affability and what not did think with himself How happy a man were I if I could but dwell in this mans house which at last he procured but ere long went away His friend meeting him asked him how he came so quickly to forsake his happiness Did not his Master prove as was reported He answered Yes and better than report could make him or I could ever have believed But though my Master was so good my Mistris was so unreasonable and clamorous and cruel that she would beat us and pull us by the hair and throw scalding water upon us and there was no living with her So Faith I hope is the Master in your hearts And that is as good as can be well believed But the Flesh is Mistris which should be but a servant And that maketh such troublesome work with some of you that some quiet natured Infidels are less vexatious companions than you Nay and I wonder if you can be very confident of your own sincerity as long as such fleshly vices and headstrong passions do keep up the power of a Mistris in you I wonder if you do not fear lest as a woman said I will call my Husband Lord with Sarah if I may have my will fulfilled so Grace and Faith should have no more than the Regent Titles while your flesh hath so much of its will fulfilled I know too many cheat themselves into comfort with the false opinion that because they have a party in them that striveth against their sins it is a certain sign that they have the Spirit and are sanctified though the flesh even in the main doth get the Victory And I know that many have sincerity indeed who yet have many a foil by boisterous passions and fleshly inclinations But I am sure till you know which party is predominant and truly beareth the governing sway you can never know whether you are sincere As once a servant when his Master and Mistris were fighting answered one at the door who desired to speak with the Master of the house You must stay till I see who gets the better before I can tell you who is Master of the house So truly I fear the conflict is so hard with many Christians between the Spirit and the Flesh and holdeth so long in a doubtful state and sense and passion and unbelief and pride and worldliness and selfishness prevail so much that they may stay themselves a great while before they can be well resolved which is Master For to prosecute my similitude in Innocent man spiritual Reason was absolutely Master and Fleshly sense was an obsequious Servant though yet it had an appetite which needed Government and restraint In Wicked men the Fleshly sense and appetite is Master and Reason is a Servant Though Reason and the motions of the Spirit may make some resistance In Strong Christians Spiritual Reason is Master and the Fleshly sense and appetite is a Servant but a boisterous and rebellious Servant tamed according to the degrees of Grace and spiritual Victory Like a Horse that is broken and well ridden but oft needeth the spur and oft the Reins So that a Paul may cry out O wretched man c. In a weak Christian the Spirit is Master but the Flesh is Mistris and is not kept in the servitude which it was made for as it ought And therefore his life is blemished with scandals and his Soul with many foul corruptions He is a trouble to himself and others The good which he doth is done with much reluctancy and weakness and the evil which he forbeareth is oftentimes very hardly forborn His Flesh hath so much power left that he is usually uncertain of his own sincerity and yet too patient both with his sin and his uncertainty And he is many times a greater troubler of the Church than many moderate unbelievers The Hypocrite or all-most-Christian hath the Flesh for his Master as other wicked men but Reason and the commoner Grace of the Spirit may be as Mistris with him And may have so much power and respect above a state of utter servitude as may delude him into a confident conceit that Grace hath the Victory and that he is truly spiritual When yet the Supremacy is exercised by the Flesh. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life He shall not be hurt of the second death He shall eat of the hidden Manna He shall have power over the Nations I will give him the Morning-Star I will confess him before my Father and the Angels He shà ll be à Pillar in the Temple of God and go out no more I will grant to him to sit with me in my Throne Rev. 2.7 11 17 26 28. and 3.5 12 21. 1665. THE CONTENTS THe Text opened What it is to Receive Christ. The nature of Justifying Faith in its three essential acts How to know that we have received Christ. What it is to walk in him What to be Rooted to be grounded and built up c. The Doctrine of the necessity of weak Christians seeking stability Confirmation and increase of Grace What Confirmation is in the Understanding Will Affections and in the Life Twenty Motives to convince weak Christians of the great need of growth and Confirmation A Lamentation for the Weaknesses of Christians in their Knowledg in their Practice in publick Worship in inward Grace in outward obedience about known Duties Confession Reproof c. their uncharitableness backbiting pride c. Ten more Considerations to convince them that it is not trifling but Great things which God requireth at their hands Twenty Directions for Confirmation and increase of Grace DIRECTIONS TO THE CONVERTED For their establishment growth and perseverance Col. 2.6 7. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the Faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving AS Ministers are called in Gods Word the Fathers of those that are converted by their Ministry 1 Cor. 4.14 15. so are they likened thus far to the Mothers that they travail as in birth of their peoples Souls till Christ be formed in them Gal. 4.19 And as Christ saith John 16.21 A Woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is delivered of the Child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the World So while we are seeking and hoping for your Conversion and are as in travail of you till you are born again not only our labour but much more our fears of you and cares for you and compassion of you in your danger and misery doth make the time seem very long to us and O what happy men should we think our selves if all or the most of our people were converted And when we see but now and then one come home we remember no more the
Mind and used by it And as interposed matter or defective application may cause the Image on the Wax to be imperfect though made by the most perfect Seal so is it in this case when one man doth defectively understand the Scripture-description of a godly man or Christian and another by misunderstanding mixeth false conceptions of his own and another by a corrupt depraved will doth hinder the understanding from believing or remembring or considering and using what it partly apprehendeth what wonder if the Godliness and Christianity in their hearts be unlike the Godliness and Christianity in the Scriptures When the Law of God in Nature and Scripture is pure and uncorrupt and the Law of God written imperfectly on the heart is there mixt with the carnal Law in their members no marvel if it be expressed accordingly in their lives I have therefore much endeavoured in all my writings and especially in this to draw out the full pourtraiture of a Christian or godly man indeed and to describe Gods Image on the soul of man in such a manner as tendeth to the just information of the Readers mind and the filling up of the wants and rectifying the errors which may be found in his former conceptions of it And I do purposely inculcate the same things oft in several writings as when I preached I did in all my Sermons that the Reader may find that I bring him not undigested needless novelties and that the frequent repetition of them may help to make the deeper and fuller impression For my work is to subserve the Holy Ghost in putting Gods Law into mens hearts and writing it out truly clearly and fully upon their inward parts that they may be made such themselves by understanding throughly what they must be and what a solid Christian is And that thus they may be born again by the incorruptible immortal seed the Word of God which will live and abide for ever and may purifie their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit 1 Pet. 1.22 23 25. He is the best Lawyer Physician Souldier c. who hath his Doctrine in his brain and not only in his Books and hath digested his reading into an intellectual systeme and habit of knowledge If Ministers had an hundred times over repeated the integral pourtraiture or character of a sound Christian till it had been as familiar to the minds and memories of their hearers as is the description of a Magistrate a Physician a School-master a Husband-man a Shephered and such things as they are well acquainted with it would have been a powerfull means to make sound Christians But when mens minds conceive of a Christian as a man that differeth from Heathens and Infidels in nothing but holding the Christian Opinions and using different words and ceremonies of worship and such like no wonder if such be but opinionative lifeless Christians And if their Religion make them no better than a Seneca or Plutarch I shall never believe that they are any surer to be saved than they And such a sort of men there are that suppose Christianity to consist but of these three parts 1. The Christian Doctrine acknowledged which they call Faith 2. The Orders and Ordinances of the Christian Church and Worship submitted to and decently used which they call Godliness And 3. The heart and life of a Cato Cicero or Socrates adjoyned But all that goeth beyond this which is the Life of Christianity and Godliness a Lively Faith and Hope and Love a Heavenly and Holy mind and life from the renewing in dweling Spirit of God which is described in this Treatise they are strangers to it and take it to be but fansie and hypocrisie These No-Christians do much to reduce the Church to Infidelity that there may be indeed No Christians in the world For my part I must confess if there were no better Christians in the world than these I think I should be no Christian my self And if Christ made men no better than the Religion of Socrates Cato or Seneca and did no more to the reparation and perfecting of mens hearts and lives I should think no better of the Christian Religion than of theirs For the means is to be estimated by the End and Vse And that 's the best Physician that hath the Remedies which are fittest to work the cure If God had not acquainted me with a sort of men that have really more Holiness Mortification Spirituality Love to God and to one another and even to enemies and more heavenly desires expectations and delights than these men before described have it would have been a very great hinderance to my Faith The same may I say of those that place Godliness and Christianity only in holding strict opinions and in affected needless singularities and in the fluent Oratory and length of prayer and avoiding other mens forms and modes of worship and in any thing short of a Renewed Holy Heavenly heart and life And undoubtedly if a true full Character of Godliness had been imprinted in their minds we should never have seen the Professors of it so blotted with sensuality selfishness pride ambition worldliness distrust of God self-conceitedness heresie schism rebellions unquietness impatiency unmercifulness and cruelty to mens souls and bodies as we have seen them in this age and all this justified as consistent with Religion And I fear that because this Treatise will speak to few that are not some way guilty every face which hath a spot or blemish will be offended with the glass and lest the faulty will say that I particularly intended to disgrace them But I must here tell the Reader to prevent his misunderstanding that if he shall imagine that I have my eyes upon particular parties and as a discontented person do intend to blame those that differ from my self or to grieve inferiours or dishonour and asperse superiours they will mistake me and wrong themselves and me who professedly intend but the true Description of sound Christians diseased Christians and seeming Christians And for the manner of this writing I am conscious it hath but little to commend it The matter is that for which it is published The Lord Verulam in his Essayes truly saith that much reading makes one full much discourse doth make one ready and much writing doth make a man exact Though I have had my part of all these means yet being parted five years from my Books and three years from my Preaching the effects may decay and you must expect neither Quotations or Oratory Testimonies or ornament of stile But having not yet wholly ceased from Writing I may own so much of the exactness as will allow me to intreat the Reader not to use me as many have done who by over-looking some one word have made the sense another thing and have made it a crime to be exact in Writing because they cannot or will not be exact in Reading or charitable or humane in interpreting The Contents THE Characters of a strong
I meddle not now with the Lapsed Christian as such nor with those Giants in holiness of extraordinary strength nor with the perfect blessed Souls in Heaven But it is the Christian who hath attained that confirmation in grace and composed quiet fruitfull state which we might ordinarily expect if we were industrious whose Image or Character I shall now present you with I call him oft-times A Christian indeed in allusion to Christs description of Nathaniel Joh. 1.47 and as we commonly use that word for one that answereth his own profession without any notable dishonour or defect As we say such a man is a Scholar indeed and not as signifying his meer sincerity I mean one whose heart and life is so conform to the Principles the Rule and the Hopes of Christianity that to the Honour of Christ the true Nature of our Religion is discernible in his conversation Mat. 5.16 In whom an impartial Infidel might perceive the true nature of the Christian Faith and Godliness If the World were fuller of such living Images of Christ who like true Regenerate Children represent their Heavenly Father Christianity would not have met with so much prejudice nor had so many enemies in the World nor would so many millions have been kept in the darkness of Heathenism and Infidelity by flying from Christians as a sort of people that are common and unclean Among Christians there are Babes that must be fed with milk and not with strong meat that are unskilfull in the word of righteousness 1 Joh. 2.2.12 13 14. Heb. 5.12 13 14. and Novices who are unsetled and in danger of an overthrow 1 Tim. 3.6 Joh. 15.3 5 c. In these the nature and excellency of Christianity is little more apparent than Reason in a little childe And there are strong confirmed Christians who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Heb. 5.13 14. and who shew forth the glory of him that hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light of whom God himself may say to Satan and their malicious enemies as once of Job Hast thou not seen my servant Job c. This Christian indeed I shall now describe to you both to confute the Infidels slanders of Christianity and to unteach men those false descriptions which have caused the presumption of the profane and the irregularities of erroneous Sectaries and to tell you what manner of persons they be that God is honoured by and what you must be if you will well understand your own Religion Be Christians indeed and you will have the Comforts indeed of Christianity and will finde that its Fruits and Joyes are not dreams and shadows and imaginations if you content not your selves with an imagination dream and shaddow of Christianity or with some clouded spark or buryed seed The Characters I. A CHRISTIAN INDEED by which I still mean a sound confirmed Christian is one that contenteth not himself to have a seed or Habit of Faith but he Liveth by Faith as the Sensualist liveth by sight or sense Not putting out the eye of sense nor living as if he had no Body nor lived not in a world of sensible Objects But as he is a Reasonable creature which exalteth him above the sensitive Nature so Faith is the true information of his Reason about those high and excellent things which must take him up above things sensible He hath so firm a Belief of the Life to come as procured by Christ and promised in the Gospel as that it serveth him for the Government of his Soul as his bodily sight doth for the conduct of his Body I say not that he is assaulted with no temptations nor that his Faith is perfect in degree nor that believing moveth him as passionately as sight or sense would do But it doth effectually move him through the course and tenour of his life to do those things for the life to come which he would do if he saw the Glory of Heaven and to shun those things for the avoiding of damnation which he would shun if he saw the flames of Hell Whether he do these things so fervently or not his Belief is powerfull effectual and victorious Let sight and sense invite him to their Objects and entice him to sin and forsake his God the objects of Faith shall prevail against them in the bent of an even a constant and resolved life It is things unseen which he taketh for his treasure and which have his heart and hope and chiefest labours All things else which he hath to do are but subservient to his Faith and Heavenly interest as his sensitive faculties are ruled by his Reason His Faith is not only his Opinion which teacheth him to choose what Church or Party he will be of but it is his Intellectual Light by which he liveth and in the confidence and comfort of which he dyeth 2 Cor. 5.7 8 9. For we walk by faith not by sight We groan to be cloathed upon with our heavenly house Wherefore we labour that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him Heb. 10.3 Now the just shall live by faith Heb. 11.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen Most of the examples in Heb. 11. do shew you this truth that true Christians live and govern their actions by the firm Belief of the promise of God and of another Life when this is ended v. 7. By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith V. 10. Abraham looked for a City which had foundations whose builder and maker is God Moses feared not the wrath of the King for he indured as seeing him who is invisible v. 27. So the three witnesses Dan. 3. and Daniel himself ch 6. And all Believers have lived this life as Abraham the Father of the faithfull did who as it is said of him Rom. 4.20 Staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God The Faith of a Christian is truly Divine and he knoweth that Gods truth is as certain as sight it self can be however sight be apter to move the passions Therefore if you can judge but what a Rational man would be if he saw Heaven and Hell and all that God had appointed us to Believe then you may conjecture what a confirmed Christian is though sense do cause more sensible apprehensions 2. The weak Christian also hath a faith that is Divine as caused by God and resting on his word and truth And he so far liveth by this Faith as that it commandeth and guideth the scope and drift of his heart and life But he believeth with a great deal of staggering and unbelief And therefore his Hopes are interrupted by his troublesom doubts and fears and the dimness
same estimation and resolution But when it comes to practice as his will is less confirmed and more corrupted and divided so little impediments and difficulties are great temptations to him and stop him more in the way of his obedience All his duty is much more tedious to him and all his sufferings are much more burthensome to him than to confirmed Christians And therefore he is easier tempted into omissions and impatiency and walketh not so evenly or comfortably with God When the spirit is willing it yieldeth oft to the weakness of the flesh because it is willing in too remiss a degree Mat. 26.41 Gal. 2.14 3. But the seeming Christian though notionally and generally he may approve of strictness yet secretly at the heart hath alwaies this reserve that he will not serve God at too dear a rate His worldly felicity he cannot part with for all the hopes of the life to come And yet he will not he dare not renounce and give up those hopes And therefore he maketh himself a Religion of the easiest and cheapest parts of Christianity among which sometimes the strictest opinions may fall out to be one part so be it they be separated from the strictest practice And this easie cheap Religion he will needs believe to be true Christianity and Godliness and so will hope to be saved upon these terms And though he cannot but know that it is the certain character of a hypocrite to have any thing nearer and dearer to his heart than God yet he hopeth that it is not so with him because his convinced judgement can say that God is best and the world is vanity while yet his heart and affections so much contradict his opinion as almost to say There is no God For his heart knoweth and loveth no God as God that is above his worldly happiness He is resolved to do so much in religion as he findeth necessary to delude his conscience and make himself believe that he is godly and shall be saved but when he cometh to forsake all and take up the Cross and practise the costlyest parts of duty then you shall see that Mammon was better loved than God and he will go away sorrowful and hope to be saved upon easier terms Luke 18.23 For he was never resigned absolutely to God XV. 1. A confirmed Christian is one that taketh selfdenial for the one half of his Religion and therefore hath bestowed one half of his endeavours to attain and exercise it He knoweth that the fall of man was a turning to himself from God And that selfishness and want of Love to God are the summ of all corruption and ungodliness And that the Love of God and selfdenial are the summ of all religion And that conversion is nothing but the turning of the heart from carnal self to God by Christ And therefore on this hath his care and labour been so succesfully laid out that he hath truly and practically found out something that is much better than himself and to be loved and preferred before himself and which is to be his chiefest ultimate end He maketh not a God of himself any more but useth himself for God to fulfill his will as a creature of his own that hath no other end and use He no more preferreth himself above all the world but esteemeth himself a poor and despicable part of the world And highlier valueth the honour of God and the welfare of the church and the good of many than any interest of his own Though God in nature hath taught him to regard his own felicity and to love himself and not to seek the glory of God and the good of many souls in opposition to his own yet hath he taught him to prefer them though in conjunction much before his own For reason telleth him that man is nothing in comparison of God and that we are made by him and for him and that the welfare of the Church or publick societies is better in order to the highest ends than the welfare of some one Selfishness in the unregenerate is like an inflammation or apposteme which draweth the humours from other parts of the body to it self The interest of God and man are all swallowed up in the regard that men have to self-interest And the Love of God and our neighbour are turned into self-love But self is as annihilated in the confirmed Christian so that it ruleth not his Judgement his affections or his choice And he that lived in and to himself as if God and all the world were but for him doth now live to God as one that is good for nothing else and findeth himself in seeking him that is infinitely above himself Luk. 14.31 32 33. Phil. 2.4 21. 2. And the weak Christian hath attained to so much selfdenial that self is not predominant in him against the Love of God and his neighbour But yet above all other sins too great a measure of selfishness still remaineth in him These words own and mine and self are too significant with him every thing of his own is regarded inordinately with partiality and too much selfishness A word against himself or an injury to himself is more to him than worse against his brother He is too little mindfull of the glory of God and of the publick good and the souls of others and even when he is mindful of his own soul he is too regardless of the souls of many that by prayer or exhortation or other means he ought to help As a small candle lighteth but a little way and a small fire heateth not farr off so is his Love so much confined that it reacheth not farr from him He valueth his friends too much upon their respect to please himself and loveth men too much as they are partiall for him and too little upon the pure account of grace and their love to Christ and servisableness to the Church He easily overvalueth his own abilities and is too confident of his own understanding and apt to have too high conceits of any opinions that are his own he is too apt to be tempted unto uncharitableness against those that cross him in his interest or way he is apt to be too negligent in the work of God when any selfinterest doth stand against it and too much to seek himself his own esteem or his own commodity when he should devote himself to the good of souls and give up himself to the work of God Though he is not like the hypocrite that preferreth himself before the will of God and the common good yet selfishness greatly stoppeth interrupteth and hindreth him in Gods work and any great danger or loss or shame or other concernment of his own doth seem a greater matter to him and oftner turn him out of the way than it will with a confirmed Christian They were not all hypocrites that Paul speaketh of in that sad complaint Phil. 2.20 21. For I have no man like minded to Timothy who will naturally
notable work to do against the Church and cause of Christ he can call out unstable Christians to do it If he would have Godliness be scandalized who hath he to do it but Professors of Godliness Some of them to give the scandal and others to aggravate and divulge it Would he have a Church divided how quickly doth he find a bone of contention and who should do it but the unstable Members of it Would he have the truth opposed and error and darkness to be promoted who must do it but Professors of the truth perswade some of them that truth is error and error is truth and the work will be done They will furiously march out against their Master and think they do him service while they are fighting against him and scorning and shaming if not killing his Servants Would he have publick divisions maintained among all the Churches of the World It is but possessing the weaker unstable Pastors and people with a perverse zeal for meer words and notions as if the life of the Church did therein consist and they will be the Devils instruments at a beck and carry it perhaps by the major vote and all that will not Word it as they shall be called Hereticks and the Church shall have new Articles added to their Faith under pretence of preserving and expounding the old ones And thus when Satan hath a work to do if Heathens and Infidels cannot do it it is no more but call out Christians to do it If Drunkards and malignant enemies cannot do it it is but calling out some unstable Professors of Godliness to do it and possessing the more injudicious part of the Pastors with some carnal ends or blind consuming zeal O Christians in the Name of God as you would avoid these devilish imployments labour for confirming strengthening Grace and rest not in your childish weakness and instability If you are delivered from Satan and have truly renounced him and tasted the great Salvation of Christ methinks you should even tremble to consider what a thing it would be if after all this you should prove through your weakness so serviceable to the Devil and so injurious to your dearest Lord what must those abuse him whom he hath Redeemed from damnation Must those hands be employed to demolish his Kingdom that were washed by him and should have built it up As if you were like Judas that even now hath his hand with his Master in the dish and presently lifts it up against him 11. Moreover while you are weaklings and unconfirmed you will exceedingly encourage the ungodly in their false hopes by being so like them as you are When they see that you excel them so little and in many things are as bad or worse than they it strongly perswadeth them that their state is as good as yours and that they may be saved as well as others seeing the difference seemeth to be so small They know that Heaven and Hell are much unlike and vastly distant and therefore they will hardly believe that they must be thrust into Hell when men that seem so little to differ from them must go to Heaven You would not believe how it hardeneth them in their sin when they see Professors do as bad and how it setleth them in presumption and impenitency to perceive your faults When a Minister hath laboured to make the sins of the ungodly odious to him and to break his heart with the terrors of the Lord O how it quieteth him and healeth all again to see the like sins or others as bad in the Professors of Religion If these saith he may be saved for all such and such sins what cause have I to fear O wretched unprofitable scandalous Professors when we have studied and Preach'd for mens Conversion many a year you go and undo all that we have done by the scandal or levity or imprudence of an hour When we have almost perswaded men to be Christians you unperswade them and turn them back again and do more harm by the weakness and scandal of your lives than many of us can do good by life and Doctrine When we have brought sinners even to the door of life you prove their enemies and take them out of our hands again and bring them back to their old captivity Doth it not pierce your very hearts to think on it that ever one soul much more so many should be shut out of glory and burn in everlasting misery and you should have a hand in it Consider of this and methinks you should desire confirming Grace 12. And methinks it should be very grievous to you to be so like to the ungodly your selves and that Satan should still have so much interest in you Holiness is Gods Image and doth it not grieve you that you are so little like him By his Graces he keeps possession of you and doth it not grieve you that God hath no more possession of you but that Satan and sin should so defraud him of his own Will he condescend to dwell in so low a worm so oft defiled with the dung of his iniquities and doth it not wound you to think that even there he should be so straitned and thrust into corners by a hellish enemy as if that simple habitation were too much for him and that dirty dwelling were too good for him I and as if you grudged him so much of the leavings of Satan that had taken up the beginning of your dayes in sin Your corruption is the very image of the Devil and doth it not affright you to think that you should be so like him You are charged not to be conformed to this World but to be transformed or metamorphosed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God Rom. 12.2 And yet will you stop in a state so like to those that perish He that hath the least measure of saving Grace is likest to the children of the Devil of any man in the world that is not one of them Seek therefore to increase 13. And I beseech you consider that your excellency and the glory and lustre of your Graces is one of Gods appointed means for the honour of his Son and Gospel and Church and for the Conviction and Conversion of the unbelieving Word And therefore if you use not this means you rob God and the Church of that which is their due and deprive sinners of one of the means of their Salvation You are commanded to let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven Matth. 5.16 Christians be awakened in the name of God to consider what you have to do with your Graces you have the living God to please and honour by them As the excellency of the work doth honour the Workman so must your Graces and lives honour God You have the Souls of the weak to confirm by your lives and
believe that God the Father is the First in the holy Trinity of persons that the whole Godhead is perfect and infinite in Being and Power and Wisdom and Goodness in which all his Attributes are comprehended but yet a distinct understanding of them all is not of absolute necessity to Salvation That this God is the Creator Preserver and Disposer of all things and the Owner and Ruler of Mankind most just and merciful that as he is the Beginning of all so he is the Ultimate end and the Chief Good of man which before all things else must be loved and sought This is to be believed concerning the Godhead and the Father in person Concerning the Son we must moreover believe that he is the same God with the Father the second person in Trinity in carnate and so become man by a personal union of the Godhead and Manhood That he was without Original or actual sin having a sinless nature and a sinless life that he fulfilled all Righteousness and was put to death as a Sacrifice for our sins and gave himself a Ransome for us and being buried he rose again from the dead and afterward ascended into Heaven where he is Lord of all and intercedeth for Believers that he will come again and raise the dead and judg the World the Righteous to everlasting Life and the Wicked to everlasting punishment that this is the only Redeemer the Way the Truth and the Life neither is their access to the Father but by him nor Salvation in any other Concerning the Holy Ghost we must believe that he is the same One God the third person in Trinity sent by the Father and the Son to inspire the Prophets and Apostles and that the Doctrine inspired and miraculously attested by him is true that he is the sanctifier of those that shall be saved renewing them after the Image of God in Holiness and Righteousness giving them true Repentance Faith Hope Love and sincere Obedience causing them to overcome the Flesh the World and the Devil thus gathering a Holy Church on earth to Christ who have by his Bloud the pardon of all their sins and shall have everlasting blessedness with God This is the Essence of the Christian Faith as to the Matter of it As to the Manner of Receiving it by the understanding 1. It must be received as Certain truth of Gods Revelation upon the credit of his Word by a lively effectual belief pierceing so deep as is necessary for its prevalency with the Will 2. And it must be Entirely received and not only a part of it Though all men have not so exactly formed distinct apprehensions of every member of this belief as some have yet all true Christians have a true apprehension of them We feel by daily experience that with the wisest some matters are truly understood by us which yet are not so distinctly and clearly understood as to be ready for an expression I have oft in matters that I am but studying a light that gives me a general imperfect but true conception which I cannot yet express but when another hath helped me to form my conception I can quickly and truly say that was it that I had an unformed apprehension of before and it that I meant but could not utter not so much for want of words as for want of a full and distinct conception 2. The Matter of our Christianity to be Received by the Will is as followeth As we must consent to all the forementioned truths by the Belief of the understanding so the pure Godhead must be Received as the Fountain and our End the Father as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor on the title of Creation and Redemption and as our everlasting happiness The Son as our only Saviour by Redemption bringing us pardon reconciliation holiness and glory and delivering us from sin and Satan and the wrath and Curse of God and from Hell The Holy Ghost as our Guide and Sanctifier All which containeth our Renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil and carnal Self that is the point of their Unity and heart of the old Man This is the Good that must be embraced or accepted by the will And secondly as to the Manner of Receiving it it must be done Vnfeignedly Resolvedly unreservedly or absolutely and habitually by an inward Covenanting of the heart as I have formerly explained it And this is the Essence of Christianity This is true Believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is the Foundation and this is the right laying of it And now the thing that I am perswading you to is to see that this Foundation be surely laid in Head and Heart And 1. That it may be surely laid in the Head you must labour 1. To understand these Articles And 2. to see the Evidence of their verity that you may firmly believe them And 3. To Consider of the worth and necessity of the matter revealed in them that your Judgments may most highly esteem it This is the sure laying the Foundation in the Head To these ends you should first learn some Catechism and be well acquainted with the Principles of Religion and also be much in reading or hearing the holy Scripture and enquiring of your Teachers and others that can help you and see that you take your work before you and step not higher till this be done And then all other following truths and Duties and promised benefits must all be so learnt as to be built upon this foundation and joyned to it as receiving their life and strength from hence and never lookt upon as separated from this nor as more excellent and necessary For want of learning well and believing soundly these Principles Essentials or Fundamentals of Christianity some of our people can go no further but stand all their dayes in their ignorance at a non-plus Some of them go on in a blind Profession deceiving themselves by building upon the Sand and hold true Doctrine by a false unsound belief of it And when the Flouds and storms do beat upon their building it falls and great is the fall thereof With some of them it falls upon the first assault of any Seducer that hath interest in them or advantage on them and abundance swallow up Errors because they never well understood or Firmly believ'd Fundamental Truths With others of them the building falls not until death because they lived not under any shaking temptations But it being but a perseverance in an unfound Profession will nevertheless be ineffectual to their Salvation 2. When you have thus laid the Foundation in your understanding be sure above all that it be firmly laid in your Heart or Will Take heed lest you should prove false and unstedfast in the holy Covenant and lest you should take in the Word but into the furnace of the Soul and not give it depth of earth and rooting and lest you should come to Christ but as a servant upon tryall and make an absolute
your wills and affections and your conversations I. As holiness is in the understanding it is commonly in Scripture called light and knowledg as comprehending the several parts And the confirmation and growth of this must consist in these seven following parts 1. It is ordinary with new Converted Christians to see the great essential truths of the Christian profession with a great imperfection as to the evidences that discover them Either they see but some of the solid evidence overlooking much more than they see or more usually they receive the truth it self upon some low insufficient evidence at first and then proceed to a kind of mixture taking it upon some evidences that are valid and sufficient and joyning some that are invalid with them But you must grow beyond this infancy of understanding when you see greater and sounder evidences for the truth than you did before and when you see more of these solid evidences and leave not out so many as you did and when you lay smaller stress upon the smaller evidences and none upon those that are invalid and indeed no evidences then are your understandings more confirmed in the truth and this is a principal part of their growth So we find the Samaritans of Sychar Joh. 4.39 40 41 42. Many of them believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified He told me all that ever I did This was the first faith upon a weaker evidence And many more believed because of his own words and said unto the woman Now we believe not because of thy saying for we have heard him our selves and know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the world Here is a notable confirmation and growth by believing and knowing the same thing which they believed before it was before believed on weaker evidence and now upon stronger Thus Nathaniel by Philips perswasion was drawn to Christ but when he perceived his omniscience that he knew the heart and things that were distant and out of the reach of common knowledge he is confirmed and saith Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel And yet Christ telleth him that there were far greater evidences yet to be revealed which might beget a more confirmed stronger faith Because I said unto thee I saw thee under the figtree believest thou Thou shalt see greater things than these verily verily I say unto you hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man Joh. 1.45 49 50 51. There is not one Christian of many thousand that at first hath a full sight of the solid evidences of the Christian doctrine but must grow more and more in discerning those Reasons for the truth which he believeth which in the beginning he did not well discern It is not the most confident belief that is alwayes the strongest confirmed belief but there must be sound grounds and evidence to support that confidence or else the confidence may soon be shaken and is not sound even while it seems unshaken And here young beginners must be forewarned of a most dangerous snare of the deceiver because at first the truth it self is commonly received upon feeble and defective grounds or evidence It is the custom of the Devil and his deceiving instruments to shew the young Christian the weakness of those grounds and thence to conclude that his cause is naught For it 's too easie to perswade such that the cause hath no better grounds than they have seen For having not seen any better they can have no particular knowledge of them And they are too apt to think over highly of their knowledge as if there were no more reasons for the truth than they themselves have reacht to and other men did see no more than they And thus poor souls forsake the truth which they should be built up and confirmed in and take that for a reason against the truth which is but a proof of their own infirmity I meet with very few that turn to any Heresie or Sect but this is the cause They were at first of the right mind but not upon sound and well-laid grounds but held the truth upon insufficient reasons And then comes some deceiver and beats them out of their former grounds and so having no better they let go the truth and conclude that they were all this while mistaken Just as if in my infancy I should know my own father only by his cloaths and when I grow a little bigger one should tel me that I was deceived this is not my father and to convince me should put his cloaths upon another or tell me that another may have such cloaths and hereupon I should be so foolish as to yield that I was mistaken and that this man is not my father As if the thing were false because my reasons were insufficient Or as if you should ask the right way in your travel and one should tell you that by such and such marks you may know your way and you think you have found those marks a mile or two short of the place where they are but when you understand that those are not the marks that you were told of you turn back again before you come at them and conclude that you have mist the way So is it with these poor deluded souls that think all discoveries of their own imperfections and every confutation of their own silly arguments to be a confutation of the truths of God which they did hold when alas a strong well-grounded Christian would make nothing of defending the cause which they give up against more strong and subtile enemies or at least would hold it fast themselves Well! this is the first part of your growth in knowledge when you can see more or better evidences for the great truths of Christianity than you saw before 2. Moreover you must grow to a clearer apprehension of the very same reasons and evidences of the truth which you saw before For when a weak Christian hath the best arguments and grounds in the world yet he hath so dim a sight of them that makes them find the slighter entertainment in his affections The best reason in the world can work but little on him that hath but a little understanding of it There are various degrees of knowledge not only of one and the same truth because of the diversity of evidence but of one and the same evidence and reason of that truth I can well remember my self that I have many a year had a common argument for some weighty truth and I have made use of it and thought it good but yet had but little apprehension of the force of it and many years after a sudden light hath given me in my studies so clear an apprehension of the force of that same argument which I knew so long as that it hath exceedingly confirmed and satisfied me more than ever I was before I beseech you Christians
consider of this weighty truth it is not the knowledge of the Truth that will serve your turns without a true and solid knowledge of that truth nor is it the hearing or understanding of the best grounds and reasons or proofs in the world that will serve the turn unless you have a deep and solid apprehension of those proofs and reasons A man that hath the best arguments may forsake the truth because he hath not a good understanding of those arguments As a man that hath the best weapons in the world may be kill'd for want of strength skill to use them I tell you if you knew every truth in the Bible you may grow much in knowledge of the very same truths which you know 3. Moreover a young ungrounded Christian when he seeth all the fundamental Truths and seeth good evidence and reasons of them perhaps may be yet ignorant of the right order and place of every truth It 's a rare thing to have young Professors to understand the necessary truths methodically And this is a very great defect For a great part of the usefulness and excellency of particular truths consisteth in the respect they have to one another This therefore will be a considerable part of your confirmation growth in your understandings to see the body of Christian doctrine as it were at one view as the several parts of it are united in one perfect frame and to know what aspect one point hath upon another and which is their due places There is a great difference between the sight of the several parts of a clock or watch as they are disjoynted and scattered about and the seeing of them conjoyned and in use and motion To see here a pin and there a wheel and not know how to set them all together nor ever see them in their due places will give but little satisfaction It is the frame and design of holy Doctrine that must be known and every part should be discerned as it hath its particular use to that design and as it is connected with the other parts By this means only can the true nature of Theology together with the harmony and perfection of truth be clearly understood And every single truth also will be much better perceived by him that seeth its place and order than by any other For one truth exceedingly illustrates and leads in another into our understanding Nay more than so your own hearts and lives will not be well ordered if the method or order of the truths received should be mistaken For the truths of God are the very instruments of your sanctification which is nothing but their effects upon your understandings and wills as they are set home by the holy Ghost Truths are the seal and your souls are the wax and holiness is the impression made If you receive but some truths you will have but some part of the due impression Nay indeed they are so coherent and make up the sence by their necessary conjunction that you cannot receive any one of them sincerely without receiving every one that is of the essence of the Christian belief And if you receive them disorderly the image of them on your souls will be as disorderly as if your bodily members were monstrously misplaced Study therefore to grow in the more methodical knowledge of the same truths which you have received And though you are not yet ripe enough to discern the whole body of Theology in due method yet see so much as you have attained to know in the right order and placing of every part As in Anatomy its hard for the wisest Physician to discern the course of every branch of veins and arteries but yet they may easily discern the place and order of the principal parts and greater vessels So it is in Divinity where no man hath a perfect view of the whole till he come to the state of perfection with God but every true Christian hath the knowledge of all the essentials and may know the order and places of them all 4. Another part of your confirmation growth in understanding is In discerning the same truths more practically than you did before and perceiving the usefulness of every truth for the doing of its work on your hearts and lives It was never the will of God that bare speculation should be the end of his Revelations or of our belief Divinity is an Affective practical Science therefore must truths be known and believed that the good may be received and a holy change may be made by them on the heart and life Even the Doctrine of the Trinity it self is practical and the fountain of that which is more easily discerned to be practical There is not one Article of our faith but hath a special work to do upon our hearts and lives and therefore a special fitness for that work Now the understandings of young Christians do discern many truths when they see but little of the work to be done by them and the special usefulness of those truths to those works This therefore must be your daily enquiry and in this you must grow As if you come into a workmans shop and see a hundred tools about you it is a small matter to discern the shape and fashion of them and what mettle they are made of But you will further ask What is this tool to do and what is that to do If ever you will learn the trade you must know the use of every tool So must you if you will be skilful Christians be acquainted with the use of the truths which you have received and know that this truth is to do this work and that truth to do that work upon the soul and life A Husbandman may know as many herbs and flowers and fruits as a Physician and be able to tell them all by name and say this is such an herb and that is such a one and to perceive the shape and beauty of them But he knows little or nothing that they are good for unless to feed his cattle Whereas the Physician can tell you that this herb is good against this disease and that herb against another disease and can make use of those same herbs to save mens lives which other men tread under foot as useless A Countrey man may see the names that are written on the Apothecaries boxes but it is the Physician that knows the medicinal use of the drugs So many men that are unsanctified may know the outside of holy doctrine that little know what use is to be made of it And the weak Christian knows less of this than the grown confirmed Christian doth Learn therefore every day more and more to know what every truth is good for that this is for the exercise and strengthening of such a grace and this is good against such or such a disease of the soul. Every leaf in the Bible hath a healing vertue in it They are the leaves of the Tree of Life
or remembrance or a look Phil. 3.13 14. If you feel this poison seise upon your hearts and your condition in the world or at least your Hopes begin to grow too sweet and pleasing to you presently make hast to Christ your Physician and take his antidote and cast up the poyson as you love your Souls You must know no other pleasure in your outward mercies but as God appeareth in and by them and as they tend to profit you and further you in Gods Service or to promote your own or others good but not as they are provision for the flesh Rom. 13.13 14. See my Book of Crucifying the World DIRECT X. Cast not your selves wilfully upon temptations but avoid them as far as lawfully you can And if you are cast upon them unwillingly resist them resolutely as knowing that they come to entice you into Sin and Hell from God and your everlasting happiness And therefore be well acquainted with the particular Temptations of every company calling relation business time place and condition of life and go alwayes furnished with particular Antidotes against them all STrong Grace will do no more against strong Temptations than weak Grace against weak ones Temptation is the way to sin and sin is the way to Hell If you saw the dangerousness of your station when you cast your self upon temptations you would tremble and fly as for your lives I take that man as almost gone already who chooseth temptations or avoideth them not when he may Especially be acquainted with the diseases and greatest dangers of your Soul and there keep up a constant watch Are you lyable to a gluttonous pleasing of your appetite Avoid the temptation set not that before you which may be your snare Let a little and that of the least tempting kind of food be your ordinary provision Sit not at the Gluttons Table who fareth deliciously every day if you would escape the gluttons sin and misery Or if the provision be of other mens disposal at least rise quickly and be gone Are you inclined to please your appetite in drinking Avoid such strong drink as may tempt your appetite and avoid the place and company that draweth you to it Are you inclined to fleshly lust Avoid the presence of such of the other Sex as are a temptation to you Look not on them nor talk not of them but above all take heed of nearness and familiarity and privacy with them and of all opportunity of sin When the Devil hath brought the bait to your hand and telleth you now you may sin without any molestation or discovery you are then in a very dangerous case Some that think they would not be guilty of the sin will yet tempt themselves and delight to have it in their power and to have the opportunity of sining and to come as near it as they dare And these are gone before they well perceive their danger So if you are inclined to Pride and Ambition avoid the society of those that tempt you to it Come not among Superiors and Gallants or such as kindle your ambition A retired life in company of mean and humble persons is fitest for one that hath your disease Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate Rom. 1â— 16 But if you cannot avoid the Temptation be sure yet to avoid the sin Take it as if you saw and heard the Devil himself perswading you to sin and damn your Souls Abhor the motion and give not the Devil a patient hearing when you know what he cometh about Resolution scapeth many a danger which those are ruined by who stand disputing and dallying with the Tempter Especially look about you when the Tempter employeth Great men or Learned men or Godly men or nearest friends to be his instruments And if their subtilty puzzle you go to the stronger and more experienced Christians for advice and help VVatch and pray that you enter not into temptation Matth. 6.13 and 26.41 It is a dreadful thing to think what persons temptations have overthrown Luke 18.13 Heb. 6.6 7. How Wise and Learned and excellent men have been over-witted by Satan and sinned like fools when they have let go their watch If we be as resolved as Peter temptations may quickly change our resolutions if God leave us to our selves and we grow presumptuous or secure And then our very Reason will lose its power and false representations will make things appear to us quite contrary to what indeed they are and those reasonings will seem probable to us which at another time we could easily see through as meer deceit Temptation as it prevaileth doth damp and cast asleep our Graces and charm and bewitch all the faculties of the Soul 1 Tim. 6.9 DIRECT XI If it be possible make choice of such a Pastor for the help and guidance of your Souls as is judicious experienced humble holy heavenly faithful diligent lively and peaceable that liveth not in separation from the generality of the sober Godly Ministers and Christians where he liveth 1. THink not of being sufficient for your selves without the help of those whom Christ hath appointed to be watchmen for your Souls Heb. 13.7.17.24 As you cannot live without the teaching and the Grace of Christ so Christ doth vouchsafe you his teaching and his grace by the Ministry of his own Officers whom he hath appointed to that end and use It is marvellous to observe how Christ chose rather to convert men by the Preaching and Miracles of his Apostles than by his own And how he would not fully Convert Paul without the Ministry of Ananias though he spoke to him from Heaven himself and reasoned the case with him against his Persecution And how he would not fully Convert Cornelius and his Houshold without the Ministry of Peter though he sent an Angel to direct him to a Teacher Nor would he convert the Ethiopian Eunuch without the Ministry of Philip nor the Jaylor without the Ministry of Paul and Silas though he wrought a Miracle to prepare for his Conversion Acts 16. and 10. And Paul must plant and Apollo must water before God will give the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 And though all true Christians are taught of God and must call no man on earth the Master of their Faith but Christ 1 Thess. 4.9 John 6.45 Mat. 23.8 9. Yet have they their Teachers Fathers and instructers under Christ who are helpers of their joy though they have not dominion over their Faith and are Overseers though not Lords and Owners of the Flock and are Ministers of Christ by whom he teacheth and stewards of the Mysteries of God and Ambassadors by whom he beseecheth sinners to be reconciled to God having committed to them the word of reconciliation Eph. 4.11 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 4.1 15. Acts 20.28 2 Cor. 1.24 1 Pet. 5.1 2 3 4. 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. These are Labourers together with God upon his husbandry and building some being Master-builders and others Superstructors
Servants as Superiors in Gifts or Places or Inferiors or equals as Neighbors and companions In our Teaching and learning ruling and obeying buying and selling Be conscionable in all these which are your own Relations if you will live as Christians and be acceptable unto God An ungodly or oppressing Magistrate a murmuring rebellious Subject an ungodly negligent or factious Pastor an unteachable refractory ungodly Flock a Husband Parent or Master without Religion Love or Justice a Wife or Child or Servant without Love and dutiful obedience and faithful diligence a proud contemptuous Superior a malicious censorious inferiour an unjust uncharitable Neighbor a deceitful buyer or seller borrower or lender and a self-seeking friend and seducing unprofitable companion are all as far from pleasing God by the rest of their works or profession of Religion as they are from being obedient to his will They provoke him to abhor their Prayers and Profession and to tell them that he will rather have Obedience than Sacrifice If you are false to men you are not true to God It is he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness that is accepted of him and the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God DIRECT XVI Live as those that have all their powers receivings and opportunities to do Good with in the World and must be answerable how they have improved all And as those that believe that the more Good they do the more they do receive and the greater is the honour the profit and the pleasure of their lives TO do no harm is an honour which is common to a stone or a clod of Clay with the most innocent man If this were all the excellency that you aim at it were better that you had never been born for then you would certainly have done no harm Remember that to do good is the highest imitation of God supposing that it proceed from Holy Love and be done to the Pleasing and Glorifying of God that the Principle and the End be sutable to the work Remember who hath told you that it is more blessed to give than to receive Acts 20.35 And hath promised that He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a Righteous man in the name of a Righteous man shall receive a Righteous mans reward and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a Cap of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward supposing that he have no better to give Matth. 10.41 42. Give to every man that asketh of thee according to thy ability Give and it shall be given to you Luke 6.30 38. and 12.33 Take that day or hour as lost in which you do no good directly or preparatorily And take that part of your estate as lost with which directly or remotely you do no good Remember how the Judgment must pass on you at last according to the improvement of your several Talents Matth. 25. When your time is past and your estates are gone or your understandings or your strength decayed and your power and greatness is levelled with the poorest it will be an unspeakable comfort to you if you are able to say We laid them out sincerely to our Masters use and an unspeakable terror to you to say They were lost and cast away on the service of the Flesh. If therefore you are Rulers and are entrusted with Power study how to do all the good with your Power that possibly you can If you are Ministers of Christ lay out your time and strength and parts in doing good to the Souls of all about you study how you may be most serviceable to the Church and Cause of Christ. If you are rich men study how to do all the good with your Riches that possibly you can do not violating the order appointed you by God In your Neighbourhoods and in all your Families and Relations study to do the greatest good you can Take it thankfully as a great mercy to your selves when opportunity to do good is offered you And content not your selves to do a little while you are able to do more Gal. 6.7 8 9 10. Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap For he that soweth to his Flesh shall of the Flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap everlasting Life And let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all men especially unto them who are of the houshold of Faith 2 Cor. 9.6 He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap bountifully Every man according as he purposeth in his heart so let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a chearful giver Heb. 13.16 To do good and to communicate forget not for with such Sacrifices God is well pleased Ephes. 3.10 For we are his Workmanship created in Christ Jesus to good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Let doing good be the business and imployment of your lives Preferring still the publick good before the private good of any and the good of mens Souls before that of the body But yet neglecting none but doing the lesser in order to the greater Object But I am a poor obscure person that have neither abilities of mind or body or estate and what good can I do Answ. There is no rational person that is not entrusted with One Talent at the least Matth. 25. and that is not in a capacity of doing good in the World if they have but hearts and be but willing If you had neither money to give nor tongues to speak for God and to provoke others to do good yet a Holy humble heavenly patient blameless life is a powerful means of doing good by shewing the excellency of Grace and convincing the Ungodly and stopping the mouths of the enemies of Piety and honouring the waies of God in the World Such a holy harmless exemplary life is a continual and a powerful Sermon And for giving if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8.12 If you are unseignedly willing to give if you had it God taketh it as done What you would have given is set down on your account as given indeed The Widdows two mites were praised by Christ as a bountiful gift and a Cup of cold water is not unrewarded to the willing Soul No one therefore is excusable that liveth unprofitably in the World But yet men of Power and Parts and Wealth have the greatest reckoning to make Their ten Talents must have a proportionable improvement It is a great deal of good that they must do For to whomsoever much is given
confirmed Christian. page 1 1. He liveth by such a Faith of unseen things as governeth his soul instead of sight 6 2. He hath cogent Reasons for his Religion 9 3. He seeth the well-ordered frame of sacred verities and the integral parts in their harmony or consort and setteth not up one truth against another 11 4. He adhereth to them and practiseth them from an inward connatural principle called The Divine Nature and The Spirit of Christ. 12 5. He serveth not God for fear only but for Love 14 6. He loveth God 1. Much for his Goodness to himself 2. And more for his Goodness to the Church 3. And most of all for his essential Goodness and perfection 16 7. He taketh this Love and its Expressions for the heart and height of all his Religion 19 8. He hath absolutely put his soul and all his hopes into the hand of Christ and liveth by faith upon him as his Saviour 21 9. He taketh Christ as the Teacher sent from God and his Doctrine for the truest wisdom and learneth of none but in subordination to him 23 10. His Repentance is universal and effectual and hath gone to the Root of every sin 25 11. He loveth the Light as it sheweth him his sin and duty and is willing to know the worst of sin and the most of duty 27 12. He desireth the highest degree of Holiness and hath no sin which he had not rather leave than keep and had rather be the Best though in poverty than the Greatest in prosperity 30 13. He liveth upon GOD and HEAVEN as the End Reward and Motive of his Life 32 14. He counteth no cost or pains too great for the obtaining it and hath nothing so dear which he cannot part with for it 35 15. He is daily exercised in the practice of Self-denial as next to the Lovers of God the second half of his Religion 38 16. He hath mortified his fleshly desires and so far mastereth his senses and appetite that they make not his obedience very uneasie or uneven 42 17. He preferreth the means of his holiness and happiness incomparably before all provisions and pleasures of the flesh 45 18. He is crucified to the world and the world to him by the Cross of Christ and contemneth it through the belief of the greater things of the life to come 47 19. He foreseeth the End in all his waies and judgeth of all things as they will appear at last 50 20. He liveth upon God alone and is content with his favour and approbation without the approbation and favour of men 53 21. He hath absolutely devoted himself and all that he hath to God to be used according to his will 56 22. He hath a readiness to obey and a quick and pleasant compliance of his will to the will of God 58 23. He delighteth himself more in God and Heaven and Christ and Holiness than in all the world Religion is not tedious and grievous to him 59 24. He is conscious of his own sincerity and assured of his Justification and title to Everlasting Joyes 66 25. This Assurance doth not make him more careless and remiss but increaseth his love and holy diligence 68 26. Yet he abhorreth Pride as the first born of the Devil and is very low and vile in his own eyes and can easily endure to be low and vile in the eyes of others 69 27. Being acquainted with the deceitfulness of the heart and the methods of temptation he liveth as among snares and enemies and dangers in a constant watch and can conquer many and subtil and great temptations through grace 72 28. He hath counted what it may cost him to be saved and hath resolved not to stick at suffering but to bear the Cross and be conformed to his crucified Lord and hath already in heart forsaken all for him 74 29. He is not a Christian only for company or carnal ends or upon trust of other mens opinion and therefore would be true to Christ if his Rulers his Teachers his Company and all that he knoweth should forsake him 78 30. He can digest the hardest Truths of Scripture and the hardest passages of Gods Providence 80 31. He can exercise all his Graces in harmony without neglecting one to use another or setting one against another 81 32. He is more in getting and using Grace than in enquiring whether he have it though he do that also in its place 82 33. He studieth Duty more than Events and is more carefull what he should be towards God than how he shall here be used by him 83 34. He is more regardfull of his duty to others than of theirs to him and had much rather suffer wrong than do it 84 35. He keepeth up a constant Government of his Thoughts restraining them from evil and using them upon God and for him 87 36. He keepeth a constant Government over his passions so far as that they pervert not his judgement his heart his tongue or actions 88 37. He governeth his tongue imploying it for God and restraining it from evil 90 38. Heart-work and Heaven-work are the principal matters of his religious discourse not barren controversies or impertinencies 92 39. He liveth upon the common great substantials of Religion and yet will not deny the smallest Truth or commit the smallest sin for any price that man can offer him 93 40. He is a high esteemer and carefull Redeemer of Time and abhorreth Idleness and Diversions which would rob him of it 98 41. His heart is set upon doing all the good in the world that he is able It is his daily business and delight 101 42. He truly loveth his neighbour as himself 103 43. He hath a special love to all godly Christians as such and such as will not stick at cost in its due expressions nor be turned into bitterness by tollerable differences 104 44. He forgiveth injuries and loveth his enemies and doth them all the good he can from the sense of the love of Christ to him 106 45. He doth as he would be done by and is as precise in the Justice of his dealings with men as in acts of piety to God 108 46. He is faithful and laborious in his outward trade or calling not out of covetousness but obedience to God 111 47. He is very conscionable in the duties of his several Relations in his family or other society as a superiour inferiour or equal 112 48. He is the best subject whether his Rulers be good or bad though Infidel and ungodly Rulers may mistake use him as the worst 113 49. His trust in God doth overcome the fear of man and settle him in a constant fortitude for God 121 50. Judgement and Zeal conjunct are his constitution His Judgement kindleth Zeal and his Zeal is still judicious 123 51. He can bear the infirmities of the weak and their censures and abuses of himself and requiteth them not with uncharitable censure or reproach 126 52. He
and languor of his Faith is seen in the faintness of his desires and the many blemishes of his Heart and Life And sight and sensual objects are so much the more powerfull with him by how much the light and life of faith is dark and weak 3. The Hypocrite or best of the unregenerate believeth but either with a Humane faith which resteth but on the Word of Man or else with a dead opinionative faith which is overpowered by infidelity or is like the dreaming thoughts of a man asleep which stirre him not to action He liveth by sight and not by faith For he hath not a Faith that will overpower Sense and sensual objects Jam. 2.14 Mat. 13.22 II. 1. A Christian indeed not only knoweth why he is a Christian but seeth those Reasons for his Religion which disgrace all that the cunningest Atheist or Infidel can say against it and so far satisfie confirm and establish him that emergent difficulties temptations and objections do not at all stagger him or raise any deliberate doubts in him of the truth of the Word of God He seeth first the naturall evidence of those foundation-truths which Nature it self maketh known as that there is a God of infinite Being Power Wisdom and Goodness the Creator the Owner the Ruler and the Father Felicity and End of man that we owe him all our love and service that none of our fidelity shall be in vain or unrewarded and none shall be finally a loser by his duty that man who is naturally governed by the hopes and fears of another life is made and liveth for that other Life where his Soul shall be sentenced by God his Judge to happiness or misery c. And then he discerneth the attestation of God to those supernatural superadded Revelations of the Gospel containing the Doctrine of mans Redemption And he seeth how wonderfully these are built upon the former and how excellently the Creators and Redeemers Doctrine and Lawes agree and how much countenance supernatural truths receive from the presupposed naturals so that he doth not adhere to Christ and Religion by the meer engagement of education friends or worldly advantages nor by a blind resolution which wanteth nothing but a strong temptation from a Deceiver or a worldly Interest to shake or overthrow it But he is built upon the Rock which will stand in the assault of Satans storms and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Mat. 16.18 13.23 7.25 Joh. 6.68 69. 2. But a weak Christian hath but a dim and general kind of knowledge of the reasons of his Religion or at least but a weak apprehension of them though he have the best and most unanswerable reasons And either he is confident in the dark upon grounds which he cannot make good and which want but a strong assault to shake them or else he is troubled and ready to stagger at every difficulty which occurreth Every hard saying in the Scripture doth offend him And every seeming contradiction shaketh him And the depth of mysteries which pass his understanding do make him say as Nicodemus of Regeneration How can these things be And if he meet with the objections of a cunning Infidel he is unable so to defend the truth and clear his way through them as to come off unwounded and unshaken and to be the more confirmed in the truth of his belief by discerning the vanity of all that is said against it Heb. 5.12 13. Matth. 15.16 1 Cor. 14.20 Joh. 12.16 3. The seeming Christian either hath no solid Reasons at all for his Religion or else if he have the best he hath no sound apprehension of them But though he be never so learned and orthodox and can preach and defend the Faith it is not so rooted in him as to endure the tryall but if a strong temptation from subtilty or carnal interest assault him you shall see that he was built upon the sand and that there was in him a secret root of bitterness and an evil heart of unbelief which causeth him to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 Matth. 13.20 21 22. Matth. 7.26 27. Heb. 12.15 Joh. 6.60 64 66. 1 Tim. 6.10 11. III. 1. A Christian indeed is not only confirmed in the essentials of Christianity but he hath a cleer delightful sight of those usefull truths which are the Integrals of Christianity and are built upon the fundamentals and are the branches of the master-points of Faith Though he see not all the lesser Truths which are branched out at last into innumerable particles yet he seeth the main body of sacred Verities delivered by Christ for mans sanctification and seeth them methodically in their proper places and seeth how one supports another and in how beautifull an order and contexture they are placed And as he sticketh not in the bare Principles so he receiveth all these additions of knowledge not notionally only but practically as the food on which his Soul must live Heb. 5.13 14. 6.1 2 c. Matth. 13.11 Eph. 1.18 3.18 19. Joh. 13.17 2. A weak Christian in knowledge besides the Principles or Essentials of Religion doth know but a few disordered scattered Truths which are also but half known because while he hath some knowledge of those points he is ignorant of many other which are needfull to the supporting and clearing and improving of them And because he knoweth them not in their places and order and relation and aspect upon other Truths And therefore if Temptations be strong and come with advantage the weak Christian in such points is easily drawn into many errors and thence into great confidence and conceitedness in those Errors and thence into sinfull dangerous courses in the prosecution and practice of those Errors Such are like children tost up and down and carryed to and fro by every winde of doctrine through the cunning sleight and subtilty of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph. 4.14 2 Cor. 11.3 Col. 2.4 2 Tim. 3.7 3. The seeming Christian having no saving practical knowledge of the Essentials of Christianity themselves doth therefore either neglect to know the rest or knoweth them but notionally as common Sciences and subjecteth them all to his Worldly interest And therefore is still of that side or party in Religion which upon the account of safety honour or preferment his flesh commandeth him to follow Either he is still on the greater rising side and of the Rulers Religion be it what it will or if he dissent it is in pursuit of another game which Pride or fleshly ends have started 2 Pet. 2.14 Gal. 3.3 Joh. 9.22 12.42 43. Matth. 13.21.22 IV. 1. The Christian indeed hath not only Reason for his Religion but also hath an inward connatural principle even the spirit of Christ which is as a New-nature inclining and enlivening him to a holy life whereby he mindeth and savoureth the things of the Spirit Not that his Nature doth work blindly as Nature doth in the
loveth him more for his Mercy to the Church and for that Goodness which consisteth in his Benignity to the Church But he Loveth him most of all for his Infinite perfections and essential excellencies His Infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness simply in himself considered For he knoweth that Love to himself obligeth him to returns of Love especially differencing saving grace And he knoweth that the souls of millions are more worth incomparably then his own and that God may be much more honoured by them than by him alone And therefore he knoweth that the mercy to many is greater mercy and a greater demonstration of the goodness of God and therefore doth render him more amiable to man Rom. 9.3 And yet he knoweth that the Essential perfection and goodness of God as simply in himself and for himself is much more amiable than his Benignity to the creature And that he that is the first efficient must needs be the ultimate final cause of all things And that God is not finally for the creature but the creature for God for all that he needeth it not For of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 And as he is Infinitely better than our selves so he is to be better Loved than our selves As I love a wise and vertuous person though he be one I never expect to receive any thing from and therefore Love him for his own sake and not for his benignity or usefulness to me So must I love God most for his essential perfections though his benignity also doth represent him amiable As he is blindly selfish that would not rather himself be annihilated or perish than whole Kingdoms should all perish or the Sun be taken out of the world because that which is best must he loved as best and therefore be best loved so is he more blind who in his estimative complacential Love preferreth not Infinite Eternal Goodness before such an imperfect silly creature as himself or all the world We are commanded to love our Neighbour as our selves when God is to be loved with all the heart and soul and might which therefore signifieth more than to love him as our selves or else he were to be loved no more than our Neighbour So that the strong Christian loveth God so much above himself as that he accounteth himself and all his interests as nothing in comparison of God yea and loveth himself more for God than for himself Though his own salvation be loved and desired by him and God must be loved for his mercy and benignity yet that salvation it self which he desireth is nothing else but the love of God Wherein his love is the final felicitating act and God is the final felicitating object and the felicity of loving is not first desired but the attractive object doth draw out our love and thereby make us consequentially happy in the injoying exercise thereof Thus God is All and in all to the soul. Psal. 73.25 Rom. 11.36 1 Cor. 10.31 Deut. 6.5 Mat. 23.37 Mat. 19.17 2. A weak Christian also loveth God as one that is infinitely better than himself and all things or else he did not love him at all as God But in the exercise he is so much in the minding of himself and so seldom and weak in the contemplation of Gods perfections that he feeleth more of his love to himself than unto God and feeleth more of his love to God as for the Benefits which he receiveth in and by himself than as for his own perfections yea and often feeleth the love of himself to work more strongly than his Love to the Church and all else in the world The care of his own salvation is the highest principle which he ordinarily perceiveth in any great strength in him and he is very little and weakly carried out to the Love of the whole Church and to the Love of God above himself Phil. 2.20 21 22. 1 Cor. 10.24 Jer. 45.5 3. A seeming Christian hath a common Love of God as he is Good both in himself and unto the world and unto him But this is not for his Holyness and it is but a general uneffectual approbation and praise of God which followeth a dead uneffectual belief But his chiefest predominant Love is always to his Carnal self and the Love both of his soul and of God is subjected to his fleshly self-love His chiefest Love to God is for prospering him in the world and such as is subservient to his sensuality pride coveteousness presumption and false hopes Luke 18.21 22. 1 Joh. 2.15.2 Tim. 3.2 4. Joh. 12.43 Joh. 5.42 VII 1. A Christian indeed doth practically take this Love of God and the holy expressions of it to be the very life and top of his Religion and the very life and beauty and pleasure of his soul He makes it his work in the world and loveth himself complacentially but so far as he findeth in himself the Love of God And so far as he findeth himself without it he loatheth himself as an unlovely carkass And so far as his prayers and obedience are without it he looks on them but as unacceptable loathsome things And therefore he is taken up in the study of Redemption because he can no where so clearly see the Love and Loveliness of God as in the face of a Redeemer even in the wonders of Love revealed in Christ. And he studieth them that Love may kindle Love And therefore he delighteth in the contemplating of Gods attributes and infinite perfections and in the beholding of him in the frame of the Creation and reading his name in the book of his works that his soul may by such steps be raised in Love and Admiration of his Maker And as it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun or light so is it to the mind of the Christian indeed to be frequently and seriously contemplating the nature and glory of God And the exercise of Love in such contemplations is most of his daily walk with God And therefore it is also that he is more taken up in the exercises of thanksgiving and the Praises of the Almighty than in the lower parts of Godliness so that though he neglect not confession of sin and humiliation yet doth he use them but in subserviency to the Love and Praise of God He doth but rid out the filth that is undecent in a Heart that is to entertain its God He placeth not the chief part of his Religion in any outward duties nor in any lower preparatory acts Nor doth he stop in any of these however he neglect them not But he useth them all to advance his soul in the Love of God And useth them the more diligently because the Love of God to which they conduce as to their proper end is so high and exellent a work Therefore in Davids Psalms you find a heart delighting it self in the praises of God and in Love with his word and works in order
to forget that these are but his messengers and instruments to convey unto us several parcells of that Truth which is his and not theirs and which naturally or supernaturally they received from him and all these Candles were lighted by him who is the Sun And how little doth this weak Christian refer his common knowledge to God or use it for him or to the furtherance of his own and others happiness 1 Tim. 2.4 3. And the seeming Christian though materially he may be eminent for knowledge yet is so far from resigning himself to the teachings of Christ that he maketh even his knowledge of Christian Verities to be to him but a common carnal thing while he knoweth it but in a common manner and useth it to the service of the flesh and never yet learned so much as to be a new creature nor to love God as God above the world 1 Cor. 13.2 X. 1. A Christian indeed is one whose Repentance hath been deep and serious and universal and unchangeable It hath gone to the very roots of sin and to the bottom of the sore and hath not left behind it any reigning unmortified sin nor any prevalent love to fleshly pleasures His Repentance did not only disgrace his sin and cast some reproachful words against it and use confessions to excuse him from mortification and to save its life and hide it from the mortal blow Nor doth he only repent of his open sins and those that are most censured by the beholders of his life But he specially perceives the dangerous poyson of Pride and unbelief and worldliness and the want of the Love of God and all his outward and smaller sins do serve to shew him the greater malignity of these and these are the matter of his greatest lamentations He taketh not up a profession of Religion with strong corruptions secretly covered in his heart But his Religion consisteth in the death of his corruptions and the purifying of his heart He doth not secretly cherish any sin as too sweet or too profitable to be utterly forsaken nor overlook it as a small inconsiderable matter But he feeleth sin to be his enemy and his disease and as he desireth not one enemy one sickness one wound one broken bone one serpent in his bed so he desireth not any one sin to be spared in his soul But faith with David Psal. 139.23 Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting He liveth in no gross or scandalous sin And his infirmities are comparatively few and small so that if he were not a sharper accuser of himself than the most observant spectators are that are just there would little be known by him that is culpâ—ble and matter of reproof He walketh in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless as to any notable miscarriage Luk. 1.6 He is blameless and harmless as the son of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom he shineth as a light in the world Phil 2 15. The fear and love and obedience of God is the work and tenour of his life 2. But the weak Christian though he hath no sin but what he is a hater of and fain would be delivered from yet alas how imperfect is his deliverance and how weak is the hatred of his sin and mixed with so much proneness to it thaâ— his life is much blemished with the spots of his offences Though his unbelief and pride and worldleness are not predominant in him yet are they or some of them still so strong and fight so much against his faith humility and heavenliness that he can scarcely tell which hath the upper hand nor can others that see the failings of his life discern whether the good or the evil be most prevalent Though it be Heaven which he most seeketh yet Earth is so much regarded by him that his Heavenly mindedness is greatly damped and suppressed by it And though it be the way of Godliness and obedience which he walketh in yet is it with so many stumblings and falls if not deviations also that maketh him oft a burthen to himself a shame to his profession and a snare or trouble to those about him His heart is like an ill swept house that hath many a sluttish corner in it And his life is like a moth-eaten garment which hath many a hole which you may see if you bring it into the light 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3. 6.6 7 8. 11.18 21 22 c. 3. And for the seeming Christian his Repentance doth but cropp the branches it goeth not to the root and heart of his sin It leaveth his fleshly mind and interest in the dominion It pollisheth his life but maketh him not a new creature It casteth away those sins which the flesh can spare and which bring more shame or loss or trouble with them than worldly honour gain or pleasure But still he is a very worldling at the heart and the sins which his fleshly pleasures and felicity consisteth in he will hide by confessions and seeming oppositions but never mortifie and forsake As Judas that while he followed Christ was yet a thief and a coveteous hypocrite Joh. 12.6 1 Tim. 6.10 11. XI 1. Hence it followeth that a Christian indeed doth heartily love the searching light that it may fully acquaint him with his sins He is truly desirous to know the worst of himself And therefore useth the word of God as a candle to shew him what is in his heart and bringeth himself willingly into the light He loveth the most searching Books and Preachers not only because they disclose the faults of other men but his own he is not one that so loveth his pleasant and profitable sins as to fly the light lest he should be forced to know them and so to forsake them But because he hateth them and is resolved to forsake them therefore he would know them Joh. 3.19 20 21. Therefore he is not only patient under Reproofs but loveth them and is thankful to a charitable reprover and maketh a good use even of malicious and passionate reproofs Psal. 141.5 2 Sam. 16.11 He saith as in Job 34.32 That which I see not teach thou me If I have done iniquity I will do no more His hatred of the sin and desire to be reformed suffer not his heart by pride to rise up against the remedy and reject reproof Though he will not falsely confess his duty to be his sin nor take the judgement of every selfish passionate or ignorant reprover to be infallible nor to be his rule yet if a judicious impartial person do but suspect him of a fault he is ready to suspect himself of it unless he be certain that he is clear He loveth him better that would save him from his sin than him that would entice him to it and taketh him for his best
to his spiritual ends Whether he eateth or drinketh or what ever he doth he doth all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10.31 The posie engraven on his heart is the name of GOD with OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM ARE ALL THINGS TO HIM BE GLORY FOR EVER AMEN Rom. 11.36 He liveth as a steward that useth not his own though yet he have a sufficient reward for his fidelity and he keepeth accounts both of his receivings and layings out and reckoneth all to be worse than lost which he findeth not expended on his Lords account For himself he asketh not that which is sweetest to the flesh but that which is fittest to his end and work And therefore desireth not Riches for himself but his daily bread and food convenient for him and having food and rayment is therewith content having taken godlyness for his gain he asketh not for superfluity nor any thing to consume it on his lusts nor to become provision for his flesh to satisfie the wills thereof But as a runner in his race desireth not any provisions which may hinder him and therefore forgetting the things which are behind the world which he hath turn'd his back upon he reacheth forth to the things which are before the crown of glory and presseth toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus not turning an eye to any thing that would stop him in his course Thus while he is employed about things below his mind and conversation is heavenly and divine while all things are estimated and used purely for God and Heaven Luk. 16.1 2. 1 Pet. 4.10 Tit. 1.15 Prov. 30.8 1 Tim. 6.8 1 Tim. 6.6 Jam. 4.3 Rom. 13.14 Phil. 3.13 14 15. 2. But the weak Christian though he have all this in desire and be thus affected and resolved in the main and liveth to God in the scope and course of his life yet is too often looking aside and valuing the creature carnally for it self and oft-times useth it for the pleasing of the flesh and almost like a common man his house and land and friends and pleasures are relished too carnally as his own accommodations and though he walk not after the flesh but after the spirit yet he hath too much of the fleshly taste and is greatly out in his accounts with God and turneth many a thing from his masters use to the service of the flesh and though he be not as the slothfull wicked servant yet is it but little improvement that he maketh of his talent Mat. 25.17 26 27 28. 3. But the seeming Christian being carnal and selfish while his notions and professions are spiritual and divine and his selfish and fleshly interest being predominant it must needs follow that he estimateth all things principally as they respect his fleshly interest and useth them principally for his carnal self even when in the manner he seemeth to use them most religiously as I have said before And so to the defiled nothing is pure Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 13. Tit. 1.15 XXII 1. A Christian indeed hath a promptitude to obey and a ready compliance of his will to the will of God He hath not any great averseness and withdrawing and doth not the good which he doth with much backwardness and striving against it but as in a well ordered watch or clock the spring or poise do easily set all the wheels a going and the first wheel easily moveth the rest so is the will of a confirmed Christian presently moved as soon as he knoweth the will of God He stayeth not for other moving Reasons Gods will is his Reason This is the Habit of subjection and obedience which makes him say speak Lord for thy servant heareth and Lord what wouldst thou have me do And Teach me to do thy will O God Psal. 143.10 1 Sam. 3.10 Act. 9.6 I delight to do thy will O God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal. 40.8 The Law written in our heart is nothing else but the knowledge of Gods Laws with this Habit or promptitude to obey them the special fruit of the spirit of grace 2. But a weak Christian though he love Gods will and way and be sincerely obedient to him yet in many particulars where his corruption contradicteth hath a great deal of backwardness and striving of the flesh against the spirit and there needs many words and many considerations and vehement perswasions yea and sharp afflictions sometimes to bring him to obey and he is fain to drive on his backward heart and hath frequent use for the rod and spurr and therefore is more slow and uneven in his obedience Gal. 5.17 3. The seeming Christian is forward in those easie cheaper parts of duty which serve to delude his carnal heart and quiet him in a worldly life but he is so backward to through sincere obedience in the most flesh-displeasing parts of duty that he is never brought to it at all but either he will fit his opinions in religion to his will and will not believe them to be duties or else he will do something like them in a superficial formal way but the thing it self he will not do For he is more obedient to his carnal mind and lusts than he is to God Rom. 8.6 7. And forwarder much to sacrifice than obedience Eccl. 5.1 XXIII 1. A Christian indeed doth daily delight himself in God and findeth more solid content and pleasure in his commands and promises than in all this world His duties are sweet to him and his hopes are sweeter Religion is not a tiresome task to him The yoak of Christ is easie to him and his burthen light and his commandments are not grievous Psal. 37.4 1.2 40.8 94.19 119.16.35.47.70 Mat. 11.28 29. Joh. 5.3 That which others take as Physick for meer necessity against their wills he goeth to as a feast with appetite and delight He prayeth because he loveth to pray and he thinks and speaks of holy things because he loveth to do it And hence it is that he is so much in holy dutie and so unwearied because he loveth it and taketh pleasure in it As voluptuous persons are oft and long at their sports or merry company because they love them and take pleasure in them so are such Christians oft and long in holy exercises because their hearts are set upon them as their recreation and the way and means of their felicity If it be a delight to a studious man to read those books which most clearly open the abstrusest mysteries of the sciences or to converse with the most wise and learned men and if it be a delight to men to converse with their dearest friends or to hear from them and read their letters no marvel if it be a delight to a Christian indeed to read the Gospel mysteries of Love and to find there the promises of everlasting happiness and to see in the face of Jesus Christ the clearest Image of the
yet to manage assurance well and therefore it is that it is not given him Graces must grow proportionably together If he be but confidently perswaded that he is justified and shall be saved he is very apt to gather some consequence from it that tendeth to security and to the remitting of his watchfulness and care He is ready to be the bolder with sin and stretch his conscience and omit some duties and take more fleshly liberty and ease and think Now I am a child of God I am out of danger I am sure I cannot totally fall away And though his judgement conclude not therefore I may venture further upon worldly fleshly pleasures and need not be so strict and diligent as I was yet his heart and practice thus conclude And he is most obedient when he is most in fear of hell and he is worst in his heart and life when he is most confident that all his danger is past Heb. 4.1 2. 3.14 15.16 3. But the seeming Christian though he have no assurance is hardned in his carnal state by his presumption Had he but assurance to be saved without a holy life he would cast off that very image of godliness which he yet retaineth The conceit of his own sincerity and salvation is that which deludeth and undoeth him What sin would not gain or pleasure draw him to commit if he were but sure to be forgiven It is fear of hell that causeth that seeming religion which he hath And therefore if that fear be gone all is gone and all his piety and diligence and righteousness is come to nought Gal. 6.3 Joh. 8.39 42 44. XXVI 1. For all his assurance a confirmed Christian is so well acquainted with his manifold imperfections and daily failings and great unworthiness that he is very low and vile in his owne eyes and therefore can easily endure to be low and vile in the eyes of others He hath a constant sense of the burden of his remaining sin Especially he doth even abhor himself when he findeth the averseness of his heart to God and how little he knoweth of him and how little he loveth him in comparison of what he ought and how little of Heaven is upon his heart and how strange and backward his thoughts are to the life to come These are as fetters upon his soul He daily groaneth under them as a captive that he should be yet so carnal and unable to shake off the remnant of his infimities as if he were sold under sin that is in bondage to it Rom. 7.14 He hateth himself more for the imperfections of his love and obedience to God than hypocrites do for their reigning sin And O how he longeth for the day of his deliverance Rom. 7.24 He thinketh it no great injury for another to judge of him as he judgeth of himself even to be less than the least of all Gods mercies He is more troubled for being over praised and overvalued than for being dispraised and vilified as thinking those that praise him are more mistaken and lay the more dangerous snare for his soul. For he hath a special antipathy to pride and wondreth that any rational man can be so blind as not to see enough to humble him For his own part in the midst of all Gods graces he seeth in himself so much darkness imperfection corruption and want of further grace that he is loathsom and burdensom continually to himself If you see him sad or troubled and ask him the cause it is ten to one but it is himself that he complaineth of The frowardest wife the most undutiful child the most disobedient servant the most injurious neighbour the most malicious enemy is not half so great a trouble to him as he is to himself He prayeth abundantly more against his own corruption than against any of these O could he but know and love God more and be more in heaven and willinger to die and freer from his own distempers how easily could he bear all crosses or injuries from others He came to Christs school as a little child Mat. 18.3 And still he is little in his own esteem And therefore disesteem and contempt from others is no great matter with him He thinks it can be no great wrong that is done against so poor a worm and so unworthy a sinner as himself except as God or the souls of men may be interested in the cause He heartily approveth of the justice of God in abhorring the proud and hath learned that Rom. 12.10 in honour preferring one another and Gal. 5.26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory provoking one another envying one another 2. But the remnant of Pride is usually the most notable sin of the weak Christian Though it reigneth not it souly blemisheth him He would fain be taken for some body in the Church He is ready to step up into a higher room and to think himself wiser and better than he is If he can but speak confidently of the principles of Religion and some few controversies which he hath made himself sick with he is ready to think himself fit to be a preacher He looketh through a magnifying glass upon all his own performances and gifts He loveth to be valued and praised He can hardly bear to be slighted and dispraised but is ready to think hardly of those that do it if not to hate them in some degree He loveth not to be found fault with though it be necessary to his amendment And though all this vice of pride be not so predominant in him as to conquer his humility yet doth it much obscure and interrupt it And though he hate this his pride and strive against it and lamenteth it before God yet still it is the forest ulcer in his soul And should it prevail and overcome him he would be abhorred of God and it would be his ruine 2 Chro. 16.10 12. Luk. 22.24 25 26. 3. But in the Hypocrite Pride is the reigning sin The praise of men is the aire which he liveth in He was never well acquainted with himself and never felt aright the burden of his sins and wants and therefore cannot bear contempt from others Indeed if his corrupt disposition turn most to the way of coveteousness tyranny or lust he can the easier bear contempt from others as long as he hath his will at home and he can spare their love if he can be but feared and domineer But still his Pride is predominant and when it affecteth not much the reputation of goodness it affecteth the name of being rich or great Sin may make him sordid but grace doth not make him humble Pride is the vital spirit of the corrupted state of man XXVII 1. A confirmed Christian is acquainted with the deceitfulness of mans heart and the particular corrupt inclinations that are in it and especially with his own and he is acquainted with the wiles and methods of the tempter and what are the materials which he maketh his
in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 It is therefore his care and course to give place to wrath when others are angry Rom. 12.18 19. and if it be possible as much as in him lyeth to live peaceably with all men Yea to follow peace when it flyeth from him Heb. 12.14 And not when he is reviled to revile again nor to threaten or revenge himself on them that injure him 1 Pet. 2.21 22 23 24. Reason and Charity hold the reins and passion is kept under Yea it is used holily for God Eph. 4.26 Slow to anger he is in his own cause and watchfull over his anger even in Gods cause Prov. 15.18 and 16.32 Eph. 4.31 Col. 3.8 2. But the weak Christian doth greatly shew his weakness in his unruly passions if he have a temper of body disposed to passion They are oft rising and not easily kept under Yea and too often prevail for such unseemly words as maketh him become a dishonour to his profession Oft he resolveth and promiseth and prayeth for help and yet the next provocation sheweth how little Grace he hath to hold the reins And his passionate Desires and Delights and Love and Sorrows are oft as unruly as his anger to the further weakning of his Soul They are like Ague fits that leave the health impaired 3. And the seeming Christian hath much less power over those Passions which must subserve his carnal minde For Anger it dependeth much upon the temperature of the body and if that incline him not strongly to it his credit or common discretion may suppress it Unless you touch his chiefest carnal interest and then he will not only be angry but cruel malicious and revengefull But his carnal Love and Desire and Delight which are placed upon that pleasure or profit or honour which is his Idol are indeed the reigning passions in him and his grief and fear and anger are but the servants unto these Act. 24.26 27. XXXVII 1. A Christian indeed is one that keepeth a constant Government of his Tongue He knoweth how much duty or sin it will be the instrument of According to his ability and opportunity he useth it to the service and honour of his Creator In speaking of his Excellencies his Works and Word inquiring after the knowledge of him and his will instructing others and pleading for the Truth and wayes of God and rebuking the impiety and inquities of the world as his place and calling doth allow him He bridleth his Tongue from uttering vanity filthiness ribbaldry foolish and uncomely talk and jests from rash and unreverent talk of God and taking of his Name in vain from the venting of undigested and uncertain doctrines which may prove erroneous and perillous to mens souls from speaking imprudently unhandsomly or unseasonably about holy things so as to expose them to contempt and scorn from lying censuring others without a warrantable ground and call from backbiting slandering false accusing railing and reviling malicious envyous injurious speech which tendeth to extinguish the love of the hearers to those he speaketh of from proud and boasting speeches of himself much more from swearing cursing and blasphemous speech and opposition to the Truths and holy wayes of God or opprobrious speeches or derision of his servants And in the Government of his Tongue he alwayes beginneth with his heart that he may understand and love the good which he speaketh of and may hate the evil which his tongue forbeareth and not hypocritically to force his tongue against or without his heart His tongue doth not run before his heart but is ruled by it Eph. 4.15.31.29 and 5.3.4.6 Psal. 37.30 15.2 3. Prov. 16.13 and 10.20 21.23 18.21 15.2.4 Psal. 34.13 Prov. 25.15 23. 28.23 Matth. 12.31 32 34. 2. But the weak Christian though his tongue be sincerely subject to the Laws of God yet frequently miscarryeth and blemisheth his Soul by the words of his lips being much ofter than the confirmed Christian overtaken with words of vanity medling folly imprudence uncharitableness wrath boasting venting uncertain or erroneous opinions c. so that the unruliness of his tongue is the trouble of his heart if not also of the Family and all about him 3. The seeming Christian useth his tongue in the service of his carnal ends and therefore alloweth it so much unjustice uncharitableness falshood and other sins as his carnal interest and designs require But the rest perhaps he may suppress especially if natural sobriety good education and prudence do assist him And his tongue is alwayes better than his heart Pro. 10.32 19.5.9 Ps. 50.20 12.3 144.8 120.2 3. Prov. 21.6.23 XXXVIII 1. The Religious discourse of a confirmed Christian is most about the greatest and most necessary matters Heart-work and heaven-work are the usual employment of his Tongue and Thoughts unprofitable Controversies and hurtfull wranglings he abhorreth And profitable Controversies he manageth sparingly seasonably charitably peaceably and with caution and sobriety as knowing that the servant of the Lord must not strive and that strife of words perverteth the hearers and hindereth edifying 1 Tim. 6.4 5 6. and 4.7 8. 2 Tim. 2.14 15 16 17 24 25. His ordinary discourse is about the Glorious Excellencies Attributes Relations and works of God and the Mysterie of Redemption the Person Office Covenant and Grace of Christ the renewing illuminating sanctifying works of the Holy Ghost the Mercies of this life and that to come the Duty of Man to God as his Creator Redeemer and Regenerater the corruption and deceitfulness of the Heart the methods of the Tempter the danger of particular Temptations and the means of our escape and of our growth in Grace and how to be profitable to others and especially to the Church And if he be called to open any Truth which others understand not he doth it not proudly to set up himself as the Master of a Sect or to draw Disciples after him nor make divisions about it in the Church but soberly to the edification of the weak And though he be ready to defend the Truth against perverse gainsayers in due season yet doth he not turn his ordinary edifying discourse into Disputes or talk of Controversies nor hath such a proud pugnacious Soul as to assault every one that he thinks erroneous as a man that taketh himself for the great champion of the truth 2. But the weak Christian hath a more unfruitful wandring tongue And his religious discourse is most about his opinions or party or some external thing As which is the best preacher or person or book or if he talk of any text of scripture or doctrine of Religion it is much of the outside of it and his discourse is less feeling lively and experimental yea many a time he hindereth the more edifying savoury discourse of others by such religious discourse as is imprudent impertinent or turneth them away from the heart and life of the matter in hand But
is made to shine upon the world he could not be content to live idly or to labour unprofitably or to get never so much to himself and live in never so much plenty himself unless he some way contribute to the good of others Not that he grudgeth at the smallness of his talents and lowness or obscurity of his place for he knoweth that God may dispose his creatures and talents as he please and that where much is given much is required Mat. 25. Luk. 12.48 19.23 But what his Lord hath entrusted him with he is loth to hide and willing to improve to his Masters use He is so far from thinking that God is beholden to him for his good works that he taketh it for one of his greatest mercies in the world that God will use him in doing any good And he would take it for a very great suffering to be deprived of such opportunities or turned out of service or called to less of that kind of duty If he were a Physitian and denied liberty to practice or a minister and denied liberty to preach it would far more trouble him that he is hindered from doing good than that he is deprived of any profits or honours to himself He doth not only comfort himself with the foresight of the reward but in the very doing of good he findeth so much pleasure as makeeth him think it the delightfullest life in the world And he looketh for most of his receivings from God in a way of duty Joh. 5.29 Gal. 6.10 Heb. 13.16 1 Pet. 3.11 2. But the weak Christian though he have the same disposition is far less profitable in the world He is more for himself and less able to do good to others He wanteth either parts or prudence or zeal or strength Yea he is oft like the infants and sick persons of a family that are not helpful but troublesome to the rest They find work for the stronger Christians to bear their infirmities and watch them and support and help them Indeed as an infant is a comfort to the mother through the power of her own love even when she endureth the trouble of its crying and uncleaness so weak Christians are a comfort to charitable ministers and people we are glad that they are alive but sadded often by their distempers Rom. 14.1 15.12 3. The seeming Christian liveth to himself and all his good works are done but for himself to keep up his credit or quiet his guilty conscience and deceive himself with the false hopes of a reward for that which his falseheartedness maketh to be his sin If he be a man of learning and good parts he may be very serviceable to the Church But the thanks of that is due to God and little to him who seeketh himself more than God or the good of others in all that he doth Mat. 25 24 25 26. XLII 1. A Christian indeed doth truly love his neighbour as himself He is not all for his own commodity His neighbours profit or good name is as his own He feeleth himself hurt when his neighbours is hurt And if his neighbour prosper he rejoyceth as if he prospered himself Though his neighbour be not united to him in the nearest bonds of Christianity or Piety yet he is not disregardfull of the common Vnity of Humanity Love is the very soul of life Lev. 19.18 Mat. 19.19 22.39 Rom. 13.9 Gal. 5.14 Jam. 2.8 Mark 10.21 1 Joh. 4.10 2. But the Love that is in weaker Christians though it be sincere is weak as they are and mixed with too much selfishness and with too much sowerness and wrath Little matters cause differences and fallings out When it cometh to MINE and THINE and their neighbours cross their interest or commodity or stand in their way when they are seeking any preferment or profit to themselves you shall see too easily by their sowreness and contention how weak their love is Mat. 24.12 1 Tim. 6.10 Luke 22.24 3. But in the seeming Christian selfishness is so predominant that he loveth none but for himself with any considerable love All his kindness is from self-love because men love him or highly value him or praise him or have done him some good turn or may do him good hereafter or the like If he hath any love to any for his own worth yet self-love can turn all that to hatred â—f they seem against him or cross him in his way For no man that is a Lover of the world and flesh and carnall self can ever be a true friend to any other For he loveth them but for his own ends and any cross Interest will shew the falshood of his love 2 Tim. 3.2 3 4. Mat. 5.46 XLIII 1. A Christian indeed hath a special Love to all the Godly such as endeareth his heart unto them and such as will enable him to visit them and relieve them in their wants to his own loss and hazzard according to his ability and opportunity For the image of God is beautifull and honourable in his eyes He loveth not them so much as God in them Christ in them the Holy Spirit in them He foreseeth the day when he shall meet them in Heaven and there rejoyce in God with them to Eternity He loveth their company and converse and delighteth in their gracious words and lives And the converse of ungodly empty men is a weariness to him unless in a way of duty or when he can do them good In his eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal. 15.4 Other men grieve his soul with their iniquities while he is delighted with the appearances of God in his holy ones even the excellent ones on earth Psal. 16.3 2 Pet. 2.7 8. Yea the infirmities of Believers destroy not his Love for he hath learned of God himself to difference between their abhorred frailties and their predominant Grace and to love the very Infants in the Family of Christ. Yea though they wrong him or quarrel with him or censure him in their weakness he can honour their sincerity and love them still And if some of them prove scandalous and some seeming Christians fall away or fall into the most odious crimes he loveth Religion never the less but continueth as high an esteem of piety and of all that are upright as he had before 1 Joh. 4.7 8 10. Joh. 13.34 35. 1 Thess. 4.9 1 Joh. 3.11 14 23. Matth. 25.39 40 c. 2. The weak Christian sincerely loveth all that bear his Fathers image But it is with a Love so weak even when it is most passionate as will sooner be abated or interrupted by any tempting differences He is usually quarrelsome and froward with his Brethen and apter to confine his love to those that are of his own opinion or party And because God hath taught him to love all that are sincere the Devil tempteth him to censure them as not sincere that so he may justifie himself in the
1 Cor. 3.9 10. Christ knew the necessity that the Infants of his Family had of such Nurses and he knew what numbers of such weak ones there would be in comparison of the strong or else he had never appointed the strong to such an Office And having appointed it he will keep up the honour of his Officers and will send you his Alms your food your Physick your Pardon your Priviledges by their hands If you be drawn by Seducers to forsake or neglect the Ministry of Christs Officers you forsake or neglect your helps and mercies you refuse his Grace you are like Infants that scorn their Nurses help and like Subjects who reject all the Officers of the King and like the Chickens that forsake the Hen you forsake the School and Church of Christ and may expect to be quickly catcht up by the Devil as straglers that have no defence or guide 2. Yet is there great difference between one Minister or Pastor and another as much as between Physicians Lawyers or men of any other function And there being no case in the world that you are so much concerned to be careful in as the instructing and conduct and safety of your souls you have exceeding great reason to take heed whom you choose to commit the care and conduct of your Souls to It is not enough to say that He is a true Ordained Minister and that his administrations are not nullities no more than to say of an ignorant Physician or Cowardly Captain that he hath a valid License or Commission when for all that if you trust him it may cost you your lives Nor is it a wise mans answer to say that God giveth his Grace by the worst as soon as by the best and by the weakest as soon as by the strongest and therefore I need not be so careful in my choice For though God have not confined the working of his Spirit to the most excellent means yet ordinarily he worketh according to the means he useth And this both Scripture Reason and daily experience fully prove God worketh rationally on man as man that is as a rational free agent by Moral operation and not by a meer Physical injection of his Grace When we see the man that is made wise unto Salvation by meer infusion of Wisdom without a Teacher or the study of the Word of God or when we see God work by his Word as by a charm that a few words shall convert a man though the speaker or hearer understood them not then we may hearken to this conceit And then we may think that a Heretick may as well teach you the truth as the Orthodox or a Schismatick teach you Unity and Peace as well as a Catholick peaceable Pastor or a man that is ignorant of the mysteries of Regeneration and holy Communion with God may best teach you that which he knoweth not himself and an enemy to Piety and Charity may teach you to be Pious and Charitable as well as any other But I need not say much more of this for all parties would never so strive to have such Ministers as they like and to put out such as they dislike if they thought not that the difference between Ministers and Ministers were very great See therefore that the Guide whom you choose for your Souls be 1. Judicious for an injudicious man may pervert the Scripture and lead you into Error and Heresie and sin before you are aware As an unskilful Coachman may soon overturn you or an unskilful Waterman may drown you yea though he be a zealous fervent Preacher yet if he be injudicious he may ignorantly give you Poison in your food as the experience of this age hath lamentably proved 2. See if possible that he be an experienced man that knoweth by experience on himself not only what it is to be regenerate and sanctified and made a new Creature but also how all the combate between the Spirit and the Flesh is to be managed and what are the methods and stratagems of the tempter and what are the chief helps and defensatives of the Soul and how they are all to be used For it is not harder to be a Judicious Physician or Lawyer or Souldier without experience than a judicious Pastor And therefore the Holy Ghost commandeth that he be not a novice or raw unexperienced Christian 1 Tim. 3.6 3. See that he be Humble for if he be puft up with pride he falleth into the condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 And then he will either scorn the labour of the Ministry as a drudgery to preach in season and out of season to beseech and exhort and stoop to the poorest of the flock or else he will speak perverse things to draw away Disciples after him Acts 20.30 or he will as Diotrephes reject the Brethren as loving himself to have the preheminence 3 John 9 10. and will Oversee the Church by constraint for filthy lucre as being a Lord over Gods heritage 1 Pet. 5.2 3. See Doctor Hammond on the Text. 4. See that he be Holy in his life for though this be not essential to his Office yet the unholy are unexperienced yea and have a secret enmity in their hearts against that Holiness which they should daily Preach and will usually be shewing it in their close disgracing discouraging speeches against that serious Piety which they should promote And they will neglect most of the personal care of their Flock and will unpreach by their lives the good which they Preach by their tongues and harden and embolden the people in their sins and make them believe that they believe not what they Preach themselves Choose not an enemy of Holiness to lead you in the way of holiness a way that he never went himself nor an enemy of Christ to conduct you in the Christian warfare when he is a servant of the Devil the world and flesh against whom you fight 5. See that he be of a Heavenly mind or else his Doctrine will be unsavoury and dry and he will be Preaching some speculations or barren Controversies instead of Heavenly edifying truth 6. See that he be faithful and diligent in his Ministry as one that knoweth the worth of Souls and will not sell them or betray them to the Devil for filthy lucre or his fleshly ends nor make Merchandise of them as desiring rather theirs than them and preferring the Fleece before the safety of the Flock But one that imitateth the pattern Acts 20. and in meekness instructeth those that are opposers 2 Tim. 2.25 26. 2 Pet. 2.3 1 Cor. 4.2 Rom. 16.17 18. 1 Pet. 5.3 4. 2 Cor. 12.14 7. See that he be a Lively serious Preacher for all will be little enough to keep up a lively seriousness in such dull and frozen hearts as ours A cold Preacher with cold hearts is like to make cold work He that speaks senslesly and sleepily about such matters as Heaven and Hell doth by the manner of his
speech contradict the matter When hard heartedness and security and deadness and lethargick drowsiness is the common and dangerous disease of Souls let him that loveth his Soul and would not perish by his disease make use of a Physician and remedy that is suited to the cure and not of one to rock him asleep or give him an opiate to increase his malady 8. See also that he be one that is of a truly Catholick spirit not addicted to a Sect nor to Divisions in the Church nor one that liveth in a separation or distance from the generality of the godly sober Ministers For you take him not for your Guide as separated from the Catholick Church but as united to it and a Member of it as valuing the Judgment of all the Church above the judgment of any one Pastor and knowing that you are your selves to be kept in the unity of the Church and not seduced into a Sect and that the Pastors are to be the bonds and ligaments of the body that by their help it may grow up in love and unity and not the dividers of the body Eph. 4.13 14 15 16. As Captains and inferior Officers in an Army that are to conduct each Souldier in Vnity with the Army and not to separate and make every Troop or Regiment an Army by it self that they may be the petty Generals In a word read some good Visitation Sermons which tell you what a Minister must be and choose if possible to live under such a Minister I say if possible for I know to many it is not possible Wives and Children and Servants while they are bound cannot leave their Husbands Parents or Masters and strong Christians who are called to do good to others must prefer that before such advantages to themselves and many other impediments may deny men such a blessing But yet I say undervalue not so great a mercy and neglect it not where lawfully it may be had and prefer nothing before it as a just impediment which is not really more worth And remember that Divines do commonly resolve the case of the Infidel Nations of the World that they are unexcusable in their Infidelity because when they hear that other Nations profess to know the way to Heaven they do not in so great a case go over Sea and Land to enquire after the Doctrine which we profess And if the Tartarians Indians and other Nations are bound to send to Christian nations for Preachers of the Gospel I only leave you proportionably to measure your case by theirs allowing for the disproportion And to consider how far you should deny your worldly profit in removeing your habitations for such helps as your own necessities require DIRECT XII Make choice of such Christians for your familiar friends and the companions of your lives as are holy humble heavenly serious mortified charitable peaceable judicious experienced and fixed in the wayes of God and not of ungodly persons or proud self-conceited censorious dividing injudicious unexperienced sensual worldly opinionative superficial luke-warm or unsetled Professors THe Reasons of this Direction you may perceive in what I said under the last Your company is a matter of exceeding great concernment to you as one of the greatest helps or hinderances comforts or discomforts of all your lives especially those that you dwell with and those that you choose for your familiars and bosome friends And therefore so far as Gods Providence doth not forbid you and make it impossible choose such as are here described or at least one such for your bosome friend if you can have acquaintance with no more It is of unspeakable importance to your Salvation with whom you are associated for most familiar converse A good companion will teach you what you know not or remember you of that which you forget or stir you up when you are dull or warm you when you are cold and watch over you and warn you of your danger and save you from the poison of ill companions O what a help and delight it is to have a holy judicious faithful friend to open your heart to and to walk with in the wayes of life And how exceeding hard is it to scape sin and hell and get well to Heaven in company and familiarity of the servants of the Devil who are posting unto Hell Let not your companions be worse than your selves lest they make you worse but as much wiser and better as you can procure See Eccles. 4.9 12. Psal. 16.2 and 119.63 Prov. 13.20 DIRECT XIII Subdue your passions and abhor all uncharitable principles and practises and live in love maintaining peace in your families and with your neighbours but especially in the Church of God LOve as you would be loved yea Love if you would be loved for there is no surer way to purchase love And love because you are so freely loved by that God whose wrath you have so oft deserved Let the thankful feeling of his Love in Christ even turn you wholly into love to God and man Abhor every thought and word and deed which is contrary to love and tendeth to the hurt of others And hate the backbitings and bitter words of any which tend to make another odious and to destroy your love to any one that God commandeth you to love Allow that moderate passion which is the fruit of love and tendeth only to do good but resist that which inclineth you to hatred or to do evil The more men wrong you remember that you are the more watchfully to maintain your love knowing that these temptations are sent by the Devil on purpose to destroy and quench it and fill your heart with uncharitableness and wrath Give place to the wrath of others and stand not resisting it by words or deeds Rom. 12.18 19 20. Recompense to no man evil for evil in word or action ver 17. Especially be most tender of the Union of true Christians and of the Churches peace When you hear the men of several Sects representing one another as odious understand that it is the language of the Devil to draw you from love into hatred and divisions And when you must speak odiously of mens sin speak charitably of their persons and be as ready to speak of the good that is in them as of the evil Believe not that dividing ungrounded Doctrine which telleth you that you cannot sufficiently disown the Errors of any party in Doctrine and Worship and Discipline without a separation or withdrawing from their Communion and which telleth you that you are guilty of the Ministerial faults of every Pastor that you joyn with or of the faults of all that Worship which you are present at which would first separate you from every worshipping society and person upon earth and then lead you to give over the worshipping of God your selves You must Love Christians as Christians though they have errors and faults repugnant to their Christianity And you must joyn in Worship with Christians as
man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in Love may grow up into him in all things which is the Head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the Edifying of it self in love Here you see the children are apt to be carryed into dividing parties And that they are aptest to be Proud and that way to miscarry see 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a novice or raw young Christian lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil And then followeth the effect Act. 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them I would not have you groundlesly accuse any Christian with a charge of Pride But I must tell you that the childish Pride of apparel is a petty business in comparison of that Pride which many in sordid attire have manifested who in their ignorance do rage and foam out words of falshood and reproach against Christs Ministers and Servants as if they were all fools or impious in comparison of them speaking evil of that which they never understood The lifting up the Heart above the people of the Lord in the Pride of supposed Holiness is incomparably worse than Pride of Learning honour greatness wit or wealth Nay it hath oft been to me a matter of wonder to observe how little all those plain and urgent Texts of Scripture which cry down Division do work upon many of the younger Christians who yet are as quickly toucht as any with a Text that speaketh against prophaneness and lukewarmness In a word they are often of the temper of James and John when they would fain have had Christ have revenged himself on his opposers by fire from Heaven They know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9.55 They think verily that it is a holy zeal for God when it is the boiling of passion pride and selfishness They feel not the sense of such words as Christs Joh. 17.20 21 22 23 24. I pray also for them who shall believe on me through their word that they All may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me c. 3. And as for the seeming Christians in this they are of several sorts When their carnal interest lyeth in complyance with the Major part and stronger side then no men do more cry up Vnity and Obedience what a noise do many thousand Papist-Prelates Jesuites and Fryers make with these two words throughout the world Vnity and Obedience unto them upon their terms do signifie Principally their worldly greatness wealth and power But if the Hypocrite be engaged in point of honour or other carnal interest on the suffering side or be out of hope of any advantage in the common rode then no man is so much for separation and singularity as he For he must needs be noted for some body in the world and this is the chief way that he findeth to accomplish it And so being lifted up with pride be falleth into the Condemnation of the Devil and becomes a firebrand in the Church LIII 1. A Christian indeed is not only zealous for the Unity and Concord of Believers but he seeketh it on the right terms and in the way that is fitest to attain it Vnity Peace and Concord are like Piety and Honesty things so unquestionably good that there are scarce any men of reason and common sobriety that ever were heard to oppose them Directly and for themselves And therefore all that are enemies to them are yet pretenders to them and oppose them 1. In their causes only 2. Or covertly and under some other name Every man would have Vnity Concord and Peace in his own way and upon his own terms But if the right terms had been understood and consented to as sufficient the Christian world had not lain so many hundred years in the sin and shame and ruines as it hath done And the cause of all is that Christians indeed that have clear confirmed judgements and strength of grace are very few and for number and strength unable to perswade or overrule the weak the passionate and the falsehearted worldly hypocritical multitude who bear down all the counsels and endeavours of the wise The judicious faithful Christian knoweth that there are three degrees or sorts of Christian Communion which have their several terms 1. The universal-church Communion which all Christians as such must hold among themselves 2. Particular Church-communion which those that are conjoyned for personal Communion in Worship do hold under the same Pastors and among themselves 3. The extraordinary intimate communion that some Christians hold together who are bosome friends or are specially able and fit to be helpful and comfortable to each other The last concerneth not our present business we must hold Church-communion with many that are unfit to be our bosome friends and that have no eminency of parts or piety or any strong-perswading evidence of sincerity But the terms of Catholick Communion he knoweth are such as these 1. They must be such as were the terms of Church Communion in the dayes of the Apostles 2. They must be such as are plainly and certainly expressed in the holy Scriptures 3. And such as the Vniversal Church hath in some ages since been actually agreed in 4. And those points are likest to be such which all the differing parties of Christians are agreed in as Necessary to Communion to this day so we call not those Christians that deny the essentials of Christianity 5. Every man in the former ages of the Church was admitted to this Catholick Church-communion who in the Baptismal Vow or Covenant gave up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier his Owner Governour and Father renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil And more particularly as man hath an Vnderstanding a Will and an executive power which must all be sanctified to God so the Creed was the particular Rule for the Credenda or things to be Believed and the Lords Prayer for the Petenda or things to be Willed Loved and Desired and the Ten Commandments for the agenda or things to be done so that to Consent to these Rules particularly and to all the Holy Scriptures implicitly and generally was the thing then required to Catholick Communion The belief of the doctrine being necessary for the sanctifying of the heart and life the Belief of so much is of Necessity without which the Heart cannot be sanctified or
devoted in Covenant to God our Creator Redeemer and Regenerater and without which we cannot Love God as reconciled to us in Christ above all and our neighbours as our selves So that in a word he that can tell what the Baptismal Vow or Covenant is can tell what is necessary to that Catholick Church-communion which belongeth to Christians as Christians at how great a distance soever they dwell from one another And then for Particular Church-communion which is local and personal it is moreover necessary 1. That each member acknowledge and submit to the same Pastors 2. That they be guided by them in the convenient circumstances and adjuncts of Worship For if some persons will not consent or submit to the same Pastors that the body of the Church consenteth and submiteth to they cannot have communion particularly and locally with that Church nor are they members of it no more than they can be members of the same Kingdom that have not the same King And there being no solemn worship performed but by the Ministry of those Pastors they cannot joyn in the worship that joyn not with the Minister And if some members will not consent and submit to the necessary determination of the adjuncts or external modes of worship they cannot joyn in local particular Church-communion where that Worship is performed As if the Pastor and the body of the Church will meet in such a place at such a day and hour and some members will not meet with them at that place and day and hour they cannot possibly then have their local personal communion Or if the Pastor will use such a Translation of the Scriptures or such a Version of the Psalms or such a Method in Preaching and Prayer or such Notes or books and other like helps if any members will not submit nor hold Communion with the rest unless that Translation or Version or Method of Preaching or Praying or Notes or Books be laid aside he cannot have Communion while he refuseth it If the Pastor and all the rest will not yield to him he must joyn with some other Church that he can agree with And as long as the Catholick Church communion is maintained which consisteth in Vnity of the Christian-covenant or of Christianity or of Faith Love and Obedience the difference of modes and circumstances between particular Churches must be allowed without any breach of Charity or without disowning one another And he that cannot be a member of one particular Church may quietly joyn himself to another without condemning that which he dissenteth from so far as to hinder his Catholick Communion with it even as among the Papists men may be of which Order of Religious persons they best like as long as they submit to their General Government And here the strong judicious Christian for his part will never be guilty of Church-divisions For 1. He will make nothing necessary to Church-communion which any sober pious peaceable minds shall have any just reason to except against or which may not well be manifested to be for the Edification of the Church 2. And he will bear with the weak dissenters so far as will stand with the peace and welfare of the Church 3. And he will particularly give leave to such weak ones as cannot yet hold communion with him being peaceable and not promoting heresie ungodliness or sedition to joyn to another Church where they can hold communion with peace to their own Consciences as long as they continue their foresaid Catholick-communion For the strong know that they must not only bear with but bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves but every one of them to please his neighbour for good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself And so they will receive one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God not despising the weak nor rejecting them that God receiveth Rom. 15.1 2 3 7. 14.1 2 3 4 17 18. And thus you may see how easie a matter it were to unite and reconcile all the Christian World if the principles of the judicious confirmed Christian might be received and prevail and that it is not he that is the cause of the abundance of sin and calamity which divisions have caused and continued in the Church But that which now seemeth an impossible thing may quickly and easily be accomplished if all were such as he And that the difficulty of reconciling and uniting Christians lyeth not first in finding out the terms but in making men fit to receive and practice the terms from the beginning received by the Churches This is Lirinensis his Quod semper ubique ab omnibus receptum est supposing still that the Magistrate be submitted to by every soul even as he is the keeper of both talles Rom. 13.1 2 3. 2. But the weak Christian is too easily tempted to be the divider of the Church by expecting that it be united upon his impossible or unrighteous terms Sometime he will be Orthodox overmuch or rather wise in his own conceit Rom. 12.16 and then none are judged fit for his communion that be not of his opinion in controverted Doctrinals e.g. predestination the manner of the work of grace freewill perseverance and abundance such sometime he will be righteous overmuch or to speak more properly superstitious And then none are fit for his communion that Worship not God in that method and manner for circumstantials which he esteemeth best And his charity is so weak that it freeth him not from thinking evil 1 Cor. 13. and so narrow that it covereth not either many or great infirmities The more need he hath of the forbearance and charity of others the less can he bear or forbear others himself The strong Christian must bear the infirmities of the weak but the weak Christian can scarce bear with the weak or strong Nay he is oft too impatient with some of their virtues and duties as well as with their infirmities He is of too private a spirit and too insensible of the publick interest of the Church of Christ. And therefore he must have all the World come over to him and be conformed to his opinion and party and unite upon his mistaken narrow terms if they will have Communion with him I mean it is thus with him when the temptation on that side prevaileth And sometime he is overcome with the temptation of Domination to make his judgement the Rule to others and then he quite overvalueth his own understanding and will needs be judge of all the controversies in the Church and taketh it as unsufferable if wiser and better men do not take him as infallible and in every thing observe his will And when his brethren give him the reason of their dissent as his judgement is not clear enough to understand them so his passion and partiality are too strong to suffer his judgement to do its part And thus oft-times he is a greater hinderance to the Churches