all men to him He sent them upon an errand as unlikely to be so succesfull as any in the world and yet he told them just what success they should find how good to their message and how hard to their persons The promise was of old to give Christ the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession Christ promiseth to be with his messengers to the end of the world Why now how punctually doth he accomplish all this What particular Prophesies of Scripture have been fulfilled and when and how hath been already at large discovered by others and therefore I shall overpasse that Fourthly These Judgments have been usually executed on offenders at the very time when they have been either opposing or violating Scripture And these mercies bestowed chiefly upon believers at such a time when they have been most engaged in defence of or obedience to the Scriptures Fifthly They usually proceed in such effectuall sort that they force the enemies and ungodly to confesse the cause yea and oft times the very standers by so do they force believers also to see that God makes good his word in all their mercies Sixthly They are performed in answer to the prayers of believers while they urge God with the promises of Scripture then doth he appeare in these evident providences This is a common and powerfull Argument which most Christians may draw from their own experiences Had we no other Argument to prove Scripture to be the word of God but only the strange successe of the prayers of the Saints while they trust upon and plead the promises with fervency I think it might much confirm experienced men What wonders yea what apparent miracles did the prayers of former Christians procure Hence the Christians soldiers in their Army were called the Thundering Legion they could do more by their prayers then the rest by their Armes Hence as Zuingerus testifies Gregory was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his frequent miracles among the heathen And Vincentiâ—â— reporteth that Sulpitius Bituricensis did expell Divels heal the sick and raise the dead by praying to God for them When Myconius a godly Divine lay sick of that Consumption which is called a Phâ—hisis Luther prayeth earnestly that he might be recovered and that he might not dye before himself And so confident was he of the grant of his desire that he writes boldly to Myconius that he should not dye now but should remaine yet longer upon this earth Vpon these prayers did Myconius presently revive as from the dead and live six yeers after till Luther was dead And himself hath largely written the story and professed that when he read Luthers letters he seemed to hear that voice of Christ Lazarus come forth Yea so powerfull and prevailing was Luther in prayer that Justus Jonas writes of him Iste vir potuit quod voluit That man could do what his list What was it less then a Miracle in Baynam the Martyr who told the Papistes Lo here is a Miracle I feel no more paine in this fire then in a bed of Down It is as sweet to me as a bed of Roses So Bishop Farrar who could say before he went to the fire If I stir in the fire believe not my Doctrine And accordingly remained unmoved Theodorus the Martyr in the midst of his torment had one in the shape of a young man as he thought came and wiped off his sweat and eased him of his paine But what need I fetch examples so far off or to recite the multitudes of them which Church history doth afford us Is there ever a praying Christian here who knoweth what it is importunately to strive with God and to plead his promises with him believingly that cannot give in his experiences of most remarkable answers I know mens atheisme and infidelity will never want somewhat to say against the most eminent providences though they were Miracles themselves The nature which is so ignorant of God and at enmity with him will not acknowledg him in his clear discoveries to the World but will ascribe all to fortune or nature or some such Idoll which indeed is nothing But when mercies are granted in the very time of prayer and that when to reason there is no hope and that without the use or help of any other means or creatures yea and prehaps many times over and over Is not this as plaine as if God from heaven should say to us I am fulfilling to thee the true word of my promise in Christ my Son How many times have I known the prayer of faith to save the sick when all Physitians have given them up as dead It hath been my own case more then once or twice or ten times when means have all failed and the highest Art or Reason have sentenced me hopeless yet have I been relieved by the prevalency of fervent prayer and that as the Physitian said tutò citò et jucundè My flesh and my heart failed but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever And though he yet keep me under necessary weakness and wholesome sickness and certain expectation of further necessities and assaults yet am I constrained by most convincing experiences to set up this stone of Remembrance and publikely to the Praise of the Almighty to acknowledg that certainly God is true of his promises and that they are indeed his own infallible Word and that it is a most excellent priviledge to have interest in God and a Spirit
make its first entrance at the understanding which must be satisfied first of its Truth secondly and of its goodness before it finde any further admittance If this porter be negligent it will admit of any thing â—hat bears but the face or name of Truth and Goodness But if it be faithfull able and diligent in its office it will examine strictly and search to the 〈◊〉 what is found deceitfull it casteth out that it go no furthâ—◠〈…〉 what is found to be sincere and currant it letteth in to the very heart where the Will and Affections do with wellcome entertain it and by concoction as it were incorporate it into their own substance Accordingly I have been hitherto presenting to your understandings First the excellency of the Rest of the Saints in the first part of this book and then the verity in the second part I hope your understandings have now tasted this food and tryed what hath been expressed Truth fears not the light This perfect beauty abhorreth darkness Nothing but Ignorance of its worth can disparage it Therefore search and spare not Read and read again and then Judge What think you Is it good Or is it not Nay is it not the chiefest good And is there any thing in goodness to be compared with it And is it true or is it not Nay is there any thing in the world more certain then that there remaineth a Rest to the people of God Why if your understandings are convinced of both these I do here in the behalf of God and his Truth and in the behalf of your own souls and their Life require the further entertainment hereof and that you take this blessed subject of Rest and commend it as you have found it to your wills and affections Let your hearts now cheerfully embrace it and improve it as I shall present it to you in its respective Uses And though the Laws of Method do otherwise direct me yet because I conceive it most profitable I will lay close together in the first place all those uses that most concern the ungodly that they may know where to finde their lesson and not to pick it up and down intermixt with Uses of another straine And then I shall lay down those Uses that are more proper to the Godly by themselves in the end Use First Shewing the unconceivable misery of the ungodly in their losse of this Rest. SECT II. ANd first if this Rest be for none but this people of God What doleful tidings is this to the ungodly world That there is so much Glory but none for them so great joys for the Saints of God while they must consume in perpetuall sorrowes Such Rest for them that have obeyed the Gospel while they must be Restless in the flames of hell If thou who Readest these words art in thy soul a stranger to Christ and to the holy nature and life of his people and art not one of them who are before described and shalt live and dye in the same condition that thou art now in Let me tell thee I am a messenger of the saddest tidings to thee that ever yet thy ears did hear That thou shalt never partake of the joyes of Heaven nor have the least tast of the Saints eternall Rest I may say to thee as Eâ—ud to Eâ—gon I have a message to thee from God but it is a mortall message against the very life and hopes of thy soul That as true as the word of God is true thou shalt never see the face of God with comfort This sentence I am commanded to pass upon thee from the word Take it as thou wilt and scape it if thou canst I know thy humble and hearty subjection to Christ would procure thy escape and if thy heart and life were throughly changed thy relations to Christ and eternity would be changed also he would then â—â—â—nowledge thee for one of his people and justifie thee from all things that could be charged upon thee and give thee a portion in the inheritance of his chosen And if this might be the happy successe of my message I should be so faâ— from repining like Jonas that the threatnings of God are not executed upon thee that on the contrary I should bless the day that ever God made me so happy a Messenger and return him hearty thanks upon my knees that ever he blessed his Word in my mouth with such desired success But if thou end thy days in thy present condition whether thou be fully resolved never to change or whether thou spend thy days in fruitless purposing to be better hereafter all is one for that I say if thou live and die in thy unregenerate estate as sure as the heavens are over thy head and the earth under thy feet as sure as thou livest and breathest in this air so sure shalt thou be shut out of the Rest of the Saints and receive thy portion in everlasting fire I do here expect that thou shouldest in the pride and scorn of thy heart turn back upon me and shew thy teeth and say Who made you the door-keeper of heaven when were you there and when did God shew you the Book of Life or tell you who they are that shall be saved and who shut out I will not Answer thee according to thy folly but truly and plainly as I can discover this thy folly to thy self that if there be yet any hope thou mayest recover thy understanding and yet return to God and live First I do not name thee nor any other I do not conclude of the persons individually and say This man shall be shut out of heaven and that man shall be taken in I onely conclude it of the unregenerate in general and of thee conditionally if thou be such a one Secondly I do not go about to determine who shall repent and who shall not much less that thou shalt never repent and come in to Christ These things are unknown to me I had far rather shew thee what hopes thou hast before thee if thou wilt not sit still and lose them and by thy wilful carelesness cast away thy hopes And I would far rather perswade thee to hearken in time while there is hope and opportunity and offers of Grace and before the door is shut against thee that so thy soul may return and live then to tell thee that there is no hope of thy repenting and returning But if thou lye hoping that thou shalt return and never do it if thou talk of repenting and believing but still art the same if thou live and die with the world and thy credit or pleasure nearer thy heart then Jesus Christ In a word If the foregoing description of the people of God do not agree with the state of thy soul Is it then a hard question whether thou shalt ever be saved Even as hard a question as whether God be true or the Scripture be his Word Cannot I certainly tell that
ANd as the damned will have clearer and deeper apprehensions of the Happiness which they have lost so will they have a truer and closer application of this Doctrine to themselves which will exceedingly tend to encrease their torment It will then be no hard matter to them to say This is my loss and this is my everlasting remediless misery The want of this is the main cause why they are now so little troubled at their condition They are hardly brought to believe that there is such a state of misery but more hardly to believe that it is like to be their own This makes so many Sermons to them to be lost and all threatnings and warnings to prove in vain Let a Minister of Christ shew them their misery never so plainly and faithfully and they will not be perswaded that they are so miserable Let him tell them of the Glory they must lose and the sufferings they must feel and they think it is not They whom he means such a Drunkard or such a notorious sinner they think may possibly come to such a doleful end but they little think that they are so neer it themselves We finde in all our Preaching by sad experience that it is one of the hardest things in the world to bring a wicked man to know that he is wicked and a man who is posting in the way to Hell to know that he is in that way indeed or to make a man see himself in a state of wrath and condemnation Yea though the Preacher do mark him out by such undoubted signs which he cannot deny yet will he not apply them nor be brought to say It is my case Though we shew them the Chapter and the Verse where it is written that without Regeneration and Holiness none shall see God and though they know no such work that was ever wrought upon themselves nay though they might easily finde by their strangeness to the new Birth and by their very enmity to Holiness that they were never partakers of them yet do they as verily expect to see God and to be saved as if they were the most sanctified persons in the world It is a most difficult work to make a proud person know that he is proud or a covetous man to know that he is covetous or an ignorant or erronious heretical man to know himself to be such a one indeed But to make any of these to confess the sin and to apply the threatning and to believe themselves the children of wrath this is to Humane strength an impossibility How seldom do you hear men after the plainest discovery of their condemned state to cry out and say I am the man or to acknowledg that if they dye in their present condition they are undone for ever And yet Christ hath told us in his Word That the most of the world are in that estate yea and the most of those that have the preaching of the Gospel For many are called but few are chosen so that it is no wonder that the worst of men are not now troubled at their loss of Heaven and at their eternal misery because if we should convince them by the most undeniable Arguments yet we cannot bring them to acknowledg it If we should Preach to them as long as we have breath we cannot make them believe that their danger is so great except a man rise from the dead and tell them of that place of torments and tell them that their merry Jovial friends who did as verily think to be saved as they are now in hell in those flames they will not believe Nay more though such a Messenger from the dead should appear and speak to them and warn them that they come not to that place of torments and tell them that such and such of their dear beloved worshipfull or honorable friends are now there destitute of a drop of water yet would they not be perswaded by all this For Christ hath said so That if they will not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one should rise from the dead There is no perswading them of their misery till they feel it except the Spirit of the Almighty do perswade them Oh but when they finde themselves suddenly in the land of darkness and perceive by the execution of the sentence that they were indeed condemned and feel themselves in the scorching flames and see that they are shut out of the presence of God for ever it will then be no such difficult matter to convince them of their misery This particular Application of Gods Anger to themselves will then be the easiest matter in the world then they cannot chuse but know and apply it whether they will or no. If you come to a man that hath lost a leg or an arm or a childe or goods or house or his health is it any hard matter to bring this man to apply it and to acknowledg that the loss is his own or that the pain which he feels in his sickness is his own I think not Why it will be far more easie for the wicked in hell to apply their misery in the loss of heaven because their loss is incomparably greater O this Application which now if we should dye we cannot get them to for prevention of their loss will then be part of their torment it self O that they could then say It is not my case But their dolourous voyces will then rore out these forced confessions O my misery O my folly O my unconceiveable unrecoverable loss SECT IV. 4. AGain as the Understandings and Consciences of sinners will be strengthened against them so also will their Affections be then more lively and enlarged then now they are As Judgment will be no longer so blinded nor Conscience stifled and bribed as now it is so the Affections will be no longer so stupified and dead A hard heart now makes Heaven and Hell to seem but trifles And when we have shewed them everlasting Glory and Misery they are as men half asleep they scarce take notice what we say our words are cast as stones against a hard wall which fly back in the face of him that casteth them but make no impression at all where they fall We talk of terrible astonishing things but it is to dead men that cannot apprehend it We may rip up their wounds and they never feel us we speak to Rocks rather then to men the earth will as soon tremble as they O but when these dead wretches are revived what passionate sensibility what working Affections what pangs of horror what depth of sorrow will there then be How violently will they fly in their own faces How will they rage against their former madness The lamentations of the most passionate wife for the loss of her husband or of the tenderest mother for the loss of her children will be nothing to theirs for the loss of heaven O the self-accusing and self-tormenting fury
might have obtained it If I had striven I might have had the mastery If I had fought valiantly I had been crowned SECT VIII THirdly It will yet more torment them to remember not only the possibility but the great Probability that once they were in to obtain the Crown and prevent the misery It will then wound them to think Why I had once the gales of the spirit ready to have assisted me I was fully purposed to have been another man to have cleaved to Christ and to have forsook the world I was almost resolved to have been wholly for God I was once even turning from my base seducing lusts I was purposed never to take them up again I had even cast off my old companions and was resolved to have associated my self with the godly And yet I turned back and lost my hold and broak my promises and slacked my purposes Almost God had perswaded me to be a reall Christian and yet I conquered those perswasions What workings were in my heart when a faithfull Minister pressed home the truth O how fair was I once for Heaven I had almost had it and yet I have lost it If I had but followed on to seek the Lord and brought those beginnings to maturity and blown up the spark of desires and purposes which were kindled in me I had now been blessed among the Saints Thus will it wound them to remember what hopes they once had and how a little more might have brought them over to Christ and have set their feet in the way of peace SECT IX FOurthly Furthermore it will exceedingly torment them to remember the fair opportunity that once they had but now have lost To look back upon an age spent in vanity when his salvation lay at the stake To think How many weeks and months and yeers did I lose which if I had improved I might now have been happy Wretch that I was Could I finde no time to study the work for which I had all my time Had I no time among all my labours to labour for eternity Had I time to eat and drink and sleep and work and none to seek the saving of my soul Had I time for sports and mirth and vain discourse and none for prayer or meditation on the life to come Could I take time to look to my estate in the world And none to try my title to Heaven and to make sure of my spirituall and everlasting state O pretious time whither art thou fled I had once time enough and now I must have no more I had so much that I knew not what to do with it I was fain to devise pastimes and to talk it away and trifle it away and now it is gone and cannot be recalled O the golden hours that I did enjoy Had I spent but one yeer of all those yeers or but one month of all those months in through examination and unfeigned conversion and earnest seeking God with my whole heart it had been happy for me that ever I was born But now its past my dayes are cut off my glass it run my Sun is set and will rise no more God himself did hold me the candle that I might do his work and I loitered till it was burnt out And now how fain would I have more but cannot O that I had but one of those yeers to live over again O that it were possible to recall one day one hour of that time Oh that God would turn me into the world and try me once again with another lives time How speedily would I repent How earnestly would I pray And lye on my knees day and night How diligently would I hear How carefully would I examine my spirituall state How watchfully would I walk How strictly would I live But it s now too late alas too late I abused my time to vanity whilest I had it and now I must suffer justly for that abuse Thus will the remembrance of the time which they lost on earth be a continuall torment to these condemned souls SECT X. FIfthly And yet more will it add to their calamity to remember how often they were perswaded to return both by the ministery in publike and in private by all their godly faithfull friends every request and exhortation of the Minister will now be as a fiery dart in his spirit How fresh will every Sermon come now into his minde even those that he had forgotten as soon as heard them He even seems to hear still the voice of the Minister and to see his tears O how fain would he have had me to have escaped these torments How earnestly did he intreat me With what love and tender compassion did he beseech me How did his bowels yearn over me And yet I did but make a jest of it and hardened my heart against all this How oft did he convince me that all was not well with me And yet I stifled all these convictions How plainly did he rip up my sores And open to me my very heart And shew me the unsoundness and deceitâ—fulness of it And yet I was loath to know the worst of my self and therefore shut mine eyes and would not see O how glad would he have been after all his study and prayers and pains if he could but have seen me cordially entertain the truth and turn to Christ He would have thought himself well recompenced for all his labors and sufferings in his work to have seen me converted and made happy by it And did I withstand and make light of all this Should any have been more willing of my happiness then my self Had not I more cause to desire it then he Did it not more neerly concern me It was not he but I that was to suffer for my obstinacie He would have laid his hands under my feet to have done me good he would have fallen down to me upon his knees to have begged my obedience to his message if that would have prevailed with my hardened heart O how deservedly do I now suffer these flames who was so forewarned of them and so intreated to escape them Nay my friends my parents my godly neighbours did admonish and exhort me They told me what would come of my wilfulness and negligence at last but I did neither believe them nor regard them Magistrates were fain to restrain me from sinning by Law and punishment Was not the foresight of this misery sufficient to restraine me Thus wil the Remembrance of all the means that ever they enjoyed be fuell to feed the flames in their consciences O that sinners would but think of this when they sit under the plain instruction and pressing exhortations of a faithfull Ministry How dear they must pay for all this if it do not prevaile with them And how they will wish a thousand times in the anguish of their souls that they had either obeyed his doctrine or had never heard him The melting words of
easie conditions the Crown was tendered to them If their work had been to remove Mountains to conquer Kingdoms to fulfill the Law to the smallest tittle then the impossibility would somewhat asswage the rage of their self-accusing conscience If their conditions for heaven had been the satisfying of Justice for all their transgressions the suffering of all that the Law did lay upon them or bearing that burden which Christ was fain to bear Why this were nothing but to suffer Hell to escape hell but their conditions were of another nature The yoke was light and the burden was easie which Jesus Christ would have laid upon them his commandments were not grievous It was but to repent of their former transgressions and cordially to accept him for their Saviour and their Lord to study his will and seek his face to renounce all other happiness but that which he procureth us and to take the Lord alone for our Supream Good to renounce the government of the world and the flesh and to submit to his meek and gratious government to forsake the wayes of our own devising and to walk in his holy delightfull way to engage our selves to this by Covenant with him and to continue faithfull in that Covenant These were the tearms on which they might have enjoyed the Kingdom And was there any thing unreasonable in all this Or had they any thing to object against it Was it a hard bargain to have Heaven upon these conditions When all the price that is required is only our Accepting it in that way that the Wisdom of our Lord thinks meet to bestow it And for their want of ability to perform this it consisteth chiefly in their want of will If they were but willing they should finde that God would not be backward to assist them If they be willing Christ is much more willing O when the poor tormented wretch shall look back upon these easie tearms which he refused and compare the labour of them with the pains and loss which he there sustaineth it cannot be now conceived how it will rent his very heart Ah thinks he how justly do I suffer all this who would not be at so small cost and pains to avoid it Where was my understanding when I neglected that gratious offer When I called the Lord a hard Master and thought his pleasant service to be a bondage and the service of the Divel and my flesh to be the only delight and freedom Was I not a thousand times worse then mad when I censured the holy way of God as needless preciseness And cryed out on it as an intollerable burden When I thought the Laws of Christ too strict and all too much that I did for the life to come O what had all the trouble of duty been in comparison of the trouble that I now sustain Or all the sufferings for Christ and wel-doing in comparison of these sufferings that I must undergo for ever What if I had spent my dayes in the strictest life that ever did Saint what if I had lived still upon my knees What if I had lost my credit with men and been hated of all men for the sake of Christ and born the reproach and scorn of the foolish What if I had been imprisoned or banished or put to death O what had all this been to the miseries that I now must suffer Then had my sufferings now been all over vvhereas they do but now begin but vvill never end Would not the heaven vvhich I have lost have recompenced all my losses and should not all my sufferings have been there forgotten What if Christ had bid me do some great matter as to live in continual tears and sorrow to suffer death a hundred times over vvhich yet he did not should I not have done it How much more vvhen he said but Believe and be saved Seek my face and thy soul shall live Love me above all vvalk in my sweet and holy vvay take up thy Cross and follow me and I vvill save thee from the vvrath of God and I vvill give thee everlasting life O gracious offer O easie tearms O cursed wretch that vvould not be perswaded to accept them SECT XIII EIghthly Furthermore this also will be a most tormenting Consideration to remember what they sold their eternal welfare for and what it was that they had for heaven when they compare the value of the pleasures of sin with the value of the recompence of reward which they forsook for those pleasures how will the vast disproportion astonish them To think of a few merry hours a few pleasant cups or sweet morsels a little ease or low delight to the flesh the applauding breath of the mouth of mortal men or the possession of so much gold or earth and then to think of the everlasting glory what a vast difference between them will then appear To think This is all I had for my soul my God my hopes of â—â—lessedness It cannot possibly be expressed how these thoughts will tear his very heart Then will he exclaim against his folly O deservedly miserable wretch Did I set my soul to sale on so base a price Did I part with my God for a little dirt and dross and sell my Saviour as Judas for a little silver O for how small a matter have I parted with my Happiness I had but a dream of delight for my hopes of heaven and now I am awaked it is all vanished where are now my honors and attendance who doth applaud me or trumpet out my praises where is the Cap and Knee that was wont to do me reverence my Morsels now are turned to Gall and my Cups to Wormwood They delighted me no longer then while they were passing down when they were past my taste the pleasure perished And is this all that I have had for the inestimable treasure O what a mad exchange did I make what if I had gained all the world and lost my soul would it have been a saving match But alas how small a part of the world was it for which I gave up my part in Glory O that sinners would forethink of this when they are swimming in delights of flesh and studying how to be rich and honorable in the world when they are desperately venturing upon known transgression and sinning against the checks of Conscience SECT XIV NInthly Yet much more will it add unto their torment when they consider that all this-was their own doings and that they most wilfully did procure their own destruction Had they been forced to sin whether they would or no it would much abate the rage of their consciences Or if they were punished for another mans transgressions or if any other had been the chiefest author of their ruine But to think that it was the choice of their own will and that God had set them in so free a condition that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their
people to this beliefâ— so is it the hardest task almost that we meet with to convince men 〈◊〉 the ungroundedness of this belief and to break that peace 〈…〉 maintaineth in their souls Neither do I know a 〈…〉 of mens destruction then such a misbelief Who will â—eek for that which he believes he hath already This is the great engine of Hell to make men go merrily to their own perdition I know men cannot believe Christ or believe in or upon Christ either too soon or too much But they may believe or judg that themselves are pardoned adopted and in favour with God too soon and too much For a false judgment is always too much and too soon As true grounded Faith is the master grace in the Regenerate and of greatest use in the Kingdom of Christ so is a false ungrounded faith the master vice in the unregenerate soul and of greatest use in the Kingdom of Satan Why do such a multitude sit still when they might have pardon for the seeking but that they verily think they are pardoned already Why do men live so contentedly in the power of the devil walk so carelesly in the certain way to Hel but that they think their way wil have no such end and that the Divel hath nothing to do with them they defie him they spit at the mention of his name If you could aske so many 1000 as are now in Hell What madness could cause you to come hither voluntarily or to follow Satan to this place of torment when you might follow Christ to the land of Rest They would most of them answer you VVe believed that we had followed towards Salvation and that the way which we were in would have brought us to Heaven VVe made sure account of being saved till we found our selves damned and never feared Hell till we were suddenly in it we would have renounced our sinfull courses and companions but that we thought we might have them and heaven too VVe would have sought after Christ more heartily but that we thought we had part in him already VVe would have been more earnest seekers of Regeneration and the power of godliness but that we verily thought we were Christians before O if we had known as much as now we know what lives would we have led what persons would we have been But we have flattered our selves into these unsufferable torments VVe were told of this before from the word of God but we would not believe it till we felt it and now there is no remedy Reader do but stop and think here with thy self how sad a Case this is That men should so resolutely cheat themselves of their Everlasting Rest The Lord grant it never prove thy own case I would be very loath to weaken the true faith of the meanest Christian or to perswade any man that his faith is false when it is true God forbid that I should so disparage that pretious grace which hath the stamp of the spirit or so trouble the soul that Christ would have to be comforted But I must needs in faithfullness tell thee that the confident belief of their good estate and of the pardon of their sins which the careless unholy unhumbled multitude amongst us do so commonly boast of will prove in the end but a soul-damning delusion It hath made me ready to tremble many a time to hear a drunken ungodly unfaithful Minister as confidently in his formall prayers in the Pulpit give God thanks for Vocation Justification Sanctification and assured hope of Glorification as if he had been a most assured Saint when it may be his Sermon was intended to reproch the Saints and to jeer at Sanctification Me thoughts I even heard the Pharisee say I thank thee that I am not as other men Or Corah Are not all the people holy every one How commonly do men thank God for these which they never received nor ever shall do How many have thanked God for pardon of sin who are now tormented for it and for Sanctification and assured hope of Glory who are now shut out of that Inheritance of the Sanctified I warrant you ther 's none of this believing in hell nor any perswasions of pardon or happiness nor any boasting of their honesty nor justifying of themselves This was but Satans stratagem that being blindfold they might follow him the more boldly but then he will uncover their eyes and they shall see where they are SECT III. 2. ANother addition to the misery of the damned will be this That with the loss of heaven they shall lose also all their hopes In this life though they were threatned with the wrath of God yet their hope of escaping it did bear up their hearts And when they were wounded with the terrors of the Word they lick't all whole again with their groundless hopes but then they shall part with their hopes and heaven together We can now scarce speak with the vilest Drunkard or Swearer or covetous Wordling or scorner at Godliness but he hopes to be saved for all this If you should go to all the Congregation or Town or Countrey and ask them one by one whether they hope to be saved how few shall you meet with that will not say yea or that make any great question of it But O happy world if Salvation were as common as this Hope Even those whose hellish nature is written in the face of their conversation that he that runs may read it whose tongues plead the cause of the devil and speak the language of hell and whose delight is in nothing but the works of the flesh yet these do strongly hope for heaven though the God of heaven hath told them over and over again in his Word that no such as they shall ever come there Though most of the world shall eternally perish and the Judg of the world himself hath told us that of the many that are called yet but few are chosen yet almost all do hope for it and cannot endure any man that doth but question their hopes Let but their Minister Preach against their false hopes or their best friend come to them and say I am afraid your present hopes of heaven will deceive you I see you minde not your soul your heart is not set upon Christ and heaven you do not so much as pray to God and worship him in your Family and the Scripture gives you not the least hope of being saved in such a condition as this is How ill would they take such an admonition as this and bid the Admonisher look to himself and let them alone he should not answer for them they hope to be saved as soon as these preciser men that pray and talk of heaven so much Nay so strong are these mens hopes that they will dispute the case with Christ himself at Judgment and plead their eating and drinking in his presence their Preaching in his Name and casting out devils and these are
more probable Arguments then our Baptism and common Profession and name of Christians they will stifly deny that ever they neglected Christ in hunger nakedness prison c. and if they did yet that is less then stripping imprisoning banishing or killing Christ in his Members till Christ confute them with the sentence of their condemnation Though the heart of their hopes will be broken at their death and particular Judgment yet it seems they would fain plead for some hope at the general Judgment But O the sad state of these men when they must bid farewell to all their Hopes when their Hopes shall all perish with them Reader if thou wilt not believe this it is because thou wilt not believe the Scriptures The holy Ghost hath spoke it as plain as can be spoken Prov. 11.7 When a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust men perisheth Prov. 10.28 The hope of the righteous shall be gladness but the expectation of the wicked shall perish See Isai. 28.15 18. Job 27.8 9. For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Job 8.12 13 14. Can the Rush grow up without mire Can the Flag grow without water whilst it is yet in its greeness not cut down it withereth before any other herb So are the paths of all that forget God and the Hypocrites hope shall perish whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a Spiders Web He shall leane upon his house but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure Job 11.20 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape and their hope shall be as the giving up of the Ghost The giving up of the Ghost is a fit but terrible resemblance of a wicked mans giving up of his hopes For first As the soul departeth not from the body without the greatest terror and pain so also doth the hope of the wicked depart O the direful gripes and pangs of horror that seize upon the soul of the sinner at Death and Judgment when he is parting with all his former hopes Secondly The soul departeth from the body suddenly in a moment which hath there delightfully continued so many years Just so doth the hope of the wicked depart Thirdly The soul which then departeth will never return to live with the body in this world any more and the hope of the wicked when it departeth taketh an everlasting Farewel of his soul. A miracle of Resurrection shall again conjoyn the soul and body but there shall be no such miraculous Resurrection of the damned's hope Me thinks it is the most doleful Spectacle that this world affords to see such an ungodly person dying and to think of his soul and his hopes departing together and with what a sad change he presently appeares in another world Then if a man could but speak with that hopeless soul and ask it what are you now as confident of salvation as you were wont to be Do you now hope to be saved as soon as the most godly O what a sad answer would he return They are just like Corah Dathan and their Companions while they are confident in their Rebellion against the Lord and cry out Are not all the people holy They are suddenly swallowed up and their hopes with them Or like Ahah who hating and imprisoning the Prophet for foretelling his danger while he is in confident hopes to return in peace is suddenly smitten with that mortal Arrow which let out those hopes together with his soul Or like a Thief upon the Gallows who hath a strong conceit that he shall receive a Pardon and so hopes and hopes till the Ladder is turned Or like the unbelieving sinners of the world before the Flood who would not believe the threatnings of Noah but perhaps deride him for preparing his Ark so many years together when no danger appeared till suddenly the Flood came and swept them all away If a man had asked these men when they were climbing up into the tops of Trees and Mountains VVhere is now your hope of escaping Or your merry deriding at the painful preventing preparations of godly Noah Or your contemptuous unbelief of the warnings of God What do you think these men would then say when the waters still pursued them from place to place till it devoured their hopes and them together Or if one had asked Ahab when he had received his wound and turned out of the battel to die what think you now of the Prophesie of Micaiah will you release him out of prison do you now hope to return in peace Why such a sudden overthrow of their hopes will every unregenerate sinner receive While they were upon earth they frustrated the expectations as I may say of God and man God sent his messengers to tell them plainly of their danger and said It may be they will hear and return and escape but they stiffened their necks and hardened their hearts The Minister studied and instructed and perswaded in hope And when one Sermon prevailed not he laboured to speak more plainly and piercingly in the next in hope that at last they would be perswaded and return till their hopes were frustrate and their labor lost and they were fain to turn their exhortation to lamentation and to sit down in sorrow for mens wilful misery and take up the sad exclamation of the Prophet Isai. 53.1 Who hath believed our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed So did godly parents also instruct their children in Hope and watch over them and pray for them hoping that at last their hearts would turn to Christ. And is it not meet that God should frustrate all their hopes who have frustrated the hopes of all that desired their welfare O that careless sinners would be awaked to think of this in time If thou be one of them who art reading these lines I do here as a friend advise thee from the word of the Lord that as thou wouldst not have all thy Hopes deceive thee when thou hast most need of them thou presently try them whether they will prove currant at the touchstone of the Scripture and if thou finde them unsound let them go what sorrow soever it cost thee Rest not till thou canst give a reason of all thy hopes till thou canst prove that they are the hopes which grace and not nature only hath wrought that they are grounded upon Scripture-promises and sound evidences that they purifie thy heart that they quicken and not cool thy endeavours in godliness that the more thou hopest the lesse thou sinnest and the more painful thou art in following on the work and not grow more loose and careless by the increasing of thy hopes that they make thee set lighter by all things on earth because thou hast such hopes of higher
and drinking marrying and giving in marriage till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the Flood came and took them all away So will the coming of Christ be and so will the coming of their particular judgment be For saith the Apostle when they say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a woman with childe and they shall not escape 1 Thes. 5.3 O cruel Peace which ends in such a War Reader If this be thy own case if thou hast no other peace in thy Conscience then this ungrounded self-created peace I could heartily wish for thy own sake that thou wouldst cast it off As I would not have any humble gratious soul to vex their own consciences needlesly nor to disquiet and discompose their spirits by troubles of their own making nor to unfit themselves for duty nor interrupt their comfortable communion with God nor to weaken their bodies or cast themselves into Melancholy distempers to the scandal of Religion so would I not have a miserable wretch who lives in daily and hourly danger of dropping into Hell to be as merry and as quiet as if all were well with him It is both unseemly and unsafe more unseemly then to see a man go laughing to the Gallows and more unsafe then to favor the Gangren'd member which must be cut off or to be making merry when the enemy is entring our Habitations Mens first peace is usually a false peace it is a second peace which is brought into the soul upon the casting out of the first which will stand good and yet not alway that neither for where the change is by the halves the second or third peace may be unsound as well as the first as many a man that casteth away the peace of his Prophaness doth take up the peace of meer Civility and morality or if he yet discover the unsoundness of that and is cast into trouble then he healeth all with outward Religiousness or with a half Christianity and there he taketh up with peace This is but driving Satan out of one room into another but till he be cast out of possession the peace is unsound Hear what Christ saith Luke 11.21.22 When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace but when a stronger then he shall come upon him and overcome him he taketh from him all his Armour wherein he trusted and devideth his spoils The soul of every man by nature is Satans Garrison all is at peace in such a man till Christ comes when Christ storms this heart he breaks the peace he giveth it most terrible Alarms of Judgment and Hell he battereth it with the Ordnance of his Threatnings and Terrors he sets all in a combustion of Fear and Sorrow till he have forced it to yield to his meer mercy and take him for the Governor and Satan is cast out and then doth he establish a firm and lasting Peace If therefore thou art yet but in that first peace and thy heart was never yet either taken by storm or delivered up freely to Jesus Christ never think that thy peace will indure Can the soul have peace which is at enmity with Christ or stands out against him or thinks his Government too severe and his Conditions hard Can he have peace against whom God proclaimeth war I may say to thee as Jehu to Joram when he asked Is it peace What peace while the whordoms of thy mother Jezabel remain So thou art desirous to hear nothing from the mouth of a Minister but peace but what peace can there be till thou hast cast away thy wickedness and thy first peace and made thy peace with God through Christ Wilt thou believe God himself in this Case Why read then what he saith twice over Isai. 48.22 and 57.21 There is no peace saith my God to the wicked And hath he said it and shall it not stand Sinner Though thou maist now harden and fortifie thy heart against Fear and Grief and Trouble yet as true as God is true they will batter down thy proud and fortified spirit and seize upon it and drive thee to amazement This will be done either here or hereafter My counsel therefore to thee is that thou presently examine the grounds of thy peace and say I am now at ease and quiet in my minde but is it grounded and will it be lasting Is the danger of eternal Judgment over Am I sure my sins are pardoned and my soul shall be saved If not alas what cause of peace I may be in hell before the next day for ought I know Certainly a man that stands upon the Pinacle of a Steeple or that sleeps on the top of the main Mast or that is in the heat of the most bloody fight hath more cause of peace and carelesness then thou Why thou livest under the wrath of God continually thou art already sentenced to eternal death and maist every hour expect the execution till thou have sued out a pardon through Christ. I can shew thee a hundred threatnings in Scripture which are yet in force against thee but canst thou shew me one Promise for thy safety an hour What assurance hast thou when thou goest forth of thy doors that thou shalt ever come in again I should wonder but that I know the desperate hardness of the heart of man how a man that is not sure of his peace with God could eat or drink or sleep or live in peace That thou art not afraid when thou liest down lest thou shouldst awake in hell or when thou risest up lest thou shouldest be in hell before night or when thou sittest in thy house that thou still fearest not the approach of death or some fearful Judgment seizing upon thee and that the threats and sentence are not alwayes sounding in thy ears Well if thou were the nearest friend that I have in the world in this case that thou art in I could wish thee no greater good then that God would break in upon thy careless heart and shake thee out of thy false peace and cast thee into trouble that when thou feelest thy heart at ease thou wouldest remember thy misery that when thou art pleasing thy self with thy estate or business or labours thou wouldest still remember the approaching wo that thou wouldest cry out in the midst of thy pleasant discourse and merry company O how neer is the great and dreadful change that what ever thou art doing God would make thee read thy sentence as if it were still written before thine eyes and which way soever thou goest he would still meet thee full in the face with the sense of his wrath as the Angel did Balaam with a drawn sword till he had made thee cast away thy groundless peace and lye down at the feet of Christ whom thou hast resisted and say Lord what wouldest thou have me to do and so receive from him a surer and better peace
of others that think so too and to love them that have low thoughts of him as well as those that have high to bear easily the injuries or undervaluing words of others against him to lay all that he hath at the feet of Christ and to prefer his Service and Favor before all to prepare to die and willingly to leave all to come to Christ c. This outside Hypocrite will never be perswaded to any of these Above all other two notable sorts there are of these Hypocrites First The superficial opinionative Hypocrite Secondly The worldly Hypocrite First The former entertaineth the Doctrine of the Gospel with Joy but it is onely into the surface of his soul he never gives the seed any depth of earth It changeth his opinion and he thereupon ingageth for Religion as the right way and sides with it as a party in a Faction but it never melted and new molded his heart nor set up Christ there in full Power and Authority but as his Religion lyes most in his Opinion so he usually runs from Opinion to Opinion and is carried up and down with every winde of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in weight to deceive and as a childe is tossed too and fro for as his Religion is but Opinion so is his Study and Conference and chief business all about Opinion He is usually an ignorant proud bold unreverent enquirer and babler about controversies rather then an humble embracer of the known truth with love and subjection you may conjecture by his bold and forward tongue and groundless conceitedness in his own Opinions and sleighting of the Judgments and persons of others and seldom talking of the great things of Christ with seriousness and humility that his Religion dwelleth in his brain and not in his heart where the winde of Temptation assaults him he easily yieldeth and it carrieth him away as a Feather because his heart is empty and not ballaced and stablished with Christ and Grace If the Temptation of the Times do assault mens Understandings and the sign be in the Head though the little Religion that he hath lyes there yet a hundred to one but he turneth Heretick or catcheth the Vertigo of some lesser errors according to the nature and strength of the seducement If the winde do better serve for a vicious conversation a hundred to one but he turns a purveyor for the flesh and then he can be a Tipler and yet religious a Gamster a Wanton a neglecter of Duties and yet religious If this mans Judgment â—ead him the Ceremonious way then doth he imploy his chiefest zeal for Ceremonies as if his Religion lay in Bowing Kneeling observation of Dayes number and form of words in Prayer with a multitude of Traditions and Customs of his Forefathers If his Judgment be against Ceremonies then his strongest zeal is imployed against them studying talking disputing against them censuring the users of them and perhaps fall into a contrary superstition placing his chief Religion in Baptism Church Combinations and forms of Policy c. For having not his soul taken up with the essentials of Christianity he hath onely the Mint and Cummin the smaller matters of the Law to lay out his zeal upon You shall never hear in private conference any humble and hearty bewailings of his souls imperfections or any heart bleeding acknowledgments of his unkindnesses to Christ or any pantings and longings after him from this man but that he is of such a Judgment or such a Religion or Party or Society or a Member of such a Church herein doth he gather his greatest comforts but the inward and spiritual labours of a Christian he will not be brought to Secondly The like may be said of the worldly Hypocrite who choaketh the Doctrine of the Gospel with the thorns of worldly cares and desires His Judgment is convinced that he must be Religious or he cannot be saved and therefore he reads and hears and prays and forsakes his former company and courses but because his belief of the Gospel-Doctrine is but wavering and shallow he resolves to keep his hold of present things lest the promise of Rest should fail him and yet to be religious that so he may have heaven when he can keep the world no longer thinking it wisdom to have two strings to his bow lest one should break This mans Judgment may say God is the chief good but his heart and affections never said so but look upon God as a kinde of strange and disproportionate Happiness to be tollerated rather then the flames of hell but not desired before the felicity on earth In a word the world hath more of his Affections then God and therefore is his God and his Coveteousness is Idolatry This he might easily know and feel if he would judg impartially and were but faithful to himsef And though this man do not gad after Opinions and Novelties in his Religion as the former yet will he set his sails to the winde of worldly advantage and be of that opinion which will best serve his turn And as a man whose spirits are seised on by some pestilential malignity is feeble and faint and heartless in all that he does so this mans spirits being possessed by the plague of this malignant worldly disposition O how faint is he in secret prayer O how superficial in Examination and meditation How feeble in heart-watchings and humbling mortifying endeavours how nothing at all in loving and walking with God rejoycing in him or desiring after him so that both these and many other sorts of lazy Hypocrites there are who though they will trudge on with you in the easie outside of Religion yet will never be at the pains of inward and spiritual duties SECT V. 4. ANd even the godly themselves deserve this Reproof for being too lazie seekers of their everlasting Rest. Alas what a disproportion is there betwixt our Light and our Heat our Professions and Prosecution who makes that haste as if it were for heaven How still we stand how idly we work how we talk and jest and trifle away our time how deceitfully we do the Work of God! how we hear as if we heard not and pray as if we prayed not and confer and examine and meditate and reprove sin as if we did it not and use the Ordinances as if we used them not and injoy Christ as if we injoyed him not as if we had learned to use the things of heaven as the Apostle teacheth us to use the world Who would think that stood by us and heard us pray in private or publike that we were praying for no less then everlasting glory should heaven be sought no more earnestly then thus Me thinks we are none of us all in good-sadness for our souls We do but dally with the Work of God and play with Christ as children we play with our meat when we should eat it
speak sense or reason But in a word our want of seriousness about the things of Heaven doth charme the souls of men into formality and hath brought them to this customary careless hearing which undoes them The Lord pardon the great sin of the Ministery in this thing and in particular my own And are the people any more serious then Magistrates and Ministers How can it be expected Reader look but to thy self and resolve the question Ask conscience and suffer it to tell thee truely Hast thou set thine Eternal Rest before thine eyes as the great business which thou hast to do in this world Hast thou studied and cared and watcht and labored and laid about thee with all thy might lest any should take thy Crown from thee Hast thou made hast lest thou shouldest come too late and dye before the work be done Hath thy very heart been set upon it and thy desires and thoughts run out this way Hast thou pressed on through crowdes of opposition towards the Mark for this price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus still reaching forth unto those things which are before When you have set your hand to the work of God have you done it with all your might Can conscience witness your secret cries and groans or teares Can your families witness that you have taught them the fear of the Lord and warned them all with earnestness and unweariedness to remember God and their souls and to provide for Everlasting Or that you have done but as much for them as that damned Glutton would have had Lazarus do for his brethren on earth to warn them that they come not to that place of Torment Can your Ministers witness that they have heard you cry out What shall we do to be saved and that you have followed them with complaints against your corruptions and with earnest enquiries after the Lord Can your neighbors about you witness that you are still learning of them that are able to instruct you and that you plainly and roundly reprove the ungodly and take pains for the saving of your brethrens souls Let all these witnesses Judg this day between God and you Whether you are in good sadness about the affaires of Eternall Rest. But if yet you cannot discern your neglects Look but to your selves within you without you to the work you have done you can tell by his work whether your servant have loytered though you did not see him so you may by your selves Is your love to Christ your faith your zeal and other graces strong or weak What are your joyes what is your Assurance Is all right and strong and in order within you Are you ready to dye if this should be the day Do the souls among whom you have conversed bless you Why Judg by this and it will quickly appear whether you have been Labourers or Loyterers O Blessed Rest how unworthily art thou neglected O glorious Kingdom how art thou undervalued Little know the careless sons of men what a state they set so light by If they once knew it they would sure be of another minde CHAP. VI. An Exhortation to Seriousness in seeking Rest. SECT I. I Hope Reader by this time thou art somewhat sensible what a desperate thing it is to trifle about our Eternal Rest and how deeply thou hast been guilty of this thy self And I hope also that thou darest not now suffer this Conviction to dye but art resolved to be another man for the time to come What sayst thou Is this thy Resolution If thou were sick of some desperate disease and the Physitian should tell thee If you will observe but one thing I doubt not to cure you wouldst thou not observe it Why if thou wilt observe but this one thing for thy Soul I make no doubt of thy Salvation If thou wilt now but shake off thy sloath and put to all thy strength and ply the work of God unweariedly and be a down-right Christian in good sadness I know not what can hinder thy Happiness As far as thou art gone from God if thou wouldst but now return and seek him with all thy heart no doubt but thou shalt find him As unkindly as thou hast dealt with Jesus Christ if thou didst but feel thy self sick and dead and seek him heartily and apply thy self in good earnest to the obedience of his Laws thy Salvation were as sure as if thou hadst it already But as full as the Satisfaction of Christ is as free as the Promise is as large as the Mercy of God is yet if thou do but look on these and talk of them when thou shouldst greedily entertain them thou wilt be never the better for them and if thou loiter when thou shouldst labour thou wilt lose the Crown Oh fall to work then speedily and seriously and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it and though that which is past cannot be recalled yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence And because thou shalt see I urge thee not without cause I will here adjoyn a multitude of Considerations to Move thee yet do I not desire thee to take them by number but by waight Their intent and use is to drive thee from Delaying and from Loytering in seeking Rest And to all men do I propound them both Godly and ungodly Whoever thou art therefore I entreat thee to rouze up thy spirit and read them deliberately and give me a little while thy attention as to a message from God and as Moses said to the people Deut. 32.46 Set thy heart to all the words that I testifie to thee this day for it is not a vain thing but it is for thy Life Weigh what I here wright with the Judgment of a man and if I speak not Reason throw it back in my face but if I do see thou entertain and obey it accordingly and the Lord open thy heart and fasten his counsel effectually upon thee SECT II. 1. COnsider Our Affections and Actions should be somewhat answerable to the Greatness of the Ends to which they are intended Now the Ends of a Christians Desires and Endeavors are so Great that no humane understanding on earth can comprehend them whether you respect their proper Excellency their exceeding Importance or their absolute Necessity These Ends are The Glorifying of God The Salvation of our own and other mens Souls in our escaping the Torments of Hell and Possessing the Glory of Heaven And can a man be too much affected with things of such Moment Can he Desire them too Earnestly or Love them too Violently or Labour for them too Diligently When we know that if our prayers prevail not and our labour succeed not we are undone for ever I think it concerns us to seek and labour to the purpose When it is put to the Question Whether we shall live for ever in Heaven or in Hell and the Question must be resolved upon our Obeying
and God should turn you into the world again and try you with another life's time and say I will see whether yet thou wilt be any better What manner of persons would you be If you were to live a thousand years would you not gladly live as strictly as the precisest Saints and spend all those years in prayer and duty so you might but scape the Torment which you suffered How seriously then would you speak of Hell and pray against it and hear and read and watch and obey How earnestly would you admonish the carâ—less to take heed and look about them to prevent their ruine And will you not take Gods Word for the truth of this except you feel it Is it not your wisdom to do as much now to prevent it as you would do to remove it when it is too late Is it not more wisdom to spend this life in labouring for Heaven while you have it then to lie in Torment wishing for more time in Vain 10 Quest. What if you had been possessed but one year of the Glory of Heaven and there joyned with the Saints and Angels in the beholding of God and singing his Praise and afterwards should be turned into the world again What a life would you lead What pains would you take rather then be deprived of such incomparable Glory Would you think any cost too great or diligence too much If one of those that are now in Heaven should come to live on the Earth again what persons would they be What a stir would they make How seriously would they drive on the business of their Salvation The Country would ring of their exceeding Holy and Strict Conversations They would as far excel the Holiest Persons on Earth as they excel the careless world Before they would lose that Blessed Estate they would follow God with cries both day and night and throw away all and suffer every day a Death And should not we do as much to obtain it as they would do to keep it SECT XXV ANd thus I have said enough if not to stir up the lazy sinner to a serious working out his Salvation yet at least to silence him and leave him unexcuseable at the Judgment of God If thou â—anst after the reading of all this go on in the same neglect of God and thy Soul and draw out the rest of thy life in the same dull and careless course as thou hast hitherto done and if thou hast so far conquered and stupified thy Conscience that it will quietly suffer thee to forget all this and to trifle out the rest of thy time in the business of the world when in the mean while thy Salvation is in danger and the Judg is at the door I have then no more to say to thee It is as good speak to a post or a Rock Only as we do by our friends when they are dead and our words and actions can do them no good yet to test me our affections we weep and mourn for them so will I also do for these deplorable Souls It makes my heart sad and even tremble to think how they will stand sad and trembling before the Lord and how confounded and speechless they will be when Christ shall reason with them concerning their negligence and sloath When he shall say as the Lord doth in Jer. 2.5 9 11 12 13. What iniquity have your fathers or you found in me that ye are gone far from me and have walked after vanity c. Did I ever wrong you or do you any harm or ever discourage you from following my service Was my way so bad that you could not endure it or my service so base that you could not stoop to it Did I stoop to the fulfilling of the Law for you and could not you stoop to the fulfilling of the easie Conditions of my Gospel Was the world or Satan a better friend to you then I or had they done for you more then I had done Try now whether they will save you or whether they will recompence you for the loss of Heaven or whether they will be as good to you as I would have been Oh what will the wretched sinner answer to any of this But though man will not hear yet we may have hope in speaking to God Lord smite these Rocks till they gush forth waters Though these ears are deaf say to them Ephata be opened Though these Sinners be dead let that power speak which sometime said Lazarus arise We know they will be wakened at the last Resurrection Oh but then it will be only to their sorrow Oh thou that didst weep and groan in Spirit over a dead Lazarus pity these dead and sensless Souls till they are able to weep and groan for and pity themselves As thou hast bid thy Servant speak so speak now thy self They will hear thy voyes speaking to their hearts that will not hear mine speaking to their ears Long hast thou knocked at these hearts in vain now break the doors and enter in and pass by all their long resistance SECT XXVI YEt I will add a few more words to the Godly in special to shew them why they above all men should be laborious for Heaven and that there is a great deal of Reason that though all the world besides do sit still and be careless yet they should abhor that â—â—â—iness and negligence and should lay out all their strength on the work of God To this end I desire them also to answer soberly to these few Interrogatories 1 Quest. What manner of persons should those be whom God hath chosen out to be Vessels of Mercy and hath given them the very cream and quintescence of his blessings when the rest of the world are passed by and put off with common and temporal and left-hand-Mercies They who have the Blood of Christ given them and the Spirit for Sanctification Consolation and Preservation and the pardon of sins and Adoption to Son-ship and the guard of Angels and the Mediation of the Son of God and the special Love of the Father and the Promise and Seal of Everlasting Rest Do but tell me in good sadness what kind of lives these men should live 2 Quest. What manner of persons should those be who have felt the smart of their negligence so much as the godly have done In the new birth in their several wounds and trouble of Conscience in their doubts and fears in their sharp afflictions on body and state They that have groaned and cryed out so oft under the sense and effects of their negligence and are like enough to feel it again if they do not reform it sure one would think they should be so sloathful no more 3 Quest. What manner of persons should these be in holy diligence who have been so long convinced of the evil of laziness and have confessed on their knees a hundred and a hundred times both in publique and in private and have told God in
tells us plainly who shall be saved and who shall not So that if men would but first search the Word to find out who be these men that shall have Rest and what be their properties by which they may be known and then next search carefully their own hearts till they find whether they are those men or not how could they chuse but come to some Certainty But alas either men understand not the nature and use of this duty or else they will not be at the pains to try Go through a Congregation of a thousand men and how few of them shall you meet with that ever bestowed one hour in all their lives in a close Examination of their title to Heaven Ask thy own Conscience Reader When was the time and where was the place that ever thou solemnly tookest thy heart to task as in the sight of God and examined it by Scripture Interrogatories Whether it be Born again and Renewed or not Whether it be Holy or not Whether it be set most on God or on creatures on Heaven or on Earth and didst follow on this Examination till thou hast discovered thy Condition and so past sentence on thy self accordingly But because this is a Work of so high Concernment and so commonly neglected and mens Souls do so much languish every where under this neglect I will therefore though it be Digressive 1. Shew you That it is possible by trying to come to a Certainty 2. Shew you the hinderances that keep men from trying and from Assurance 3. I will lay down some Motives to perswade you to it 4. I will give you some Directions how you should perform it 5. And lastly I will lay you down some Marks out of Scripture by which you may try and so come to an infallible Certainty Whether you are the People of God for whom this Rest Remaineth or no. And to prepare the way to these I will a little first open to you what Examination is and what that Certainty is which we may expect to attain to SECT III. THis Self-Examination is An enquiry into the course of our lives but more especially into the inward Acts of our Souls and trying of their Sincerity by the Word of God and accordingly Judging of our Real and Relative Estate So that Examination containeth severall Acts 1. There must be the Tryal of the Physical Truth or Sincerity of our Acts That is An enquiry after the very Being of them As whether there be such an Act as Belief or Desire or Love to God within us or not This must be discovered by Conscience and the internal sense of the Soul whereby it is able to feel and perceive its own Acts and to know whether they be Real or Counterfeit 2. The next is The Tryal of the Moral Truth or Sincerity of our Acts Whether they are such as agree with the Rule and the Nature of their Objects This is the discursive work of Reason comparing our Acts with the Rule It implyeth the former knowledg of the Being of our Acts and it implyeth the knowledg of Scripture in the point in question and also the Belief of the Truth of Scripture This Moral Spiritual Truth of our Acts is another thing far different from the Natural or Physical Truth as far as a Mans Being differeth from his Honesty One man loveth his wife under the notion of an harlot or only to satisfie his lust Another loveth his wife with a true Conjugal Affection The former is True Physical Love or true in point of Being but the latter only is True Moral Love The like may be said in regard of all the Acts of the Soul There is a Believing Loving Trusting Fearing Rejoycing all True in point of Being and not counterfeit which yet are all false in point of Morality and right-being and so no gracious Acts at all 3. The third thing contained in the Work of Self-Examination is The Judging or Concluding of our Real Estate that is of the habitual temper or disposition of our Hearts by the quality of their Acts Whether they are such Acts as prove a Habit of Holiness or only some slight Disposition or whether they are only by some Accident enticed and enforced and prove neither Habit nor Disposition The like also of our Evil Acts. Now the Acts which prove a Habit must be 1. Free and chearful not constrained or such as we had rather not do if we could help it 2. Frequent if there be opportunity 3. Through and Serious Where Note also That the Tryal of the Souls Disposition by those Acts which make after the End as Desire Love c. to God Christ Heaven is always more Necessary and more Certain then the tryal of its Disposition to the Means only 4. The last Act in this Examination is To Conclude or Judg of our Relative Estate from the former Judgment of our Acts and Habits As if we find sincere Acts we may Conclude that we have the Habits so from both we may Conclude of our Relation So that our Relations or Habits are neither of them felt or known immediately but must be gathered from the knowledg of our Acts which may be felt As for Example 1. I enquire whether I Believe in Christ or Love God 2. If I find that I do then I enquire next whether I do it sincerely according to the Rule and the Nature of the Object 3. If I find that I do so then I conclude that I am Regenerate or Sanctified 4. And from both these I conclude that I am Pardoned Reconciled Justified and Adopted into sonship and title to the Inheritance All this is done in a way of Reasoning thus 1. He that Believes in Spiritual Sincerity or He that Loves God in Spiritual Sincerity is a Regenerate Man But I do so Believe and Love Therefore I am Regenerate 2. He that Believes in Sincerity or He that is Regenerate for the Conclusion will follow upon either is also Pardoned Justified and Adopted But I do so Believe or I am Regenerate Therefore I am Justified c. SECT IV. THus you see what Examination is Now let us see what this Certainty or Assurance is And indeed It is nothing else but the Knowledg of the forementioned Conclusions that we are Sanctified Justified shall be Glorified as they arise from the premises in the work of Examination So that here you may observe how immediately this Assurance followeth the Conclusion in Examination and so how necessary Examination is to the obtaining of Assurance and how conducible thereunto Also that we are not speaking of the Certainty of the Object or of the thing in it self considered but of the Certainty of the Subject or of the thing to our Knowledg Also you may observe that before we can come to this Certainty of the Conclusion That we are Justified and shall be Glorified there must be a Certainty of the Premises And in respect of the Major Proposition He that Believeth
did not Christ dye to save sinners Never trouble your head with these thoughts but believe and you shall do well Thus do they follow the Soul that is escaping from Satan with restless cries till they have brought him back Oh how many thousands have such chaâ—ms kept a sleep in deceit and security till death and Hell have awaked and better informed them The Lord calls to the sinner and tells him The Gate is strait the way is narrow and few find it Try and examine whether thou be in the faith or no give all diligence to make sure in time And the world cries out clean contrary Never doubt Never trouble your selves with these thoughts I intreat the sinner that is in this strait to consider That it is Christ and not their fathers or mothers or neighbors or friends that must judge them at last and if Christ condemn them these cannot save them and therefore common Reason may tell them that it is not from the words of Ignorant men but from the word of God that they must fetch their comforts and hopes of Salvation When Ahab would enquire among the multitudes of flattering Prophets it was his death They can flatter men into the snare but they cannot tell how to bring them out Oh take the counsel of the Holy Ghost Ephes. 5.6 7. Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things commeth the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience Be not ye therefore partakers with them And Act. 2.40 Save your selves from this untoward generation SECT VIII 3. BUT the greatest hinderances are in mens own hearâ—s 1. Some are so Ignorant that they know not what Self-Examination is nor what a Minister means when he perswadeth them to Try themselves Or they know not that there is any Necessity of it but think every man is bound to Believe that God is his Father and that his sins are pardoned whether it be true or false and that it were a great fault to make any Question of it Or they do not think that Assurance can be attained or that there is any such great differences betwixt one man and another but that we are all Christians and therefore need not to trouble our selves any further Or at least they know not wherein the difference lies nor how to set upon this searching of their hearts nor to find out its secret motions and to judge accordingly They have as gross Conceits of that Regeneration which they must search for as Nicodemus had John 3.5 And when they should Try whether the Spirit be in them they are like those in Act. 19.2 That knoew not whether there were a Holy Ghost to be received or no. 2. Some are such Infidels that they will not Believe that ever God wil make such a difference betwixt men in the life to come and therefore will not search themselves whether they differ here Though Judgment and Resurrection be in their Creed yet they are not in their Faith 3. Some are so Dead-hearted that they perceive not how neerly it doth concern them let us say what we can to them they lay it not to heart but give us the hearing and there 's an end 4. Some are so possessed with Self-love and Pride that they will not so much as suspect any such danger to themselves Like a proud Tradesman who scorns the motion when his friends desire him to cast up his Books because they are afraid he will Break. As some fond Parents that have an over-weening conceit of their own Children and therefore will not believe or hear any evil of them such a fond Self-love doth hinder men from suspecting and trying their states 5. Some are so guilty that they dare not try They are so fearful that they shallâ—find their estates unsound that they dare not search into them And yet they dare venture them to a more dreadful Tryal 6. Some are so far in love with their sin and so far in dislike with the way of God that they dare not fall on the Tryal of their ways least they be forced from the course which they love to that which they loath 7. Some are so Resolved already never to change their present state that they neglect Examination as a useless thing Before they will turn so precise and seek a new way when they have lived so long and gone so far they will put their Eâ—ernal state to the venture come of it what will And when a man is fully resolved to hold on his way and not to turn back be it right or wrong to what end should he enquire whether he bâ— right or no 8. Most men are so taken up with their worldly affairs and are so busie in driving the trade of providing for the flesh that they cannot set themselves to the Trying of their title to Heaven They have another kind of happiness in their eye which they are pursuing which will not suffer them to make sure of Heaven 9. Most men are so clogged with a Laziness and Slothfulness of Spirit that they will not be perswaded to be at the paines of an hours Examination of their own hearts It requireth some labour and diligence to accomplish it throughly and they will rather venture all then set about it 10. But the most common and dangerous impediment is that false Faith and Hope commonly called Presumption which bears up the hearts of the most of the world and so keeps them from suspecting their danger Thus you see what abundance of difficulties must be overcome before a man can closely set upon the Examining of his heart I do but name them for brevity sake SECT IX AND if a man do break through all these impediments and set upon the Duty yet assurance is not presently attained Of those few who do enquire after Marks and Means of Assurance and bestow some pains to learn the difference between the sound Christian and the unsound and look often into their own hearts yet divers are deceiv'd and do miscarry especially through these following causes 1. There is such a Confusion and darkness in the Soul of man especially of an unregenerate man that he can scarcely tell what he doth or what is in him As one can hardly finde any thing in a house where nothing keeps his place but all is cast on a heap together so is it in the heart where all things are in disorder â—specially when darkness is added to this disorder so that the heart is like an obscure Cave or Dungeon where there is but a little crevise of light and a man must rather grope then see No wonder if men mistake in searching such a heart and so miscarry in judging of their estates 2. And the rather because most men do accustom themselves to be strangers at home and are little taken up with observing the temper and motions of their own hearts All their studies are imployed without them and they are no where less
would fill mens ears with the constant lamentations of their miserable state and despairing accusations against themselves as if they had been the most humble people in the world and yet be as passionate in the maintaining their innocency when another accuseth them and as intolerably peevish and tender of their own reputation in any thing they are blamed for as if they were the proudest persons on earth still denying or extenuating every disgraceful fault that they are charged with This cherishing of sin doth hinder Assurance these four ways 1. It doth abate the degree of our Graces and so makes them more undiscernable 2. It obscureth that which it destroyeth not for it beareth such sway that Grace is not in Action nor seen to stir nor scarce heard speak for the noise of this Corruption 3. It puteth out or dimmeth the eye of the Soul that it cannot see its own condition and it benummeth and stupifieth that he cannot feel its own case 4. But especially it provoketh God to withdraw himself his Comforts and the Assistance of the Spirit without which we may search long enough before we have Assurance God hath made a separation betwixt Sin and Peace Though they may consist together in remiss degrees yet so much as Sin prevaileth in the Soul so much will the Peace of that Soul be defective As long as thou dost favour or cherish thy Pride and Self-esteem thy aspiring projects and love of the world thy secret lusts and pleasing the desires of the flesh or any the like unchristian practise thou expectest Assurance and Comfort in Vain God will not encourage thee by his precious gifts in a course of sinning This worm will be crawling and gnawing upon thy Conscience It will be a freting devouring canker to thy Consolations Thou mayst steal a spark of false comfort from thy worldly prosperity or delights or thou mayst have it from some false Opinions or from the delusions of Satan But from God thou wilt have no more Comfort then thou makest Conscience of sinning However an Antinomian may tell thee That thy Comforts have no such dependance upon thy Obedience nor thy discomforts upon thy disobedience and therefore may speak as much Peace to thee in the course of thy sinning as in thy most conscionable walking yet thou shalt find by experience that God will not do so If any man set up his Idols in his Heart and put the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and cometh to a Minister or to God to enquire for Assurance and Comfort God will Answer that man by himself and in stead of comforting him he will set his Face against him he will Answer him According to the multitude of his Idols Read Ezek. 14.3 4 5 6 7 8 9. SECT XVIII 9. ANother very great and common Cause of want of Assurance and Comfort is When men grow Lazy in the spiritual part of duty and keep not up their Graces in constant and lively Action As Dr Sibbs saith truly It is the lazy Christian commonly that lacketh Assurance The way of painful duty is the way of fullest Comfort Christ carryeth all our Comforts in his hand If we are out of that way where Christ is to be met we are out of the way where Comfort is to be had These three ways doth this Laziness debar us of our Comforts 1. By stopping the Fountain and causing Christ to withhold this blessing from us Parents use not to smile upon children in their neglects and disobedience So far as the Spirit is Grieved he will suspend his Consolations Assurance and Peace are Christ's great Encouragements to faithfulness and obedience And therefore though our Obedience do not Merit them yet they usually rise and fall with our Diligence in duty They that have entertained the Antinomian dotages to cover their Idleness and Viciousness may talk their non-sence against this at pleasure but the laborious Christian knows it by experience As prayer must have Faith and Fervency to procure its success besides the Bloodshed and Intercession of Christ Jam. 5.15 16. so must all other parts of our Obedience He that will say to us in that Triumphing day Well Done Good and Faithful Servant c. Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Will also clap his Servants upon the back in their most Affectionate and Spiritual Duties and say Well Done Good and Faithful Servant take this Fore-taste of thy Everlasting Joy If thou grow seldom and customary and cold in Duty especially in thy secret Prayers to God and yet findest no abatement in thy Joys I cannot but fear that thy Joys are either Carnal or Diabolical 2. Grace is never apparent and sensible to the Soul but while it is in Action Therefore want of Action must needs cause want of Assurance Habits are not felt immediately but by the freeness and facility of their Acts Of the very Being of the Soul it self nothing is felt or perceived if any more Be but only its Acts. The fire that lyeth still in the flint is neither seen nor felt but when you smite it and force it into Act it is easily discerned The greatest Action doth force the greatest Observation whereas the dead or unactive are not remembred or taken notice of Those that have long lain still in their graves are out of mens thoughts as well as their sight but those that walk their streets and bear Rule among them are noted by all It is so with our Graces That you have a Habit of Love or Faith you can no otherwise know but as a consequence by reasoning but that you may have the Acts you may know by Feeling If you see a man lie still in the way what will you do to know whether he be drunk or in a swoun or dead Will you not stir him or speak to him to see whether he can go Or feel his pulse or observe his breath Knowing that where there is life their is some kind of motion I earnestly beseech thee Christian observe and practise this excellent Rule Thou now knowest not whether thou have Repentance or Faith or Love or joy Why be more in the Acting of these and thou wilt easily know it Draw forth an Object for Godly sorrow or Faith or Love or Joy and lay thy heart flat unto it and take pains to provoke it into suitable action and then see whether thou have these Graces or no. As Doctor Sibbs observeth There is somtimes Griefe for sin in us when we think there is none it wants but stirâ—ing up by some quickening word The like he saith of Love and may be said of every other Grace You may go seeking for the Hare or Partridge many hours and never find them while they lie close and stir not but when once the Hare betakes him self to his legges and the bird to her wings then you see them presently So long as a Christian hath his Graces in lively Action so long for the most
part he is assured of them How can you doubt whether you love God in the Act of Loving Or whether you believe in the very Act of Believing If therefore you would be assured whether this Sacred Fire be kindled in your hearts blow it up get it into a flâ—me and then you will know Believe till you feel that you do believe and Love till you feel that you love 3. The Action of the Soul upon such excellent Objects doth naturally bring Consolation with it The very Act of Loving God in Christ doth bring unexpressible sweetness with it into the Soul The Soul that is best furnished with Grace when it is not in Action is like a Lute well string'd and tun'd which while it lieth still doth make no more Musick then a common piece of wood but when it is taken up and handled by a skilful Lutist the melody is most delightful Some degree of comfort saith that comfortable Doctor followes every good Action as heat accompanies fire and as beams and influences issue from the Sun which is so true that very heathens upon the discharge of a good Conscience have found comfort and peace answerable This is Praemium ante Praemium a Reward before the Reward As a man therefore that is cold should not stand still and say I am so cold that I have no minde to Labour but labour till â—is coldness be gone and heat excited So he that wants assurance of the truth of his graces and the comfort of Assurance must not stand still and say I am so doubtful and uncomfortable that I have no minde to duty but ply his duty and exercise his Graces till he finde his Doubts and Discomforts to vanish SECT XIX 10. LAstly another ordinary Nurse of Doubtings and Discomfort is The prevailing of Melancholly in the body whereby the brain is continually troubled and darkened the Fancy hindered and Reason perverted by the distempering of its instruments and the Soul is still clad in mourning weeds It is no more wonder for a Consciencious man that is overcome with Melancholly to doubt and fear and despair then it is for a sick man to groan or a child to cry when he is beater This is the case with most that I have known lie long in doubting and distress of Spirit With some their Melancholly being raised by Crosses or distemper of body or some other occasion doth afterwards bring in trouble of Conscience as its companion With others trouble of mind is their first trouble which long hanging on them at last doth bring the body also into a Melancholly habit And then trouble increaseth Melancholly and Melancholly again increaseth trouble and so round This is a most sad and pitiful state For as the disease of the body is chronical and obstinate and physick doth seldom succeed where it hath far prevailed so without the Physician the labours of the Divine are usually in vain You may silence them but you cannot comâ—fort them You may make them confess that they have some Grace and yet cannot bring them to the comfortable Conclusiâ—ons Or if you convince them of some work of the Spirit upon their souls and a little at present abate their sadness yet as soon as they are gone home and look again upon their souls through this perturbing humour all your convincing Arguments are forgotten and they are as far from comfort as ever they were All the good thoughts of their estate which you can possibly help them to are seldom above a day or two old As a man that looks through a black or blew or red glass doth think things which he sees to be of the same colour and if you would perswade him to the contrary he will not believe you but wonder that you should offer to perswade him against his eye-sight So a Melancholly man sees all things in a sad and fearful plight because his Reason looketh on them through this black humour with which his brain is darkened and distempered And as a mans eyes which can see all things about them yet cannot see any imperfection in themselves so is it almost impossible to make many of these men to know that they are Melancholly But as those who are troubled with the Ephialtes do cry out of some body that lyeth heavy upon them when the disease is in their own blood and humors so these poor men cry out of sin and the wrath of God when the main cause is in this bodily distemper The chief part of the cure of these men must be upon the body because there is the chief part of the disease And thus I have shewed you the chief causes why so many Christians do injoy so little Assurance and Consolation CHAP. VIII Containing an Exhortation and Motives to Examine SECT I. HAving thus discoverd the Impediments to Examination I would presently proceed to direct you to the performance of it but that I am yeâ— jealous whether I have fully prevailed with you wills and whether you are indeed Resolved to set upon the Duty I have found by long experience as well as from Scripture That the main difficulty lieth in bringing men to be willing and to set themselves in good earnest to the searching of their hearts Many love to hear and read of Marks and signs by which they may Try but few will be brought to spend an hour in using them when they have them They think they should have their Doubts resolved as soon as they do but hear a minister name some of these Signes and if that would do the work then Assurance would be more common But when they are informed that the work lies most upon their own hands and what pains it must cost them to search their hearts faithfully then they give up and will go no further This is not only the case of the ungodly who commonly perish through this neglect but multitudes of the godly themselves are like Idle Beggars who will rather make a practice of begging and bewailing their misery then they will set themselves to labour painfully for their relief So do many spend days and years in sad complaints and doubtings that will not be brought to spend a few hours in Examination I intreat all these persons what condition soever they are of to consider the weight of these following Arguments which I have propounded in hope to perswade them to this duty SECT II. 1. TO be deceived about your Title to Heaven is exceeding easie and not to be deceived is exceeding difficult This I make manifest to you thus 1. Multitudes that never suspected any falshood in their hearts have yet proved unsound in the day of Tryal and they that never feared any danger toward them have perished for ever Yea many that have been confident of their integrity and safety I shall adjoyn the proofes of what I say in the Margin for brevity sake How many poor souls are now in Hell that little thought of comming
thither and that were wont to despise their counsel that bid them Try and make sure And to say They made no doubt of their Salvation 2. Yea and many that have excelled in worldly wisdom yet have been befooled in this great business and they that had wit to deceive their neighbours were yet deceived by Satan and their own hearts Yea men of strongest head-pieces and profoundest learning who knew much of the secrets of Nature of the courses of the Planets and motions of the Spheres have yet been utterly mistaken in their own hearts 3. Yea Those that have lived in the clear light of the Gospel and heard the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked plainly laid open and many a Mark for Tryal laid down and and many a Sermon pressing them to Examine and directing them how to do it yet even these have been and dayly are deceived 4. Yea those that have had a whole life's time to make sure in and have been told over and over that they had their lives for no other end but to provide for Everlasting Rest and make sure of it have yet been deceived and have wasted that life-time in forgetful security 5. Yea those that have Preached against the negligence of others and pressed them to Try themselves and shewed them the danger of being mistaken have yet proved mistaken themselves And is it not then time for us to rifle our hearts and search them to the very quick SECT III. 2. TO be mistaken in this great Point is also very Common as well as easie So common that it is the case of most in the world In the old world we find of none that were in any fear of Judgement and yet how few persons were not deceived So in Sodom So among the Jews And I would it were not so in England Almost all men amongst us do verily look to be saved You shall scarce speak with one of a thousand that doth not And yet Christ telleth us That few find the strait gate and narrow way that leads to Life Do but reckon up the several sorts of men that are mistaken in thinking they have title to Heaven as the Scripture doth enumeraâ—e them and what a multitude will they prove 1. All that are ignorant of the Fundamentals of Religion 2. All Heretick who maintain false doctrines against the Foundation or against the necessary means of Life 3. All that live in the practice of gross sin 4. Or that love and regard the smallest sin 5. All that harden themselves against frequent reproof Prov. 29.1 6. All that minde the Flesh more then the Spirit Rom. 8.6.7.13 Or the world more then God Phil. 3.18 19. 1 John 2.15.16 7. All that do as the most do Luk. 13.23 24 25. 1 John 5.19 8. All that are deriders at the Godly and discourage others from the way of God by their reproaches Pro. 1.22 c. 3.34 19.29 9. All that are unholy And that never were Regenerate and born anew 10. All that have not their very hearts set upon Heaven Mat. 6.21 11. All that have a Form of Godliness without the Power 12. And all that love either parents or wife or children or house or lands or life more then Christ. Luk. 14.26 Every on of these that thinketh he hath any Title to Heaven is as surely mistaken as the Scripture is true And if such multitudes are deceived should not we search the more diligently lest we should be deceived as well as they SECT IV. 3. NOthing more dangerous then to be thus mistaken The Consequents of it are lamentable and desperate If the Godly be mistaken in judging their state to be worse then it is the consequents of this mistake will be very sad But if the ungodly be mistaken the Danger and Mischief that followeth is unspeakable 1. It will exceedingly confirm them in the service of Satan and fasten them in their present way of death They will never seek to be recovered as long as they think their present state may serve As the Prophet saith Isa. 44.20 A deceived heart will turn them aside that they cannot deliver their own soul nor say Is there not a lye in my right hand 2. It will take away the efficacy of means that should do them good Nay it will turn the best means to their hardening and ruine If a man mistake his bodily disease and think it to be clean contrary to what it is will he not apply contrary remedies which will increase it So when a Christian should apply the Promises his mistake will cause him to apply the threatenings and when an ungodly man should apply the Threatenings and Terrors of the Lord this mistake of his estate will make him apply the promises And there is no greater strengthener of sin and destroyer of the soul then Scripture misapplyed Wordly delights and the deceiving words of sinners may harden men most desperately in an unsafe way But Scripture misapplied will do it far more effectually and dangerously 3. It will keep a man from compassionating his own soul. Though he be a sad object of pity to every understanding man that beholdeth him yet will he not be able to pity himself because he knoweth not his own misery As I have seen a Physician lament the case of his Patient when he hath discerned his certain death in some small beginning when the Patient himself feared nothing because he knew not the mortal nature of his disease So doth many a Minister or godly Christian lament the case of a carnal wretch who is so far from lamenting it himself that he scorns their pity and biddeth them be sorry for themselves they shall not answer for him and taketh them for his enemies because they tell him the truth of his danger As a man that seeth a beast going to the slaughter doth pity the poor creature when it cannot pity it self because it little thinketh that death is so neer So is it with these poor siners and all long of this mistaking their Spiritual state Is it not a pitiful sight to see a man laughing himself when his understanding friends stand weeping for his misery Paul mentioneth the voluptuous men of his time and the worldlings with weeping but we never read of their weeping for themselves Christ standeth weeping over Jerusalem when they know not of any evil that was towards them nor give him any thanks for his pity or his tears 4. It is in a case of greatest moment and therefore mistaking must needs be most dangerous If it were in making an ill bargain yet we might repair our loss in the next Scipio was wont to say It was an unseemly absurd thing in Military cases to say I had not thought or I was not aware The matter being of so great concernment every danger should be thought of that you may be aware Sure in this weighty case where our everlasting Salvation or
their impression on thy heart 11. Be sure to Record this Sentence so passed write it down or at least write it in thy Memory At such a time upon through Examination I found my state to be thus or thus This Record will be very useful to thee hereafter If thou be ungodly what a damp will it be to thy presumption and security to go and read the Sentence of thy Misery under thy own hand If thou be godly what a help will it be against the next Temptation to doubting and fear to go and read under thy hand this Record Mayst thou not think If at such a time I found the Truth of Grace is it not likely to be now the same and these my doubts to come from the Enemy of my Peace 12. Yet would I not have thee so trust to once discovery as to Try no more Especially if thou have made any foul Defection from Christ and play'd the backslider See then that thou renew the Search again 13. Neither would I have this hinder thee in the dayly Search of thy ways or of thy increase in Grace and fellowship with Christ It is an ill sign and desperate vile sin for a man when he thinks he hath found himself Gracious and in a happy state to let down his watch and grow negligent of his heart and ways and scarce look after them any more 14. Neither would I have thee give over in discouragement if thou canst not at once or twice or ten times trying discover thy Case But follow it on till thou hast discovered If one hours labor will not serve take another If one day or moneth or year be too little follow it still If one Minâ—ster cannot direct thee sufficiently go to another The Issue will answer all thy pains There is no sitting down discouraged in a work that must be done 15. Lastly above all take heed if thou finde thy self to be yet unregenerate that thou do not conclude of thy Future estate by thy present nor say Because I am ungodly I shall dye so or because I am an Hypocrite I shall continue so No thou hast another work to do And that is To resolve presently to cleave to Christ and break off thy Hypocrisie and thy Wickedness If thou finde that thou hast been all this while out of the way do not sit down in despair but make so much the more haste to turn into it If thou have been an Hypocrite or ungodly person all thy life yet is the promise offered thee by Christ and he tendereth himself to be thy Lord and Saviour Neither canst thou possibly be so Willing to Accept of him as he is to Accept thee Nothing but thy own unwillingness can keep thy Soul from Christ though thou hast hitherto abused him and dissembled with him Object But if I have gone so far and been a professor so long and yet finde my self an Hypocrite now after all what hope is there that I should now become sincere Answ. Dost thou heartily Desire to be Sincere Thy Sincerity doth lie especially in thy Will As long as thou art unwilling I confess thy case is sad But if thou be willing to receive Christ as he is offered to thee and so to be a Christian indeed then thou art sincere Neither hath Christ restrained his Spirit or Promises to any set time or said to thee Thou shalt finde grace if thou sin but so much or so long But if thou be heartily Willing at any time I know not who can hinder thy happiness Yet is this no diminution of the sin or danger of delaying Thus I have given you these Directions for Examination which conscionably practised will be of singular advantage and use to discover your states But it is not the bare reading of them that will do it I fear of many that will approve of this advice there will but few be brought to use it However those that are willing may finde help by it and the rest will be left more unexcuseable in Judgment SECT III. I Will not digress further to warn you here of the false Rules and Marks of Tryal which you must beware having opened them to you fullier when I preached on that subject But I will briefly adjoyn some Marks to try thy Title to this Rest by referring you for a fuller discovery to the Description of the People of God in the first part of the Book But be sure you search throughly and deal plainly or else you will but lose your labor and deceive your selves 1. Every Soul that hath Title to this Rest doth place his chiefest Happiness in it and make it the chief and ultimate End of his Soul This is the first Mark which is so plain a Truth that I need not stand to prove it For this Rest consisteth in the full and glorious enjoyment of God And he that maketh not God his chief Good and ultimate End is in heart a Pagan and vile Idolater and doth not take the Lord for his God Let me ask thee then Dost thou truly in Judgment and Affection account it thy chiefest Happiness to enjoy the Lord in Glory or dost thou not Canst thou say with David Psal. 16.5 The Lord is my Portion And as Psa. 73.25 Whom have I in Heaven but thee and whom in earth that I desire in comparison of thee If thou be an heir of Rest it is thus with thee Though the flesh will be pleading for its own delights and the world will be creeping into thine affections and thou canst not be quite freed from the Love of it Yet in thy ordinary setled prevailing Judgment and Affections thou preferrest God before all things in the world 1. Thou makest him the End of thy Desires and Endevors The very reason why thou hearest and prayest why thou desirest to live and breathe on earth is chiefly this That thou mayst seek the Lord and make sure of thy Rest. Thou seekest first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness Though thou dost not seek it so desirously and zealously as thou shouldst yet hath it the chief of thy desires and endevors and nothing else is desired or preferred before it Mat. 6.33 So that thy very heart is thus far set upon it Mat. 6.21 Col. 3.1 2 3. 2. Also thou wilt think no labor or suffering too great to obtain it And though the flesh may sometime shrink or draw back yet art thou resolved and content to go through all Mat. 7.13 2 Tim. 2.5 Rom. 8.17 Luk. 14.26 27. 2 Tim. 2.12 Luk. 14.24 3. Also if thou be an heir of Rest thy valuation of it will be so high and thy affection to it so great that thou wouldst not exchange thy Title to it and hopes of it for any worldly Good whatsoever Indeed when the Soul is in doubts of enjoying it perhaps it may possibly desire rather the continuance of an earthly happiness then to depart out of the body with fears of going to Hell But
if he were sure that Heaven should be his own he would desire to depart and to be with Christ as being the best stâ—te of all And if God would set before him an Eternity of Earthly pleasures and contents on one hand and the Rest of the Saints on the other hand and bid him take his choyce he would refuse the world and chuse this Rest Psal. 16.9 10. Rom. 8.23 2 Cor. 5.2 3. Phil. 3.20 Thus if thou be a Christian indeed thou takest God for thy chiefest Good and this Rest for the most amiable and desireable state and by the foresaid means thou mayst discover it But if thou be yet in the flesh and an unsanctified wretch then is it clean contrary with thee in all these respects Then dost thou in thy Heart prefer thy worldly happiness and fleshly delights before God And though thy tongue may say that God is the chief Good yet thy Heart doth not so esteem him For 1. The world is the chief End of thy Desires and Endevors Thy very heart is set upon it Thy greatest Care and Labor is to maintain thy estate or credit or fleshly delights But the life to come hath little of thy care or labor Thou didst never perceive so much excellency in that unseen Glory of another world as to draw thy heart so after it or set thee a laboring so heartily for it But that little pains which thou bestowest that way it is but in the second place and not the first God hath but the worlds leavings and that time and labor which thou canst spare from the world or those few cold and careless thoughts which follow thy constant earnest and delightful thoughts of earthly things Neither wouldst thou do any thing at all for Heaven if thou knew'st how to keep the world But lest thou shouldst be turned into Hell when thou canst keep the world no longer therefore thou wilt do something 2. Therefore it is that thou thinkest the way of God too strict and wilt not be perswaded to the constant labor of conscionable walking according to the Gospel rule And when it comes to tryal that thou must forsake Christ or thy worldly happiness and the wind which was in thy back doth turn in thy face then thou wilt venture Heaven rather then Earth and as desperate Rebels use to say thou wilt rather trust Gods Mercy for thy Soul then mans for thy body and so wilfully deny thy obedience to God 3. And certainly if God would but give thee leave to live in health and wealth for ever on Earth thou wouldst think it a better state then Rest Let them seek for Heaven that would thou wouldst think this thy chiefest happiness This is thy case if thou be yet an unregenerate person and hast no Title to the Saints Rest. SECT IV. THe second Mark which I shall give thee to try whether thou be an Heir of Rest is this As thou takest God for thy chief Good so Thou dost heartily accept of Christ for thy onely Saviour and Lord to bring thee to this Rest The former Mark was the sum of the first and great Command of the Law of Nature Thou shalt Love the Lord with all thy heart or above all This second Mark is the sum of the Command or Condition of the Gospel which saith Beleeve in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved And the performance of these two is the whole sum or essence of Godliness and Christianity Observe therefore the parts of this Mark which is but a Definition of Faith 1. Dost thou finde that thou art naturally a lost condemned man for thy breach of the first Covenant and dost beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Mediator who hath made a sufficient satisfaction to the Law and hearing in the Gospel that he is offered without exception unto all dost heartily consent that he alone shall be thy Saviour and dost no further trust to thy Duties and works then as conditions required by him and means appointed in subordination to him not looking at them as in the least measure able to satisfie the Curse of the Law or as a Legal Righteousness nor any part of it But art content to trust thy Salvation on the Redemption made by Christ 2. Art thou also content to Take him for thy onely Lord and King to govern and guide thee by his Laws and Spirit And to obey him even when he commandeth the hardest duties and those which most cross the desires of the flesh Is it thy sorrow when thou breakest thy resolution herein and thy Joy when thou keepest closest in obedience to him And though the world and flesh do sometime entice and over reach thee yet is it thy ordinary Desire and Resolution to Obey So that thou wouldst not change thy Lord and Master for all the world Thus it is with every true Christian. But if thou be an Hypocrite it is far otherwise Thou mayst call Christ thy Lord and thy Saviour But thou never foundest thy self so lost without him as to drive thee to seek him and trust him and lay thy Salvation on him alone Or at least thou didst never heartily consent that he should Govern thee as thy Lord nor didst resign up thy Soul and Life to be Ruled by him nor takest his Word for the Law of thy Thoughts and Actions It is like thou art content to be saved from Hell by Christ when thou dyest But in the mean time he shall command thee no further then will stand with thy credit or pleasure or worldly estate and ends And if he would give thee leave thou hadst far rather live after the world and flesh then after the Word and Spirit And though thou mayst now and then have a Motion or Purpose to the contrary yet this that I have mentioned is the ordinary desire and choyce of thy heart And so thou art no true Beleever in Christ For though thou confess him in words yet in works thou dost deny him being disobedient and to every Good Work a Disapprover and a Reprobate Tit. 1.16 This is the Case of those that shall be shut out of the Saints Rest. But especially I would here have you observe That it is in all this the Consent of your Hearts or Wills which I lay down in this Mark to be enquired after For that is the most essential Act of Justifying Faith Therefore I do not ask whether thou be Assured of Salvation nor yet whether thou canst beleeve that thy sins are pardoned and that thou art beloved of God in Christ These are no parts of Justifying Faith but excellent fruits and consequents which they that do receive are comforted by them but perhaps thou mayst never receive them whilest thou livest and yet be a true heir of Rest. Do not say then I cannot beleeve that my sin is pardoned or that I am in Gods favor and therefore I am no true Beleever This is a most mistaking conclusion The Question is Whether thou
Kingdom bestir themselves more to help others to the enjoyment of it Alas how little are poor Souls about us beholden to the most of us We see the Glory of the Kingdom and they do not We see the misery and torment of those that miss of it and they do not We see them wandring quite out of the way and know that if they hold on they can never come there and they discern not this themselves And yet we will not set upon them seriously and shew them their danger and error and help to bring them into the way that they may live Alas how few Christians are there to be found that live as men that are made to do good and that set themselves with all their might to the saving of Souls No thanks to us if Heaven be not empty and if the Souls of our brethren perish not for ever But because this is a Duty which so many neglect and so few are convinced that God doth expect it at their hands and yet a duty of so high concernment to the Glory of God and the happiness of men I will speak of it somewhat the more largely and shew you 1. Wherein it doth consist and how to be done 2. What is the cause that it is so neglected 3. And then give some Considerations to perswade you to the performance of it and others to the bearing of it 4. And lastly apply this more particularly to some persons whom it doth more nearly concern Of all these in order SECT II. 1. I Would have you therefore well understand what is this work which I am perswading you to Know then on the Negative 1. It is not to invade the office of the Ministry and every man to turn a publique Preacher I would not have you go beyond the bounds of your Callings We sâ—e by sad experience what fruits those mens teaching doth bring forth who run uncalled and thrust themselves into the place of publique Teachers thinking themselves thâ— fittâ—st for the work in the pride of their hearts whilâ— they have need to be taught the very principles of Religion how litâ—le doth God bless the labours oâ— these self-concâ—ited intruders 2. Neither do I perswade you to a Zealous promoting of factions and parties and venting of uncertain opinions which mens Salvation is little concerned in Alas what advantage hath the Devil lately got in the Church by this imposture The time that should be imployed in drawing mens Souls from sin to Christ is imployed in drawing them to opinions and parties When men are fallen in Love with their own conceits and proudly think themselves the wisest how diligently do they labour to get them followers as if to make a man a proselite to their opinions were as happy a work as to convert him to Christ And when they fall among the lighter ignorant unsounder sort of professors whose Religion is all in their brain and on their tongue they seldom fail of their desired success These men shall shortly know that to bring a man to the knowledg and Love of Christ is another kind of work then to bring him to be Baptized again or to be of such a Church or such a side Unhappy are the Souls that are taken in their snare Who when they have spent their lives in studying and contending for the circumstantials of Religion which should have been spent in studying and loving the Lord Jesus do in the end reap an empty harvest suitable to their empty profession 3. Nor do I perswade you to speak against mens faults behind their backs and be silent before their faces as the common custom of the world is To tell other men of their faults tendeth little to their reformation if they hear it not themselves To whisper out mens faults to others as it cometh not from Love or from any honest principle so usually doth it produce no good effect For if the party hear not of it it cannot better him If he do he will take it but as the reproach of an enemy tending to disgrace him and not as the faithful counsel of a friend tending to recover him and as that which is spoken to make him odious and not to make him vertuous It tendeth not to provoke to godliness but to raise contention for a whisperer separateth the chiefest friends Prov. 16.28 And how few shall we find that make conscience of this horrible sin or that will confess it and bewail it when they are reprehended for it Especially if men are speaking of their enemies or those that have wronged them or whom they suppose to have wronged them or if it be of one that eclipseth their glory or that standeth in the way of their gain or esteem or if it be one that differeth from them in Judgment or one that is commonly spoke against by others who is it that maketh any Conscience of backbiting such as these And you shall ever observe that the forwarder they are to backbiting the more backward always to faithful admonishing and none speak less of a mans faults to his face for his reformation then those that speak most of them behind his back to his defamation If ill-will or Envy lie at the heart it maketh them cast forth disgracing speeches as oft as they can meet with such as themselves who will hear and entertain them Even as a corrupt humor in the stomack provoketh a man to vomit up all that he taketh while it self remaineth and continueth the disease It is Chrysostomes similitude So far am I from perswading therefore to this preposterous course that I would advise you to oppose it where ever you meet with it See that you never hear a man speaking against his neighbor behind his back without some special cause or call but presently rebuke him ask him Whether he hath spoke those things in a way of love to his face if he have not ask him how he dare so pervert Gods prescribed order who commandeth to rebuke our neighbor plainly and to tell him his fault first in private and then before witness till we see whether he will be won or not Levit. 19.17 Mat. 18.15 16 17. And how he dare do as he would not be done by SECT III. THe duty therefore that I would press you to is of another nature and it consisteth in these things following 1. That you get your hearts affected with the misery of your brethrens Souls Be compassionate towards them Yearn after their recovery and Salvation If you did earnestly long after their conversion and your hearts were fully set to do them good it would set you a work and God would usually bless it 2. Take all opportunities that possibly you can to confer with them privately about their states and to instruct and help them to the attaining of Salvation And lest you should not know how to manage this work let me tell you more particularly what you are herein to do 1. If it
be an Ignorant carnal person that you have to deal with who is an utter stranger to the Mysteries of Religion and to the work of Regeneration on his own Soul the first thing you have to do is to acquaint him with these Doctrines Labour to make him understand wherein mans chief Happiness doth consist and how far he was once possessed of it and what Law and Covenant God then made with him and how he broke it and what penalty he incurred and what misery he brought himself into thereby Teach him what need men had of a Redeemer and how Christ in mercy did interpose and â—ear the penalty and what Covenant now he hath made with man and on what terms only Salvation is now to be attained and what course Christ taketh to draw men to himself and what are the riches and priviledges that Believers have in him If when he understandeth these things he be not moved by them or if you find that the stop lieth in his will and affections and in the hardness of his heart and in the interest that the flesh and the world have got in him Then shew him the excellency of the Glory which he neglecteth and the intolerableness of the loss of it and the extremity and eternity of the torments of the damned and how certainly they must endure them and how just it is for their wilful refusals of grace and how hainâ—us a sin it is to reject such free and abundant mercy and to tread under foot the blood of the Covenant Shew him the certainty nearness and terrors of death and judgment and the vanity of all things below which now he is taken up with and how little they will bestead him in that time of his extremity Shew him that by nature he himself is a child of wrath and enemy to God and by actual sin much more Shew him the viâ—e and hainous nature of sin the absolute necessity he standeth in of a Saviour the freeness of the promise the fulness of Christ the sufficiency of his Satisfaction his readiness to receive all that are willing to be his the Authority and Dominion which he hath purchased over us Shew him also the absolute necessity of Regeneration Faith and Holiness of life how impossible it is to have Salvation by Christ without these and what they are and the true nature of them If when he understandeth all this you find his Soul inthralled in presumption and false hopes perswading himself that he is a true Believer and pardoned and reconciled and shall be saved by Christ and all this upon false grounds or meerly because he would have it so which is a common case Then urge him hard to examine his state shew him the necessity of trying the danger of being deceived the commonness and easiness of mistaking through the deceitfulness of the heart the extream madness of putting it to a blind adventure or of resting in negligent or wilful uncertainty Help him in trying himself Produce some undenyable Evidences from Scripture Ask him Whether these be in him or not Whether ever he found such workings or dispositions in his heart Urge him to a rational answer do not leave him till you have convinced him of his misery and then seasonably and wisely shew him the remedy If he produce some common gifts or duties or works know to what end he doth produce them If to joyn with Christ in composing him a Righteousness shew him how vain and destructive they are If it be by way of Evidence to prove his title to Christ shew him how far a common work may reach and wherein the Life of Christianity doth consist and how far he must go further if he will be Christ's disciple In the mean time that he be not discouraged with hearing of so high a measure shew him the way by which he must attain it be sure to draw him to the use of all means set him a hearing and reading the Word calling upon God accompanying the godly perswade him to leave his actual sin and to get out of all ways of temptation especially to forsake ungodly company and to wait patiently on God in the use of means and shew him the strong hopes that in so doing he may have of a blessing this being the way that God will be found in If you perceive him possessed with any prejudicate conceits against the godly and the way of holiness shew him their falshood and with wisdom and meekness answer his Objections If he be addicted to delay the duties he is convinced of or laziness and stupidity do endanger his Soul then lay it on the more powerfully and set home upon his heart the most piercing considerations and labour to fasten them as thorns in his conscience that he may find no ease or rest till he change his estate SECT IV. BUt because in all works the manner of doing them is of greatest moment and the right performance doth much further the success I will here adjoyn a few Directions which you must be sure to observe in this work of Exhortation for it is not every advice that useth to succeed nor any manner of doing it that will serve the turn Observe therefore these Rules 1. Set upon the work sincerely and with right intentions Let thy Ends be the Glory of God in the parties Salvation Do it not to get a name or esteem to thy self or to bring men to depend upon thee or to get thee followers Do not as many carnal Parents and Masters will do viz. rebuke their Children and Servants for those sins that displease them and are against their profit or their humors as disobedience unthriftiness unmannerliness c. and labour much to reform them in these but never seek in the right way that God hath appointed to save their Souls But be sure thy main end be to recover them from misery and bring them into the way of eternal Rest. SECT V. 2. DO it Speedily As you would not have them Delay their returning so do not you Delay to seek their return You are purposing long to speak to such an Ignorant neighbor and to deal with such a scandalous sinner and yet you have never done it Alas he runs on the score all this while he goes deeper in debt wrath is heaping up Sin taketh rooting Custom doth more fasten him Engagements to sin grow stronger and more numerous Conscience grows seared the heart grows hardened while you delay the Devil rules and rejoyceth Christ is shut out the Spirit is repulsed God is dayly dishonored his Law is violated he is without a Servant and that service from him which he should have the Soul continueth in a doleful state time runs on the day of visitation hasteth away death and judgment are even at the door and what if the man dye and miss of Heaven while you are purposing to teach him and help him to it What if he drop into hell while you are purposing to prevent
it If in case of his bodily distress you must not bid him go and come again to morrow when you have it by you and he is in want Prov. 3.27 28. how much less may you delay the succor of his Soul If once death snatch him away he is then out of the reach of your Charity SECT VI. 3. LEt thy Exhortation proceed from Compassion and Love and let the manner of it clearly shew the person thou dealest with that it hence proceedeth It is not jeering or scorning or reproaching a man for his faults that is a likely way to work his reformation Nor is it the right way to convert him to God to rail at him and vilifie him with words of disgrace Men will take them for their enemies that thus deal with them And the words of an enemy are little perswading Lay by your Passion therefore and take up compassion and go to poor sinners with tears in your eyes that they may see you indeed believe them to be miserable and that you do unfeignedly pity their case Deal with them with earnest humble intreatings Let them see that your very bowels do yearn over them and that it is the very desire of your hearts to do them good Let them perceive that you have no other end but the procuring of their everlasting Happiness and that it is your sense of their danger and your love to their Souls that forceth you to speak even because you know the terrors of the Lord and for fear lest you should see them in eternal torments Say to them Why friend you know it is no advantage of my own that I seek The way to please you and to keep your friendship were to sooth you in your way or to speak well of you or to let you alone but Love will not suffer me to see you perish and be silent I seek nothing at your hands but that which is necessary to your own happiness It is your self that will have the gain and comfort if you come in to Christ c. If men should thus go to every ignorant wicked neighbor they have and thus deal with them Oh what blessed fruits should we quickly see I am ashamed to hear some lazy hypocritical wretches to revile their poor ignorant neighbors and separate from their company and communion and proudly to judg them unfit for their society before ever they once tryed with them this compassionate Exhortation Oh you little know what a prevailing course this were like to prove and how few of the vilest drunkards or swearers would prove so obstinate as wholy to reject or despise the Exhortations of Love I know it must be God that must change mens hearts But I know also that God worketh by means and when he meaneth to prevail with men he usually fitteth the means accordingly and stirreth up men to plead with them in a prevailing way and so setteth in with his grace and maketh it successful Certainly those that have tryed can tell you by experience that there is no way so prevailing with men as the way of Compassion and Love So much of these as they discern in your Exhortation usually so much doth it succeed with their hearts And therefore I beseech those that are faithful to practise this course SECT VII 4. ANother Direction I would give you is this Do it with all possible plainness and faithfulness Do not dawb with men and hide from them their misery or danger or any part of it Do not make their sins less then they are nor speak of them in an extenuating language Do not encourage them in a false hope or faith no more then you would discourage the sound hopes of the righteous If you see his case dangerous tell him plainly of it Neighbor I am afraid God hath not yet renewed your Soul and that it is yet a stranger to the great work of Regeneration and Sanctification I doubt you are not yet recovered from the power of Satan to God nor brought out of the state of wrath which you were born in and have lived in I doubt you have not chosen Christ above all nor set your heart upon him nor unfeignedly taken him for your Soveraign Lord. If you had sure you durst not so easily disobey him you could not so neglect him and his worship in your family and in publique you could not so eagerly follow the world and talk of almost nothing but the things of this world while Christ is seldom mentioned or sought after by you If you were in Christ you would be a new Creature old things would be passed away and all things would become new you would have new thoughts and new talk and new company and new endeavors and a new conversation Certainly without these you can never be saved You may think otherwise and hope better as long as you will but your hopes will all deceive you and perish with you Alas it is not as you will nor as I will who shall be saved but it is as God will and God hath told us That without holiness none shall see him and except we be born again we cannot enter into his Kingdom and that all that would not have Christ raign over them shall be brought forth and destroyed before him Oh therefore look to your state in time Thus must you deal roundly and faithfully with men if ever you intend to do them good It is not hovering at a distance in a general discourse that will serve the turn It is not in curing mens Souls as in curing their bodies where they must not know their danger lest it sadden them and hinder the cure They are here agents in their own cure and if they know not their misery they will never bewail it nor know how much need they have of a Saviour If they know not the worst they will not labour to prevent it but will sit still or loiter till they drop into perdition and will trifle out their time in delays till it be too late And therefore speak to men as Christ to the Pharisees till they knew that he meant them Deal plainly or you do but deceive and destroy them SECT VIII 5. ANd as you must do it Plainly so also Seriously Zealously and Effectually The exceeding stupidity and deadness of mens hearts is such that no other dealing will ordinarily work You must call loud to awake a man in a Swoun or Lethargy If you speak to the common sort of men of the evil of their sin of their need of Christ of the danger of their Souls and of the necessity of Regeneration they will wearily and unwillingly give you the hearing and put off all with a sigh or a few good wishes and say God forgive us we are all sinners and there 's an end If ever you will do them good therefore you must sharpen your exhortation and set it home and follow it with their hearts till you have rouzed them up and made
temper of the person All meats are not for all stomacks One man will vomit that up again in your face which another will digest 1. If it be a learned or ingenious rational man you must deal more by convincing Arguments and less by passionate perswasions 2. If it be one that is both ignorant and stupid there is need of both 3. If one that is convinced but yet is not converted you must use most those means that rouze up the affections 4. If they be obstinate and secure you must reprove them sharply 5. If they be of timorous tender natures and apt to dejections or distraction they must be tenderly dealt with All cannot bear that rough dealing as some can Love and Plainness and Seriousness takes with all but words of terror some can scarce bear This is as we say of stronger Physick Hellebore Colloquintida c. nec puero nec seni nec imbecillo sed robusto c. not fit for every complexion and state 3. You must be wise also in using the aptest expressions Many a Minister doth deliver most excellent necessary matter in such unsavory harsh and unseemly language that it makes the hearers loath the food that they should live by and laugh at a Sermon that might make them quake Especially if they be men of curious ears and carnal hearts and have more common wit and parts then the speaker And so it is in private Exhortation as well as publique If you cloath the most amiable beautiful Truth in the sordid rags of unbeseeming language you will make men disdain it as monstrous and deformed though it be the off-spring of God and of the highest nature SECT X. 7. LEt all your Reproofs and Exhortations be backed with the Authority of God Let the sinner be convinced that you speak not from your selves or of your own head Shew them the very words of Scripture for what you say Turn them to the very Chapter and Verse where their sin is condemned and where the duty is commanded Press them with the Truth and Authority of God Ask them whether they beleeve that this is his Word and that his Word is true So much of God as appeareth in our Words so much will they take The voyce of man is contemptible but the voyce of God is awful and terrible They can and may reject your words that cannot nor dare reject the words of the Almighty Be sure therefore to make them know that you speak nothing but what God hath spoken first SECT XI 8. YOu must also be Frequent with men in this Duty of Exhortation It is not once or twice that usually will prevail If God himself must be constantly solicited as if importunity could prevail with him when nothing else can and therefore require us always to pray and not to wax faint the same course no doubt will be most prevailing with men Therefore are we commanded to Exhort one another dayly and with all long-suffering As Lypsius saith The fire is not always brought out of the flint at one stroke nor mens affections kindled at the first exhortation And if they were yet if they be not followed they will soon grow cold again Weary out sinners with your loving and earnest entreaties Follow them and give them no rest in their sin This is true Charity and this is the way to save mens Souls and a course that will afford you comfort upon review SECT XII 9. STrive to bring all your Exhortations to an Issue Stick not in the work done but look after the success and aim at that end in all your speeches I have long observed it in Ministers and private men that if they speak never so convincing powerful words and yet their hearts do not long after the success of them with the hearers but all their care is over when they have done their speech pretending that having done their duty they leave the Issue to God these men do seldom prosper in their labors But those whose very heart is set upon the work and that long to see it take for the hearers conversion and use to enquire how it speeds God usually blesseth their labors though more weak Labor therefore to drive all your speeches to the desired Issue If you are reproving a sin cease not till if it may be you have got the sinner to promise you to leave it and to avoyd the occasions of it If you are exhorting to a Duty urge the party to promise you presently to set upon it If you would draw them to Christ leave not till you have made them confess that their present unregenerate state is miserable and not to be rested in and till they have subscribed to the necessity of Christ and of a change and till they have promised you to fall close to the use of means O that all Christians would be perswaded to take this course with all their Neighbors that are yet in the flesh that are enslaved to sin and strangers to Christ SECT XIII 10. LAstly Be sure that your Examples may Exhort as well as your words Let them see you constant in all the Duties that you perswade them to Let them see in your lives that difference from sinners and that excellency above the world which you perswade them to in your speeches Let them see by your constant Labors for Heaven that you do indeed beleeve that which you would have them to beleeve If you tell others of the admirable Joys of Heaven and your selves do nothing but drudg for the world and are as much taken up in striving to be rich or as quarrelsom with your Neighbors in a case of commodity as any others who will then beleeve you or who will be perswaded by you to seek the everlasting riches Will they not rather think that you perswade them to look after another world and to neglect this that so you might have the more of it to your self Let not men see you proud while you exhort them to be humble nor to have a seared Conscience in one thing while you would have theirs tender in another An innocent life is a continual powerful reproof to the wicked And the constant practice of a holy and heavenly life is a constant disquietment to the Conscience of a Worldling and a constant solicitation of him to change his course And thus I have opened to you the first and great part of this Duty consisting in private familiar Exhortation for the helping of poor Souls to this Rest that are out of the way and have yet no Title to it and I have shewed you also the maner how to perform it that you may succeed I will now speak a little of the next part SECT XIV BEsides the duty of private admonition you must do your utmost endevors to help men to profit by the publique Ordinances And to that end you must do these things 1. Do your endevors for the procuring of Faithful Ministers where
them that theirs must be go not to law with your people nor quarrel with them if you can possibly avoid it If they wrong you forgive them For evil language give them good and blessing for their cursing Let go your right rather then let go your hopes and advantages for the winning of one soul. Suffer any thing rather then the Gospel and mens souls should suffer Become all things lawful to all men if by any means you may win some Let men see that you use not the Ministery only for a trade to live by But that your very hearts are wholly set upon the welfare of their souls Whatsoever meekness humility condescention or self-deniall you teach them from the Gospel O teach it them also by your undissembled leading example This is to be Guides and Pilots and Governors of the Church indeed Be not like the Orators that Diogenes blamed that studied benè dicere non benè facere Nor like the sign at the Inn door that hangs out in the rain it self while it shews others where they may have shelter and refreshing Nor like a fencer that can offend but not defend as Cicero said of Caelius that he was a good right hand-man but an ill left-hand man See that you be as well able to defend your selves when you are tempted by Satan or accused by men to be proud covetous or negligent as to tel others what they should be O how many heavenly doctrines are in some peoples eares that never were in the preachers heart Too true is that of Hilary Sanctiores sunt aures plebis quam corda sacerdotum Alas that ever pride emulation hypocrisie or covetousness should come into a pulpit They are hateful in the shops and streets but more hatefull in the Church but in the Pulpit most of all What an odious sight is it to see pride and ambition stand up to preach humility and hypocrisie to preach up sincerity and an earthly minded man to preach for a heavenly conversation Do I need to tell you that are Teachers of others that we have but a little while longer to preach and but a few breaths more to breath and then we must come down and be accountable for our work Do I need to tell you that we must dye and be judged as well as our people or that justice is most severe about the Sanctuary and judgment beginneth at the house of God and revenge is most implacable about the Altar and jealousie hottest about the Arke Have you not learned these lessons from Eli Corah Nadah and Abihu Vzzah and the Bethshemites c. though I had said nothing Can you forget that even some of our tribe shall say at judgment Lord we have taught in thy Name who yet must depart with I know you not Do you learn nothing by the afflictions that now lye upon you You see what hath been done against the Ministery of England how some have been laid hold on by the hand of justice and some by the hand of violence and injustice and how all are lashed and reproached by the wanton tongues of ignorant insolent Sectaries neither Prelaticall Presbyterian nor meer Independent now spared it being the very calling it self that now they set against How they rob the Church of her due maintenance and make no more of it then Dionisius did of robbing Aesculapius of his golden beard quia barbatus erat filius at pater Apollo non ita or then the same Dionisius did of robbing Jupiter Olympius of the golden Coate that Hieron had given saying that a Coate of Gold was too heavy for Summer and too cold for VVinter but cloth would be suitable to both Or then he did of robbing the Images of the vessels of gold which they held in their hands saying he did but take what they offered and held forth to him Or then the same Dionisius did of robbing the temple of Proserpina when afterwards his ships had a prosperous winde Videtis inquit quam prospera navigatio a dijs immortaâ—ibus detur sacrilegis Ex hoc colligens aut non esse deos aus illis non esse molesta Sacrilegia Sirs doth God lay all this on the Church and Ministery for nothing Doth not the world know what an ignorant lazy superstitious Ministery had lately possessed most Churches in the land And how many such are yet remaining and those that are better alas how far from what we should be either in knowledg or practice And yet how unwilling are they to learn what they know not Even as unwilling as their people are to learn of them if not much more O see your errors by the glass of your Afflictions And if the words of God will not serve the turn let the tongues of enemies and Sectaries shew you your transgressions Of whom I may say to you as Erasmus of Luther Deus dedit huic postremae aetati propter morborum multitudinem acrem medi cum And as the Emperor Charles of the same Luther Si sacri ficuli frugi essent nullo indigerent Luthero Yet let not any Papist catch at this as if our Ministery were unlearned and vicious in comparison of theirs the contrary for the common sort is well known And though the Jesuits of late have been so industrious and learned yet I could tell them out of Erasmus of some that proved heriticks must be killed from Pauls Haereticum hominem devita i. e. de vita tolle And of Hen. Stephanus his priest of Artois that would prove that it belonged to his parishoners to pave the Church and not to him from Jeremies Paveant illi non paveam ego Or if these seem partial witnesses I could tell them what Bellarmine saith of the ninth Age Seculo haec nullum extitit indoctius aut infaelicius quo qui mathematicae aut Philosophiae operam dabat magus vulgò putabatur And as Espencaeâ—s saith ut Graecè rosse suspectum fuerit Haebraicè prope haereticum I could tell them also what a Clergy was found in Germany and in England at the Reformation what barbarous ignorance beastly uncleanness and murders of the children begotten in whoredome was found among them I could tell them who have been turned from their Church by a meer journey to Rome there seeing the wickedness of their chiefest Clergy And what Petrarâ—h Mantuan with multitudes more say of it And if the most horrid murders were not become vertues with them and did they not think they did God service by killing his servants I should minde them of all the burnings in England and of all the unparalleled bloody Massacres in France and the inquisition of Spain which their Clergy yet manage and promote If any say that I speak this but upon reports we have seen no such thing I answer as Pausanias when he was blamed for dispraising a Physitian that he had never made tryal of Si periculum fecissem nequaquam viverem If we had fallen into their hands
chiefly pressed those Duties which must be used for the attainment of this Everlasting Rest. In this I shall chiefly handle those which are necessary to raise the heart to God and to our Heavenly and comfortable life on Earth It is a Truth too evident which an inconsiderate Zealot reprehended in Master CULVERWELL as an Error That many of Gods Children do not enjoy that sweet Life and blessed Estate in this World which God their Father hath provided for them That is Which he offereth them in his Promises and chargeth upon them as their duty in his Precepts and bringeth even to their hands in all his Means and Mercies God hath set open Heaven to us in his Word and told every humble sincere Christian That they shall shortly there live with himself in unconceiveable Glory and yet where is the person that is affected with this Promise whose heart leaps for joy at the hearing of the news or that is willing in hopes of Heaven to leave this World But even the godly have as strange unsavory thoughts of it as if God did but delude us and there were no such Glory and are almost as loath to die as men without hope The consideration of this strange disagreement between our Professions and Affections caused me to suspect that there was some secret lurking unbelief in all our hearts and therefore I wrote those Arguments in the second Part for the Divine Authority of the Scripture And because I finde another cause to be the carelesness forgetfulness and idleness of the Soul and not keeping in action that Faith which we have I have here attempted the removal of that cause by prescribing a course for the daily acting of those Graces which must fetch in the Celestial Delights into the heart O the Princely joyful blessed Life that the godly lose through meer idleness As the Papists have wronged the merits of Christ by their ascribing too much to our own Works so it is almost incredible how much they on the other extream have wronged the safety and consolation of mens Souls by telling them that their own endevors are onely for Obedience and Gratitude but are not so much as Conditions of their Salvation or Means of their increased Sanctification or Consolation And while some tell them That they must look at nothing in themselves for Acceptation with God or Comfort and so make that Acceptance and Comfort to be equally belonging to a Christian and a Turk And others tell them That they must look at nothing in themselves but onely as signes of their good Estate This hath caused some to expect onely Enthusiastick Consâ—lations and others to spend their days in enquiring after signes of their sincerity Had these poor Souls well understood that Gods way to perswade their wills and to excite and actuate their Affections is by the Discourse Reasoning or Consideration of their Vnderstandings upon the Nature and Qualifications of the Objects which are presented to them And had they bestowed but that time in exercising holy Affections and in serious Thoughts of the promised Happiness which they have spent in enquiring onely after Signes I am confident according to the ordinary Workings of God they would have been better provided both with Assurance and with Joyes How should the Heir of a Kingdom have the comfort of his Title but by fore-thinking on it It s true God must give us our Comforts by his Spirit But how by quickening up our souls to beleeve and consider of the promised Glory and not by comforting us we know not how nor why or by giving men the foretasts of Heaven when they never think of it I have here prescribed thee Reader the delightfullest task to the Spirit and the most tedâ—ous to the Flesh that ever men on Earth were imployed in I did it first onely for my self but am loath to conceal the means that I have found so consolaâ—ory If thou be one that wilt not be perswaded to a course so laborious but wilt onely go on in thy task of common formal duties thou mayest let it alone and so be destitute of delights except such as the World and thy Forms can afford thee but then do not for shame complain for want of comfort when thou dost wilfully reject it And be not such an Hypocrite as to pray for it while thou dost refuse to labor for it If thou say Thy comfort is all in Christ I must tell thee it is a Christ remembred and loved and not a Christ forgotten or onely talked of that will solidly comfort Though the Directory for Contemplation was onely intended for this Part yet I have now premised two other Uses The heart must be taken off from Resting on Earth before it will be fit to converse above The first Part of saving Religion is the taking God onely for our End and Rest. CHAP. I. USE VI. Reproving our Expectations of Rest on Earth SECT I. DOth this Rest remain How great then is our sin and folly to seek and expect it here Where shall we finde the Christian that deserves not this Reproof Surely we may all cry guilty to this accusation We know not how to enjoy convenient Houses Goods Lands and Revenues but we seek Rest in these enjoyments We seldom I fear have such sweet and heart contenting thoughts of God and Glory as we have of our earthly delights How much Rest do the voluptuous seek in Buildings Walks Apparel Ease Recreations Sleep pleasing Meats and Drinks merry Company Health and Strength and long Life Nay we can scarce enjoy the necessary Means that God hath appointed for our Spiritual good but we are seeking Rest in them Do we want Minister Godly Society or the like helps O think we if it were but thus and thus with us we were well Do we enjoy them O how we settle upon them and bless our selves in them as the rich fool in his wealth Our Books our Preachers Sermons Friends Abilities for Duty do not our hearts hug them and quiet themselves in them even more then in God Indeed in words we disclaim it and God hath usually the preheminence in our tongues and professions but it s too apparent that it s otherwise in our hearts by these Discoveries First Do we not desire these more violently when we want them then we do the Lord himself Do we not cry out more sensibly O my Friend my Goods my Health then O my God! Do we not miss Ministry and Means more passionately then we miss our God Do we not bestir our selves more to obtain and enjoy these then we do to recover our communion with God Secondly Do we not delight more in the Possession of these then we do in the fruition of God himself Nay be not those mercies and duties most pleasant to us wherein we stand at greatest distance from God We can read and study and confer preach and hear day after day without much weariness because in these we have to do with
yet remember the heart is deceitful God is oft pretended vvhen our selves are inâ—ended But if this be it that sticks vvith thee indeed consider VVilt thou pretend to be vviser then God doth not he knovv hovv â—o provide for his Church Cannot he do his vvork vvithout thee or finde out instruments enough besides thee Think not too highly of thy self because God hath made thee useful Must the Church needs fall when thou art gone Art thou the foundation on which its built Could God take away a Moses an Aaron David Elias c. and finde supply for all their places and cannot he also finde supply for thine This is to derogate from God too much and to arrogate too much unto thy self Neither art thou so merciful as God nor canst love the Church so well as he As his interest is infinitely beyond thine so is his tender care and bounty But of this before Yet mistake me not in all that I have said I deny not but that it is lawful and necessary for a Christian upon both the forementioned grounds to desire God to delay his death both for a further opportunity of gaining assurance and also to be further serviceable to the Church But first This is nothing to their case who are still delaying and never willing whose true discontents are at death it self more then at the unseasonableness of dying Secondly Though such desires are sometimes lawful yet must they be carefully bounded and moderated to which end are the former considerations We must not be too absolute and peremptory in our desires but cheerfully yield to Gods disposal The rightest temper is that of Pauls to be in a streight between two desiring to depart and be with Christ and yet to stay while God will have us to do the Church the utmost service But alas we are seldom in this streight Our desires run out all one way and that for the flesh and not the Church Our streights are onely for fear of dying and not betwixt the earnest desires of dying and of living SECT XXIV OBject But is not death a punishment of God for sin Doth not Scripture call it the King of fears And Nature above all other evils abhor it Answ. I le not meddle with that which is controversal in this Whether Death be properly a punishment or not But grant that in it self considered it may be called Evil as being naturally the dissolution of the Creature Yet being sanctified to us by Christ and being the season and occasion of so great a Good as is the present possession of God in Christ it may be welcomed with a glad submission if not with desire Christ affords us grounds enough to comfort us against this natural Evil And therefore endues us with the principle of Grace to raise us above the reach of nature For all those low and poor Objections as leaving House Goods and Friends leaving our children unprovided c. I pass them over as of lesser moment then to take much with men of Grace SECT XXV LAstly Understand me in this also That I have spoke all this to the faithful soul. I perswade not the ungodly from fearing death It s a wonder rather that they fear it no more and spend not their days in continual horror as is said before Truly but that we know a stone is insensible and a hard heart is dead and stupid or else a man would admire how poor souls can live in ease and quietness that must be turned out of these bodies into everlasting flames Or that be not sure at least if they should die this night whether they shall lodg in Heaven or Hell the next especially when so many are called and so few chosen and the Righteous themselves are scarcely saved One would think such men should eat their bread with trembling and the thoughts of their danger should keep them waking in the night and they should fall presently a searching themselves and enquiring of others and crying to God That if it were possible they might quickly be out of this danger and so their hearts be freed from horror For a man to quake at the thoughts of death that looks by it to be dispossessed of his happiness and knoweth not whether he is next to go this is no wonder But for the Saints to fear their passage by Death to Rest this is an unreasonable hurtful Fear CHAP. III. Motives to a Heavenly Life SECT I. WE have now by the guidance of the Word of the Lord and by the assistance of his Spirit shewed you the nature of the Rest of the Saints and acquainted you with some duties in relation thereto We come now to the close of all to press you to the great duty which I chiefly intended when I begun this subject and have here reserved it to the last place because I know hearers are usually of slippery memories yet apt to retain the last that is spoken though they forget all that went before Dear friends its pity that either you or I should forget any thing of that which doth so neerly concern us as this Eternal Rest of the Saints doth But if you must needs forget something let it be any thing else rather then this let it be rather all that I have hitherto said though I hope of better then this one ensuing Use. Is there a Rest and such a Rest remaining for us Why then are our thoughts no more upon it why are not our hearts continually there why dwell we not there in constant contemplation Sirs Ask your hearts in good earnest what is the cause of this neglect are we reasonable in this or are we not Hath the Eternal God provided us such a Glory and promised to take us up to dwell with himself and is not this worth the thinking on Should not the strongest desires of our hearts be after it and the daily delights of our souls be there Do we beleeve this and can we yet forget and neglect it What 's the matter will not God give us leave to approach this light or will he not suffer our souls to tast and see Why then what means all his earnest invitations why doth he so condemn our earthly-mindedness and command us to set our affections above Ah vile hearts If God were against it we were likelier to be for it When he would have us to keep our station then we are aspiring to be like God and are ready to invade the Divine Prerogatives But when he commands our hearts to Heaven then they will not stir an inch like our Predecessors the sinful Israelites When God would have them march for Canaan then they mutiny and will not stir either they fear the Gyants or the walled Cities or want necessaries or something hinders them but when God bids them not to go then will they needs be presently marching and fight they will though it be to their overthrow If the fore-thoughts of glory were forbidden
indeed if we were truly reasonable in spiritual things as we are in common it would be a real wonder that men should need so much perswasion to so sweet and plain a duty but I know the emplyment is high the heart is earthly and will still draw back the temptations and hinderances will be many and great and therefore I fear before we have done and laid open more fully the nature of the Duty that you will confess all these perswasions little enough The Lord grant they prove not so too little as to fail of success and leave you as they finde you Say not we are unable to set our own hearts on heaven this must be the work of God onely and therefore all your Exhortation is in vain for I tell you though God be the chief disposer of your hearts yet next under him you have the greatest command of them your selves and a great power in the ordering of your own thoughts and for determining your own wills in their choice though without Christ you can do nothing yet under him you may do much and must do much or else it will be undone and you undone through your neglect Do your own parts and you have no cause to distrust whether Christ will do his Do not your own consciences tell you when your thoughts fly abroad that you might do more then you do to restrain them and when your hearts lye flat and neglect Eternity and seldom minde the Joys before you that most of this neglect is wilful If you be to study a set Speech you can force your thoughts to the intended Subject if a Minister be to study a Sermon he can force his thoughts to the most saving Truths and that without any speciall grace might not a true Christian ther minde more the things of the life to come if he did not neglect to exerciâ—e that authority over his own thoughts which God hath given him especially in such a work as this where he may more confidently expect the assistance of Christ who useth not to forsake his people in the work he sets them on If a carnal Minister can make it his work to study about Christ and heaven through all his life time and all because it is the trade he lives by and knows not how to subsist without it why then me thinks a spiritual Christian should study as constantly the Joys of heaven because it is the very business he lives for and that the place he must be in for ever If the Cook can finde in his heart to labor and sweat about your meat because it is the trade that maintains him though perhaps he taste it not himself Me thinks then you for whom it is prepared should willingly bestow that daily pains to taste its sweetness and feed upon it and if it were about your bodily food you would think it no great pains neither a good stomack takes it for no great labor to eat and drink of the best till it be satisfied nor needs it any great invitation thereto Christians if your souls were sound and right they would perceive incomparably more delight and sweetness in Knowing Thinking Believing Loving and Rejoycing in your future Blessedness in the fruition of God then the soundest stomack findes in its food or the strongest senses in the enjoyment of their objects so little painful would this work be to you and so little should I need to press you to it it s no great pains to you to think of a friend or any thing else that you dearly love and as little would it be to think of Glory if your love and delight were truly there if you do but see some Jewel or Treasure you need not long exhortations to stir up your desires the very sight of it is motive enough if you see the fire when you are cold or see a house in a stormy day or see a safe harbor from the tempestuous seas you need not be told what use to make of it the sight doth presently direct your thoughts you think you look you long till you do obtain it Why should it not be so in the present case Sirs one would think to shew you this Crown and Glory of the Saints should be motive enough to make you desire it to shew you that Harbor where you may be safe from all dangers should soon teach you what use to make of it and should bend your daily studies towards it but because I know while we have flâ—sh about us and any remnants of that carnal minde which is enmity to God and to this noble work that all motives are little enough And because my own and others sad experiences tell me how hardly the best are drawn to a constancy and faithfulness in this duty I vvill here lay down some moving Considerations vvhich if you vvill but vouchsafe to ponder throughly and deliberately vveigh vvith an impartial judgment I doubt not but they vvill prove effectuall vvith your hearts and make you resolve upon this excellent duty I pray you friends let them not fall to the ground but take them up and try them and if you finde they concern you make much of them and obey them accordingly SECT III. 1. COnsider a heart set upon heaven will be one of the most unquestionable evidences of thy sincerity and a clear discovery of a true work of saving grace upon thy soul. You are much in enquiring after Marks of sincerity and I blame you not its dangerous mistaking when a mans salvation lies upon it You are oft asking How shall I know that I am truly sanctified Why here is a mark that will not deceive you if you can truly say that you are possessed of it Even a heart set upon Heaven Would you have a sign infallâ—ble not from me or from the mouth of any man but from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself which all the enemies of the use of Marks can lay no exception against Why here is such a one Mat. 6.21 Where your treasure is there will your hearts be also Know once assuredly where your heart is and you may easily know that your treasure is there God is the Saints Treasure and happiness Heaven is the place where they must fully enjoy him A heart therefore set upon heaven is no more but a heart set upon God desiring after this full enjoyment And surely a heart set upon God through Christ is the truest evidence of saving grace External actions are easiest discovered but those of the heart are the surest evidences When thy learning will be no good proof of thy grace when thy knowledg thy duties and thy gifts will fail thee when Arguments from thy tongue and thy hand may be confuted yet then will this Argument from the bent of thy heart prove thee sincere Take a poor Christian that can scarce speak true English about Religion that hath a weak understanding a failing memory a stammering tongue yet his heart is set on God
same and if we took the right course for fetching in our comfort from these sure our comforts would be more setled and constant though not always the same Whoever thou art therefore that Readest these lines I intreat thee in the name of the Lord and as thou valuest the life of constant Joy and that good conscience which is a continual feast that thou wouldest but seriously set upon this work and learn this Art of Heavenly-mindedness and thou shalt finde the increase a hundred fold and the benefit abundantly exceed thy labor But this is the misery of mans Nature Though every man naturally abhorreth sorrow and loves the most merry and joyful life yet few do love the way to Joy or will endure the pains by which it is obtained they will take the next that comes to hand and content themselves with earthly pleasures rather then they will ascend to heaven to seek it and yet when all is done they must have it there or be without it SECT VI. 4. COnsider A heart in heaven will be a most excellent preservative against temptations a powerful means to kill thy corruptions and to save thy conscience from the wounds of sin God can prevent our sinning though we be careless and keep off the temptation which we would draw upon our selves and sometime doth so but this is not his usual course nor is this our safest way to escape When the minde is either idle or ill imployed the devil needs not a greater advantage when he finds the thoughts let out on Lust Revenge Ambition or Deceit what an opportunity hath he to move for Execution and to put on the Sinner to practise what he thinks on Nay if he finde the minde but empty there 's room for any thing that he will bring in but when he finds the heart in heaven what hope that any of his motions should take Let him entice to any forbidden course or shew us the baite of any pleasure the soul will return Nehemiaes Answer I am doing a great work and cannot come Neh. 6.3 Several ways will this preserve us against Temptations First By keeping the heart imployed Secondly By clearing the Understanding and so confirming the Will Thirdly By prepossessing the Affections with these highest delights Fourthly And by keeping us in the way of Gods blessing First By keeping the heart employed when we are idle we tempt the devil to tempt us as it is an encouragement to a Thief to see your doors open and no body within and as we use to say Careless persons make Theeves or as it will encourage an High-way Robber to see you unweaponed so may it encourage Sathan to find your hearts idle but when the heart is taken up with God it cannot have while to hearken to Temptations it cannot have while to be lustful and wanton ambitious or worldly If a poor man have a suit to any of you he will not come when you are taken up in some great mans company or discourse that 's but an ill time to speed If you were but busied in your lawful Callings you would not be so ready to hearken to Temptations much less if you were busied above with God Will you leave your Plow and Harvest in the Field or leave the quenching of a fire in your houses to run vvith children a hunting of Butterflies vvould a Judg be perswaded to rise from the Bench vvhen he is sitting upon life and death to go and play among the Boys in the streets No more will a Christian vvhen he is busie vvith God and taking a survey of his eternal Rest give ear to the alluring charms of Sathan Non vacat exiguis c. is a Character of the truly prudent man the children of that Kingdom should never have vvhile for trifles but especially vvhen they are imployed in the affairs of the Kingdom and this employment is one of the Saints chief preservatives against temptations For as Gregory saith Nunquam Dei amor otiosus est operatur enim magna si est Si verò operari renuit non est amor The Love of God is never idle it vvorketh great things vvhen it truly is and vvhen it vvill not vvork it is not love Therefore being still thus working it is still preserving Secondly A heavenly minde is the freest from sin because it is of clearest understanding in spiritual matters of greatest concernment A man that is much in conversing above hath truer and livelyer apprehensions of things concerning God and his soul then any reading or learning can beget Though perhaps he may be ignorant in divers controversies and matters that less concern salvation yet those truths vvhich must stablish his soul and preserve him from temptation he knows far better then the greatest Scholars he hath so deep an insight into the evil of sin the vanity of the creature the brutishness of fleshly sensual delights that temptations have little power on him for these earthly vanities are Satans baites which though they may take much with the undiscerning world yet with the clear-sighted they have lost their force In vain saith Salomon the net is spread in the sight of any bird Pro. 1.17 And usually in vain doth Satan lay his snares to entrap the soul that plainly sees them when a man is on high he may see the further we use to set our discovering Centinels on the highest place that 's neer unto us that he may discern all the motions of the Enemy In vain doth the Enemy lay his Ambuscado's when we stand over him on some high Mountain and clearly discover all he doth When the heavenly-minde is above with God he may far easier from thence discern every danger that lyes below and the whole method of the devil in deceiving Nay if he did not discover the snare yet were he likelier far to escape it then any others that converse below A net or baite that 's laid on the ground is unlikely to catch the bird that flyes in the Air while she keeps above she 's out 〈◊〉 of the danger and the higher the safer so is it with us Sathans temptations are laid on the earth earth is the place and earth the ordinary baite How shall these ensnare the Christian who hath left the earth and walks with God But alas we keep not long so high but down we must to the earth again and then we are taken If conversing with wise and learned men is the way to make one wise and learned then no wonder if he that converseth with God become wise If men that travel about the earth do think to return home with more experience and wisdom how much more he that travels to heaven As the very Air and Climate that we most abide in do work our bodies to their own temper no wonder if he that is much in that sublime and purer Region have a purer soul and quicker sight and if he have an understanding full of light who liveth with
Reason then meerly to suspend it I will not now dispute But doubtless when the soul is not affected with good though the Understanding do never so clearly apprehend the Truth it is easie for Satan to entice that soul. Meer speculations be they never so true which sink not into the affections are poor preservatives against temptations He that loves most and not he that onely knows most will easilyest resist the motions of sin There is in a Christian a kinde of spiritual taste whereby he knows these things besides his meer discuisive reasoning power The Will doth as sweetly relish goodness as the Understanding doth Truth and here lyes much of a Christians strength If you should dispute with a simple man and labor to perswade him that Suger is not sweet oâ— that Wormwood is not bitter perhaps you might by Sophistry over-argue his meer Reason but yet could you not perswade him against his sense whereas a man that hath lost his taste is easilyer deceived for all his reason So is it here when thou hast had a fresh delightful taste of heaven thou wilt not be so easily perswaded from it you cannot perswade a very childe to part with his Apple while the taste of its sweetness is yet in his mouth O that you would be perswaded to try this course to be much in feeding on the hidden Manna and to be frequently tasting the delights of heaven It s true it is a great way off from our Sense but Faith can reach as far as that How would this raise the resolutions and make thee laugh at the fooleries of the world and scorn to be cheated with such childish toyes Reader I pray thee tell me in good sadness dost thou think if the devil had set upon Peter in the Mount when he saw Christ in his Transfiguration and Moses and Elias talking with him would he so â—asily have been drawn to deny his Lord what with all that glory in his eye No the devil took a greater advantage when he had him in the High Priests Hall in the midst of danger and evil company when he had forgotten the sight on the Mount and then he prevails So if he should set upon a believing soul when he is taken up in the Mount with Christ what would such a soul say Get thâ—e behinde me Satan wouldst thou perswade me from hence with trifling pleasures and steal my heart from this my Rest wouldst thou have me sell these joyes for nothing Is there any honor or delight like this or can that be profit which loseth me this some such answer would the soul return But alas Satan staies till we are come down and the taste of heaven is out of our mouthes and the glory we saw is even forgotten and then he easily deceives our hearts What if the devil had set upon Paul when he was in the third Heaven and seeing those unutterable things could he then do you think have perswaded his heart to the pleasures or profits or honors of the world If his prick in the flesh which he after received were not affliction but temptation sure it prevailed not but sent him to heaven again for preserving grace Though the Israelites below may be enticed to Idolatry and from eating and drinking to rise up to play yet Moses in the Mount with God will not do so and if they had been where he was and had but seen what he there saw perhaps they would not so easily have sinned If ye give a man Aloes after Honey or some loathsome thing when he hath been feeding on junkets will he not soon perceive and spit it out O if we could keep the taste of our soul continually delighted with the sweetness above with what disdain should we spit out the baits of sin Fourthly Besides whilst the heart is set on heaven a man is under Gods protection and therefore if Satan then assault him God is more engaged for his defence and will doubtless stand by us and say My grace is sufficient for thee when a man is in the way of Gods blessing he is in the less danger of sins enticing So that now upon all this let me intreat thee Christian Reader If thou be a man that is haunted with temptation as doubless thou art if thou be a man if thou perceive thy danger and wouldst fain escape it O use much this powerful remedy keep close with God by a heavenly minde learn this Art of diversion and when the temptation comes go straite to heaven and turn thy thoughts to higher things thou shalt finde this a surer help then any other resisting whatsoever As men will do with scolding women let them alone and follow their business as if they heard not what they said and this will sooner put them to silence then if they answered them word for word so do by Satans temptations it may be he can overtalk you and over-wit you in dispute but let him alone and study not his temptations but follow your business above with Christ and keep your thoughts to their Heavenly imployment and you will this way sooner vanquish the temptation then if you argued or talk'd it out with the Tempter not but that sometime its most convenient to over-reason him but in ordinary temptations to known sin you shall finde it far better to follow this your work and neglect the allurements and say as Grynaeus out of Chrysost. when he sent back Pistorius letters not so much as opening the Seal Inhonestum est honestam matronam cum meritrice litigare It s an unseemly thing for an honest Matrone to be scolding with a Whore so it s a dishonest thing for a Son of God in apparent cases to stand wrangling with the devil and to be so far at his beck as to dispute with him at his pleasure even as oft as he will be pleased to tempt us Christian If thou remember that of Solomon Prov. 15.24 thou hast the summ of what I intend The way of life is above to the wise to avoide the path of hell beneath and withall remember Noahs example Gen. 6.9 Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation and no wonder for Noah walked with God So I may say to thee even as God to Abraham Walk before God and thou wilt be upright Gen. 17.1 SECT VII 5. COnsider The diligent keeping of your hearts on heaven will preserve the vigor of all your graces and put life into all your duties It s the heavenly Christian that is the lively Christian It s our strangeness to Heaven that makes us so dull It s the end that quickeneth to all the means And the more frequently and clearly this end is beheld the more vigorous will all our motion be How doth it make men unweariedly labor and fearelesly venture when they do but think of the gainful prize How will the Souldier hazard his life and the Marriner pass through storms and waves how cheerfully do they compass
the knowledg of whom They esteemed it sweet to live but to die far more sweet And I cannot tell whether this very thing will not prove more glorious to Bucholcer before God then if he had consecrated to the memory of posterity many Myriads of contentious writings And as the study of controversies is not the most pleasant nor the most profitable so much less the publike handling of them For do it with the greatest meekness and ingenuity yet shall we meet with such unreasonable men as the said Bucholcer did Qui arrepta ex aliquibus voculis calumniandi materia haereseos insimulare traducere optimum virum non erubescerent Frustra obtestante ipso dextrè data dextrè acciperent i. e. Who taking occasion of reproach from some small words were not ashamed to traduce the good man and accuse him of Heresie while he in vain obtested with them that they should take in good part what was delivered with a good intention Siracides saith in Ecclesiasticus Chapter 26. That a scolding woman shall be sought oâ—t for to drive away the enemies but experience of all ages tells us to our sorrow That the wrangling Divine is their chiefest in let and no such Scarcrow to them at all So then its clear to me That there is nothing worth our minding but Heaven and the way to Heaven All the Question will be about the affairs of Church and State Is not this worth our minding to see what things will come to and how God will conclude our differences Answ. So far as they are considered as the providences of God and as they tend to the setling of the Gospel and Government of Christ and so to the saving of our own and our posterities souls they are well worth our diligent observation but these are onely their relations to eternity Otherwise I should look up on all the stirs and commotions in the world but as the busie gading of a heap of Ants or the swarming of a nest of Wasps or Bees The spurn of a mans foot destroyes all their labor or as an Enterlude or Tragedy of a few hours long They first quarrel and then fight and let out one anothers blood and bring themselves more speedily and violently to their graves which however they could not long have delayed and so come down and the Play is ended And the next generation succeeds them in their madness and make the like bustle in the world for a time and so they also come down and lie in the dust Like the Roman Gladiatores that would kill one another by the hundreds to make the beholders a solemn shew or as the young men of Joab and Abner that must play before them by stabbing one another to the heart and fall down and dye and there is an end of the sport And is this worth a wise mans observance Surely our very bodies themselves for which we make all this ado in the world are very silly pieces Look upon them not as they are set out in a borrowed bravery but as they lie rotting in a ditch or a grave and you will say they are silly things indeed Why then sure all our dealings in the world our buyings and sellings and eating and drinking our building and marrying our wealth and honors our peace and our war so far as they relate not to the life to come but tend onely to the support and pleasing of this silly flesh must needs themselves be silly things and not worthy the frequent thoughts of a Christian For the Means as such is meaner then their end And now doth not thy Conscience say as I say That there is nothing but Heaven and the way to it that is worth thy minding SECT XV. THus I have given thee these twelve Arguments to consider of and if it may be to perswade thee to a heavenly minde I now desire thee to view them over read them deliberately and read them again and then tell me Are they Reason or are they not Reader stop here while thou answerest my Question Are these Considerations weighty or not are these Arguments convincing or not Have I proved it thy duty and of flat necessity to keep thy heart on things above or have I not Say Yea or Nay man If thou say Nay I am confident thou contradictest thine own Conscience and speakest against the light that is in thee and thy Reason tells thee thou speakest falsly If thou say Yea and acknowledg thy self convinced of the duty bear witness then that I have thine own confession That very tongue of thine shall condemn thee and that confession be pleaded against thee if thou now go home and cast this off and wilfully neglect such a confessed duty and these twelve Considerations shall be as a Jury to convict thee which I propounded hoping they might be effectual to perswade thee I have not yet fully laid open to you the nature and particular way of that duty which I am all this while perswading you to that is the next thing to be done All that I have said hitherto is but to make you willing to perform it I know the whole work of mans salvation doth stick most at his own will If we could once get over this block well I see not what could stand before us Be soundly willing and the work is more then half done I have now a few plain Directions to give you for to help you in doing this great work but alas it s in vain to mention them except you be willing to put them in practice What sayeth thou Reader Art thou willing or art thou not wilt thou obey if I shew thee the way of thy Duty However I will set them down and tender them to thee and the Lord perswade thy heart to the Work CHAP. IV. Containing some Hinderances of a Heavenly Life SECT I. THe first task that I must here set thee consists in the avoiding of some dangerous hinderances which otherwise will keep thee off from this work as they have done many a thousand souls before thee If I shew thee briefly where the Rocks and Gulf do lie I hope thou wilt beware If I stick up a mark at every quicksand I hope I need to say no more to put thee by it Therefore as thou valuest the comforts of a Heavenly conversation I here charge thee from God to beware most carefully of these impediments 1. The first is The living in a known unmortified sin Observe this O what havock this will make in thy soul O the joyes that this hath destroyed The blessed Communion with God that this hath interrupted The ruines it hath made amongst mens graces The soul-strengthning duties that this hath hindred And above all others it is especially an enemy to this great duty Christian Reader I desire thee in the fear of God stay here a little and search thy heart Art thou one that hast used violence with thy conscience Art thou a wilful neglecter of
tell me what difference between this fools expressions and thy affections I doubt not but thou hast more wit then to speak thy minde just in his language but man remember thou hast to do with the searcher of hearts It may be thou holdst on in thy course of duty and prayest as oft as thou didst before it may be thou keepest in with good Ministers and with godly men and seemest as forward in Religion as ever But what is all this to the purpose Mock not thy soul man for God will not so be mocked What good may yet remain in thee I know not but sure I am thy course is dangerous and if thou follow it on will end in dolor Methinks I see thee befooling thy self and tearing thy hair and gnashing thy teeth when thou hearest thy case laid open by God Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul from thee and then whose are all these things Certainly so much as thou delightest and restest on Earth so much is abated of thy delights in God Thine earthly minde may consist with thy profession and common duties but it cannot consist with this Heavenly duty I need not tell thee all this if thou wouldst deal impartially and not be a traitor to thy own soul thou knowest thy self how seldom and cold how cursory and strange thy thoughts have been of the joyes hereafter ever since thou didst trade so eagerly for the world Methinks I even perceive thy conscience stir now and tell thee plainly that this is thy case hear it man O hear it now least thou hear it in another maner when thou wouldest be full loth O the cursed madness of many that seem to be religious who thrust themselves into multitude of employments and think they can never have business enough till they are loaded with labors and clogged with cares That their souls are as unfit to converse with God as a man to walk with a mountain on his back and till he hath even transformed his soul almost into the nature of his drossie carkass and made it as unapt to soare aloft as his body is to leap above the Sun And when all is done and they have lost that Heaven they might have had upon Earth they rake up a few rotten arguments to prove it lawful and then they think that they have salved all though these sots would not do so for their bodies nor forbear their eating or drinking or sleeping or sporting though they could prove it lawful so to do though indeed they cannot prove it lawful neither They miss not the pleasures of this Heavenly Life if they can but quiet their Consciences while they fasten upon lower and baser pleasures For thee O Christian who hast tasted of these pleasures I advise thee as thou valuest their enjoyment as ever thou wouldst taste of them any more take heed of this gulf of An earthly minde For if once thou come to this that thou wilt be rich thou fallest into temptation and a snare and into divers foolish and hurtful lusts it is Saint Pauls own words 1 Tim 6.9 Set not thy minde as Saul on the Asses when the Kingdom of Glory is before thee Keep these things as thy upper Garments still loose about thee that thou maist lay them by when ever there is cause But let God and Glory be next thy heart yea as the very blood and spirits by which thou livest Still remember that of the Spirit The friendship of the World is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the World is the enemy of God Jam. 4.4 And 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him This is plain dealing and happy he that faithfully receives it SECT III. 3. A Third hinderance which I must advise thee to beware is The company of ungodly and sensual men Not that I would disswade thee from necessary converse or from doing them any office of Love especially not from endeavouring the good of their souls as long as thou hast any opportunity or hope Nor would I have thee conclude them to be Dogs and Swine that so thou maist evade the duty of Reproof Nor yet to judg them such at all as long as there is any hope of better or before thou art certain they are such indeed much less can I approve of the practice of those who because the most of the world are naught do therefore conclude men Dogs or Swine before ever they faithfully and lovingly did admonish them yea or perhaps before they have known them or spoke with them and hereupon they will not communicate with them in the Lords Supper but separate from them into distinct Congregations I perswade thee to no such ungodly separation As I never found one word in Scripture where either Christ or his Apostles denied admittance to any man that desired to be a Member of the Church though but onely prosessing to Repent and Believe so neither did I ever there finde that any but convicted Hereticks or scandalous ones and that for the most part after due admonition were to be avoided or debarred our fellowship And whereas it is urged That they are to prove their interest to the priviledges which they lay claim to and not we to disprove it I Answer if that were granted yet their meer professing to Repent and Believe in Christ is a sufficient evidence of their interest to Church member-ship and admittance thereto by Baptism supposing them not admitted before and their being Baptized persons or members of the universal visible Church into which it is that they are Baptized is sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by Heresie or Scandal blot that Evidence which Evidence if they do produce yea though they are yet weak in the Faith of Christ who is he that dare refuse to receive them And this after much doubting dispute and study of the Scriptures I speak as confidently as almost any truth of equal moment So plain is the Scripture in this point to a man that brings his Understanding to the model of Scripture and doth not bring a model in his brain and reduce all he reades to that model The door of the visible Church is incomparably wider then the door of heaven and Christ is so tender so bountiful and forward to convey his grace and the Gospel so free an offer and invitation to all that surely Christ will keep no man off if they will come quite over in spirit to Christ they shall be welcome If they will come but onely to a visible Profession he will not deny them admittance there because they intend to go no further but will let them come as neer as they will and that they come no further shall be their own fault and so it is not his readiness to admit such nor the openness of the door of his visible Church
that makes men Hypocrites but their own wickedness Christ will not keep such out among Infidels for fear of making Hypocrites but when the net is drawn unto the shore the fishes shall be separated and when the time of Harvest comes then the Angels shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them that work iniquity Matth. 13.41 There are many Saints or sanctified men that yet shall never come to heaven who are onely Saints by their separation from Paganism into fellowship with the visible Church but not Saints in the strictest sense by separation from the ungodly into the fellowship of the mystical body of Christ Heb. 10 29. Deut. 7.6 and 14 2 21. and 26.19 and 28.9 Exod. 19.6 1 Cor. 7.13 14. Rom. 11.16 Heb. 3.1 compared with ver 12. 1 Cor. 3.17 and 14.33 1 Cor. 1.2 compared with 11.20 21 c. Gal. 3.26 compared with Gal. 3.3 4. and 4.11 and 5.2 3 4. Joh. 15.2 Thus far I have digressed by way of Caution that you may not think that I disswade you from lawful converse but it is the unnecessary society of ungodly men and too much familiarity with unprofitable companions though they be not so apparently ungodly that I disswade you from There are many persons whom we may not avoid or excommunicate out of the Church no nor out of our private society judicially or by way of penalty to them whom yet we must exclude from our too much familiarity in way of prudence for preservation of our selves It is not onely the open prophane the swearer the drunkard and the enemies of godliness that will prove hurtful companions to us though these indeed are chiefly to be avoided but too frequent society with dead-hearted Formalists or persons meerly civil and moral or whose conference is empty unsavory and barren may much divert our thoughts from heaven and do our selves a great deal of wrong as meer idleness and forgetting God will keep a soul as certainly from Heaven as a profane licentious fleshly life so also will the usuall company of such idle forgetful negligent persons as surely keep our hearts from heaven as the company of men more dissolute and profane Alas our dulness and backwardness is such that we have need of the most constant and powerful helps A clod or a stone that lyes on the earth is as prone to arise and fly in the Air as our hearts are naturally to move toward heaven you need not hold nor hinder the earth and Rocks to keep them from flying up to the skies it is sufficient that you do not help them And surely if our spirits have not great assistance they may easily be kept from flying aloft though they never should meet with the least impediment O think of this in the choice of your company when you spirits are so powerfully disposed for heaven that you need no help to lift them up but as the flames you are alwayes mounting upward and carrying with you all that 's in your way then you may indeed be less careful of our company but till then as you love the delights of a heavenly life be careful herein As it s reported of a Lord that was neer to his death and the Doctor that prayed with him read over the Letany For all women labouring with childe for all sick persons and young children c. From lightning and tempest from plague pestilence and famine from battel murder and sudden death c. Alas saith he what is this to me who must presently dye c. So maist thou say of such mens conference who can talk of nothing but their Callings and vanity Alas what 's this to me who must shortly be in Rest and should now be refreshing my soul with its foretastes what will it advantage thee to a life with God to hear where the Fair is such a day or how the Market goes or what weather is or is like to be or when the Moon changeth or what news is stirring why this is the discourse of earthly men What will it conduce to the raising of thy heart God-ward to hear that this is an able Minister or that an able Christian or that this was an excellent Sermon or that is an excellent book to hear a violent arguing or tedious discourse of Baptism Ceremonies the power of the Keyes the order of Gods Decrees or other such controversies of great difficulty and less importance Yet this for the most part is the sweetest discourse that thou art like to have of a formal speculative dead-hearted Professor Nay if thou hadst newly been warming thy heart in the contemplation of the blessed Joys above would not this discourse benum thine affections and quickly freez thy heart again I appeal to the Judgment of any man that hath tryed it and maketh observations on the frame of his spirit Men cannot well talk of one thing and minde another especially things of such differing natures You young men who are most lyable to this temptation think sadly of what I say Can you have your hearts in Heaven on an Ale-house bench among your roaring singing swaggering companions or when you work in your Shops with none but such whose ordinary language is oaths or filthiness or foolish talking or jesting Nay let me tell you thus much more that if you choose such company when you might have better and finde most delight and content in such you are so far from a Heavenly conversation that as yet you have no title to heaven at all and in that estate shall never come there For were your Treasure there your heart would not be on things so distant Mat. 6.21 In a word our company will be part of our happiness in heaven and its a singular part of our furtherance to it or hinderance from it And as the creatures living in the several Elements are commonly of the temperature of the Element they live in as the fishes cold and moist like the water the worms cold and dry as the earth and so the rest So are we usually like the society which we most converse in He that never found it hard to have a heavenly minde in earthly company it is certainly because he never tryed SECT IIII. 4. A Fourth hinderance to a heavenly conversation is Too frequent disputes about lesser truths and especially when a mans Religion lyes only in his opinions a sure sign of an unsanctified soul. If sad examples be doctrinal to you or the Judgments of God upon us be regarded I need to say the lesse upon this particular It s legibly written in the faces of thousands It is visible in the complexion of our diseased nation This facies Hypocritica is our facies Hipocratica He that hath the least skill in Physiognomy may see that this complexlon is mortal and this picture-like shaddow-like visage affordeth our state a sad prognostick You that have been my companions in Armies and Garrisons in Cities and Countreyes I know have been
of knowing right evidences to try by so much as for want of skil and diligence in using them so have I seldom known a Christian that wants the joyes of this heavenly Life for want of being told the means to get it but for want of a heart to set upon the work and painfully to use the means they are directed to It is the field of the slothful that is overgrown with weeds Pro. 24.30 31 32 33 34. And the desires of the slothful killeth his Joyes because his hands refuse to labor Prov. 21.25 whiles he lyes wishing his soul lyes starving He saith There is a Lyon there 's difficulty in the way and turneth himself on the bed of his ease as a nor turneth on the hinges he bideth his hand in his bosome and it grâ—â—veth him to bring it to his 〈◊〉 though it be â—o feed himself with the food of life Prov. 26â— 13 14 15 16. what 's this bâ—â— espising the feast prepared and setting light by the dearâ—bough pleasures and consequently by the pretious blood that bough them and throwing away our own consolations For the Sâ—rit hath told us That he also that is slothful in his work is broâ—â—â—r to him that is a great waster Prov. 18.9 Apply this to thâ— spiritual Work and study well the meaning of it SECT VII 7. IT s alo a dangerous and secret hinderance to content our selâ—es with the meer preparatives to this heavenly Life while we are â—tter strangers to the life it self when we take up with the meer studies of heavenly things and the notions and thoughts of theâ— in our brain or the talking of them with one another as if this were all that makes us heavenly people Ther 's none in more danger of this snare then those that are much in publike duty especially Preachers of the Gospel O how easily may they be deceived here while they do nothing more then read of heaven and study of heaven and preach of heaven and pray and talk of heaven what is not this the heavenly Life O that God would reveal to our hearts the danger of this snare Alas all this is but meer preparation This is not the life we speak of but it s indeed a necessary help thereto I intreat every one of my Brethren in the Ministry that they search and watch against this Temptation Alas this is but gathering the materials and not the erecting of the building it self this is but gathering our Manna for others and not eating and digesting our selves as he that sits at home may study Geography and draw most exact descriptions of Countreys and yet never see them nor travel toward them so may you describe to others the joyes of heaven and yet never come neer it in your own hearts as a man may tell others of the sweetness of meat which he never tasted or as a blinde man by learning may dispute of light and of colours so may you study and preach most heavenly matter which yâ—â— never sweetned your own spirits and set forth to others that heavenly Light wherewith your own souls were never illightened and bring that fire for the hearts of your people that never once warmed your own hearts If you should study of nothing but heaven while you lived and preach of nothing but heaven to your people yet might your own hearts be strangers to it What heavenly passages had Balaam in his Prophesies yet little of it its like in his spirit Nay we are under a more subtil temptation then any other men to draw us from this heavenly life If our imployments did lye at a greater distant from heaven and did take up our thoughts upon worldly things we should not be so apt to be so contented and deluded but when we finde our selves imployed upon nothing else we are easier drawn to take up here Studying and preaching of heaven is likes to an heavenly Life then thinking and talking of the world is and the likeness is it that is like to deceive us This is to dye the most miserable death even to famish our selves because we have bread on our tables which is worse then to famish when we cannot get it and to die for thirst while we draw water for others thinking it enough that we have daily to do with it though we never drink it to our souls refreshing All that I will say to you more of this shall be in the words of my godly and â—udicious friend Mr. George Aâ—â—ot which I will transcribe lest you have not the Book at hand in his Vindiciae Sabathi pag. 147 148 149. And here let me in a holy Jealousâ—e annex an Exhortation to some of the Ministers of this Land for blessed be God it needs not to all that they would carefully provide and look that they do not build the Tabernacle on the Lords Day I mean that they rest not in the Opus operatum of their holy imployments and busying themselves about the carnall part of holy things in putting off the studying of their Sermons or getting them by heart except it be to work them upon the heart and not barely commit them to memory till that day and so though they take care to build the Tabernacle of Gods Church yet they in the mean time neglect the Temple of their own hearts in serving God in the Spirit and not in the Letter or outward performance onely But it were well if they would gather and prepare their Manna seeth it and bake it the day before that when the Sabbath came they might have nothing to do but to chew and concoct it into their own spirits and so spiritually in the experience of their own hearts not heads dish it out to their hearers which would be a happy means to make them see better fruit of their labors for commonly that which is not â—oâ—ally delivered is notionally received and that which is spiritually and powerfully delivered in the evidence of the Spirit is spiritually and savingly received for spirit begets spirit as fire begets fire c. It is an easie thing to take great pains in the outward part or performance of holy things which oft proves a snare causing the neglect of the spirit of the inner man for many are great laborers in the Work of the Lord that are starvelings in the Spirit of the Lord satisfying themselves in a Popish peace of conscience in the deed doing in stead of Joy in the Holy Ghost bringing indeed meat to their Guests but through haste or laziness eating none themselves or like Taylors make cloathes for other men to weare so they never assaying their own points how they 〈…〉 may suit with their own spirits but think it is their duty to â—each and other mens duty to do So far the Author CHAP. V. Some general helps to a Heavenly Life SECT I. HAving thus shewed thee the blocks in thy way and told thee what hinderances will resist thee in the Work I
therefore the best digestion is there While Truth is but a speculation swimming in the Brain the Soul hath not half received it nor taken fast hold of it Christ and Heaven hath various Excellencies and therefore God hath formed the soul with a power of divers wayes of apprehending that so we might be capable of enjoying those divers Excellencies in Christ even as the creatures having their severall uses God hath given us several senses that so we might enjoy the delights of them all What the better had we been for the pleasant oderiferous flowers and perfumes if we had not possessed the sense of Smelling or what good would Language or Musick have done us if God had not given us the sense of hearing or what delight should we have found in meats or drinks or sweetest things if we had been deprived of the sense of tasting Why so what good could all the glory of Heaven have done us or what pleasure should we have had even in the goodness and perfection of God himself if we had been without the affections of Love and Joy whereby we are capable of being delighted in that Goodness so also what benefit of strength or sweetness canst thou possible receive by thy Meditations on Eternity while thou dost not exercise those Affections which are the senses of the soul by which it must receive this sweetness and strength This is it that hath deceived Christians in this business They have thought that Meditation is nothing but the bare thinking on Truths and the rolling of them in the Understanding and Memory when every School-Boy can do this or persons that hate the things which they think on Therefore this is the great task in hand and this is the work that I would set thee on to get these Truths from thy head to thy heart and that all the Sermons which thou hast heard of Heaven and all the notions that thou hast conceived of this Rest may be turned into the blood and spirits of Affection and thou maist feel them revive thee and warm thee at the heart and maist so think of heaven as heaven should be thought on There are two accesses of Contemplation saith Bernard one in Intellection the other in Affection one in Light the other in Heat one in Acquisition the other in Devotion If thou shouldst study of nothing but Heaven while thou livest and shouldst have thy thoughts at command to turn them hither on every occasion and yet shouldst proceed no further then this this were not the Meditation that I intend nor would it much advantage or better thy soul as it is thy whole soul that must possess God hereafter so must the whole in a lower measure possess him here I have shewed you in the beginning of this Treatise how the soul must enjoy the Lord in Glory to wit by knowing by loving and joying in him why the very same way must thou begin thy enjoyment here So much as thy Understanding and Affections are sincerely acted upon God so much dost thou enjoy him And this is the happy Work of this Meditation So that you see here is somewhat more to be done then barely to remember and think of Heaven as Running and Ringing and Moving and such like labors do not onely stir a hand or a foot but do strain and exercise the whole body so doth Meditation the whole soul. As the Affections of Sinners are set on the world and turned to Idols and faln from God as well as the Understanding so must the Affections of men be reduced to God and taken up with him as well as the Understanding and as the whole was filled with sin before so the whole must be filled with God now as St. Paul saith of Knowledg and Gifts and Faith to remove mountains that if thou have all these without Love Thou art but as sounding Brass or as a tinkling Cymbal so I may say of the exercise of these If in this work of Meditation thou do exercise Knowledg and Gifts and Faith of Miracles and not exercise Love and Joy thou dost nothing thou playest the childe and not the man the Sinners part and not the Saints for so will Sinners do also If thy Meditation tends to fill thy Note-Book with notions and good sayings concerning God and not thy heart with longings after him and delight in him for ought I know thy Book is as much a Christian as thou Mark but Davids description of the blessed man Psal. 1.3 His delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night SECT VI. 4. I Call this Meditation Set and Solemn to difference it from that which is Occasional and Cursory As there is Prayer which is solemn when we set our selves wholly to the duty and Prayer which is sudden and short commonly called Ejaculations when a man in the midst of other business doth send up some brief request to God so also there is Meditation solemn when we apply our selves onely to that work and there is Meditation which is short and cursory when in the midst of our business we have some good thoughts of God in our mindes And as solemn Prayer is either First See when a Christian observing it as a standing duty doth resolvedly practise it in a constant course or secondly Occasional when some unusual occasion doth put us upon it at a season extraordinary so also Meditation admits of the like distinction Now though I would perswade you to that Meditation which is mixt with your common labors in your callings and to that which special occasions do direct you to yet these are not the main thing which I here intend But that you would make it a constant standing duty as you do by Hearing and Praying and Reading the Scripture and that you would solemnly set your selves about it and make it for that time your whole work and intermix other matters no more with it then you would do with prayer or other duties Thus you see as it is differenced by its act what kinde of Meditation it is that we speak of viz. It is the set and solemn acting of all the powers of the Soul SECT VII THe second part of the Difference is drawn from its object which is Rest or the most blessed estate of man in his everlasting enjoyment of God in Heaven Meditation hath a large field to walk in and hath as many objects to work upon as there are matters and lines and words in the Scripture as there are known Creatures in the whole Creation and as there are particular discernable passages of Providence in the Government of the persons and actions through the world But the Meditation that I now direct you in is onely of the end of all these and of these as they refer to that end It is not a walk from Mountains to Valleys from Sea to Land from Kingdom to Kingdom from Planet to Planet But it is a walk from Mountains
circumstances though to some they may seem small things doth much conduce to our hinderance or our help Christ himself thought it not vain to direct in this circumstance of private duty Mat. 6.4 6 18 If in private prayer we must shut our door upon us that our Father may hear us in secret so is it also requisite in this Meditation How oft doth Christ himself depart to some mountain or wilderness or other solitary place For occasional Meditation I give thee not this advise but for this daily set and solemn duty I advise that thou withdraw thy self from all society yea though it were the society of godly men that thou mayest a while enjoy the society of Christ If a student cannot study in a crowd who exerciseth only his invention and memory much lesse when thou must exercise all the powers of thy soul and that upon an object so far above nature When thy eyes are filled with the persons and actions of men and thine ears with their discourse its hard then to have thy thoughts and affections free for this duty Though I would not perswade thee to Pythagoras his Cave nor to the Hermets Wilderness nor to the Monks Cell yet I would advise thee to frequent solitariness that thou mayest sometimes confer with Christ and with thy self as well as with others We are fled so far from the solitude of superstition that we have cast off the solitude of contemplative devotion Friends use to converse most familiarly in private and to open their Secrets and let out their affections most freely Publike converse is but common converse Use therefore as Christ himself did Mark 1.35 to depart sometimes into a solitary place that thou maist be wholly vacant for this great employment See Mat. 14.23 Mark 6.47 Luke 9.18 36. John 6.15 16. We seldom read of Gods appearing by himself or his Angels to any of his Prophets or Saints in a throng but frequently when they were alone And as I advise thee to a place of retiredness so also that thou observe more particularly what place and posture best agreeth with thy spirit Whether within doors or without whether siting still or walking I beleeve Isaacs example in this also will direct us to the place and posture which will best suit with most as it doth with me viz. His walking forth to meditate in the field at the eventide And Christs own example in the places forecited gives us the like direction Christ was used to a solitary Garden that even Judas when he came to betray him knew where to finde him John 18.1 2. And though he took his Disciples thither with him yet did he separate himself from them for more Secret devotions Luke 22.41 And though his meditation be not directly named but onely his praying yet it is very clearly implied Matth. 26.38 39. His soul is first made sorrowful with the bitter meditations on his death and sufferings and then he poureth it out in prayer Mark 14.34 So that Christ had his accustomed place and consequently accustomed duty and so must we Christ hath a place that is solitary whither he retireth himself even from his own Disciples and so must we Christs meditations do go further then his thought they affect and pâ—erce his heart and soul and so must ours Onely there is a wide difference in the object Christ meditates on the suffering that our sins had deserved that the wrath of his Father even passed through his thoughts upon all his soul But the meditation that we speak of is on the glory he hath purchased that the love of the Father and the joy of the Spirit might enter at our thoughts and revive our affections and overflow our souls So that as Christs meditation was the sluce or flood-gate to let in Hell to overflow his Affections so our meditation should be the sluce to let in Heaven into our affections SECT IX SO much concerning the Time and Place of this duty I am next to advise thee somewhat concerning the preparations of thy heart The success of the work doth much depend on the frame of thy heart When mans heart had nothing in it that might grieve the Spirit then was it the delightful habitation of his Maker God did not quit his residence there till man did expel him by unworthy provocations There grew no strangeness till the heart grew sinful and too loathsom a dungeon for God to delight in And were this soul reduced to its former innocency God would quickly return to his former habitation yea so far as it is renewed and repaired by the Spirit and purged of its lusts and beautified with his Image the Lord will yet acknowledg it his own and Christ will manifest himself unto it and the Spirit will take it for his Temple and Residence So far as the soul is qualified for conversing with God so far it doth actually for the most part enjoy him Therefore with all diligence keep thy heart for from thence are the issues of life Prov 4.23 More particularly when thou fettest on this duty First Get thy heart as clear from the world as thou canst wholly lay by the thoughts of thy business of thy troubles of thy enjoyments and of every thing that may take up any room in thy soul. Get thy soul as empty as possibly thou canst that so it may be the more capable of being filled with God It is a work as I have said that will require all the powers of thy soul if they were a thousand times more capacious and active then they are and therefore you have need to lay by all other thoughts and affections while you are busied here If thou couldst well perform some outward duty with a piece of thy heart while the other is absent yet this above all I am sure thou canst not Surely if thou once address thy self to the business indeed thou wilt be as the covetous man at the heap of Gold that when he might take as much as he could carry away lamented that he was able to bear no more So when thou shalt get into the Mount in contemplation thou wilt finde there as much of God and Glory as thy narrow heart is able to contain and almost nothing to hinder thy full possession but onely the uncapableness of thy own Spirit O then wilt thou think that this understanding were larger that I might conceive more that these affections were wider to contain more it is more my own unfitness then any thing else which is the cause that even this place is not my Heaven God is in this place and I know it not This Mount is full of the Angels of God but mine eyes are shut and cannot see them O the words of love that Christ hath to speak O the wonders of love that he hath to shew But alas I cannot bear them yet Heaven is here ready at hand for me but my uncapable heart is unready for Heaven Thus wouldst thou lament that the
the remaining Work is onely to direct you how to use your hands and mouth to feed your stomack I mean how to use your â—nderstandings for the warming of your Affections and to fire your Hearts by the help of your Heads And herein it will be necessary that I observe this Method First to shew you what instrument it is that you must work by Secondly VVhy and how this way of working is like to succeed and attain its end Thirdly VVhat powers of the soul should here be acted and what are the particular Affections to be excited and what objective Considerations are necessary thereto and in what order you should proceed Fourthly By what acts you must advance to the height of the work Fifthly VVhat advantages you must take and what helps you must use for the facilitating your success Sixthly In what particulars you must look narrowly to your hearts through the whole And I will be the briefer in all left you should loâ—e my meaning in a crowd of words or your thoughts be carried from the VVork it self by an over-long and tedious Explication of it SECT II. 1. THe great Instrument that this Work is done by is Ratiocination Reasoning the case with your selves Discourse of minde Cogitation or Thinking or if you will call it Consideration I here suppose you to know the things to be considered and therefore shall wholly pass over thaâ— Meditation of Students which tends onely to Speculation or Knowing They are known Truths that I perswade you to consider for the grossly ignorant that know not the Doctrine of everlasting Life are for the present uncapable of this duty Mans soul as it receives and retains the Idea's or Shapes of things so hath it a power to chuse out any of these deposited Idea's and draw them forth and act upon them again and again even as a Sheep can fetch up his meat for rumination otherwise nothing would affect us but while the sense is receiving it and so we should be somewhat below the Bruits This is the power that here you must use To this choice of Idea's or subjects for your Cogitation there must necessarily concur the act of the Will which indeed must go along in the whole Work for this must be a voluntary not a forced Cogitation Some men do consider whether they will or no and are not able to turn away their own thoughts so will God make the wicked consider of their sins when he shall set them all in order before them Psal. 50.21.22 And so shall the damned consider of Heaven and of the excellency of Christ whom they once despised and of the eternal joyes which they have foolishly lost But this forced Consideration is not that I mean but that which thou dost willingly and purposely chose but though they will be here requisite yet still Consideration is the instrument of the Work SECT III. 2. NExt let us see what force Consideration hath for the moving of the affections and for the powerful imprinting of things in the heart Why First Consideration doth as it were open the door between the Head and the Heart The Understanding having received Truths layes them up in the Memory now Consideration is the conveyer of them from thence to the Affections There 's few men of so weak Understanding or Memory but they know and can remember that which would strangely work upon them and make great alterations in their spirits if they were not locked up in their brain and if they could but convey them down to their hearts Now this is the great work of Consideration O what rare men would they be who have strong heads and much learning and knowledge if the obstructions between the Head and the Heart were but opened and their Affections did but correspond to their Understandings why if they would but bestow as much time and pains in studying the goodness and the evil of things as they bestow in studying the Truth and Falshood of Enunciations it were the readiest way to obtain this he is usually the best Scholar who hath the quick the clear and the tenacious apprehension but he is usually the best Christian who hath the deepest piercing and affecting Apprehension He is the best Scholar who hath the readiest passage from the Ear to the Brain but he is the best Christian who hath the readiest passage from the Brain to the Heart now Consideration is that on our parts that must open the passage though the Spirit open as the principal cause inconsiderate men are stupid and senseless SECT IV. 2. MAtter 's of great weight which do neerly concern us are aptest to work most effectually upon the Heart now Meditation draweth forth these working Objects and presents them to the Affections in their worth and weight The most delectable Object doth not please him that sees it not nor doth the joyfullest news affect him that never hears it now Consideration presents before us those Objects that were as absent and brings them to the Eye and the Ear of the soul Are not Christ and Glory think you affecting Objects would not they work wonders upon the soul if they were but clearly discovered and strangely transport us if our apprehensions were any wâ—it answerable to their worth why by Consideration it is that they are presented to us This is the Prospective Glass of the Christian by which he can see from Earth to Heaven SECT V. 3. AS Consideration draweth forth the weightiest Objects so it presenteth them in the most affecting way and presseth them home with enforcing Arguments Man is a Rational Creature and apt to be moved in a Reasoning way especially when Reasons are evident and strong Now Consideration is a reasoning the case with a mans own heart and what a multitude of Reasons both clear and weighty are always at hand for to work upon the heart VVhen a Believer would reason his heart to this heavenly work how many Arguments do offer themselves from God from the Redeemer from every one of the Divine Attributes from our former Estate from our present Estate from Promises from Seals from Earnest from the Evil we now suffer from the Good we partake of from Hell from Heaven every thing doth offer it self to promote our joy now Meditation is the Hand to draw forth all these as when you are weighing a thing in the Ballance you lay on a little more and a little more till it weigh down so if your Affections do hang in a dull indifferency why due Meditation will add Reason after Reason till the scales do turn Or as when you are buying any thing of necessity for your use you bid a little more and a little more till at last you come to the sellers price so when Meditation is perswading you to Joy it will first bring one Reason and then another till it have silenced all your distrust and sorrows and your cause to rejoyce lyes plain before you If another mans reasons will
work so powerfully with us though we are uncertain whether his heart do concur with his speeches and whether his intention be to inform us or deceive us how much more should our own Reasons work with us when we are acquainted with the right intentions of our own hearts Nay how much more rather should Gods Reasons work with us which we are sure are neither fallacions in his intent nor in themselves seeing he did never yet deceive nor was ever deceived Why now Meditation is but the Reading over and repeating Gods reasons to our hearts and so disputing with our selves in his Arguments and terms And is not this then likely to be a prevailing way What Reasons doth the prodigal plead with himself why he should return to his fathers house And as many and strong have we to plead with our affections to perswade them to our Fathers Everlasting habitations And by Consideration it is that they must all be set a work SECT VI. 4. MEditation putteth reason in its Authority and preheminence It helpeth to deliver it from its captivity to the senses and setteth it again upon the throne of the soul. When Reason is silent it is usually subject For when it is asleep the senses domineer Now consideration wakeneth our reason from its sleep till it rowse up it self as Sampson and break the bonds of sensuality wherewith it is fettered and then as a Gyant refreshed with wine it bears down the delusions of the flesh before it What strength can the Lyon put forth when he is asleep What is the King more then another man when he is once deposed from his throne and authority When men have no better Judg then the flesh or when the joyes of heaven go no further then their fantasie no wonder if they work but as common things sweet things to the eye and beautiful things to the ear will work no more then bitter and deformed every thing worketh in its own place and every sense hath its proper object Now it is spiritual reason excited by Meditation and not the fantasie or fleshly sense which must favor and judg of those superior Joyes Consideration exalteth the objects of faith and disgraceth comparatively the objects of sense The most inconsiderate men are the most sensual men SECT VII 5. MEditation also putteth reason into his strength Reason is at the strongest when it is most in action Now Meditation produceth reason into Act. Before it was as a standing water which can move nothing else when it self moveth not but now it is as the speedy stream which violently bears down all before it Before it was as the still and silent air but now it is as the powerful motion of the wind and overthrows the opposition of the flesh and the devil Before it was as the stones which lay still in the brook but now when Meditation doth set it awork it is as the stone out of Davids sling which smites the Goliah of our unbelief in the forehead As wicked men continue wicked not because they have not reason in the principle but because they bring it not into Act and use so godly men are uncomfortable and sad not because they have no causes to rejoyce nor because they have not reason to discern those causes but because they let their reason and faith lye asleep and do not labor to set them a going nor stir them up to action by this work of Meditation You know that our very dreams will deeply affect What fears What sorrowes What Joy will they stir up How much more then would serious Meditation affect us SECT VIII 6. MEditation can continue this Discouâ—sive imployment That may be accomplished by a weaker motion continued which will not by a stronger at the first attempt A plaister that is never so effectual to cure must yet have time to do its work and not to be taken off as soon as it s on Now Meditation doth hold the plaister to the sore It holdeth Reason and Faith to their work and bloweth the fire till it throughly burn To run a few steps will not get a man heat but walking an hour together may So though a sudden occasional thought of Heaven will not raise our affections to any spiritual heat yet Meditation can continue our thoughts and lengthen our walk till our hearts grow warm And thus you see what force Meditation or consideration hath for the effecting of this great elevation of the soul whereto I have told you it must be the Instrument CHAP. IX What Affections must be Acted and by what Considerations and objests and in what order SECT I. THirdly To draw yet neerer the heart of the work The third thing to be discovered to you is What Powers of the soul must here be acted What affections excited What considerations of their objects are necessary thereto and in what order we must proceed I joyn all these together because though in themselves they are distinct things yet in the practice they all concurre to the same Action The matters of God which we are to think on have their various qualifications and are presented to the soul of man in divers relative and Modal considerations According to these several considerations of the objects the soul it self is distinguished into its several faculties powers and capacities That as God hath given man five senses to partake of the five distinct excellencies of the objects of sense so he hath diversifyed the soul of man either into faculties powers or ways of acting answerable to the various qualifications and considerations of himself and the inferior objects of this soul And as if there be more sensible excellencies in the creatures yet they are unknown to us who have but these five senses to discern them by so whatever other excellencies are in God and our happiness more then these faculties or powers of the soul can apprehend must needs remain wholly unknown to us till our souls have senses as it were suitable to those objects 〈◊〉 as it is unknown to a tree or a stone what sound and light 〈◊〉 sweetness are or that there are any such things in the world 〈◊〉 Now these matters of God are primarily diversifyed to our consideration under the Distinction of True and Good accordingly the primary Distinction concerning the soul is into the faculties of Understanding and Will the former having Truth for its object and the latter Goodness This Truth is sometime known by evident Demonstration and so it is the object of that we call knowledg which also admits of divers distinctions according to several ways of demonstration which I am loth here to puzzle you with Sometime it is received from the Testimony of others which receiving we call belief When any thing else would obscure it or stands up in competition with it then we weigh their several evidences and accordingly discover and vindicate the Truth and this we call Judgment Sometime by the strength the clearness
raise within us Were we throughly perswaded That every Word in the Scripture concerning the unconceivable joyes of the Kingdom and the unexpressible Blessedness of the life to come were the very Word of the Living God and should certainly be performed to the smallest tittle O what astonishing apprehensions of that life would it breed what amazing horror would seize upon our hearts when we found our selves strangers to the conditions of that life and utterly ignorant of our portion therein what love what longings would it raise within us O how it would actuate every affection how it would transport us with joy upon the least assurance of our title If I were as verily perswaded that I shall shortly see those great things of Eternity promised in the Word as I am that this is a chair that I sit in or that this is paper that I write on would it not put another Spirit within me would it not make me forget and despise the world and even forget to sleep or to eat And say as Christ I have meat to eat that ye know not of O Sirs you little know what a through belief would work Not that every one hath such affections who hath a true Faith But thus would the acting and improvement of our Faith advance us Therefore let this be a chief part of thy business in Meditation Produce the strong Arguments for the Truth of Scripture plead them against thy unbelieving nature answer and silence all the cavils of infidelity Read over the Promises study all confirming Providences call forth thine own recorded experiences Remember the Scriptures already fulfilled both to the Church and Saints in former ages and eminently to both in this present age and those that have been fulfilled particularly to thee Get ready the clearest and most convincing Arguments and keep them by thee and frequently thus use them Think it not enough that thou wast once convinced though thou hast now forgot the Arguments that did it no nor that thou hast the Arguments still in thy Book or in thy Brain This is not the acting of thy Faith but present them to thy understanding in thy frequent meditations and urge them home till they force belief Actual convincing when it is clear and frequent will work those deep impressions on the heart which an old neglected forgotten conviction will not O if you would not think it enough that you have Faith in the habit and that you did once beleeve but would be daily setting this first wheel a going Surely all the inferior wheels of the Affections would more easily move Never expect to have Love and Joy move when the foregoing Grace of Faith stands still And as you should thus act your assent to the Promise so also your Acceptation your Adherence your Affiance and your Assurance These are the four steps of Application of the Promise to our selves I have said somewhat among the Helps to move you to get Assurance But that which I here aim at is That you would daily exercise it Set before your Faith the Freeness and the Universality of the Promise Consider of Gods offer and urging it upon all and that he hath excepted from the conditional Covenant no man in the world nor will exclude any from Heaven who will accept of his offer Study also the gracious disposition of Christ and his readiness to entertain and welcome all that will come Study all the Evidences of his love which appeared in his sufferings in his preaching the Gospel in his condescention to sinners in his easie conditions in his exceeding patience and in his urgent invitations Do not all these discover his readiness to save did he ever yet manifest himself unwilling remember also his faithfulness to perform his engagements Study also the Evidences of his Love in thy self look over the works of his Grace in thy soul If thou do not finde the degree which thou desirest yet deny not that degree which thou findest look after the sincerity more then the quantity Remember what discoveries of thy state thou hast made formerly in the work of self-examination how oft God hath convinced thee of the sincerity of thy heart Remember all the sonner testimonies of the Spirit and all the sweet feelings of the favor of God and all the prayers that he hath heard and granted and all the rare preservations and deliverances and all the progress of his Spirit in his workings on thy soul and the disposals of providence conducing to thy good The vouchsafing of means the directing thee to them the directing of Ministers to meet with thy state the restraint of those sins that thy nature was most prone to And though one of these considered alone may be no sure evidence of his special love which I expect thou shouldst try by more infallible signes yet lay them altogether and then think with thy self Whether all these do not testifie the good will of the Lord concerning thy salvation and may not well be pleaded against thine unbelief And whether thou maist not conclude with Sampsons Mother when her husband thought they should surely die If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received an offering at our hands neither would he have shewed us all these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these Judg. 13.22 23. SECT V. â— WHen thy Meditation hath thus proceeded about the truth of thy Happiness the next part of the work is to meditate of its Goodness That when the Judgment hath determined and Faith hath apprehended it may then past on to raise the Affections 1. The first Affection to be acted is Love the object of it as I have told you is Goodness Here then here Christian is the Soul reviving part of thy work Go to thy Memory thy Judgment and thy Faith and from them produce the excellencies of thy Rest take out a copy of the Record of the Spirit in Scripture and another of the sentence registred in thy Spirit whereby the â—â—anscendent glory of the Saints is declared Present these to thy affection of Love open to it the Cabinet that contains the Pearl shew it the Promise and that which it assureth Thou needest not look on Heaven through a multiplying Glass open but one Casement that Love may look in Give it but a glimpse of the back parts of God and thou wilt finde thy self presently in another world Do but speak out and Love can hear do but reveal these things and Love can see It s the bruitish love of the world that is blinde Divine love is exceeding quick sighted Let thy Faith as it were take thy heart by the hand and shew it the sumptuous buildings of thy Eternal Habitation and the Glorious Ornaments of thy Fathers house shew it those Mansions which Christ is preparing and display before it the Honors of the Kingdom Let Faith lead thy heart into the presence of God and draw as neer as possibly thou
it you in respect of the time of performance Our chief work will here be to discover to you the danger and that will direct you to the fittest remedy Let me therefore here acquaint you beforehand That when ever you set upon this Heavenly employment you shall finde your own hearts your greatest hinderer and they will prove false to you in one or all of these four degrees First They will hold off that you will hardly get them to the work secondly or else they will betray you by their idleness in the work pretending to do it when they do it not or thirdly they will interrupt the work by their frequent excursions and turning aside to every object or fourthly they will spoil the work by cutting it short and be gone before you have done any good on it Therefore I here forewarn you as you value the unvaluable comfort of this work that you faithfully resist these four dangerous evils or else all that I have said hitherto is in vain 1. Thou shalt finde thy heart as backward to this I think as to any work in the world O what excuses it will make what evasions it will finde out and what delays and demurs when it is never so much convinced Either it will question whether it be a duty or not or if it be so to others yet whether it be so to thee It will rake up any thing like reason to plead against it it will tell thee That this is a work for Ministers that have nothing else to study on or for Cloysterers or persons that have more leisure then thou hast If thou be a Minister it will tell thee This is the duty of the people it is enough for thee to meditate for the instructing of them and let them meditate on what they have heard as if it were thy duty onely to cook their meat and serve it up and perhaps a little to taste the sweetness by licking thy fingers while thou art dressing it for others but it is they onely that must eat it digest it and live upon it Indeed the smell may a little refresh thee but it must be digesting it that must maintain thy strength and life If all this will not serve thy heart will tell thee of other business thou hast this company stayes for thee or that business must be done It may be it will set thee upon some other duty and so make one duty shut out another for it had rather go to any duty then to this Perhaps it will tell thee that other duties are greater and therefore this must give place to them because thou hast not time for both Publike business is of more concernment to study to preach for the saving of souls must be preferred before these private contemplations As if thou hadst not time to see to the saving of thy own soul for looking after others or thy charity to others were so great that it draws thee to neglect thy comfort and salvation or as if there were any better way to fit us to be useful to others then to make this experience of our doctrine our selves Certainly Heaven where is the Father of Lights is the best fire to light our candle at and the best book for a Preacher to study and if they would be perswaded to study that more the Church would be provided of more heavenly lights And when their Studies are Divine and their Spirits Divine their preaching will then be also Divine and they may be fitly called Divines indeed Or if thy heart have nothing to say against the work then it will trifle away the time in delayes and promise this day and the next but still keep off from the doing of the business Or lastly If thou wilt not be so baffled with excuses or delayes thy heart will give thee a flat denial and oppose its own unwillingness to thy Reason Thou shalt finde it come to the work as a Bear to the stake and draw back with all the strength it hath I speak all this of the heart so far as it is carnal which in too great a measure is in the best for I know so far as the heart is Spiritual it will judg this work the sweetest in the world Well then what is to be done in the forementioned case wilt thou do it if I tell thee Why what wouldst thou do with a servant that were thus backward to his work or to thy beast that should draw back when thou wouldst have him go forward Wouldst thou not first perswade and then chide and then spur him and force him on and take no denial nor let him alone till thou hadst got him closely to fall to his work Wouldst thou not say Why what should I do with a servant that will not work or with an Ox or Horse that will not travel or labor Shall I keep them to look on Wilt thou then faithfully deal thus with thy heart If thou be not a lazie self deluding Hypocrite say I will by the help of God I will Set upon thy heart roundly perswade it to the work take no denial chide it for its backwardness use violence with it bring it to the service willing or not willing Art thou master of thy flesh or art thou a servant to it hast thou no command of thy own thoughts cannot thy will chuse the subject of thy Meditations especially when thy judgment thus directeth thy will I am sure God once gave thee mastery over thy flesh and some power to govern thy own thoughts Hast thou lost thy authority art thou become a slave to thy depraved nature Take up the authority again which God hath given thee command thy heart if it rebel use violence with it if thou be too weak call in the Spirit of Christ to thine assistance He is never backward to so good a work nor will deny his help in so just a cause God will be ready to help thee if thou be not unwilling to help thy self Say to him Why Lord thou gavest my Reason the command of my Thoughts and Affections the authority I have received over them is from thee and now behold they refuse to obey thine authority Thou commandest me to set them to the work of Heavenly Meditation but they rebel and stubbornly refuse the duty Wilt thou not assist me to execute that authority which thou hast given me O send me down thy Spirit and Power that I may enforce thy commands and effectually compel them to obey thy Will And thus doing thou shalt see thy heart will submit its resistance will be brought under and its backwardness will be turned to a yielding compliance SECT II. 2. WHen thou hast got thy heart to the work beware least it delude thee by a loitering formality Least it say I go and go not least it trifle out the time while it should be effectually meditating Certainly the heart is as likely to betray thee in this as in any one particular about
the duty When thou hast perhaps but an hours time for thy Meditation the time will be spent before thy heart will be serious This doing of duty as if we did it not doth undo as many as the flat omission of it To rub out the hour in a bare lazie thinking of Heaven is but to lose that hour and delude thy self Well what is to be done in this case why do here also as you do by a loitering servant keep thine eye always upon thy heart look not so much to the time it spendeth in the duty as to the quantity and quality of the work that is done You can tell by his work whether your servant hath been painful ask what affections have yet been acted how much am I yet got neerer Heaven Verily many a mans heart must be followed as close in this duty of Meditation as a Horse in a Mill or an Ox at the Plow that will go no longer then you are calling or scourging If you cease driving but a moment the heart will stand still and perhaps the best hearts have much of this temper I would not have thee of the judgment of those who think that while they are so backward it is better let it alone and that if meer love will not bring them to the duty but there must be all this violence used to compel it that then the service is worse then the omission These men understand not first That this Argument would certainly cashiere all Spiritual obedience because the hearts of the best being but partly sanctified will still be resisting so far as they are carnal Secondly Nor do they understand well the corruptness of their own natures Thirdly Nor that their sinful undisposedness will not baffle or suspend the commands of God Fourthly Nor one sin excuse another Fifthly Especially they little know the way of God to excite their Affections and that the love which should compel them must it self be first compelled in the same sense as it is said to compel Love I know is a most precious grace and should have the chief interest in all our duties But there be means appointed by God to procure this love and shall I not use those means till I can use them from love that were to neglect the means till I have the end Must I not seek to procure love till I have it already There are means also for the increasing of love where it is begun and means for the exciting of it where it lieth dull And must I not use these means till it is increased and excited Why this reasoning considering-duty that we are in hand with is the most singular means both to stir up thy love and to increase it and therefore stay not from the duty till thou feel thy love constrain thee that were to stay from the fire till thou feel thy self warm but fall upon the work till thou art constrained to love and then love will constrain thee to further duty My jealously least thou shouldst miscarry by these sotish opinions hath made me more tedious in the opening of its error Let nothing therefore hinder thee while thou art upon the work from plying thy heart with constant watchfulness and constraint seeing thou hast such experience of its dulness and backwardness let the spur be never out of its side and when ever it slacks pace be sure to give it a remembrance SECT III. 3. AS thy heart will be loitering so will it be diverting It will be turning aside like a carless servant to talk with every one that passeth by When there should be nothing in thy minde but the work in hand it will be thinking of thy calling or thinking of thy afflictions or of every bird or tree or place thou seest or of any impertinency rather then of Heaven Thy heart in this also will be like the Husbandmans Ox or Horse if he drive not he will not go and if he guide not he will not keep the furrow and it is as good stand still as go out of the way Experience will tell thee thou wilt have much ado with thy heart in this point to keep it one hour to the work without many extravagancies and idle cogitations The cure here is the same with that before to use watchfulness and violence with your own imaginations and as soon as they step out to chide them in Say to thy heart What did I come hither to think of my business in the world to think of places and persons of news or vanity yea or of any thing but Heaven be it never so good what canst thou not watch one hour wouldst thou leave this world and dwell in Heaven with Christ for ever and canst thou not leave it one hour out of thy thoughts nor dwell with Christ in one hours close Meditation Ask thy heart as Absalom did Hushai Is this thy love to thy friend Dost thou love Christ and the place of thy Eternal Blessed abode no more then so When Pharaohs Butler dreamed That he pressed the ripe Grapes into Pharaohs Cup and delivered the Cup into the Kings hand it was a happy dream and signified his speedy access to the Kings presence But the dream of the Baker That the Birds did eat out of the Basket on his head the baked meats prepared for Pharaoh had an ill omen and signified his hanging and their eating of his flesh So when the ripened Grapes of Heavenly Meditation are pressed by thee into the Cup of Affection and this put into the hands of Christ by delightful praises if thou take me for skilful this is the interpretation That thou shalt shortly be taken from this prison where thou liest and be set before Christ in the Court of Heaven and there serve up to him that Cup of praise but much fuller and much sweeter for ever and for ever But if the ravenous fowls of wandring thoughts do devour the Meditations intended for Heaven I will not say flatly it signifieth thy death but this I will say That so far as these intrude they will be the death of that service and if thou ordinarily admit them That they devour the life and the joy of thy thoughts and if thou continue in such a way of duty to the end It signifies the death of thy soul as well as of thy service Drive away these birds of prey then from thy sacrifice and strictly keep thy heart to the work thou art upon SECT IV. 4. LAstly Be sure also to look to thy heart in this That it cut not off the work before the time and run not away through weariness before it have leave Thou shalt finde it will be exceeding prone to this like the Ox that would unyoke or the Horse that would be unburdened and perhaps cast off his burden and run away Thou maist easily perceive this in other duties If in secret thou set thy self to pray is not thy heart urging thee still to cut it short dost thou not
frequently finde a motion to have done art thou not ready to be up as soon almost as thou art down on thy knees Why so it will be also in thy contemplations of Heaven As fast as thou gettest up thy heart it will be down again it will be weary of the work it will be minding thee of other business to be done and stop thy Heavenly walk before thou art well warm Well what is to be done in this case also why the same authority and resolution which brought it to the work and observed it in the work must also hold it to it till the work be done Charge it in the Name of God to stay do not so great a work by the halves say to it VVhy foolish heart If thou beg a while and go away before thou hast thy alms dost thou not lose thy labor if thou stop before thou art at the end of thy journey is not very step of thy travel lost Thou camest hither to fetch a walk to Heaven in hope to have a sight of the glory which thou must inherit and wilt thou stop when thou art almost at the top of the Hill and turn again before thou hast taken thy survey Thou camest hither in hope to speak with God and wilt thou go before thou hast seen him Thou camest to bathe thy self in the streams of Consolation and to that end didst uncloath thy self of thy Earthly thoughts and wilt thou put a foot in and so be gone Thou camest to spie out the Land of Promise O go not back without the bunch of Grapes which thou maist shew to thy Brethren when thou comest home for their Confirmation and Encouragement till thou canst tell them by experience That it is a Land flowing with Wine and Oyl with Milk and Honey Let them see that thou hast tasted of the Wine by the gladness of thy heart and that thou hast been anointed with the Oyl by the cheerfulness of thy countenance Let them see that thou hast tasted of the Milk of the Land by thy feeding and by thy milde and gentle disposition and of the Honey by the sweetness of thy words and conversation The views of Heaven would heal thee of thy sinfulness and of thy sadness but thou must hold on the Plaister that it may have time to work This Heavenly fire would melt thy frozen heart and refine it from the dross and take away the earthy part and leave the rest more spiritual and pure but then thou must not be presently gone before it have time either to burn or warm Stick therefore to the work till something be done till thy graces be acted thy affections raised and thy soul refreshed with the delights above or if thou canst not obtain these ends at once ply it the closer the next time and let it not go till thou feel the blessing Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he comes shall finde so doing Matth. 24.46 CHAP. XIII The Abstract or Sum of all for the use of the weak SECT I. THus I have by the gracious assistance of the Spirit directed you in this work of Heavenly Contemplation and lined you out the best way that I know for your successful performance and lead you into the path where you may walk with God But because I would bring it down to the capacity of the meanest and help their memories who are apt to let slip the former particulars and cannot well lay together the several branches of this method That they may reduce them to practice I shall here contract the whole into a brief sum and lay it all before you in a narrower compass But still Reader I wish thee to remember that it is the practice of a duty that I am directing thee in and therefore if thou wilt not practise it do not read it The sum is this As thou makest conscience of praying daily so do thou of the acting of thy Graces in Meditation and more especially in meditating on the joyes of Heaven To this end Set apart one hour or half hour every day wherein thou maist lay aside all worldly thoughts and with all possible seriousness and reverence as if thou were going to speak with God himself or to have a sight of Christ or of that blessed place so do thou withdraw thy self into some secret place and set thy self wholly to the following work If thou canst take Isaacs time and place who went forth into the Field in the Evening to meditate But if thou be a servant or poor man that cannot have that leisure take the fittest time and place that thou canst though it be when thou art private about thy labors When thou setst to the work look up toward Heaven let thine eie lead thee as neer as it can remember that there is thine Everlasting Rest study its excellency study its reality till thy unbelief be silenced and thy Faith prevail If thy judgment be not yet drawn to admiration use those sensible helps and advantages which were even now laid down Compare thy heavenly joyes with the choicest on earth and so rise up from Sense to Faith If yet this meer consideration prevail not which yet hath much force as is before expressed then fall a pleading the case with thy heart Preach upon this Text of Heaven to thy self convince inform confute instruct reprove examine admonish encourage and comfort thy own soul from this Celestial Doctrine draw forth those several considerations of thy Rest on which thy several affections may work especially that Affection or Grace which thou intendest to act If it be Love which thou wouldst act shew it the loveliness of Heaven and how suitable it is to thy condition if it be Desire consider of thy absence from this lovely object if it be Hope consider the possibility and probability of obtaining it if it be Courage consider the singular assistance and encouragements which thou maist receive from God the weakness of the enemy and the necessity of prevailing if it be Joy consider of its excellent ravishing glory of thy interest in it and of its certainty and the neerness of the time when thou must possess it Urge these considerations home to thy heart whet them with all possible seriousness upon each affection If thy heart draw back force it to the work if it loyter spur it on if it step aside command it in again if it would slip away and leave the work use thine authority keep it close to the business till thou have obtained thine end Stir not away if it may be till thy Love do flame till thy Joy be raised or till thy Desire or other Graces be lively acted Call in assistance also from God mix Ejaculations with thy Cogitations and Soliloquies Till having seriously pleaded the case with thy heart and reverently pleaded the case with God thou have pleaded thy self from a clod to a flame from a forgetful sinner to a mindful lover from a lover of
tryal of this world Dost thou finde it agree with thy nature or desires are these common abominations these heavy sufferings these unsatisfying vanities suitable to thee or dost thou love for interest and neer relation Why where hast thou better interest then in heaven or where hast thou neerer relation then there Dost thou love for acquaintance and familiarity Why though thine eyes have never seen thy Lord yet he is never the further from thee If thy son were blinde yet he would love thee his father though he never saw thee Thou hast heard the voice of Christ to thy very heart thou hast received his benefits thou hast lived in his bosome and art thou not yet acquainted with him It is he that brought thee seasonably and safety into the world It is he that nursed thee up in thy tender infancy and helped thee when thou couldst not help thy self He taught thee to go to speak to read to understand He taught thee to know thy self and him he opened thee that first window whereby thou sawest into heaven Hast thou forgotten since thy heart was careless and he did quicken it and hard and stubborn and he did soften it and made it yeeld when it was at peace and he did trouble it and whole till he did break it and broken till he did heal it again Hast thou forgotten the time nay the many very many times when he found thee in secret all in tears when he heard thy dolorous sighes and groans and left all to come and comfort thee when he came in upon thee and took thee up as it were in his armes and asked thee Poor soul what doth aile thee dost thou weep when I have wept so much Be of good cheer thy wounds are saving and not deadly It is I that have made them who mean thee no hurt Though I let out thy blood I will not let out thy life O me thinks I remember yet his voice and feel those embracing armes that took me up How gently did he handle me how carefully did he dress my wounds and binde them up Me thinks I hear him still saying to me Poor sinner though thou hast dealt unkindly with me and cast me off yet will not I do so by thee though thou hast set light by me and all my mercies yet both I and All are thine what wouldst thou have that I can give thee and what dost thou want that I cannot give thee If any thing I have will pleasure thee thou shalt have it If any thing in heaven or earth will make the happy why it is all thine own Wouldst thou have pardon thou shalt have it I freely forgive thee all the debt wouldst thou have grace and peace thou shalt have them both wouldst thou have my self why behold I am thine thy friend thy Lord thy brother thy husband and thy head wouldst thou have the Father why I will bring thee to him and thou shalt have him in and by me These were my Lords reviving words These were the melting healing raising quickening passages of love After all this when I was doubtful of his love me thinks I yet remember his overcoming and convincing Arguments Why sinner have I done so much to testifie my Love and yet dost thou doubt Have I made thy believing it the condition of enjoying it and yet dost thou doubt Have I offered thee my self and love so long and yet dost thou question my willingness to be thine VVhy what could I have done more then I have done At what dearer rate should I tell thee that I love thee Read yet the story of my bitter passion wilt thou not believe that it proceeded from love Did I ever give thee cause to be so jealous of me Or to think so hardly of me as thou dost Have I made my self in the Gospel a Lyon to thine enemies and a Lamb to thee and dost thou so over-look my Lamb like nature Have I set mine arms and heart there open to thee and wilt thou not believe but they are shut why if I had been willing to let thee perish I could have done it at a cheaper rate what need I then have done and suffered so much what need I follow thee with so long patience and intreating what dost thou tell me of thy wants have I not enough for me and thee and why dost thou foolishly tell me of thy unworthiness and thy sin I had not died if man had not sinned if thou wert not a sinner thou wert not for me if thou wert worthy thy self what shouldst thou do with my worthiness Did I ever invite the worthy and the righteous or did I ever save or justifie such or is there any such on earth Hast thou nothing art thou lost and miserable art thou helpless and forlorn dost thou believe that I am a sufficient Saviour and wouldst thou have me why then take me Lo I am thine if thou be willing I am willing and neither sin nor devils shall break the match These O these were the blessed words which his Spirit from his Gospel spoke unto me till he made me cast my self it his feet ye into his arms and to cry out My Saviour and my Lord Thou hast broke my heart thou hast revived my heart thou hast overcome thou hast wone my heart take it it is thine if such a heart can please thee take it if it cannot make it such as thou wouldst have it Thus O my soul maist thou remember the sweet familiarity thou hast had with Christ therefore if acquaintance will cause affection O then let out thy heart unto him it is he that hath stood by thy bed of sickness that hath cooled thy heats and eased thy pains and refreshed thy weariness and removed thy fears He hath been always ready when thou hast earnestly sought him He hath given thee the meeting in publike and in private He hath been found of thee in the Congregation in thy house in thy chamber in the field in the way as thou wast walking in thy waking nights in thy deepest dangers O if bounty and compassion be an attractive of Love how unmeasurably then am I bound to love him All the mercies that have filled up my life do tell me this all the places that ever I did abide in all the societies and persons that I have had to deal with every condition of life that I have passed through all my imployments and all my relations every change that hath befaln me all tell me That the Fountain is Overflowing Goodness Lord what a summ of love am I indebted to thee and how doth my debt continually increase how should I love again for so much love But what shall I dare to think of making thee requital or of recompencing all thy love with mine will my mite requite thee for thy golden Mines my seldom wishes for thy constant bounty or mine which is nothing or not mine for thine which is infinite and thine own shall I
dare to contend in love with thee or set my borrowed languid spark against the Element and Sun of Love Can I love as high as deep as broad as long as Love it self as much as he that made me and that made me love that gave me all that little which I have both the heart the hearth where it is kindled the bellows the fire the fuel and all were his As I cannot match thee in the works of thy Power nor make nor preserve nor guide the worlds so why should I think any moreof matching thee in Love No Lord I yield I am unable I am overcome O blessed conquest Go on victoriously and still prevail and triumph in thy love The Captive of Love shall proclaim thy victory when thou leadest me in triumph from Earth to Heaven from Death to Life from the Tribunal to the Throne my self and all that see it shall acknowledg that thou hast prevailed and all shall say Behold how he loved him Yet let me love thee in subjection to thy Love as thy redeemed Captive though not thy Peer shall I not love at all because I cannot reach thy measure or at least let me heartily wish to love thee O that I were able O that I could feelingly say I love thee even as I feel I love my friend and my self Lord that I could do it but alas I cannot fain I would but alas I cannot Would I not love thee if I were but able Though I cannot say as thy Apostle Thou knowest that I Love thee yet can I say Lord thou knowest that I would love thee but I speak not this to excuse my fault it is a crime that admits of no excuse and it is my own it dwelleth as neer me as my very heart if my heart be my own this sin is my own yea and more my own then my heart is Lord what shall this sinner do the fault is my own and yet I cannot help it I am angry with my heart that it doth not love thee and yet I feel it love thee never the more I frown up on it and yet it cares not I threaten it but it doth not feel I chide it and yet it doth not mend I reason with it and would fain perswade it and yet I do not perceive it stir I rear it up as a carkass upon its legs but it neither goes nor stands I rub and chafe it in the use of thine Ordinances and yet I feel it not warm within me O miserable man that I am unworthy soul is not thine eye now upon the onely lovely object and art thou not beholding the ravishing glory of the Saints and yet dost thou not love and yet dost thou not feel the fire break forth why art thou not a soul a living spirit and is not thy love the choicest piece of thy life Art thou not a rational soul and shouldst not thou love according to Reasons conduct and doth it not tell thee that all is dirt and dung to Christ that earth is a dungeon to the celestial glory Art thou not a spirit thy self and shoulst thou not love spiritually even God who is a Spirit and the Father of Spirits Doth not every creature love their like why my soul art thou like to fleshâ— or gold or stately buildings art thou like to meat and drink or cloathes wilt thou love no higher then thy horse or swine hast thou nothing better to love then they what is the beauty that thou hast so admired canst thou not even wink or think it all into darkness or deformity when the night comes it is nothing to thee while thou hast gazed on it it hath withered away a Botch or Scab the wrinkles of consuming sickness or of age do make it as loathsom as it was before delightful suppose but that thou sawest that beautiful carcass lying on the Bier or rotting in the grave the skull dig'd up and the bones scattered where is now thy lovely object couldst thou sweetly embrace it when the soul is gone or take any pleasure in it when there is nothing left thats like thy self Ah why then dost thou love a skinful of dirt and canst love no more the heavenly Glory What thinkest thou shalt thou love when thou comest there when thou seest when thou dost enjoy when the Lord shall take thy carcass from the grave and make thee shine as the Sun in glory and when thou shalt everlastingly dwell in the blessed presence shalt thou then love or shalt thou not is not the place a meeting of lovers is not the life a state of love is it not the great marriage day of the Lamb when he will embrace and entertain his Spouse with love is not the imployment there the work of love where the souls with Christ do take their fill O then my soul begin it here be sick of love now that thou maist be well with love there keep thy self now in the love of God Jude 21. and let neither life nor death nor any thing separate thee from it and thou shalt be kept in the fulness of love for ever and nothing shalt imbitter or abate thy pleasure for the Lord hath prepared a city of love a place for the communicating of love to his chosen and those that love his Name shall dwell there Psal. 69.36 Awake then O my drowsie soul who but an Owl or Mole would love this worlds uncomfortable darkness when they are called forth to live in light to sleep under the light of Grace is unreasonable much more in the approach of the light of Glory The night of thy ignorance and misery is past the day of glorious Light is at hand this is the day-break betwixt them both Though thou see not yet the Sun it self appear methinks the twilight of a promise should revive thee Come forth then O my dull congealed spirits and leave these earthly Cels of dumpish sadness and hear thy Lord that bids thee Rejoyce and again Rejoyce thou hast lain here long enough in thy prison of flesh where Satan hath been thy Jaylor and the things of this world have been the Stocks for the feet of thy Affections where cares have been thy Trons and fears thy Scourge and the bread and water of Affliction thy food where sorrows have been thy lodging and thy sins and foes have made the bed and a carnal hard unbelieving heart have been the iron gates bars that have kept thee in that thou couldst scarce have leave to look through the Lattices and see one glimpse of the immortal light The Angel of the Covenant now calls thee and strikes thee and bids thee Arise and follow him up O my soul and cheerfully obey and thy bolts and bars shall all fly open do thou obey and all will obey follow the Lamb which way ever he leads thee Art thou afraid because thou knowst not whither Can the place be worse then where thou art Shouldst thou fear to follow
my corruptions quite removed and my soul perfected and my body also raised to so high a state as I now can neither desire nor conceive Surely as health of body so health of soul doth carry an unexpressible sweetness along with it VVere there no reward besides yet every gracious act is a reward and comfort Never had I the least stirring of Love to God but I felt a heavenly sweetness accompanying it even the very act of loving was unexpressibly sweet VVhat a happy life should I here live could I but love as much as I would and as oft and as long as I would Could I be all love and always loving O my soul what wouldst thou give for such a life O had I such true and clear apprehensions of God and such a true understanding of his words as I desire Could I but trust him as fully in all my streights Could I have that life which I would have in every duty Could I make God my constant desire and delight I would not then envy the world their honors or pleasures nor change my happiness with a Caesar or Alexander O my soul what a blessed state wilt thou shortly be in when thou shalt have far more of these then thou canst now desire and shalt exercise all thy perfected graces upon God in presence and open sight and not in the dark and at a distance as now And as there is so much worth in one gracious soul so much more in a gracious society and most of all in the whole body of Christ on earth If there be any true beauty on earth where should it be so likely as in the Spouse of Christ It is her that he adorneth with his Jewels and feasteth at his table and keepeth for her always an open house and heart he revealeth to her his secrets and maintaineth constant converse with her he is her constant guardian and in every deluge incloseth her in his Ark He saith to her Thou art all beautiful my beloved And is his Spouse while black so comely Is the afflicted sinning weeping lamenting persecuted Church so excellent O what then will be the Church when it is fully gathered and glorified VVhen it is ascended from the valley of tears to Mount Sion VVhen it shall sin no more nor weep nor groan nor suffer any more The Stars or the smalest candle are not darkened so much by the brightness of the Sun as the excellencies of the first Temple will be by the celestial Temple The glory of the old Jerusalem will be darkness and deformity to the glory of the New It is said in Ezr. 3.12 that when the foundations of the second Temple were laid many of the ancient men who had seen the first house did weep i.e. because the second did come so far short of it what cause then shall we have to shout for joy when we shall see how glorious the heavenly Temple is and remember the meaness of the Church on earth But alas what a loss am I at in the midst of my contemplations I thought my heart had all this while followed after but I see it doth not And shall I let my Understanding go on alone or my tongue run on without Affections what life is in empty thoughts and words Neither God nor I finde pleasure in them Rather let me turn back again and look and finde and chide this lazy loytering heart that turneth off from such a pleasant work as this Where hast thou been unworthy heart while I was opening to thee the everlasting Treasures Didst thou sleep or wast thou minding something else or dost thou think that all this is but a Dream or Fable or as uncertain as the predictions of a presumptuâ—ous Astrologer Or hast thou lost thy life and rejoycing power Art thou not ashamed to complain so much of an uncomfortable life and to murmur at God for filling thee with sorrows when he offereth thee in vain the delights of Angels and when thou treadest under foot these transcendent pleasures Thou wilfully pinest away in grief and art ready to charge thy Father with unkindness for making thee onely a vessel of displeasure a sink of sadness a skinful of groans a snow ball of tears a channel for the waters of affliction to run in the fuell of fears and the carcass which cares do consume and prey upon when in the mean time thou mightest live a life of Joy Hadst thou now but followed me close and believingly applyed thy self to that which I have spoken and drunk in but half the comfort that those words hold forth it would have made thee revive and leap for joy and forget thy sorrows and diseases and pains of the flesh but seeing thou judgest thy self unworthy of comfort it is just that comfort should be taken from thee Lord what 's the matter that this work doth go on so heavily Did I think my heart had been so backward to rejoyce If it had been to mourn and fear and despair it were no wonder I have been lifting at this stone and it will not stir I have been pouring Aqua Vitae into the mouth of the dead I hope Lord by that time it comes to heaven this heart by thy Spirit will be quickned and mended or else even those Joyes will scarce rejoyce me But besides my darkness deadness and unbelief I perceive there is something else that forbids my full desired Joyes This is not the time and place where so much is given The time is our Winter and not our Harvest The place is called the Valley of tears there must be great difference betwit the Way and the End the Work and Wages the small foretastes and full fruition But Lord Though thou hast reserved our Joyes for Heaven yet hast thou not so suspended our Desires They are most suitable and seasonable in this present life therefore O help me to desire till I may possess and let me long when I cannot as I would rejoyce There is love in Desire as well as in Delight and if I be not empty of Love I know I shall not long be empty of Delight Rowse up thy self once more then O my soul and try and exercise thy spiritual Appetite though thou art ignorant and unbelieving yet art thou reasonable and therefore must needs desire a Happiness and Rest Nor canst thou sure be so unreasonable as to dream of attaining it here on earth Thou knowest to thy sorrow that thou art not yet at thy Rest and thy own feeling doth convince thee of thy present Unhappiness and dost thou know that thou art restless and yet art willing to continue so Art thou neither happy in deed nor in Desire Art thou neither well nor wouldest be well when my flesh is pained and languisheth under consuming sickness how heartily and frequenly do I cry out O when shall I be eased of this pain when shall my decaying strength be recovered Ther 's no dissembling nor formality in these Desires
4. punct 4. * That it is not properly any act of faith at all much less the Justifying Act to Believe that my sins are pardoned or that Christ dyed in a special sence for Me or that I am a Believer or that I shall be saved Besides what I have said in the Appendix to my Aphorisms of Justification I refer you for satisfaction to Judicious Mr Anth Wotton de Reconciliat Part. 1. Lib. 2. Cap. 15. N. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Pag. 87 88 89 90 c. * I use the word Evidence all along in the vulgar sence as the same with Signs and not in the proper sence as the Schools do * Therefore that saying of Cajetane is not so much to be valued as by some of our Divines it is Certitudine fidei quilibet scit certo se habere donum infusum fidei idque absque formidine alterius partis Except he take Certitudo fidei in a very large improper sence * Read Gataker Shadows without Substances pag. 83 84. * The distinction in the Schools used of Certitudo fidei Certitudo Evidentiae I deny not But that hath a quite different sence from this as it is used * Therefore I say not that our first Comfort much less our Justification is procured by the sight of Evidences But our Assurance is * Their common Error That Justifying faith is nothing else but a perswasion more or less of the Love of God to us is the Root of this and many more mistakes To Justifie us and to Assure us that we are Justified are quite different things and procured by different ways and at several times usually Vid. Aquin. ad 1. Sent. dist 17. art 1.2 3. q. 112. Scotum ad 3. Sent. dis 23. q. unicâ Bonavent 1. Sent. q. 17. Biel in 2. Sent. dist 27. q. 3. §. 5. * Yet I believe that their divines have some of them made the difference betwixt us and the Papists seem wider then it is as do these words of one of them Ex hoc unico articulo quantumvis minutus a plerisque reputari queat universus Papatus Lutheranismus dependet Martinus Eisengrenius initio Apolog. de Cert Salv. And so have some of our Divines on the other side as Luther in Gen. 41. Etiamsi nihil preterea peccatum esset in doctrina pontificia just as habemus causas cur ab ecclesia infideli nos sejungeremus §. 6. Hindrances of Examination 1. Satan Judg. 4.19 21. Judg. 16.21 §. 7. Read on thâ—s Subject Mr. Young his Books which handle it fully Luke 13.24 2 Cor. 13.5 2 Pet. 1.10 1 King 22.5 6 §. 8. * Or as Mr. Saltmarsh saith every man is bound to believe but no man to Question whether he believe or no. p. 92 93 And this Faith he saith is a being perswaded more or less of Christs love p. 94. So that by this Doctrine every man is bound to believe that Christ loveth him and not to question his belief If it were only Christs common love he might thus believe it but a special love to him is no where written §. 9. Hinderances which keep many that do Examine from attaining strong Assurance cause many to be deâ—ceived Mat. 19.20 §. 10. Some further Hinderances which keep some Christians without Assurance and Comfort Remedy §. 11. You sit poreing â— searching for pillers of hope within you be-bestow much pains to answer your own fears but the ready way to make the business clear is by going to Christ. Stand not so much upon this Question Whether you have believ'd in truth or no but put al out of doubt by a present faith The door is open enter live You may more easily build a new fabrick of comfort by 〈…〉 then repair your old dwâ—lling and clear all suits that are brought against your tenure Simonds Deserted Soul pag. 554. Flowings of Christs Blood c. pag. 95. §. 12. Mr Paul Bayne I think one of the holiest choicest men that ever England bred yet describeth the temper of his spirit thus I thank God in Christ sustentation I have but Su vâ—ties Spiritual I taste not any In his Letters §. 13. In watchfulness and dâ—ligence we sooner meet with comfort then in idle complaining Our Care therefore should be to get sound Evidence of a good estate then to keep those Evidences clear Dâ— Sibbs Preface to Souls Conflict As if a poor man should complain for want of money when a chest full stands by him and he may take what he wil Is it not better take it out then lie complaining for want §. 14. God wil keep the rich store of consistent and abiding comforts till the great day that when all the family shall come together he may pour out the fulness of his hidden treasures on them We are now in the morning of the day the feast is to come a breakefast must serve to stay the stomack till the King of Saints with all his friends sit down together Simonds Deserted Soul pag. 507. §. 15. So some think they are Gods people because they are of such a party or such a strict opinion and when they change their opinion they change their comfort Some that could have no comfort while they were among the Orthodox as soon as they have turned to such or such a Sect have comfort in abundance partly through Satans delusion and partly because they think their change in Opinion hath set them right with God and therefore they rejoyce So many Hypocrites whose Religion lieth only in their Opinions hâ—ve their Comfort also only there §. 16. §. 17. When men dally with sin and will be playing with snares and baits allow a secret liberty in the heart to sin conniving at many workings of it and not setting upon mortification with earnest endeavors though they be convinced yet they are not perswaded to arise with all their might against the Lords enemies but do his work negligently which is an accursed thing for this God casteth them upon sore straits Simonds Deserted Soul c. pag. 521.522 Some would have men after the committing of gross sin to be presently comfortable and believe without humbling themselves at all Indeed when we are once in Christ we ought not to question our state in him c. But yet a guilty conscience will be clamorous and full of Objections and God will not speak peace to it till it be humbled God will let his best children know what it is to be too bold with sin c. Dr Sibbs Souls Conflict Preface §. 18. See Dr Sibs Souls Conflict pag. 480 481. ☜ Souls Conflict pag. 480 481. Men experimentally feel that comfort in doing that which belongs unto them which before they longed for and went without Dr Sibbs Souls Conflict pag. 45. * Preface to Souls Conflict §. 19. Non est mirum si â—imenâ— Melancholici quia causam timoris continuo secum portant Anima enim estiâ—voluta cum caligine tenebrosa et
unjust aspersions and the Church from her reproach and confusion Have not Ministers work enough of their own to do O that you knew what it is that lieth on them And if besides this you wil cast upon them the work of every Master and Parent in the Parish it is like indeed to be well done How many sorts of Workmen must there be to the building of an house and if all of them should cast it upon one and themselves do nothing you may judg how much were like to be done If there be three or four Schoolmasters in a School amongst three or four hundred Scholars all the lower that should fit them for the higher Schools should do nothing at all but send all these Scholars to the highest Schoolmaster as ignorant as they received them would not his life be a burden to him and all the work be frustrate and spoiled Why so it is here The first work towards the reforming and making happy of Church and Commonwealth lies in the good education of your children the most of this is your work and if this be left undone and then they come to Ministers raw and ignorant and hardned in their sins alas what can a Minister do whereas if they came trained up in the Principles of Religion and the practice of godliness and were taught the fear of God in their youth O what an encouragement would it be to Ministers and how would the work go on in their hands I tell you seriously this is the cause of all our miseries and unreformedness in Church and State even the want of a holy education of children Many lay the blame on this neglect and that but there is none hath so great a hand in it as this what a School must there needs be where all are brought raw as I said to the highest School what a house must there needs be built when Clay is brought to the Masons hands in stead of Bricks What a Commonwealth may be expected if all the Constables and Justices should do nothing but cast all upon King and Parliament And so what a Church may we expect when all the Parents and Masters in the Parish shall cast all their duty on their Ministers Alas how long may we Catechise them and preath to them before we can get them to understand the very Principles of the Faith This this is the cause of our Churches deformities and this is the cause of the present difficulty of Reformation It s in vain to contend about Orders and Disciâ—pline if the persons that live under it be not prepared Perhaps you 'l say the Apostles had not their hearers thus prepared to their hands Is not the word the first means of conversion Answ. 1. The Apostles preached to none at first but Infidels and Pagans And are you no better Will you do no more for your children then they 2. All the success of their labors was to gather here and there a Church from among the world of unbelievers but now the Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ. 3. And yet the Apostles were extraordinarily qualified for the work and seconded it by Miracles for the convincing of their hearers 4. I do verily believe that if Parents did their duty as they ought the word publikly preached would not be the ordinary means of Regeneration in the Church but only without the Church among Infidels Not that I believe Doctor Burges and Master Bedfords doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration But God would pour out his grace so upon the children of his people and hear prayers for them and bless such endeavors for their holy education that we should see the promises made good to our seed and the unthankful Anabaptists that will not confesse that the children of the Saints are any neerer God or more beholden to him then Pagans so much as for the favor to be visible Church-members should by sweet experience be convinced of their error and be taught better how to understand that our children are holy II. I intreat you that are parents also to consider what excellent advantages you have above all others for the saving of your children 1. They are under your hands while they are young and tender and flexible But they come to Ministers when they are grown elder and stiffer and settled in their wayes and think themselves too good to be catechised and too old to be taught You have a twigg to bend and we an oake You have the young plants of sin to pluck up and we the deep rooted vices The consciences of children are not so seared with a custome of sinning and long resisting grace as others You have the soft and tender earth to plow in and we have the hard and stony wayes that have been trodden on by many yeers practice of evil When they are young ' their understandings are like a sheet of white paper that hath nothing written on and so you have opportunity to write what you will But when they are grown up in sin they are like the same paper written over with falshoods which must all be bloted out again and truth written in the place and how hard is that We have a double task first to unteach them and then to teach them better but you have but one We must unteach them all that the world and flesh and wicked company and the divel have been diligently teaching them in many yeers time We have hardened hearts to beat on like a Smiths Anvile that will not feel us We may tell them of death and Judgment heaven and hell and they hear us as if they were asleep or dead you have the soft clay to mold and we the hardened burned bricks You have them before they are possessed with prejudice and false conceits against the truth but we have them to teach when they have many yeers lived among those that have scorned at godliness and taught them to think Gods wayes to be foolish preciseness Custome hath not enâ—nared and engaged your little ones to contrary wayes But of old sinners the Lord himself hath said that if the Aethiopian can change his skin and the Leopard his spots then may those that are accâ—stomed to do evil learn to do well Jer. 13.23 Doth not the experience of all the world shew you the power of education What else makes all the Children of the Jews to be Jews and all the Children of the Turks to be Mahometans and of Christians to be in profession Christians and of each Sect or party in Religion to follow their parents and the custom of the place Why now what an advantage have you to use all this for the furtherance of their happiness and possess them as strongly beforehand against sin as else Satan would do for it and so Satan should come to them upon some of those disadvantages that now Christ comes on 2. Consider also that you have the affections of your Children more then any others
None in the world hath that interest in their hearts as you You will receive that counsel from an undoubted friend that you would not do from an enemy or a stranger VVhy now your children cannot choose but know that you are their friends and advise them in love and they cannot choose but love you again Their love is loose and arbitrary to others but to you it is determinate and fast nature hath almost necessitated them to love you O therefore improve this your interest in them for their good 3. You have also the greatest authority over them You may command them and they dare not disobey you or else it is your owne fault for the most part for you can make them obey you in your business in the world Yea you may correct them to inforce obedience Your authority also is the most unquestioned authority in the world The authority of Kings and Parliaments hath been disputed but yours is past dispute And therefore if you use it not to constrain them to the works of God you are without excuse 4. Besides their whole dependance is on you for their maintenance and livelihood They know you can either give them or deny them what you have and so punish or reward them at your pleasure But on Ministers or neighbors they have no such dependance 5. Moreover you that are parents know the temper and inclinations of your children what vices they are most inclined to and what instruction or reproof they most need But Ministers that live more strange to them cannot know this 6. Above all you are ever with them and so have opportunity as to know their faults so to apply the remedy You may be still talking to them of the word of God and minding them of their state and duty and may follow and set home every word of advice as they are in the house with you or in the shop or in the feild at work O what an excellent advantage is this if God do but give you hearts to use it Especially you mothers remember this you are more with your children while they are little ones then their fathers be you therefore still teaching them as soon as ever they are capable of learning You cannot do God such eminent service your selves as men but you may train up children that may do it and then you will have part of the comfort and honor Bathsheba had part of the honor of Solomons wisdom Pro. 31.1 for she taught him And Timothe's mother and grandmother of his piety Plutrach speaks of a Spartan woman that when her neighbors were shewing their apparel and jewels she brought out her children vertuous and well taught and said These are my ornaments and Jewels O how much more would this adorn you then your bravery What a deal of pains are you at with the bodies of your children more then the fathers And what do you suffer to bring them into the world and will not you be at as much pains for the saving of their souls You are naturally of more tender affections then men and will it not move you to think that your children should perish for ever O therefore I beseech you for the sake of the children of your bowels teach them admonish them watch over them and give them no rest till you have brought them over to Christ. And thus I have shewed you reason enough to make you diligent in teaching your children if reason will serve as me thinks among reasonable creatures it should do SECT XII LEt us next hear what is usually objected against this by negligent men Object 1. We do not see but those children prove as bad as others that are taught the Scriptures and brought up so holily And those prove as honest men and good neighbors that have none of this ado with them Answ. 1. O who art thou man that disputest against God Hath God charged you to teach your children diligently his word speaking of it as you sit at home and as you walk abroad as you lye down and as you rise up Deut. 6.6 7 8. and dare you reply that it is as good let it alone VVhy this is to set God at defiance and as it were to spit in his face and give him the lye VVill you take it well at your servants if when you command them to do a thing they should return you such an answer that they do not see but it were as good let it alone VVretched worm darest thou thus lift up thy head against the Lord that made thee and must judg thee Is it not he that commandeth thee If thou dost not believe that this Scripture is his word thou dost not believe in Jesus Christ for thou hast nothing else to tell thee that there is a Christ. And if thou do believe that this is the word of God how darest thou say It is as good disobey it This is devillish pride indeed when such sottish sinful dust shall think themselves wiser then the living God take upon them to reprove and cancel his word 2. But alas you know not what honesty is when you say that the ignorant are as honest as others You think those are the honestest men that best please you But I know those are the most honest that best please God Christ saith in Luk 8.15 that an honest heart is that which keepeth the word of God and you say they are as honest that reject it God made men to please himself and not to please you And you may know by his Laws who please him best The Commandments have two Tables and the first is Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and the second Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self First seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness Mat. 6.33 3. And what if some prove naught that are well brought up It is not the generality of them will you say that Noahs family was no better then the drowned world because there was one Chaus in it Nor Davids because there was one Absalom Nor Christs because there was one Judas 4. But what if it were so Have men need of the less teaching or the more you have more wit in the matters of this world you will not say I see many labor hard and yet are poor and therefore it is as good never labor at all you will not say Many that go to School learn nothing and therefore they may learn as much though they never go Or many that are great tradesmen break and therefore it is as good never trade at all Or many great eaters are as lean as others and many sick men recover no strength though they eat and therefore it is as good for men never to eat more Or many plow and sow and have nothing comes up and therefore it is as go 〈…〉 to plow more VVhat a fool were he that should reaso◠thus And is not he a thousand times worse that shall reason thus for mens