and most full and free Salvatition And on his Conditions must we have his Benefits or we shall never have them 7. Lastly Understand and Note that the Means which Christ hath resolved on for Teaching and Ruling us ordinarily are his Word his Ministers and his Spirit all must be submitted to together where they may be had and none of them laid by by separation His Word is the Grammar or Book as it were that we must learn His Ministers must teach us this Book And his Spirit who in the Apostles and Prophets indited and sealed it must inwardly teach us by powerfull Illumination The Word is Gods Laws the Ministers are his Embassadours or Heraulds to proclaime them and command obedience in his Name and his Spirit must open mens hearts to entertain them The Word is Gods Seed the Ministers are the Husbandmen or Servants that sow it and the Spirit must give the increase without which our planting and watering will do nothing He therefore that takes Christ for his Master and King must resolve to be taught and ruled by his established means even by his Word and Ministers and Spirit conjunct For he that refuseth and despiseth these doth refuse and despise Christ and consequently the Father that sent him Luke 10. 16. 1 Thes. 4. 8. For it was never the meaning of Christ when he became the Teacher and King of the Church to stay on Earth and personally and visiby to teach them himself but these three are his means which all must submit to that will be his Subjects and Disciples And he that despiseth the Word shall be destroyed Prov. 13. 13. He that will not have the Word Ministry and Spirit teach him will not have Christ teach him and he that refuseth to be ruled by these three shall be destroyed as a Rebel against Christ himself Luke 19. 27. Still it is supposed that Ministers must Teach and Rule according to this Word And the Society in which Christ will Teach and govern us is his Church As members therefore of the Vniversal Church and in Communion with his Particular Church where we live and have opportunity we must wait on Christ for his Teaching and Benefits For this is his Schoole where his Disciples must diligently attend and learn Lay all this together and this is the summe The Object of Justifying Saving Faith is One only undivided Christ one in Person but of two Natures God and Man in Office the Mediator between God and man who hath already done the work of Sanctification and Merit and is authorized further to bestow the Benefits By the Gospel Grant he hath given himself as Head and Husband Teacher King and Saviour to all that will entirely and heartily accept him and with himself he giveth Justification by the Promise Sanctification by the Word Ministry and Spirit and final Absolution and Everlasting Life If ever then you will have Christ and Life you must accept him in all these Essentials of his Person and Office and that to the Ends which his Redemption was intended for you must be willing to be Sanctified by him as well as to be Justified You must at once unfeignedly become his Disciples his Subjects his Members if you would become his saved ones You wust consent that as your Teacher and your Lord he shall Teach and Rule your heart and life by his Word Ministers and Spirit in Communion with his Church No barre or exception must be put in nor reservation made against any one of these parts of his Office If you yield not to those parts of his Saving work that tend but to the compleative growth you sinne and deprive your selves of the Benefit but if you yield not to those that must make you truly Sanctified and Justified men you cannot be saved The Essentials of Christ's Person and Office do costitute him the Christ and if he be not received in all those Essentials he is not received as Christ. And thus I have given you the summe of the Gospel and the description of Faith and true Christianity in this Direction for a right closing with the Lord Jesus Christ. And experience of most that I discourse with perswades me to think this Direction of great necessity and to intreat you throughly to peruse and consider it I find abundance of ignorant people that talk much of Christ but know very little of him that can scarce tell us whether he be God or man or which Person in the Trinity he is nor to what End he was incarnate and died noâ— what Relation he stands in to us or what use he is of or what he now is or what he is engaged to do for us But if we ask them about their hopes of Salvation they almost overlook the Redemption by Christ and tell us of nothing but Gods Mercies and their own good meanings and endeavours And I am afraid too many Professors of Piety do look almost all at the Natural part of Religion and the mending of their own hearts and lives and I would this were better done while they forget the supernatutural part and little are affected with the infinite Love of God in Christ. I desire such to consider these things 1. You overlook the summe of your Religion which is Christ Crucified besides whom Paul desired to know nothing 2. You overlook the fountain of your own life and the author of your supplies and you strive in vaine for Sanctification or Justification if you seek them not from a Crucified Christ. 3. You leave undon the principal part of your work and live like moral Heathens while you have the name of Christians Your daily work is to study God in the face of his Sonne and to labour with all Saints to comprehend the height and bredth and length and depth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledg Eph. 3. 18. 19. All your Graces should be daily quickned and set awork by the life of Faith in the contemplation of the Redeemer and his blessed work This is the weight that must set all the wheels agoing You do God no Service that he can accept if you serve him not in this Gospel-work of loving trusting and admiring and praysing him in the Redeemer and for his Redemption 4. And so you rob God of the principal part of his Glory which you are to give him which is for this most glorious work of our Redemption I pray you read over again the Ends of this work which I laid down in the beginning of this Direction 5. Moreover you rob your selves of your principal comfort which must all come in by living upon Christ. 6. And you harden the Antiâ—omians and Libertines and tempt men to their extreams that runne from us as Legalists and as men that Savour not the Doctrine of free Grace and are not of a Gospel-Spirit and conversation I would our great neglect of Christ had not been a snare to these mistaken Soulâ— and a stumbling block in their way O Sirs if
DIRECTIONS AND PERSWASIONS TO A Sound CONVERSION For Prevention of that Deceit and Damnation of Souls and of those Scandals Heresies and desperate Apostasies that are the Consequents of a Counterfeit or Superficial Change By Richard Baxter LONDON Printed by A. M. for Nevil Simmons Book-seller in Kederminster and are to be sold by him there and by N. Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Church-yard 1658. The Preface IT is weight so unconceivable that dependeth on the soundness of our Conversion and Sanctification that our care and diligence cannot be too great to make it sure As the professed Atheist Heathens and Infidels without so the self-deceiving Hypocrites within the Church do wilfully cast away themselves for ever by neglecting such a business of everlasting consequence when they have time and warnings and assistance to dispatch it Multitudes live like bruits or Atheists forgetting that they are born in sinne and misery and setled in it by wilfull custom and must be Converted or Condemned These know not many of them what need they have of a Conversion nor what Conversion or Sanctification is And some that have been Preachers of the Gospel have been so lamentably ignorant in so great a matter that they have perswaded the poor deluded people that it is only the gross and haynous sinners that need Conversion branding them with the name of Puritans that will not take a dead Profession joyned with Civility for true Sanctification and promise Salvation to those that Christ hath with many asseverations professed shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Others that confess that a through Sanctification is a necessary thing do delude their souls with something that is like it Hence is the misery and dishonour of the Church Holiness it self is disgraced by the sins of them that are unholy because they pretend to that which they have not Hence it is that we have thousands that call themselves Christians that live a worldly fleshly life and some of them hating the way of Godliness and yet think they are Converted because they are sorry when they have sinned and wish when it is past that they had not done it and cry God mercy for it and confess that they are sinners and this they take for true Repentance When sinne was never mortified in their souls nor their hearts ever brought to hate it and forsake it But when they have had the profit and pleasure of sinne they are sorry for the danger but never regenerate and made New Creatures by the Spirit of Christ. Hence also it is that we have such abundance of meer Opinionists that take themselves for Religious people Because they have changed their Opinions and their parties and can prate contentiously against those that are not of their mind and joyn themselves with those that seem to be the strictest they take themselves to be truly Sanctified And this makes such gadding from one opinion to another and such censuring reviling and divisions upon that account because their Religion is most in their Opinions and hath not mortified their carnal selfish inclinations and Passions nor brought them to a holy heavenly mind Hence also it is that we have so many sensual scandalous Professours that seem to be Religious but bridle not their tongues their appetites or their lusts but are railers or backbiters or tipplers or gluttons or filthy and lascivious or some way scandalous to their holy Profession because they are strangers to a through-Conversion but take up with the counterfeit of a superficial change Hence also we have so many worldlings that think themselves Religious men that make Christ but a servant to their worldly interest and seek Heaven but for a reserve when Earth forsakes them and have something in this world that is so dear to them that they cannot forsake it for the hopes of Glory but give up themselves to Christ with secret exceptions and reserves for their prosperity in the world And all because they never knew a sound Conversion which should have rooted out of their Hearts this worldly interest and delivered them up entirely and absolutely to Christ. Hence also it is that we have so few Professours that can lay by their Pride and bear disesteem or injury and love their enemies and bless them that curse them yea or love their godly friends that cross them or dishonour them And so few that can deny themselves in their honour or any considerable thing for the sake of Christ and in obedience and conformity to his will And all because they never had that saving change that takes down Self and sets up Christ as Soveraigne in the soul. And hence also it is that we have in this age so many dreadful instances of Apostasie So many reproaching the Scripture that once they thought had Converted them and the way of Holiness that once they did profess and denying the Lord himself that bought them and all because they formerly took up with a superficial counterfeit Conversion O how commonly and how lamentably doth this misery appear among Professours in their unsavoury discourse their strife and envy on Religious pretenses their dead formality their passionate divisions or their selfish Proud and earthly minds A through Conversion would have cured all this at least as to the dominion of it Having therefore in my call to the unconverted endeavoured to awaken careless souls and perswade the obstinate to Turn and Live I have here spoken to them that seem to be about the work and given them some Directions and Perswasions to prevent their perishing in the birth and so to prevent that Hypocrisie which else they are like to be formed into and the deceit of their hearts the Errour of their Lives and the Misery at their Death which is like to follow That they live not as those that flatter God with their mouth and lie unto him with their tongues because their heart is not right with him neither are they stedfast in his Covenant Psal. 78. 36 37 Lest denying deep entertainment and rooting to the seed of Life or choaking it by the radicated predominant Love and cares of the world they wither when the heat of persecution shall break forth Matth. 13. 20 21 22. And lest building on the sands they fall when the winds and storms arise and their fall be great Matth. 7. 26 27. And so they go out from us that they may be made manifest that they were not of us For if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us 1 Joh. 2. 19. Look therefore to this great important business and give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. And trust not your hearts too easily or too confidently But turn to the Lord with all your hearts Joel 2. 12. Cleave to him Resolvedly or with Purpose of heart Acts 11. 23. And see that you sell all and buy the Pearl Matth. 13. 46. And stick not at the price but absolutely resign
the Gout or Sâ—one or other disease and he forbid him wine or strong drink or such meats as he desireth as long as he feeles himself at ease he will be venturing on them and will not be curbed by the words of the Physion But when the fit is on him and he feels the torment then he will be ruled Pain will teach him more effectually then words could do When he feeleth what is hurtfull to him and feeleth that it alway makes him sick it will restraine him more then hearing of it could do So when Humiliation doth break your hearts and make you feel that you are sick of sinne and filleth your Soul with smart and sorrow then you will be the more willing that God should destroy it in you When it lyeth so heavy on you that you are unable to look up and makes you go to God with groanes and teares and cry O Lord be mercifull to me a sinner When you are faine to go to Ministers for ease to your Consciences and fill their eares with accusations of your selves and open even your odious shamefull sinnes then you will be content to let them go Now there is no talking to you of Mortification and the resolute rejecting of your sinnes The Precepts of the Gospel are too strict for you to submit to But a broken heart would change your mindes The healthfull Plow-man saith Give me that which I love these Physicians would bring us all to their Rules that they may get money by us I never mean to follow their directions But when sickness is upon him and he hath tryed all his own skil in vaine and paine giveth him no rest then send for the Physician and then he will do any thing and take any thing whatever he will give him so that he may but he eased and recovered So when your hearts are whole and unhumbled these Preachers and Scriptures are too strict for you You must have that which you love self-conceited precise Ministers must have leave to talk but you will never believe that God is of their mind or will damn men for taking that which they have a mind of O but when these sinnes are as swords in your hearts and you begin to feele what Ministers told you of then you will be of another mind Away then with this sinne There 's nothing so odious so hurtfull so intollerable O that you could be rid of it what ever it cost you Then he will be your best Friend that can tell you how to kill it and be free from it and he that would draw you to it would be as Satan himself to you Matth. 16. 22 23. Gal. 1. 8 9. Humiliation diggeth so deep that it undermineth sinne and the fortress of the Devil and when the foundation is rooted up it will soone be over throwne When the Murderers of Christ were pricked to the heart they 'l then cry out for counsell to the Apostles Acts 2. 37. When a murderer of the Saints is stricken blindfold to the earth and the Spirit withall doth humble his Soul he will then cry out Lord what would'st thou have me to do Acts 9. 6. When a cruel Jaylour that scourged the Servants of Christ is by an Earth-quake brought to a heart-quake he will then cry out What shall I do to be saved Acts 16. 30. And here comes in the usefulness of Afflictions even because they are so great advantages to Humiliation Men will be brought to some Reason by extreamities When they lie a dying a man may talk to them and they will not so proudly fly in his face nor make a scorne of the word of the Lord as in their prosperity they did God will be more regarded when he pleadeth with them with the rod in his hand stripes are the best Logick and Rhetorick for a fool When sinne hath captivated their Reason to their flesh the Arguments to convince them must be such as the flesh is capable of perceiving We may long tell a beast of dangers and discommodities before we can perswade him from that which he loves Sensuality doth brutifie men in too great a measure And so far as they are brutish it is not the clearest Reasons that will prevaile And if God did not maintaine in corrupted man some remnants of free Reason we migh preach to beasts as hopefully as to men But Afflictions tend to weaken the Enemy that doth captivate them as prosperity by accident tends to strengthen him The flesh understandeth the language of the rod better then the language of Reason or of the Word of God And as the sensible part of our Humiliation promoteth Mortification so the rational and voluntary Humiliation which is proper to the Sanctified is a principal part of Mortification it self And thus you may see that it 's necessary that we be throughly humbled that sin may be throughly killed in us 3. Another use of Humiliation is to fit the Soul for a meet entertainment of further Grace and that both for the honour of Christ and Grace and for our own welfare 1. In respect of Christ it is equal that he should dwell in such Souls only as are fit to entertaine him Neither his person nor his business are such as can suit with the unhumbled heart Till Humiliation make a sinner feel his sinne and misery it is not possible that Christ as Christ should be heartily welcome to him or received in that sort as his honour doth expect Who cares for the Physician that feels no sickness and feares not death He may pass by the doores of such a man and he will not call him in But when paine and feares of death are on him â—e will send and seek and bid him welcome Will any man fly to Christ for succour that feeleth not his wants and danger Will they lay hold on him as the only refuge of their Souls and cleave to him as their only hope that feele no great need of him Will they lie at his feet and beg for mercy that feel themselves well enough without him When men do but hear of sinne and misery and superficially believe it they may coldly look after Christ and Grace and feel the worth of the later in such a manner as they feel the weight of the former But never is Christ valued and sought after as Christ till sorrow have taught us how to value him Nor is he entertained in the necessary honour of a Redeemer till Humiliation throw open all the doores No man can seek him with his whole heart that seeks him not with a broken heart And it 's certain that Christ will come on no lower terms into the Soul Though he come to do us good yet he will have the honour of doing it Though he come to heâ—l us and not for any need he hath of us yet he will have the welcome that 's due to a Physician He comes to save us but he will be honoured in our Salvation He inviteth all to the
Marriage supper and even compelleth them to come in but he expecteth that they bring a wedding garment and come not in a garbe that shall dishonour his house Though his Grace be free yet he will not expose it to contempt but will have the fullness and freeness of it glorified Though he came not to Redeem himself but us yet he came to be glorified in the work of our Redemption He hath no Grace so free as to save them that will not esteem it and give him thanks for it And therefore though Faith is enough to accept the gift yet must it be a thankfull faith that will magnifie the giver and a humble faith that will feele the work of it and an obediential faith that will answer the ends of it And therefore that faith which is the Condition of our Justification is fitted as well to the honour of the Giver as the commodity of the receiver And as Reason telleth us that it should be so so Christian ingenuity consenteth that it be so The Soul that is truly united to Christ and partaketh of his nature doth think it's own Receiving greatest where the honour of Christ is greatest And it cannot take pleasure in the thoughts of such a kind of Grace as should dishonour the Lord of Grace himself As Christ is solicitous for the saving of the Soul so that he makes the Soul solicitous of the right entertainment of him that saveth it And therefore though his Blood and not his Teaching or his Government was the Ranson of our Souls yet he is resolved to Justifie none by his Blood but on the Condition of that Faith which is a hearty Consent to his Teaching and Dominion It is not in the Application or bestowing of Christ's benefits as it was in the purchasing of them When he came to Ransom us he consented to be a sufferer and gave his cheeks to the smiter and submitted to reproach he endured the Cross despising the shame and being reviled he reviled not but prayed for his persecutors But when he comes by his saving Grace into the Soul he will not there be entertained with contempt For in the flesh he came on purpose to be humbled but in the Spirit he comes to be exalted In the flesh he came to condemn the sinne that reigned in our flesh Rom. 8. 3. and so was made sinne for us that is a Sacrifice for sinne 2 Cor. 5. 21. But in the Spirit he comes to conquer our flesh and by the Law of his quickning Spirit to free us from the Law of sinne and death both that the Righteousness of the Law might be fullfilled in us and also that there might be no Condemnation to us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1 2 4. The Kingdom of Christ was not worldly for if it had been worldly he would have sought to establish it by strength of armes and fighting which are worldly means Joh. 18. 36. But his Kingdom is within us It is a Spiritual Kingdom and therefore though in the world he was used with contempt as a fool and as a Sinner and a man of sorrows yet within us he will be used with honour and reverence as a King and absolute Lord. It was the houre of the executioner and the power of darkness when he was in his suffering but it is the houre of his triumph and marriage and the prevailing Power of the Heavenly Light when he cometh by Saving Grace into the Soul On the Cross he was as a sinner and stood in our place and bore what was our due and not his owne But in the Soul he is the Conquerour of sinne and cometh to take possession of his own and doth the work that belongeth to him in his dignity and therefore he will there be acknowledged and honoured On the Cross he was pulling down the Kingdom of Satan and setting up his own but in the preparatory purchase But in the Soul he doth both by immediate execution On the Cross sinne and Satan had their full blow at him But when he entred the Soul he hath his blow at them and ceaseth not till he have destroyed them In purchasing he expended his own But in Converting he takes possession of that which he purchased In a word he came into the world in flesh for his undertaken Humiliation but he comes into the Soul by his Spirit for his deserved exaltation And therefore though he endured to be spit upon in the flâ—sh he will not endure to be sleighted in the Soul And as in the world he was scorned with the Title of a King and crowned with thorns and clothed in such Kingly robes as might make him the fitter object for their reproach So when his Spirit entereth into the Soul he will be there inthroned in our most reverent subjective and deepest esteeme and crowned with our highest Love and Thankfullnes and bowed to with the tenders of Obedience and our praise The Cross shall there be the portion of his enemies and the Crown and Scepter shall be his and as all were preferred before him on Earth even Barrabas himself so all things shall be put under him in the Sanctified Soul and he shall be preferred before all This is the end of Humiliation to make ready the heart for a fuller entertainment of the Lord that bought it and to prepare the way before him and fit the Soul to be the Temple of his Spirit A humbled Soul would never have put him off with excuses from Oxen and Farms and Wives As Luke 14. and Matth. 22. But the unhumbled will make light of him And 2. As Christ himself will be honourably recieved or not at all so must the Mercies and Graces which he offereth He will not apply his blood and righteousness to them that care not for it He will not pardon such a masse of iniquity and remove such mountaines as lie upon the Soul for them that feel not the Necessity of such a Mercy He will not take men from the power of the Devil and the drudgery of sinne and the suburbs of Hell and make them his Members and the Sonnes of God and the Heirs of Heaven that have not learn't the value of these benefits but set more by their very sinne and misery and the trifles of the world Christ doth not despise his Blood his Spirit his Covenant his Pardon nor his Heavenly Inheritance and therefore he will give them to none that do despise them till he teacheth them better to know their worth Do you think it would stand with the Wisdom of Christ to give such unspeakable blessings as these to men that have not hearts to value them Why it is more to give a man Justification and Adoption then to give him all this visible world the Sunne the Moone the Firmament and the Earth And should these be given to one that cares not for them Why by this meanes God should miss of his ends He should not
have the Love the Honour or the thanks that he intended by his gift It is necessary therefore that the Soul be throughly humbled that pardon may be received as pardon and Grace as Grace and not set light by And 2. as this is necessary for the honour both of Christ and Grace so also it is necessary for our own benefit and consolation The Mercy cannot indeed be ours if Humiliation do no make us capable of it These Cordials must be taken into an empty Stomack and not be drownd in â—legm and filth A man on the Gallows will be glad of a pardon but a stander by that thinks he is innocent would not regard it but take it for an accusation There is no great sweetness in the name of a Redeemer to an unhumbled Soul It sets not by the Spirit the Gospel is no Gospel to it the tidings of Salvation are not so glad to such a one as the tidings of riches or worldly delights would be As it is the preparation of the Stomack that maketh our meat sweet to us and the coursest fare is pleasanter to the sound then sweet-meats to the sick so if we were not emptied of our selves and vile and lost in our own apprehensions and if Contrition did not quicken our appetites the Lord himself and all the miracles of his Saving Grace would be but as a thing of nought in our eyes and we should be but weary to heare or think of them But O what an inestimable Treasure is Christ to the Humbled Soul What life is in his promises What sweetness in every passage of his grace and what a feast in his unmeasurable Love 4. Another Use of Humiliation implyed in the former is that it is necessary to bring men to yield to the terms of the Covenant of Grace Nature holds fast it 's fleshly pleasures and lives by feeling upon present things and knows not how to live upon invisibles by a life of Faith And this is the life that all must live that will live in Christ And therefore he calleth them to the forsaking of all the crucifying the world and flesh the denying of themselves if they will be his Disciples But O how loath is nature to part with all and make a full resignation unto Christ but fain it would make sure of present things for fear leâ—t the promises of Heaven should but deceive them and then they would have Heaven at last as a reserve And on these terms it is that Hypocrites are Religions and thus it is that they deceive their Souls But when the heart is truly broken it will then stand no longer on such terms with Christ but yield up all It will then no longer Condition with him but stand to his Conditions and thankfully accept them Any thing will then serve with Christ and Grace and the hopes of Glory 5. Another Use of Humiliation is to fit us for the Retaining and Improving of Grace when we have received it The Proverb is Lightly come lightly go If God should give the pardon of sinne to the unhumbled how soon would it be cast away And how easily would such be hearkning to temptation and returning to their vomit The burn't Child we say dreads the fire When sinne hath kill'd you once and broken your hearts you will think the worse of it while you live And when a temptation comes you will think of your former smart Is not this it that cost me so many groans and laid me in the dust and had almost damned me and shall I go to it again Was I so hardly recovered by a Miracle of Mercy And shall I runne again into the misery that I was saved from Had I not sorrow and fear and care enough but I must go back again for more and renew my trouble Thus the remembrance of your sorrows will be a continuall preservative to you And a contrite spirit that is emptied of it self and is taught the worth of Christ and mercy will not only hold them fast but will know how to use them in thankfullness to God and benefit to himself 6. Another Use of Humiliation is to fit the Soul for it's approach to God himself from whom it had revolted As it beseems not any creature to approach the God of Heaven but in Reverentiall humility so it beseems not any sinner to approach him but in Contrite Humility Who can come out of such wickedness and misery and not bring along the sense of it on his heart It beseemeth not a Prodigal to meet his Father as confidently and boldly as if he had never departed from him but to say Father I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy sonne Luke 15. 18. It is not ingenious for a guilty Soul or one that is snatcht as a brand out of the fire to look towards God with a brazen face but with shame and sorrow to hang down the head and smite upon the brest and say O Lord be mercifull to me a sinner For God resisteth the proud but giveth Grace to the humble 1 Pet. 5. 5. Jam. 4. 6. Though the Lord be high yet he hath regard unto the lowly but the proud he knoweth afar off Psal. 138. 6. For thus saith the High and Holy one that inhabiteth Eternity whose Name is Holy and I dwell in the High and Holy Place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Isa. 57. 15. To this man will I look even to him that is poore and of a contrite spirit and that trembles at my Word Isa 66. 2. The Lord is nigh to them that are of a broken hâ—art and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit Psal. 34. 18. The Sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart O God thou wilt not dispise Psal. 51. 17. There is no turning to God unless we loath our selves for all our abominations Ezek. 16. 63. The nearer we approach him the more we must abhor our selves in dust and ashes Job 42. 6. He will not embrace a sinner in his dung but will first wash and clense him Isa. 1. 16. Conversion must make us humble and as little Children that are teachable and look not after great matters in the world or else there is no entering the Kingdom of God Matth. 18. 3 4. And thus you see the Uses and Necessity of Humiliation III. By what hath been already said you may perceive what Mistakes are carefully to be avoided about your Humiliation and with what caution it must be sought 1. One Error that you must take heed of is That you take not Humiliation for an indifferent thing or for such an appurtenance of Faith as may be spared Think not an unhumbled Soul while such can be Sanctified Some carnal hearts conceive that it is only more haynous sinners that must be contrite and broken hearted and
play You must be taught better to know your home and to take more pleasure in your father and your husband and your brethren and your Inheritance then in strangers or enemies to God and you 9. When you begin to grow wanton with Ordinances or other Mercies and in stead of thankfull receiving them and feeding on them you pick quarrells with them and nothing will please you either the Minister is too weak or he is too curious or too formall you must have it this way or that way either you must have more of a form or no form in this gesture or that order and something or other is still amiss this shews that you want humbling and that you are fitter for the rod then for meat If God do but open you a doore into your hearts and shew you the monsters and emptyness that is there you will then see that the fault lay somewhere else then in the Minister or the Ordinances If it were in them it was more in you The cause of your loathing and quarrelling with the Word was the fullness of your own stomack and God must give you a vomit or purge that shall make your hearts ake before it hath done working and then your appetits will be mended and your wantonness will cease and that will be sweet to you which before you sleighted 10. When you begin to be leavened with Pride and think highly of your selves and have good conceits of your own parts and performances and would be noted and taken for some-body among the godly and you cannot endure to be overlookt or past by when you think meaâ—ly of other mens parts and dutys in comparison of yours and think your selves as wise as your Teachers and begin to hear them as Judas magisterial spirit and think you could do as well as this your selves when you are finding fault with that which should nourish you and in every Sermon you are most noting the defects and think that this you could have mended when you itch to be Teachers your selves and think your selves fitter to preach then to learn to rule then to be ruled to answer then to ask for resolution when you think so well of your selves that the Church is not pure or good enough for your company though Christ disowneth it not and they force you not to sinne when you grow censorious and aggravate the faulte of others and extenuate their graces and can see a mote in another's eye but will discern none of their Graces if they be not as high as mountains and none can pass for Godly with you but those of the most eminent magnitude when you are itching after novelties in Religion and setting your wisdom against the present or ancient Church and affecting singularity because you will be of no common way when you cannot heare this Minister nor that Minister though the Ministers of Christ and you are harping upon that Come out from among them and be yee separate as if Christ had called you to come out of the Church when he called you to come out of the company of Infidels All this cries aloud for further Humiliation You have a tympanie that must be prickt to let out the wind that puffs you up If you be not for perdition and to be forsaken and given over to your selves you must be fecht over again and humbled with a witness When God hath turned your inside outward and shewed you that you are poor and miserable and blind and naked and that you are empty Nothings who thought so well of your selves he will then make you stoop to those that you despised and think your selves unworthy of the Communion of those that before you thought unworthy of your selves He will make you think your selves unworthy to hear those Ministers that you turned your back upon and he will take down your Teaching talking vaine and make you glad again to be learners In a word he will by Conversion make you as little Children or you shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And this spiritual Pride is a most lamentable disease and the issue usually is exceeding sad For with many 't is the fore-runner of damnable Apostacy and God gives them once to their own conceits and the wisdom which they so esteem till it have led them to perdition And those that are cured are many of them cured by the saddest way of any men in the world For it is usual with God to let them alone till they have runne themselves into some abominable errour or fallen into some shamefull scandalous sinne till they are made a hissing and by-word among men that shame and confusion may bring them to their wits and they may learn to know what it was that they were Proud of and see that they were but silly worms And thus I have shewed you when you must seek after deeper Humiliation and may conclude that you are not humbled enough Yea and when a greater measure is of some Necessity to your Souls Quest. Well but yet you have not told â—is what course a poor Sinner should take in such a strait when he knows not whether his Humiliation as to the Affectionare part be too little or too much Answ. 1. You may partly discern your selves by what is said whether you have need of more or less Humiliation if you can but try your hearts by these signes 2. But yet I would advise and earnestly perswade you in Cases of difficulty to betake your selves to some able faithfull Minister for resolution If you feel sorrow seize so deep upon your spirits that it distempereth you or threatneth your understanding or your health especially if your are either passionate women or Melancholly persons stay not then any longer left delay do that which cannot easily be undon but go and open your case and crave advice This is a principal Use of Pastors that you should have them at hand to advise with in the diseases and dangers of your Souls as you do with Physicians in the diseases and dangers of the body Lay by all sinfull bashfullness and trust not your selves any longer with your own skill but go to them that God hath set in Office over you for such uses as these and tell them your Case This is Gods way and he will bless his own Ordinance Melancholly and Passionate distempered persons are not fit judges of their own condition In this Case you must distrust your own understanding and be not selfconceited and stick not obstinately to every fancy that comes into your heads but in the sense of your weakness rely upon the guidance of your faithfull Overseers till your distempers are overcome and you are made more capable of discerning for your selves 5. You are further here to be informed that it is not for it selfe that sorrow and tears are so desireable but as they are expressions of a gracious temper of the will and as they help on to the Ends that Humiliation is appointed to
melt and break your hearts you have no part in him It becomes you to mourn over him whom you have pierced Zech. 12. 10. And this fruit of his Blood is a preparative to more You may as well think of being saved without Faith as without Repentance and Humiliation 4. Consider so much as is bitter in it is of your own preparation You may thank your selves for it Who was it that brought you to this Necessity of sorrow Have you been all your life time surfeiting of the creature and causing your own disease and now will you grudg at the trouble of a cure Whom have you to blame and find fault with but your selves was it not you that sinned was it not you that laid in the fuel of sorrows and sowed the feeds of this bitter fruit and cherished the Cause of trouble in your selves God did not do this It was you your selves He doth but undo that which you have been doing Grudg not therefore at your Physician if you must be purged and let blood and dieted strictly but thank your selves for it that have made it so necessary 5. Consider also that you have a wise and tender Physician that hath known what sorrow and grief is himself for he was made for you a man of sorrows Isa. 53. 3. And therefore can pitty those that be in sorrow He delighteth not in your trouble and grief but in your Cure and after-consolations And therefore you may be sure that he will deal gently and moderately with you and lay no more on you then is necessary for your good Nor give you any bitterer a cup then your disease doth require When he sheweth his greatest liking of the contrite it is that he may Revive their hearts and he professeth withall that he will not contend for ever nor be alwaies wrath lest the Spirit should fail before him and the Souls which he hath made Isa. 57. 15. 16. He calls to him the weary and heavy laden that he may give them ease Matth. 11. 28. He was sent to heale the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the Captives and recoveing of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised Luke 4. 18. When he hath broken your hearts he will as tenderly bind them up and as safely heal them as you can reasonably desire Even his Ministers that labour to break your hearts and bring you low even to the dust have no worse meaning in it then to bring you to Christ and life and comfort And though they are glad to see the weeping eyes of their hearers and to heare their free Confessions and Lamentations yet this is not because they take pleasure in your trouble but because they foresee the saving fruits of it and know it to be necessary to your Everlasting Peace You may read what their thoughts are in the words of Paul 2 Cor. 7. 9 10 11. Now I rejoyce not that ye were made sorry but that ye sorrowed to Repentance for ye were made sorry after a godly manner that ye might receive dammage by us in nothing For godly sorrow worketh Repentance to Salvation not to be Repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death For behold this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefullness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fears yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge c. Indeed neither Christ nor his Ministers have that fond and foolish love to you and pitty of you as you have to your selves They be not so tender of you as to save you from the sorrow which is needfull to the saving of you from Hell But they would not put you to any more then needs nor have you tast a drop of the vinegar and gall or shed one teare but what shall tend to your comfort and Salvation 6. Consider what sorrows they be that these sorrows do prevent and what those suffer in Hell that avoid this godly sorrow on earth O Sirs your Repentance-sorrows are joyes to those Yours have Hope but theirs are quickned with desperation Yours are small and but a drop to their Ocean Yours are Curing but theirs are Tormenting Yours are a Fathers Rod but theirs are the Rack and Gallows Yours are mixt with love but theirs are unmixed over-whelming them with confusion Yours are short but theirs are endless And had you rather sorrow as they do then as the godly do Had you rather howl with Devils and rebels then weep with Saints and Children Had you rather be broken in Hell by Torments then on earth by Grace Is it not an unreasonable thing of you to make such a stir at the sorrow that must save you when you remember what it would save you from and what all must suffer that are not Humbled here by Grace O it is another kind of sorrow that others are now enduring Grudg not at the pricking of a vein when so many thousands are everlastingly bleeding at the heart 7. Consider The more you are rightly Humbled the sweeter will Christ and all his Mercies be to you ever after while you live One tast of the healing Love of Christ will make you bless those sorrows that prepared for it The same Christ is not equally esteemed even by all that he will save And had you not rather be emptied yet more of your selves that you may be fuller of Christ hereafter When you do but feel his arms embracing you and perceive him in that posture as the prodigal's Father was Luke 15. 20. You will thank that sorrow that fitted you for his armes 8. If you be throughly humbled you will walk the more safely all your daies if other things correspond It will make you hate the sinne you smarted by and fly the occasions of that which cost you once so dear 9. The sinne of Pride is one of the most mortal damning sins in the world and that which thousands of professors do miscarry by And Humiliation is most directly contrary to this and therefore must needs be an amiable and necessary thing It 's worth all the sorrow that a hundred men endure here to be saved from this dangerous sinne of Pride 10. A through Humiliation is usually a signe of the greater Exaltation to come after For those that humble themselves shall be exalted and those that exalt themselves shall be brought low Luke 14. 11. Humble your selves therefore under the mighty hand of God and he shall lift you up 1 Pet. 5. 5. The higher you mean to build the deeper you will dig to lay the foundation Your Consolations are like to be greater as your sorrows have been greater You may be free from those doubts that follow others all their daies lest they were never truly humbled You need not be still questioning or pulling up your foundations as if you were to begin again It is a sign that you are intended to greater employments if other things concurre
him to them gave he Power to become the Sonnes of God even to them that believe in his Name Joh. 1. 12. This is the wonderfull Love that the Father hath bestowed on those that were his Enemies that they should not only be reconciled to him by the death of his Sonne but also be called the Sonnes of God Rom 5. 10. 1 Joh. 3. 1. For he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be Holy and without blame before him in love having predestiuated us to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his Will to the praise of the Glory of his Grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved Ephes. 1. 4 5. 6. O what an unspeakable Mercy is it to have the blessed God whom we had so oft offended to become our Reconciled Father in Christ. For it is not an empty title that he assumeth but he hath more abundant love to us and tenderness of our welfare then any title can make us understand 5. And hereupon it doth immediatly follow that we have a right to the blessed Inheritance of his Sonnes and are certain Heirs of his Heavenly Kingdom Col. 1. 12. For if Sonnes then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint Heirs with Christ Rom. 8. 17. Being saved by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost and justified by Grace through Christ we are made Heirs according to the hope of Eternal Life Tit. 3. 5 6 7. Being begotten againe to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. 6. With all the Holy Ghost is given to us not only to close us at first with Christ but to take up his abode in us as his temples and to be the Agent and Life of Christ within us and to do his work and maintain his Interest and clense us of all filthiness of flesh and Spirit and Sanctifie us throughout and to strive against and conquer the flesh and to keep us by Divine Power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Cor. 6. 19. Gal. 5. 17 22. 2 Cor. 6. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 5. For because we are Sonnes God seudeth forth the Spirit of his Sonne into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. This Spirit of Adopton which we receive doth bear witness with our spirits that we are the Sonnes of God Rom. 8. 15 16. For if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. By this Spirit is the spirit of the world cast out of us the spirit of pride and of blindness and of delusion and hard-heartedness and of sensuality and malice and hypocrisie are cast out By this is Gods Image imprinted on our Souls we are conformed to his blessed Will we are made partakers of the Divine Nature being Holy as God is Holy Col. 3. 10. 2 Pet. 1. 4. 1 Pet. 1. 16. Hereby we are delivered from the thraldom of sinne and the slavery of the Devil and the seduction of the world and our treacherous Flesh. Hereby also we are fitted for the Service of God to which before we were undisposed and unfit O what an ease is it to the Soul to be free from so much of the burden of sinne What an honour is it to have the Spirit of God within us and to have a Nature so truly Heavenly and Divine How can it go ill with him that hath God dwelling in him and that dwells in God 1 Joh. 4. 15. 7. Another of our precious benefits by Christ is that we shall be actually imployed in the special and neerest Service of God that on Earth is to be performed Let diseased Souls desire idlenes and swinish sinners take pleasure in the mire and feed like ravenous beasts on carrion or as dogs on dung but the Saints will ever rejoice in God and take it for the most blessed life on Earth when they can but do him the greatest Service Let his Enemies that hate his Service be weary of it as if it were a toile or drudgery but his Children will desire no sweeter work They never think themselves so well as when they are most serviceable to their blessed Lord though at the greatest cost and labour to the flesh So sweet is Gods Service that the more of it we can do the more is our pleasure and honour and content Other work spendeth strength but this increaseth it Other work must have râ—creation intermixt but this is it self the most delightfull recreation Other service is undertaken for the love of the wages but this is undertaken for the Love of the Master and the work and is wages it self to them that go through with it For other service is but a means and that to some inferior end but this is a means to the Everlasting perfection and blessedness of the Soul and such a means as containeth or Presently procureth somewhat of the end All the Saints are even here a chosen Generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People that they should shew forth the praises of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light They are an holy Priesthood to offer up a Spiritual Sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. Their very bodies are a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable to God in their reasonable service What a sweet work is it to live in the daily Love of God in his Praises in the hopes and sweet fore-thoughts of Everlasting Joyes The world affordeth not such a Master nor such a work 8. Another of the precious benefits by Christ is The liberty of accesse in all our wants to God by Prayer with a promise to be heard The flaming sword did keep the way to the tree of life till Christ had taken it down and consecrated for us a new and living way through the Vaile which is his flesh and now we have boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus and therefore may draw neer with a true heart in full assurance of Faith Heb. 10. 19 20 22. When worldlings may cry to their Baal in vaine the Righteous cry and the Lord heareth them and delivereth them out of all their hurtfull troubles O what a Mercy is it in our falls in our distresses in our dangers in our wants to have a God a faithfull mercifull Father to go to and make our moane to for relief What a Mercy is it when our flesh and our hearts do faile us when friends and worldly things all fail us to have God for the Rock of our hearts and our Portion Psal. 73. 26. When sickness begins to break these bodies and earthly delights do all forsake us and death calls us to come to our endless state then to have a Reconciled Father to go to and crave his ayd upon
both naturally and graciously perfected both in their faculties and qualities We shall be brought nigh to God We shall be numbered with the Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem and be members of that blessed Society and be companions and equal with the Angels of God we shall for ever behold our Glorified Redeemer and see our own Nature united to the Godhead and we shall have the greatest and neerest intuition and fruition of God thefullest Love to him and the swetest Rest content and delight in him that our created Natures are capable of We shall everlastingly be imployed in this Love and delight and in his Praises with all the Heavenly Host And the Glory of God will shine forth in our Glory and the abundance of his Goodness will be communicated to us and he will be well pleased with us with our praises with all that blessed Society and with our Head And this will endure to all Eternity Christians I have now named in a few words those Benefits by Christ which the heart of man is not able to value in any proportion to their unexpressible worth I have named that in an hour which you must enjoy for ever So much of our Benefits by Christ. 5. The fifth point to be understood in the right Knowledg of Christ is The terms on which he conveyeth his Benefits to men and how we must be made partakers of them And these Mercies are of two sorts 1. Common 2. Proper to them that are Heirs of Salvation The Common are 1. Those discoveries of Grace that are made even to Heathens in the Creatures and the mercifull Providences of God These are Absolutely and freely bestowed stowed in some measure on all but in a greater measure upon some as please the Giver 2. The Supernatural or Instituted means of Revealing Christ and Life to the world and drawing them to a saving consent of Faith These are the Gospel written and preached with other concomitant helps The Commission Christ hath given to his Embassadors is to preach this Gospel to all the world even to every reasonable Creature without exception or restriction And it is Absolutely and freely given where it is given But as to the providential disposal of the event God causeth it not to be sent to all but to whom he seeth meet 2. The Proper or Special Mercies are of two sorts 1. Some are Physical inherent qualities or performed acts 2. And some are adherent Rights or Relations Of the former inherent sort there are these three Degees 1. There is the first special work of Vocation Conversion or Regeneration causing the sinner to Repent and Believe and giving him the Principle of Spiritual Life 2. There is the bestowing of the In-dwelling Spirit of God and progressive Santification of heart and life and perseverance with Victory 3. There is the perfecting of all this in our Glorious Perfection in the life to come For the first of these God hath not promised it Conditionally or Absolutely to any individual person that hath it not He hath bound all to Repent and Believe but hath not promised to make them do it only he hath revealed that there are certain persons so given to Christ as that they shall be infallibly drawn to believe But he hath appointed certain means for the ungodly which they are bound to use in order to their Conversion and if they will not use them they are without excuse If they will they have very much encouragement from God Both 1. In the Nature of the means which are fitted to their ends and are mighty to bring down all oppositions and 2. In the Commands and Institution of God whose Wisdom and Goodness may easily resolve us that he will not appoint us means in vaine nor set his Creatures on fruitless labours And 3. Also from the Issue for no man can stand forth and say such a one did his best in the Use of means and yet could not attain the End but fell short of the Grace and Glory of God The diseases of mens Souls are wilfullness and blindness The means of Cure are the Perswasions with the Revelations of the Gospel Men have the Natural Powers of Understanding and Willing but they want that right disposition which we call the Habit or Moral Power which is no more then to say They are Habitually Blind and Wilfull It is so far from being unreasonable to teach and perswade men that are under such an Impotency as this that there is nothing in the world that doth more bespeak our teaching and perswasions For this is the Natural and Instituted way to cure them and give them Power What means of overcoming Ignorance like Teaching and what means of overcoming Habituated Wilfullness like Perswasion added to informing truths We do not use to reason men out of a Natural Impotency nor to perswade them to do that for which they have no Faculties or Object but it is the very means of overcoming a Moral Impotency and making men willing of the Good which they rejected And with this means doth God set in and infallibly cause it to be effectual with his chosen Thus no man cometh to the Sonne except the Father draw him And then for the two following Degrees of Holiness in our Sanctification and Glorious Perfection God hath promised them to those that have this first Degree For the Spirit of Holiness is promised to all that truly Repent and Believe and Salvation to all that are Sanctified and persevere So that the Right to these Inherent Mercies being a Relaetion is conveyed as other Rights and Relations of which we are next to speak 2. As the Spirit by the Operation of the Word upon the heart conveyeth the foresaid Inherent benefits or qualities and acts so the Promise of Grace indited by Christ and the Spirit doth as a Deed of Gift or Testament or Act of Oblivion bestow on us our Rights and Spiritual Relations and from these they do result as the immediate instrumental Cause Thus doth he give Power or Right to as many as receive him to become the Sonnes of God Joh. 1. 12. Thus doth he give us Pardon Justification Adoption and our Right to further Grace and Glory And these Promises are Conditional and our Repenting and Believing in Christ is the Condition And therefore till Conversion do bring us to Repent and Believe we have no Right to any of these benefits of the Promise And therefore though our Repentance and Faith be none of the Proper Cause of our Justification or Right yet the main work in order to our procurement of these benefits that 's now to be done is to perswade the sinner to Repent and Believe to turn that he may live For Gods Act of Grace is past already and the Conditional Pardon is granted long ago and will effectually Pardon us as soon as we perform the Condition and not before Till then we hinder the Efficacy of the Deed of Gift For Unbelief and Impenitency are true
Causes of mens Condemnation though Faith and Repentance be not Proper Causes of their Salvation These Promises being Conditional we cannot be assured of our part in the benefits but by being assured that we perform the Condition By this you may see the Nature of presumption When men say they believe that which never was promised or believe that they have right to the Blessings that are promised to others and not to them or believe that they shall have the benefits promised when they perform not the Conditions all this is presuming and not true believing If men believe that God is reconciled to them and will Pardon them and Justifie them and save them when they are unconverted impenitent unregenerate men this is not indeed a believing of God that hath never made them any such promise nor ever told them any such matter but the contrary But it is a believing the false delusions of the Devil and their own hearts He that will claim any title to Christ and Pardon and Salvation must have something to shew for it yea and something more then the most of the world have to shew For the most shall be shut out Every man therefore that regardeth his Salvation must seriously ask his Soul this question What have I to shew for my title to Salvation more then the most of the world can shew It is not saying I hope to be saved that will serve the turn ' except I can give a Reason of my hopes ' Thousands that lay claim to Salvation shall miss of it because they have no title to it And that which you must have to shew is this A Promise or Deed of Gift on Gods part and the fullfilling of the Condition on your part God saith to all men who ever Repenteth Believeth or is converted shall be saved When you have found that you Repent of all your sinnes and truly believe and are converted to God then and not till then you may conclude that you shall be saved 6. The sixth Point to be understood or believed concerning these Benefits of Christ is the infallible Certainty of them While men look on the promised Glory to come as on an uncertain thing they will hardly be drawn to venture and let go the porfits and pleasures of the world to attaine it much less to part with life it self The life of all our Christian motion is the unfeigned belief of the Truth of Gods Word and specially of the unseen things of the world to come Such as mens belief of Heaven and Hell is such will be the bent of their hearts and the course of their lives and such they will be in yielding to sinne or in resisting it and in all the service they do for God As all men would take another course if they did but see Heaven and Hell with their eyes so all men would presently throw away their worldly fleshly pleasures and turn to God and a holy life if they did but as throughly believe the Joyes and torments to come as if they saw them Flesh and blood can hardly judg of things without the help of sense and fleshly men take all things to be fantasmes or nothings that are not within the judgment of their senses They must see it or feel it or tast it or hear it and Believing is a way that hardly satisfies them though it be God himself that they are to believe Believing is trusting the Credit of an other and we are naturally loth to trust to any but our eyes or other senses We are so false our selves that we are ready to measure God by our selves and to think that he is a deceiver because that we are such And hence it is that the world is so ungodly that they venture on sinne and will not be at the cost and labour of a Heavenly life because they take the matters of the life to come to be but uncertainties and have not so true a belief of them as might possess them with a deep apprehension of their reallity How should the Word profit them that mixe it not with Faith Heb. 4. 2. Unless by begetting Faith it self O what a change would a sound belief of the Scriptures make in the world But having spoken so oft of this in other writings I shall say no more of it now So much of the Knowledg of Christ. II. I have shewed you the first part of this Direction How Christ must be Received understandingly I now come to the second which is that He must be Received heartily As God must be loved so Christ must be believed in with all the heart and Soul and strength If not with All in a Perfect degree for that will not be till we come to Heaven yet with All in a predominant prevalent degree There are many convictions and good meanings and wishes and purposes which may proceed from common Grace and be found in those that never shall be saved These may be called analogically Faith and Love and Desire as those are that are found in the truly Regenerate and yet the persons in whom they are found may not fitly be called Believers or Lovers of God because a man is to be denominated from that in him which is predominant and hath the chief power on his heart The Soul of man is not so simple as to move but one way Its state in this life is to stand between two differing Competitours God and the world Spirit and flesh and there is no man that is Totally given up to either of them No man is so good and spiritual that hath not something in him that is bad and carnal And no man is so fully addicted to God but the Creature hath too much interest in his heart Nor is there any man so given up to the Creature in whom God hath no manner of interest at all in his Estimation and Affections if he indeed believe that there is a God At least it is not so with all that are unconverted Otherwise 1. What is it that common Grace doth if it no whit dispose them towards God Certainly it would not else be Grace 2. And if this were not so then we must say that no unregenerate man hath any Good in him that is truly Moral For if there be no interest of God in his mind or will there can be no Good in him But this is contrary to Scripture and experience It was undoubtedly some Moral Good which Christ loved the man for in Marke 10. 21. Who was not far from the Kingdom of God 3. Otherwise all men must be equally departed from God which is contrary to experience 4. Yea all men must be as bad on Earth privatively as in Hell which certainly is false I may well say that on Earth there is some Good in the worst much more in those that are almost perswaded to be converted Christians Many a thought of the Goodness of God and the necessity of a Saviour and of the Love of Christ and of
the Joyes of Heaven may be stirring and working in the minds of the unsanctified but if they take not up the Heart for Christ the person is not a true Believer As the Gospel must be Believed to be True so Christ that is offered us in the Gospel as Good must be Heartily and Thankfully accepted accordingly And the Glory the Justification Reconciliation with God and other benefits procured by him and offered with him must be valued and desired above all earthly fleshly things If you are convinced that sinne is evill as contrary to God and hurtfull to you and hereupon have some mind to let it go and some wishes that Christ would save you from it and yet still have a Love to it that is greater then your dislike and the bent of your heart is more for it then against it and your habituate desires are rather to keep then to leave it this is not Sanctification nor a saving consent to be saved by Christ. If you have some convictions that Holiness is good as being the Image of God and pleasing to him and necessary to your Salvation and so should have some mind of Holyness on these grounds yet if you have on the other side a greater aversness to it because it would deprive you of the pleasures of your sinne and the Habitual inclination of your will is more against it then for it certainly this will not stand with true Sanctification of Faith in Christ to save you from the power of sinne by his Spirit Thousands deceive themselves by misunderstanding some common passages that are spoken to comfort afflicted Consciences viz. That the least true desires after Grace do prove the Soul to be Gracious This is true if you speak of the least Desires which are Predominant in the Soul when our Desire is more habitually then our unwillingness and we thus preferre Christ before all the world the least of this is an Evidence of Saving Grace But such Desires as are subdued by the contrary Desires and such a will as is accompanyed with a greater unwillingness habitually and such a Faith as is drowned in greater unbelief these are not Evidences of a saving change nor can you justly gather any special comfort from them He that hath more unbelief then Belief is not to be called a Believer but an unbeliever And he that hath more hatred or dislike of God and Holiness then Love to them is not to be called Godly but ungodly nor a Lover of God but a hater of him I am easily perswaded that many of you that are ungodly could be contented that God be Glorified if his Glory do not cross your carnal interest and so you desire Gods Glory even for it self as that which is absolutely Good in it self But if your fleshly interest be so dear to you that you will sacrifice Gods Glory to it and had rather God were dishonoured then your fleshly interest contradicted it is your flesh then that is made your God and your chief End It is not every wish or mind of Christ no not to save you from sinne as sinne that will prove you true Belielievers Nor is it every minding of God or love to him no not as one apprehended by you to be the chiefest Good and desirable for himself as your End that will prove indeed that you savingly love him as long as the contrary mind and will is Habitually predominant in you Such as the very habit and bent of a mans heart is such indeed is the man It s possible for a man even a good man to have two contrary ends and intentions yea ultimate ends as that which is desired for it self and referred to nothing else is called Vltimaâ—e but it is not possible for him to have two principall predominant Ends. So far as we are carnal still we make the pleasing of our flesh our ultimate End For doubtless we do not sinne only by pleasing the flesh as a means to Gods Glory nor only in the mischoosing of other means But yet this is none of our Principal End so far as men are truly Sanctified And because that is called a mans mind or will which is the chiefest and highest in his mind and will therefore we use to denominate men from that only which beareth rule in them And thus we may say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me For a disowned act that proceedeth from us against the bent and habit of our wills and the course of our lives from the remnants of a carnal misguided will is not it that must denominate the person nor is so fully ours as the contrary act And therefore though indeed we sinfully participate of it yet when the question is whether Believing or unbeliefe sinning or obeying be my work it is not Comparatively to be called mine which I am much more against then for So on the other side if the unsanctified have some transient superficial uneffectual acts of Desire or Faith or Love to God which are contrary to the bent and habit of their hearts this is not theirs nor imputable to them so far as hence to give them their Denomination It is not they that do it but the common workings of the Spirit upon them If ever then you would be assured that your are Christians look to the Habitual bent of your hearts and see that you do not only talk of Scripture and slâ—ghtly believe it and speak well of Christ with some good wishes and meanings and purposes but as you love your Souls see that Christ be Received as your dearest Saviour with Thankfullness and greatest Love and as your Soveraign Lord with true subjection and that he have your Superlative estimation and Affections and all things in the world be put under him in your Souls This must be so if you will have the portion of Believers No Faith that is short of this will prove you Christ's Disciples indeed or Heirs of the Promises made to Believers The voice of Christ that calls to you in the Gospel is My sonne give me thy heart Prov. 23. 26. Do what thou wilt in waies of duty and think as highly as thou wilt of thy self thou art no true Believer in Christ's account till thou hast given him thy heart If he have thy tongue if he have thy good opinion nay if thy body were burnt in his Cause if he had not thy Love thy Heart it were as nothing 1 Cor. 13. 3. For thy works and sufferings are so far acceptable through Christ as they are testimonies of this that Christ hath thy heart If he have not thy heart he takes it as if he had nothing And if he have this he takes it as if he had all For this is not only preferred by him before all but also he knows that this commandeth all If Christ have thy Heart the Devil will not have thy tongue and life the Ale-house or a Harlot will not have thy body nor the world will
the Husband of the Church and you must become his Spouse and so of the rest This is called our Vniâ—â—ng to Christ which must go before your further Communion with him It is the Will of God that you shall never receive his Benefits without or before you receive his Sonne Except only those Benefits which go before your Union with Christ himselfe in order to the accomplishing it as the Gospel the gift of Faith to the Elect c. You shall never have actual Pardon Justification Adoption Sanctification or Glory till you have first saving interest in Christ himself He is the Vine and we are the Branches we must be planted into him and live in him or else we can have nothing further from God nor do nothing acceptable to God And therefore the first and great work of Faith is to Receive and close with the Person of Christ as cloathed with his Office 2. Understand and note that as you shall not have his great Benefits before or without his Person so God hath resolved that you shall not have his Special Benefits unless you will take them all together I speak of men at age that are capable of all You shall not have Pardon and Justification or Glory without Sanctification nor the Comforts of Christ without the guidance and government of Christ. You must have all or none 3. From hence it follows that therefore you must Receive and close with Christ Entirely in his whole Office as he is to accomplish all these works or else you cannot be United to him He will not be divided You shall not have Christ as a Justifier of yon if you will not have him as a Guid and Ruler and Sanctifier of you He will not be a partial Saviour If you will not consent that he shall save you from your sinnes he will not consent to save you from Hell 4. Understand and note that Christ will look to his Fathers Interest and Honour and his own as well as to your Salvation yea and before it And therefore you must not hope for any Mercy from him in any way that is dishonourable to him or that is inconsistent with his own blessed Ends and Interest And therefore do not look for any such Grace from him as shall discharge you from your duty or give you liberty to dishonour or disobey him Nor do not think that you shall have him Related to you only for your own ends but on terms of highest honour to God and you Redeemer And do not think that your Grace is ever the less free because Gods Honour is thus preferred For if you are Christians indeed you will take Gods Interest as your own highest Interest and will confess that you could not have your own Ends and welfare any other way 5. Understand and Note also that as all your Mercies are in the hand of Christ so Christ hath appointed in his Gospel a certain way and course of means in which he will bestow it And you cannot expect it from him in any other way but his own As God hath made Christ the way and no man cometh to the Father but by him so Christ hath ordained a standing course of means which are his way for the making over of his Benefits and here you must have them or go without them 6. Understand and Note that there are some of Christ's Ends and Benefits that the very Natural man desires and some that Corrupted Natuâ—e is against Now it is therefore the established way of Christ to Promise us those which we can desire on Condition that we will also accept of and submit to those that we are against Not but that his Grace doth dispose men to the performance of such Conditions But his Grace worketh by means and a Conditionall Promise is his stablished means to draw mans heart to the Performance of the Condition which well considered is a sufficient answer to the Arguments that are commonly urged against the Conditionality of the Promise As the Spirit doth Powerfully work within so he useth that Word from without as his Instrument which worketh Sapientially and Powerfully to the same work If a Physician have two medicines to give his patient as necessary for his cure the one very sweet and the other bitter the one which he loves and the other which he loaths he will Promise him the Sweeter if he will take the Bitter one that by the love of one he may prevail against the loathing of the other and may â—ice it down He will not promise the bitter one which is loathed and make the Taking of the sweet one the Condition He will not say I will give thee this Aloes on Condition thou wilt take this Sugar but contrary I will give thee the sweeter if thou wilt take the bitter In Christs Ends and Works 1. We Naturally are more willing of that which makes for our selves directly then of that which makes directly for the Honour of God and the Redeemer We preferre our own Ends before Gods Glory And therefore Christ hath so ordered the Condition of his Promises that unless we will take him in his Relations of Dignity as King and Lord and will make the Glory and Pleasing of God our principal End we shall have none of him or his Saving Benefits For he came not to fulfill our selfish desires but to fetch us off from our selves and recover us to God that he might have his own And if we will not have our All in God we shall have Nothing 2. And Naturally we are willing as to our own Benefits to be pardoned and freed from the Curse of the Law and the flames of Hell and Natural death and punishment And therefore we are thus farre Naturally willing of free Justification But we are unwilling to let go the seeming profit and credit and pleasure of sinne and to deny the flesh and forsake the world and we are averse to the Spiritual felicity of the Saints and to the Holiness of heart and life that is the way to it And therefore Christ hath most wisely so ordered it in the tenor of his Promises that our Repentance and Faith shall be the Condition of our Justification and deliverance from death and Hell And this Faith is the believing in him and Accepting him Entirely in his whole Office to Sanctifie us and Rule us as well as to Justifie us And thus we must take him wholly or we shall have none of him And the Accepting him as our Teacher and Sanctifier and King is as much at least the Condition of our Justification and Pardon and deliverance from Hell as the Accepting him as a Justifier of us is He that had the Power in his own hands and that made the free Promise or Deed of Gift hath put in such Conditions as his own Wisdom saw best and they are such as suit most congruously to all his Ends even the Glory of God in all his Attributes and the Redeemers Glory and our own
filial and of the right strain if Love be not its Companion Fear of punishment shews that you love your natural selves but it shews not that you love God and are true-hearted to him The Devils fear and tremble but they do not Love It is Love and and not Fear that is the Byas the Inclination and as I may say the Nature of the will of man By his Love it is that you must know what the man is The Philosopher saith Such as a man is such is his end which is all one as to say Such as a man is such is his Love You may Fear a thing at the same time when you hate it and it 's too common to have some hatred mixt with Fear You may be as much against God and his holy waies when Fear only drives you to some kind of religiousness as others are that scarce meddle with Religion at all The first thing that God looks at is what you would do and the next is what you do If you do it but had rather leave it undone you lose your reward and God will take it as if you had not done it For it was not you that did it if you did it not from Love but it was Fear that dwelleth in you God takes mens hearty Desires and Will instead of the Deed where they have not power to fulfill it But he never took the bare Deed instead of the Will A blockish kind of worship consisting in outward actions without the heart is fit to be given to a wooden god a sensless Idol but the true and living God abhorres it He is a Spirit and will be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth such worshipers he seeketh and such he will accept Joh. 4. 23 24. A begger will be glad of your Almes though you leave it with an ill will because he needeth it but God hath no need of you nor of your service and therefore think not that he will accept you on such termes That people worshipeth God in vain that draw near him with their mouth and honour him with their lips when their heart is farre from him Mat. 15. 8 9. A mans heart is where his Love is rather then where his Fear is If you should lie still upon your knees or in the holy Assembly If you should be the strictest Observer of the Ordinances on the Lords daies and yet had such hearts in you as had rather let all these alone if it were not for fear of punishment it will all be disregarded and reckoned to you according to your wills as if it had never been done by you at all It 's Love that must win Love or make you fit for Love to entertain If you give your goods to the poor or your bodies to be burned in a cause that in it self is good and yet have not Love it availeth nothing 1 Cor. 13. 1 2 3 5. You will not think your Wife hath conjugall affections that loveth another man better then you and had rather be gone from you if she could live without you It 's an unnatural Son that loves not his Father but had rather be from him then with him If God called you to a bestiall drugery or slavery he would then look but for your work and not care much whether you be willing or unwilling If your Ox draw your plow and your Horse carry his burden you care not much whether it be willingly or unwillingly Or if it be an enemy that you have to deal with you will look for no more then a forced submission or that he be disabled from doing you hurt But this is not your case It is a state of friendship that the Gospel calls you to you must be nigh to God his Children and the Members of his Sonne espoused to him in the dearest strongest bonds And do you think it is possible that this should be done without your wills and affections If you can be content with the Portion of a slave and an enemy then do your task and deny God your affections But if you look for the entertainment and Portion of a Friend a Child a Spouse you must bring the heart of a Friend and of a Child and of a Spouse Fear may do good by driving you to the use of means and taking out of your hands the things by which you would do your selves a mischief It may prepare you for saving Grace and when you are sanctified it will prove a necessary servant of Love to keep you in awe and save you from temptations But Love is the ruling affection in the sanctified and fear is therefore necessary because of the present imperfection of Love and because of the variety of temptations that here beset us Think not therefore that you are savingly renewed till God have your very hearts When you do but believe and tremble it is better then to be unbelieving and stupid and secure but you are not true Christians till you believe and Love We use to fly from that which we fear and therefore do apprehend it to be evil to us We avoid the presence and company of those that we are afraid of but we draw nigh them that we love and delight in their company We Fear an Enemy We Love a Friend We Fear the Devil naturally but we do not Love him It is Love that is that Affection of the soul that entertaineth God as God even as Good though that Love must be accompanied with a filial fear even a dread and reverence of his Majesty and greatness and a fear of displeasing him If you should toile out your selves in Religious duties with a heart that had rather forbear them if you durst you have not the hearts of Gods Children in your breasts The Magistrate can frighten men to the Congregation and outward worship You may lock a man in the Church that had rather be away And will any man think that this makes him acceptable to God You may keep a Theif from stealing by prison and irons but this makes him not accepted with God as a true man You may cure a man of cursing and swearing and railing and idle and ribbald talking even in a minute of an hour by cutting of his tongue but will God accept him ever the more as long as he hath a heart that would do it if he could There 's abundance of people at this day that are kept from abusing the Lords day and from swearing and stealing yea and from laying hands on all about them that are godly and this by the Law of man and the fear of present punishment And do you think that these are therefore innocent or acceptable with God By this account you may make the Devil a Saint when he is chained up from doing mischief You may as well say that a Lyon is become a Lamb when he is shut up in his Den Or that a mastiff Dog is become harmelss and gentle when he is muzled Believe it sirs you are
be moved to it by right and weighty Considerations and go upon reasons that will hold up your Resolution For should you Resolve on the most necessary work as this is upon mistakes and wrong or insufficient Reasons as the will of man the custom of the country the reputation of Christianity or only such like there is no likelyhood that your Resolution should endure and it is not sincere while it doth endure 5. Your Resolution must be accompanied with a sense of your own insufficiency to stand to it immutably and execute it faithfully by your own strength as knowing the corruption and deceitfullness of our own heart And it must be strengthned and supported by a confidence or dependance on the sufficiency of Christ. on whose Grace and Spirit you must rely both for the continuing and the performing of your Resolutions as knowing that without him you can do nothing but that you can do all things necessary through Christ strengthning you 6. Lastly Your Resolution is not Savingly sincere unless it be habitually It is a very hard question how far some moving exhortation or the approach of death in sicknes may prevaile with the unsanctified for an Actual Resolution Undoubtedly very farre But that 's a mans mind and will which is Habitually his mind and will When the very Inclination and bent of your will is Right then only is your heart right A bowle may by a rub or banck be turned contrary to the byas but when it is over the rub it will follow the byas againe in its ordinary course The flame may be hindred from assending a little while but when it is got over the stop it will be mounting upward A stone will move upwards against its Nature while it is followed by the strength of the hand that cast it but when the strength is spent it will quickly fall again It is not an extraordinary act that you can try your selves by but such a free course and tenor of your lives as will prove that you have a new Nature or a heart Inclined and Habituated to God The main business therefore is to prove that you are Habituallly Resolved Set all these together now and you may see what Resolution it is that must prove you to be Converted 1. It must be a Resolution for all the Essence of Christianity and not only some part 2. It must be a Resolution for present Obedience and not only for some distant time to come 3. It must be an Absolute peremptory Resolution without and against Reserves for the flesh both Total and final without and against any Revocation 4. It must be soundly grounded and moved by right Principles 5. It must be joyned with a humble sence of your insufficiency and a dependance on Christ for continuing and performing it And 6. It must be Habitual and such as sets right the bent and drift of heart and life All this is of Necessity Well Sirs you see now what you must do the next question then is what you will do A great many of motions God hath made to you to let go your worldliness and wickedness and become New Creatures and live to God and never could you be got to Resolve and obey them Many thoughts you have had of it I suppose and long you have been purposing that Turn you would but all have come to little or nothing because you were never fully Resolved I am once more sent to you on this message from God to see whether yet you will Resolve Whether after all you trifling delaies and after all your wilfull sinning and abuse of Gods Patience against your own knowledg and Consciences you will yet Resolve What say you Shall God be your Master indeed and shall Christ be your Saviour Lord Shall Heaven be your happiness and have your hearts indeed Shall Holiness be your business indeed and shall sinne be your hatred and the flesh and the world be your enemies indeed and used accordingly from this day forward without any more ado I beseech you Sirs Resolve and fully Resolve And because I know if we prevaile not with you in this you are undone for ever and therefore I am loath to let you go before we have brought you if it may be to Resolve I will give you here some Considerations to turn the scales and if you will but read them and soberly consider of them I shall have great hope to prevail with you yet after all One would think that the fifty Considerations under the last Direction might suffice But lest all should be too little I will add these following 1. Consider I beseech you what leisure you have had to think of the matter You have lived many years in the world already and you have had nothing to do in it but to seek after true Happiness Even your worldly labours ought to have been all but in order to this And yet are you unresolved Alas Sirs have you lived some twenty some thirty years and more in the world and yet are you not Resolved what you came hither for or what you have to do here Is it twenty or thirty or fourty years since you set out and should by this time have been farre on your journey and are you yet unresolved whither to go or which way to go As if you were newly entering the world or as if you had never heard of your business I think so many years are a faire time of Consideration and it's time to be Resolved if you will Resolve at all 2. And I pray you consider what Helps you have had to have Resolved you before this If you did not know what you had to look after and which way to take you should have enquired You had the Word of God to advise with and you had your Teachers to advise with and many experienced Christians to advise with You wanted not for the wisest faithfulest Counsailers if you had been but willing and diligent certainly you might have been Resolved long ago 3 And consider I beseech you what a case it is that you are unresolved in Is it so hard a question that all this time and all these helps cannot Resolve you What whether God or the flesh should be first obeyed and loved Whether Heaven or Earth Eternal Glory or the transitory pleasures of sinne should be preferred Whether you should care and labour more to be saved from sinne and Hell or from poverty and worldly crosses and reproaches These and such like are the questions to be Resolved And are these so hard that all your wit and all the advise you can have from Scripture and Ministers would not serve turn to help you to a Resolution no not in twenty or thirty years time O wonderful that ever the Devil should be able so to befool men That Reasonable Creatures should be so phrenetâ—ck that they cannot be resolved whether it be better be saved or be damned or whether sinne with Hell after it be better than
Psal. 51. 17. Luke 4. 18. Mat. 11. 28. Do you think a man can be the Servant of God that liveth a fleshly life will keep his sin Try by Rom. 8. 13. Joh. 3. 19. Ephes. 5. 5 6. 1 Joh. 3. 9 10. Do you doubt whether it be necessary to make so much adoe to be saved and to be so strict and make Religion our cheifest business Try by Psal. 1. 1 2 3. 1 Pet. 4. 18. Heb. 12. 14. Luke 10. 42. Luke 13. 24. Ephes. 5. 15 16. Do you think a man can be saved that is a worldling whose heart is more on Earth then heaven Try by 1 Joh. 2 15. Phil. 3. 19. Col. 3. 1. Luke 14. 26 33. Do you doubt whether you should serve God with your families and instruct them and pray with them Try by Jos. 24. 15. Deut. 6. 6 7. Dan. 6. 10. 11. Exod. 20. 10. Thus if you will in all these weighty matters but goe to the Scriptures and see whether it say as your Teachers say you might soone be resolved and that by the surest authority in the world If you think that your Ministers may be deceived I hope you will confess that God cannot be deceived If you think that your Ministers are passionate or felf-conceited or speak out of ill will to you I hope you dare not say so by the Lord he owes you no ill will nor speaks a word but what is most sure If you think us partiall sure God is impartiall what better judge can you have now then he that is infallible and must judge you all at the last If any Papist put it into your head to ask who shall be judge of the sence of Scripture I answer who shall be judge of the judge of all the world The Law is made to judge you and not to be judged by you None can be the proper judges of the sence of a Law but the maker of it Though others must judge their cases by the Law Your work is to discern it and understand and obey it and your work is to help you to understand it but it 's neither our work nor yours to be the proper or absolute judges of it At least where it speaks plaine it needs no judge Come then to the word in meekness and humility with a teachable frame of Spirit and a willingness to know the truth and a resolution to stand to it and yield to what shall be revealed to you and beg of God to shew you his will and lead you into the truth and you will find that he will be found of them that seeke him DIRECT III. If you would not have the work of your Conversion miscarry my next advice is this See that you be much in the serious Consideration of the Truths which you understand betwixt God and you in secret I have often spoken of this heretofore But because I apprehend it to be a point of exceeding great concernment I shall be longer on it againe then on the rest The greatest matters in the world will not work much upon him that will not think of them Consideration opens the eare that was stopt and the heart that was shut up It sets the powers of the Soul awork and wakeneth it from the sleep of incogitancy and security The Thoughts are the first actings of the Soul that set a work the rest Thinking on the matters that must make us wise do the work of God on the heart is that which lieth on us to do in order to our Conversion By Consideration a sinner makes use of the Truth which before lay by and therefore could do nothing By Consideration he taketh in the Medicine to his Soul which before stood by and could not work By Consideration a man makes use of his Reason which before was laid asleep and therefore could not do it's work When the Master 's from home the Schollars will be at play When the Coach-man is asleep the Horses may miss the way and possibly break his neck and their owne If the plowman go his way the Oxen will stand still or make but bad unhandsome work So when Reason is laid asleep and out of the way what may not the Appetite do and what may not the Passions do and what may not Temptations do with the Soul A wise man when he is asleep hath as little use of his wisdome as a foole A Learned man when he is asleep can hardly dispute with an unlearnd man that is awake A strong man that 's never so skillfull at his weapons is scarce able in his sleep to deale with the weakest child that is awake Why all the powers of your Soul are as it were asleep till Consideration awake them and set them on work And what the better are you for being men and having Reason if you have not the Vse of your Reason when you need it As men are Inconsiderate because they are wicked so they are the more wicked because they are inconsiderate The keenest sword the greatest Cannon will do no execution against an enemie while they lie by and are not used There is a mighty power in the Word of God and the example of Christ to pull down strong holds and conquer the strongest lusts and corruptions But they will not do this while they are forgotten and neglected Will Heaven intice the man that thinks not of it Will Hell deterre the man that thinks not of it Why is it that all the reasoning in the world will do no more good on a man that is deaf then if you said nothing But because the passage to his Thoughts and understanding is stopt up And if you have eyes and see not and eares and heare not and willfully cast it out of your thoughts what good can any thing do to you that is spoken It is not holding your meat in your mouth that will nourish you if you will not let it down nor taking it into your stomack if you will not keep it but presently cast it up again But it must be kept till it be disgested and distributed So it is not the most excellent Truths in the world that will change your hearts if you let them not down to your hearts and keep them not there by Meditation till they are digested and turned into sprituall life The plaister must be laid upon the sore if you would be cured The wound and sickness is at your Heart and if you will not take in the word to your heart where the sickness is I know not how you should expect a cure The Soul will not be charmed into Holiness by the bare hearing or saying over a few good words as wizzards use to cure diseases or seeme to cure them It must be Truth at the Heart that must change the Heart And if you will not Think on it and think on it againe how can you expect it should come at your Hearts You say you would gladly have Christ and grace and are ready to
lay the blame on God because he doth not give it you and say We cannot convert our selves But would you have the Spirit come in while you hold the dore against him He knocks and desireth you to open and let him in and you wish him to come in but you bolt the dore and no intreaty will procure you to open it It is Consideration of the saving doctrine of the Gospell that openeth the heart and giveth it entertainment Set you selves therefore on purpose to this work open the doores of your heart which are now shut and let the King of Glory come in Who will believe that you love the Light when you shut the windows and draw the curtains If you will set your selves to consider of the Truth the windows of your Soul will be set open and then the light will certainly come in Now you read over whole Chapters and hear Sermon after Sermon and either they never stir you or at least it 's but a little for a fit like a man that hath a little warmd him at the fire in the winter and when he goes from it is colder then before But if you would but set your selves to consider of what you hear or read one line of a Chapter or one sentence of a Sermon would say you in tears or make you groane or at least do more then now is done Satan hath garrisond the heart of every carnall man And consideration is the principall means to cast him out If by considering of the terrible threatnings of the word you would discharge these Canons of God against them what a battery would it make in the corruptions of your Souls Our God is a consuming fire and the fire of hell is threatned in his Law as the wages of sin By serious Consideration you may as it were fetch fire from God and from his word and set to the very gates of Satans garrison and fire him out of many of his holds But because this is so needfull a point I shall be so large upon it as 1º to tell you some of those things that you should consider of 2o. to tell you in what manner you should do it and 3o. to give you some Motives to put you on I. The first thing that I would have you oft to think on is The Nature of that God with whom you have to do Consider that if he be the most wise it is all the reason in the world that he should rule you If he be Good and infinitely Good there is all the reason in the world that you should Love him and there is no shew of reason that you should love the world or sin before him If he be faithfull and true his threatnings must be feared and his promises must not be distrusted and there is no reason that you should make any question of his Word If he be Holy then Holiness must needs be most excellent and those that are the Holiest must needs be the best because they are most like to God And then he must be an enemy to sin and to all that are unholy because they are contrary to his nature Consider that he is Almighty and there is no resisting him or standing out against him In the twink of an eye can he snatch thy guilty Soul from thy body and cast it where sin is better known A word of his Mouth can set all the world against thee and set thine own conscience against thee too A frown of his face can turn thee into Hell And if he be thine enemy it is no matter who is thy friend For all the world cannot save thee if he do but condemne thee They are blessed whom he blesseth and they are cursed indeed whom he curseth He was from Eternity and thou art but as it were of yesterday Thy being is from him thy life is alwaies in his hands Thou canst not live an hour without him thou canst not fetch a breath without him nor think a thought nor speak a word nor stir a foot or hand without him Thou mayst better live without bread or drink or fire or aire or earth or water then without him All the world is before him but as the drop of a bucket or a little sand of dust that should be laid in ballance with all the earth Hadst thou but compassed about this lower world and seen all the Nations of it and its wonderfull furniture and seen the great deeps of of the mighty Ocean and the abundance of Creatures that be in all O what thoughts then wouldst thou have of God! But if thou hadst been above the Starres and seen the Sun in all its glory and seen the frame and course of those higher Orbes and seen the blessed glorious Angels and all the inhabitants of the higher world O then what thoughts of God wouldst thou entertaine O but if it were possible that thou hadst seen his Glory or seen but his back-parts as Moses did or seen him in Christ the now glofied Redeemer what apprehensions wouldst thou have of him then Then how wouldst thou abhor the name of sin and how weary wouldst thou be of the pleasantest life that sensuality could afford thee Then thou wouldst quickly know that no Love can be great enough and no praises can be high enough and no service can be holy and good enough for such a God Then you wouldst soon know that this is not a God to be neglected or dallyed with nor a God to be resisted nor provoked by the wilfull breaking of his Laws It is Eternal Life to know this God Joh. 17. 3. and for want of knowing him it is that sin aboundeth in the world This maketh Holyness so scarce and leane Men worship they care not how because they worship they know not whom O therefore dwell on the Meditations of the Almighty So far as he doth possess thy mind there will be no place for sin and vanity One would think if I should set you no further task and tell you of no other matter for your Meditation this one should be enough For this one is in a manner all What will not the due knowledge of God do upon the Soul That 's the best Christian and the most happy man that knoweth most of him And that 's the most vile and miserable wretch that is furthest from him and strangest to him It is the Character of the foole of fooles to have a heart whose disposition and practice saith There is no God Psal 14. 1. That is To be so affected and employed in their hearts as if there were no God and when God is not in all his thoughts Psal. 10. 4. It was better with man when he had less knowledge for himself and fewer thoughts for himself and more of God And there is no way to restore us to sound understanding and to perfect our knowledge but to turn our eye upon God again For in knowing him we know all that 's worth the knowing Take