can lay out your love and care and labour on nothing else that will answer your expectations nor make any other bargain whatsoever but what you are sure to be utterly undone by Psal 73.25 4.6 7. Mat. 6.20 21. 13.45 46. Luke 18.33 3. A sound belief of things invisible will be so far an effectual spring of a holy life as that you will seek first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness Mat. 6.33 and not in your Resolutions only but in your Practices the bent of your lives will be for God and your invisible felicity It is not possible that you should see by faith the wonders of the world to come and yet prefer this world before it A dead opinionative belief may stand with a worldly fleshly life but a working faith will make you stir and make the things of God your business and the labour and industry of your lives will shew whether you soundly believe the things unseen 4. If you savingly believe the invisible things you will purchase them at any rate and hold them faster than your worldly accommodations and will suffer the loss of all things visible rather than you will cast away your hopes of the glory which you never saw A humane faith and bare opinion will not hold fast when trial comes For such men take Heaven but for a reserve because they must leave earth against their wills and are loth to go to Hell but they are resolved to hold the world as long as they can because their faith apprehendeth no such satisfying certainty of the things unseen as will encourage them to let go all that they see and have in sensible possession But the weakest faith that 's true and saving doth habitually dispose the soul to let go all the hopes and happiness of this world when they are inconsistent with our spiritual hopes and happiness Luke 14.33 And now I have gone before you with the light and shewed you what a Believer is will you presently consider how 〈◊〉 your hearts and lives agree to this description To know Whether you live by faith or not is consequentially to know whether God or the world be your portion and felicity and so whether you are the heirs of Heaven or Hell And is not this a question that you are most nearly concerned in O therefore for your souls sakes and as ever you love your everlasting peace Examine your selves whether you are in the faith or not Know you not that Christ is in you by faith except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 will you hearken now as long to your consciences as you have done to me As you have heard me telling you what is the nature of a living saving faith will you hearken to your consciences while they impartially tell you whether you have this life of faith or not It may be known if you are willing and diligent and impartial Iâ— you search on purpose as men that would know whether they are alive or dead and whether they shall live or die for ever and not as men that would be flattered and deceived and are resolved to think well of their state be it true or false Let conscience tell you What eyes do you see by for the conduct of the chief imployment of your lives Is it by the eye of sense or faith I take it for granted that it 's by the eye of Reason But is it by Reason corrupted and byâ—ssed by sense or is it by Reason elevated by faith What Countrey is it that your hearts converse in Is it in Heaven or Earth What company is it that you solace your selves with Is it with Angels and Saints Do you walk with them in the Spirit and joyn your eccho's to their triumphant praises and say Amen when by faith you hear them ascribing honour and praise and glory to the ancient of daies the Omnipotent Jehovah that is and that was and is to come Do you fetch your Joyes from Heaven or Earth from things unseen or seen things future or present things hoped for or things possessed What Garden yieldeth you your sweetest flowers Whence is the food that your hopes and comforts live upon Whence are the spirits and cordials that revive you when a frowning world doth cast you into a fainting fit or swoun Where is it that you repose your souls for Rest when sin or sufferings have made you weary Deal truly Is it in Heaven or Earth Which world do you take for your pilgrimage and which for your home I do not ask you where you are but where you dwell not where are your persons but where are your hearts In a word Are you in good earnest when you say you believe a Heaven and Hell And do you think and speak and pray and live as those that do indeed believe it Do you spend your time and chuse your condition of life and dispose of your affairs and answer temptations to worldly things as those that are serious in their belief Speak out do you live the life of faith upon things unseen or the life of sense on things that you behold Deal truly for your endless â—oy or sorrow doth much depend on it The life of faith is the certain passage to the life of glory The fleshly life on things here seen is the certain way to endless misery If you live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye by the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 Be not dâ—ceived God is not mocked â— 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 Gal. 6.7 8. If you would know where you must live for ever know how and for what and upon what it is that you live here Vse 4. Having enquired whether you are Believers I am next to ask you what you will be for the time to come will you live upon things seen or unseen While you arrogate the name and honour of being Christians will you bethink you what Christianity is and will you be indeed what you say you are and would be thought to be Oh that you would give credit to the Word of God that the God of Heaven might be but heartily believed by you And that you would but take his Word to be as sure as sense and what he hath told you is or will be to be as certain as if you saw it with your eyes Oh what manner of persons would you then be how carefully and fruitfully would you speak and live How impossible were it then that you should be careless and prophane And here that I may by seriousness bring you to be serious in so serious a business I shall first put a few suppositions to you about the invisible objects of faith and then I shall put some applicatory questions to you concerning your own resolutions and
by a Redeemer as we must do They had their too great selfishness Phil. 2.21 They had their pusillanimity and fears of men as Peter and the Apostles They had their sinful controversies as Paul and Barnabas and sinful separations in complyance with the censorious as Peter and Barnabas had Gal. 2.16 17. They had their carnal sidings factions and divisions in the Church 1 Cor. 1. 3. Many a time have they been put to groan O wretched man who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7 c. 11. They had as difficult duties to go through as any of us They were put upon as many tears and troubles watchings and travels fastings and self-denyal as the most laborious and suffering Christians now 12. They had as long delayes of the accomplishment of their desires as any of us 13. And lastly they past through death it self as we must do They lay gasping on their beds of languâ—shing and death broke in upon every part and they underwent that separation of soul and body as we must do Their flesh was turned to rottenness and dust and laid out of the sight of man in darkness and remaineth to this day as common earth All this the Saints in Heaven have undergone This was their case a while ago who are now in glory And this was not only the case of some few but of thousands and millions and that in the most of these particulars even of all that are gone before us unto blessedness It is not we that are tempted first that are persecuted or afflicted first that have sinned first that must die first but all this host hath broke the Ice and are safely past through this Red Sea and are now triumphing in felicity with their Saviour Direct 3. Let Faith next look back and see by what way these Saints have come to this felicity I mean by what means they did overcome and win the Crown And briefly you will find 1. That they all came to Heaven by the Mediation the Sacrifice the meritorious Righteousness of a Redeemer Jesus Christ either as promised or as incarnate none of them were justified by the works of the Law or the Covenant of Innocency 2. That their common way was by Faith Repentance Love and Obedience Not by works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed oâ— us abundently through Christ Titus 3.5 Even by the triple Image of the Divine perfections Power Love and Wisdom 2 Tim. 1.7 They lived soberly righteously and godly in the world and were zealous of good works looking for the blessed hope which they have attained Titus 2.14 15. Knowing that Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ are the summ of saving doctrine and duty Acts 20.21 And that to fear God and keep his Commandments is the whole duty of man Eccles 12.13 And that the end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and of faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 and that Love is the fulfilling of the Law 3. They studied the Word of God or such means of knowing him as God afforded them in order to the attaining and maintaining of these graces Psal 1.2 and sought the Lord with all their hearts while he might be found and called upon him while he was near Isa 55.6 10. And did not presumptuously neglect Gods helps and despise his Word while they trusted for his mercy 4. They lived in a continual conflict against the temptations of the Devil the world and the flesh and in the main did conquer as well as strive They made it their work to mortifie those fleshly lusts which others make it their interest and work to please Gal. 5.17.21 22. 6.14 5. They suffered afflictions and persecutions patiently and being reviled they did not revile They loved their enemies and blest those that curse them and prayed for those that despitefully used and persecuted them Matth. 5.44 45. 1 Cor. 4.11 12 13. 2 Cor. 1.6 7. Heb. 11. They would not accept of deliverance from imprisonment torments and death upon sinning terms 6. They endured to the end and did not fall off and forsake the Covenant of their God Rev. 2. 3. 7. Lastly They did all this by the motive of their hopes of Heaven and by a confidence in the promises of it and in a heavenly mind and conversation as knowing that they did not labour or suffer in vain 1 Cor. 15.58 2 Cor. 4.17 1 Tim. 4.10 Rom. 8.18 Matth. 5.11 2 Thes 1.6 7. Heb. 12.2 This was the way by which the Saints have gone to Heaven the only true successful way Direct 4. Consider next what helps and means God gave them for this work and compare our own with them and see whether ours be not as great 1. We have the same natural capacity as they we are intellectual free agents made for another world and capable of all that they attained There is no difference in our natural faculties 2. We have the same God to shew us mercy 1 Cor. 12.5 There are divers operations but the same God Ephes 4.4 5. There is one God one Lord c. even the Lord over all good to all that call upon him Rom. 10.12 The same mercy which called them and waited on them calleth us even a God who hath no respect of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Acts 10.37 Though he be a free benefactor he is a righteous Judge and he is good to all and the Father of every member of his Son 3. They had the same Saviour as we have the same sacrifice for their sins the same Teacher and the same example the same intercessor with the Father For though there be divers administrations there is the same Lord 1 Cor. 12.5 Ephes 4.4 For other foundation can no man lay than him who is the chief corner stone 1 Cor. 3.11 They all did eat of the same spiritual meat and drank of the same rock as we do which is Christ 1 Cor. 10.3 4. It was the reproach of Christ which Moses in Egypt esteemed better than their treasures Heb. 11.26 The same Physician of souls who hath us in cure did cure all them The same Captain who is conducting us to salvation is he that saved them The same Prince of the Covenant and Lord of life who conquered death and all their enemies hath conquered them for us and is preparing us for life with them They had no greater or better High Priest and Mediator with God than we have 4. They had the same Rule to walk by and the same way to go as all we have Gal. 1.7 8. 6.16 Phil. 3.14 15. The same Gospel and Word of God in the main though under various promulgations and administrations Those before the flood were under the Covenant of the promised seed
to joyn in consort with all these in those seraphick praises which are harmoniously sounded forth continually through all the intellectual world in the greatest fervours of perfect Love and the constant raptures of perfect Joy in the fullest intuition of the glory of the Eternal God and the glorified humanity of your Redeemer and the glory of the celestial world and society and under the streams of Infinite Life and Light and Love poured forth upon you to feed all this to all Eternity And all this in so near and sweet an union with the glorified ones who are the body and Spouse of Christ that it shall be all as one Praise one Love one Joy in all O for a more lively and quick-sighted faith to foresee this day in some measure as affectingly as we shall then see it Alas my Lord is this dark prospect all that I must here hope for Is this dull and dreaming and amazing apprehension all that I shall reach to here Is this sensless heart this despondent mind these drowsie desires the best that I must here employ in the contemplation of so high a glory Must I come in such a sleepy state to God and go as in a dream to the beatifical vision I am ashamed and confounded to find my soul alas so dark so dead so low so unsuitable to such a day and state even whilest I am daily looking towards it and whilest I am daily talking of it and perswading others to higher apprehensions than I can reach my self and even whilest I am writing of it and attempting to draw a Map of Heaven for the consolation of my self and fellow-believers Thou hast convinced my Reason of the truth of thy predictions and of the certain futurity of that glorious day And yet how little do my affections stir and how unanswerable are my joyes and my desires to those convictions when the light of my understanding should cure the deadness of my heart alas this deadness rather extinguisheth that light and cherisheth temptations to unbelief and my faith and reason and knowledge are as it were asleep and useless for want of that Life which should awaken them unto exercise and use Awakened Reason serveth Faith and is alwaies on thy side But sleepy Reason in the gleams of prosperity is ready to give place to flesh and fancy and hath a thousand distracted incoherent dreams O now reveal thy Power thy Truth thy Love and Goodness effectually to my soul and then I shall wait with love and longing for the revelation of thy Glory Thy inward heavenly powerful Light is kin to the glorious brightness of thy coming and will shew me that which books and talk only without thy Spirit cannot shew Thy Kingdom in me and my daily faithful subjection to thy Government there must prepare me for the glorious endless Kingdom If now thou wouldest pour out thy Love upon my soul it would flame up towards thee and long to meet thee and think with daily pleasure on that day And my perfect Love would cast out that fear which maketh the thoughts of thy coming to be a torment O meet me now when my soul doth seek thee and secretly cry after thee that I may know thou wilt meet me with love and pitty at the last O turn not now thine ears from my requests For if thou receive me not now as thy humble supplicant how shall I hope that thou wilt receive me then And if thou wilt not hear me in the day of grace and visitation and in this time when thou mayest be found how can I hope that thou wilt hear me then when the door is shut and the seeking and finding time is past If thou cast me out of thy presence now and turn away thy face from my soul and my supplication as a loathed thing how can I then expect thy smiles or the vital embracements of thy glorifying Love or to be owned by thee before all the world with that cordial and consolatory Justification which may keep my conscience from becoming my Hell If thou permit my flesh and sense to conquer my faith and to turn away my love and desire from thee how shall I then expect that Joy that Heaven which consisteth in thy Love And if thou suffer this unstedfast heart to depart from thee now will it not be the forerunner of that dreadful doom Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not And if for the love of transitory vanity I now deny thee what can I then expect but to be finally denyed by thee Come Lord and dwell by thy Spirit in my soul that I may have something in me to take my part and may know that I shall dwell with thee for ever If now thou wilt make me thy temple and habitatâ—on and wilt dwell by faith and love within me I shall know thee by more than the hearing of the ear and thy last appearing will be less terrible to my thoughts Thou wilt be health to my soul when my body lyeth languishing in pain And when flesh and heart fail my failing heart will find reviving strength in thee And when the portion of worldlings is spent and at an end I shall find thee a never-ending portion Why wouldest thou come down from Heaven to Earth in the daies of thy voluntary humiliation but to bring down grace to dwell where God himself hath dwelt If the Eternal Word will dwell in flesh the Eternal Spirit will not disdain it whose dwelling is not by so close an union but by sweet unexpressible inoperations This world hath had the pledge of thy bodily presence when thou broughtest life and immortality to light O let my dark and fearful soul have the pledge of thy illuminating quickening comforting Spirit that life and immortality may be begun within me Thy word of promise is certain in it self but knowing our weakness thou wilt give us more Thy seal thy pledge thy earnest will not only confirm my faith as settling my doubting mind but it will also draw up my love and desire as suited to my intellectual appetite and will be a true foretaste of Heaven How oft have I gazed in the glass and yet overlookt or not been taken with the beauty of thy face But one drop of thy Love if it fall into my soul will fill it with the most fragrant and delectable odour and will be its life and joy and vigour I shall never know effectually what Heaven is till I know what it is to love thee and to be beloved by thee For what but Love will tell me what a life of Love is If I could love thee more ardently more absolutely more operatively I should quickly know and feel thy Love And O when I shall know that prosperous life and live in in the delicious entertainments of thy love and in the sweet and vigorous exercise of mine then I shall know the nature of Heaven the wisdom of believers and the happiness of enjoyers And then
those things that are not seen Or you may take the sense in this Proposition which I am next to open further and apply viz. That the nature and use of faith is to be as it were instead of presence possession and sight or to make the things that will be as if they were already in existence and the things unseen which God revealeth as if our bodily eyes beheld them 1. Not that faith doth really change its object 2. Nor doth it give the same degree of apprehensions and affections as the sight of present things would do But 1. Things invisible are the objects of our faith 2. And Faith is effectual instead of sight to all these uses 1. The apprehension is as infallible because of the objective certainty though not so satisfactory to our imperfect souls as if the things themselves were seen 2. The will is determined by it in its necessary consent and choice 3. The affections are moved in the necessary dâ—gree 4. It ruleth in our lives and bringeth us through duty and suffering for the sake of the happiness which we believe 3. This Faith is a grounded wise and justifiable act an infallible knowlâ—dge and often called so in Scripture John 6.69 1 Cor. 15.58 Rom. 8.28 c. And the constitutive and efficient causes will justifie the Name We know and are infallibly sure of the truth of God which we believe As it 's said John 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Hâ—avens Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 15.58 You know that your labour is nâ—t in vain in the Lord Joh. 9.29 We knâ—w God spake to Moses c. 31. We know God heareth not sinners John 3.2 We know thou art a Teacher come from God So 1 John 3.5 15. 1 Pet. 3.17 and many other Scriptures tell you that Believing God is a certain infallible sort of knowledge I shall in justification of the work of Faith acquaint you briefly with 1. That in the Nature of it 2. And that in the causing of it which advanceth it to be an infallible knowledge 1. The Believer knows as sure as he knows there is a God that God is true and his Word is true it being impossible for God to lie Hâ—b 6.18 God that cannot lie hath promised Titus 1.2 2. He knows that the holy Scripture is the Word of God by his Image which it beareth and the many evidences of Divinity which it containeth and the many Miracles certainly proved which Christ and his Spirit in his servants wrought to confirm the truth 3. And therefore he knoweth assuredly the conclusion that all this Word of God is true And for the surer effecting of this knowledge God doth not only set before us the ascertaining Evidence of his own veracity and the Scriptures Divinity but moreover 1. He giveth us to believe Phil. 1.29 2 Pet. 1.3 For it is not of our selves but is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 By the drawing of the Father we come to the Son And he that hath knowledge given from Heaven will certainly know and he that hath Faith given him from Heaven will certainly believe The heavenly Light will dissipate our darkness and infallibly illuminate Whilest God sets before us the glass of the Gospel in which the things invisible are revealed and also gives us eye sight to behold them Believers must needs be a heavenly people as walking in that light which proceedeth from and leadeth to the celestial everlasting Light 2. And that Faith may be so powerful as to serve instead of sight and presence Believers have the Spirit of Christ within them to excite and actuate it and help them against all temptations to unbelief and to work in them all other graces that concur to promote the works of Faith and to mortifie those sins that hinder our believing and are contrary to a heavenly life So that as the exercise of our sight and taste and hearing and feeling is caused by our natural life so the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love upon things unseen is caused by the holy Spirit which is the principle of our new life 1 Cor. 2.12 We have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are given us of God This Spirit of God acquainteth us with God with his veracity and his Word Heb. 10.30 We know him that hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee This Spirit of Christ acquainteth us with Christ and with his grace and will 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12. This heavenly Spirit acquainteth us with Heaven so that We know that when Christ appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 And we know that he was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.5 And will perfect his work and present us spotless to his Father Eph. 5.26 27. This heavenly Spirit possesseth the Saints with such heavenly dispositions and desires as much facilitate the work of Faith It bringeth us to a heavenly conversation and maketh us live as fellow-citizens of the Saints and in the houshold of God Phil. 3.20 Eph. 2.19 It is within us a Spirit of supplication breathing heaven-ward with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit so the Spirit knows the mind of God Rom. 8.37 1 Cor. 2.11 3. And the work of Faith is much promoted by the spiritual experiences of Believers When they find a considerable part of the holy Scriptures verified on themselves it much confirmeth their Faith as to the whole They are really possessed of that heavenly disposition called The Divine Nature and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts renewing them to the Image of God mortifying their most dear and strong corruptions shewing them a greater beauty and desirableness in the Objects of Faith than is to be found in sensible things They have found many of the Promises made good upon themselves in the answers of prayers and in great deliverances which strongly perswadeth them to believe the rest that are yet to be accomplished And experience is a very powerful and satisfying way of conviction He that feeleth as it were the first fruits the earnest and the beginnings of Heaven already in his soul will more easily and assuredly believe that there is a Heaven hereafter We know that the Son of God iâ— come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.20 He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself Vers 10. There is so
they become the heirs of that Righteousness which is by faith and condemn the unbelieving careless world that take not the warning and use not the remedy By this time you may see that the Life of Faith is quite another thing than the lifeless opinion of multitudes that call themselves believers To say I believe there is a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell is as easie as it is common But the faith of the ungodly is but an uneffectual dream To dream that you are fighting wins no victories To dream that you are eating gets no strength To dream that you are running ridâ— no ground To dream that you are plowing or sowing or reaping procureth but a fruitless harvest And to dream that you are Princes may consist with beggery If you do any more than dream of Heaven and Hell how is it that you stir not and make it not appear by the diligence of your lives and the fervour of your duties and the seriousness of your endeavours that such wonderful unexpressible over-powering things are indeed the matters of your belief As you love your souls take heed lest you take an image of faith to be the thing it self Faith sets on work the powers of the soul for the obtaining of that joy and the escaping of that misery which you believe But the image of faith in self-deceivers neither warms nor works it conquereth no difficulties it stirs not up to faithful duty It 's blind and therefore seeth not God and how then should he be feared and loved Iâ— seeth not Hell and therefore the senseless soul goes on as fearlesly and merrily to the unquenchable fire as if he were in the safest way This image of faith annihilateth the most potent objects as to any due impression on the soul God is as no God and Heaven as no Hâ—aven to these imaginary Christians If a Prince be in the room an image reverenceth him not If musick and feasting be there an image finds no pleasure in them If fire and sword be there an image fears them not You may perceive by the senseless neglectful carriage of ungodly men that they see not by faith the God that they should love and fear the Heaven that they should seek and wait for or the Hell that they should with all possible care avoid He is indeed the true Believer that allowing the difference of degrees doth pray as if he saw the Lord and speak and live as alwaies in his presence and redeem his time as if he were to die to morrow or as one that seeth death approach and ready to lay hands upon him that begs and cries to God in prayer as one that foreseeth the day of judgement and the endless joy or misery that followeth that bestirreth him for everlasting life as one that seeth Heaven and Hell by the eye of faith Faith is a serious apprehension and causeth a serious conversation for it is instead of sight and presence From all this you may easily and certainly infer 1. That true faith is a Jewel rare and precious and not so common as nominal careless Christians think What say they Are we not all believers will you make Infidels of all that are not Saints are none Christians but those that live so strictly Answer I know they are not Infidels by profession but what they are indeed and what God will take them for you may soon perceive by comparing the description of faith with the inscription legible on their lives It 's common to say I do believe but is it common to find men pray and live as those that do believe indeed It is both in works of charity and of piety that a living faith will shew it self I will not therefore contend about the name If you are ungodly unjust or uncharitable and yet will call your selves Believers you may keep the name and see whether it will save you Have you forgotten how this case is determined by the holy Ghost himself James 2.14 c. What doth it profit my Brethren if a man say he hath faith and hath not works Can faith save him Faith if it hath not works is dead being alone Thou believest that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble If such a belief be it that thou gloriest in it 's not denyed thee But wilt thou know oh vain man that faith without works is dead c. Is there life where there is no motion Had you that Faith that is instead of sight it would make you more solicitous for the things unseen than you are for the visible trifles of this world 2. And hence you may observe that most true Believers are weak in Faith Alas how far do we all fall short of the love and zeal and care and diligence which we should have if we had but once beheld the things which we do believe Alas how dead are our affections how flat are our duties how cold and how slow are our endeavours how unprofitable are our lives in comparison of what one hours sight of Heaven and Hell would make them be O what a comfortable converse would it be if I might but joyn in prayer praise and holy conference one day or hour with a person that had seen the Lord and been in Heaven and born a part in the Angelical Praises Were our Congregations composed of such persons what manner of worship would they perform to God How unlike would their heavenly ravishing expressions be to these our sleepy heartless duties Were Heaven open to the view of all this Congregation while I am speaking to you or when we are speaking in prayer and praise to God imagine your selves what a change it would make upon the best of us in our services What apprehensions what affections what resolutions it would raise and what a posture it would cast us all into And do we not all profess to believe these things as revealed from Heaven by the infallible God Do we not say that such a Divine Revelation is as sure as if the things were in themselves laid open to our sight Why then are we no more affected with them Why are we no more transported by them Why do they no more command our souls and stir up our faculties to the most vigorous and lively exercise and call them off from things that are not to us considerable nor fit to have one glance of the eye of our observation nor a regardful thought nor the least affection unless as they subserve these greater things When you observe how much in your selves and others the frame of your souls in holy duty and the tenour of your lives towards God and man do differ from what they would be if you had seen the things that you believe let it mind you of the great imperfection of faith and humble us all in the sense of our imbâ—cility For though I know that the most perfect Faith is not apt to raise such high affections in
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aâ—â—ess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ— condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâ—lieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâ—th on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ— your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you
grace and therefore he is an heir of Hâ—ll and belongs to me I ruled him and I must have him What would you think of a life of sin if once you had heard such accusations as these How would you deal by the next temptation if you had heard what use the tempter will hereafter make of all your sins 7. What if you had seen the damned in their misery and heard them cry out of the folly of their â—mpenitent careless lives and wishing as Dives Luke 16. that their friends on earth might have one sent from the dead to warn them that they come not to that place of torment I speak to men that say they are believers what would you do upon such a fight If you had heard them there torment themselves in the remembrance of the time they lost the mercy they neglected the grace resisted and wish it were all to do again and that they might once more be tried with another life If you saw how the world is altered with those that once were as proud and confident as others what do you think such a sight would do with you And why then doth the believing of it do no more when the â—hâ—ng is certain 8. Once more suppose that in your temptations you saw the tempter appearing to you and pleading with you as he doth by his inward suggestions or by the mouths of his instruments If you saw him and heard him hâ—ssing you on to sin perswading you to gluttony drunkenness or uncleanâ—ess If the Devil appeared to you and led you to the place of lust and offered you the harlot or the cup of excess and urged you to swear or curse or raâ—l or scorn at a holy life would not the sight of the Angler maâ— his gâ—me and 〈◊〉 your courage and spoil your sport and turn your stomâ—chs would you be drunk or filthy if you saw him stand by you Think on it the next tâ—me you are tempted Stout men have been apaled by such a sight And do you not believe that it 's he indeed that tempteth you As sure as if your eyes behâ—ld hâ—m â—t's he that prompteth men to â—â—er at godâ—iness and puts your wanton ribbald speeches and oaths and curses into yoâ—r mouths He is the Tutor of the enemies of grace that teacheth them docâ—è delâ—rare ingeniosè insanire ingeniously to quarrel with the way of life and learnedly to confute the arguments that would have saved them and subtilly to dispute themselves out of the hands of mercy and gallantly to scorn to stoop to Christ till there be no remedy and with plausible eloquence to commend the plague and sickness of their souls and irrefragâ—bly maintain it that the way to Hell will lead to Heaven and to justifie the sins that will condemn them and honourably and triumphantly to overcome their friends and to serve the Devil in mood and figâ—â—re and valiantly to cast themselves into Hell in despite of all the laws and reproofs of God or man that would have hindered them It being most certain that this is the Dâ—vils work and you durst not do it if he moved you to it with open face how dare you do it when faith would assure you that it 's as veriâ—y he as if you saw him More distinctly answâ—r these following Questions upon the foregoing suppositions Qâ—est 1. If you saw but what you say you do believe would you not be convinced that the most pleasant gainful sin is worse than madness and would you not spit at the very name of it and openly cry out of your open folly and beg for prayers and love reprovers and resolve to turn without delay Quest 2. What would you think of the most serious holy life if you had seen the things that you say you do believe would you ever again reproach it as preciseness or count it more ado than needs and think your time were better spent in playing than in praying in drinking and sports and filthy lusts than in the holy services of the Lord would you think then that one day in seven were too much for the work for which you live and that an hour on this holy day were enough to be spent in instructing you for eternity Or would you not believe that he is the blessed man whose delight is in the Law of God and meditateth in it day and night Could you plead for sensuality or ungodly negligence or open your mouths against the most serious holiness of life if Heaven and Hell stood open to your view Quest 3. If you saw but what you say you do believe would you ever again be offended with the Ministers of Christ for the plainest reproofs and closest exhortations and strictest precepts and discipline that now are disrelished so much Or rather would you not desire them to help you presently to try your states and to search you to the quick and to be more solicitous to save you than to please you The patient that will take no bitter medicine in time when he sees he must die would then take any thing When you see the things that now you hear of then you would do any thing O then might you have these daies again Sermons would not be too plain or long In season and out of season would then be allowed of Then you would understand what moved Ministers to be so importunate with you for conversion and whether trifling or serious preaching was the best Quest 4. Had you seen the things that you say you do believe what effect would Sermons have upon you after such a sight â—s this O what a change it would make upon our preaching and your hearing if we saw the things that we speak and hear of How fervently should we importune you in the name of Christ How attentively would you hear and carefully consider and obey we should then have no such sleepy preaching and hearing as now we have Could I but shew to all this Congregation while I am preaching the invisible world of which we preach and did you hear with Heaven and Hell in your eye sight how confident should I be though not of the saving change of all that I should this hour teach you to plead for sin and against a holy life no more and send you home another people than you came hither I durst then ask the worst that heareth me Dare you now be drunk or gluttonous or worldly dare you be voluptuous proud or fornicators any more Dare you go home and make a jest at piety and neglect your souls as you have done And why then should not the believed truth prevail if indeed you did believe it when the thing is as sure as if you saw it Quest 5. If you had seen what you say you do believe would you hunt as eagerly for wealth or honour and regard the thoughts or words of men as you did before Though it 's only the Believer that truly honoureth his Rulers for none else honour
wonder that such men can believe themselves when they say they do indeed believe the Gospel And shews what a monster the blind deceitful heart of an impenitent sinner is In good sadness can they think that they truly believe that God is God and yet so wilfully disobey him that Heaven is Heaven and yet prefer the world before it that Hell is Hell and yet will venture upon it for a lust or a thing of nought What! believe that there is at hand a life of endless joy and no more mind it but hate them that set their hearts upon it Do they believe that except a man be converted and new born he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ hath told them Matth. 18.3 John 3.3 5. and yet never trouble their minds about it to try whether they are converted and new born or not Do they believe God that no man shall see him without holiness Heb. 12.14 and yet dare they be unholy and perhaps deride it Do they believe that Christ will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 2.8 9. and yet dare they disobey the Gospel Do they take God for their absolute Lord and Governour while they will not so much as meditate on his Laws but care more what a mortal man saith or what their flesh and carnal reason saith than what he saith to them in his holy Word Do they take Christ for their Saviour and yet would not be saved by him from their sins but had rather keep them Do they take the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier while they will not have a sanctified heart or life and love it not in those that have it Do they take Heaven for their endless home and happiness while they neither mind nor seek it in comparison of the world And do they take the world for vanity and vexation while they mind and seek it more than Heaven Do they believe the communion of Saints while they fly from it and perhaps detest and persecute it Is light and darkness more contrary than their words and deeds And is not HYPOCRISIE as visible in their practice as Christianity in their profession It is the complexion of their Religion HYPOCRITE is legibly written in the forehead of it They proclaim their shame to all that they converse with When they have said they believe the life to come they tell men by your ungodly worldly lives that they are dissemblers When their tongue hath loudly said that they are Christians their tongue and hand more loudly say that they are Hypocrites And when they profess their Faith but now and then in a lifeless outside piece of worship they profess their Hypocrisie all the day long in their impious neglect of God and their salvation in their carnal speeches in their worldly lives and in their enmity to the practice of the same Religion which they profess Their Hypocrisie is a web so thin and so transparent that it leaves their nakedness open to their shame They have not Profession enough to make a considerable cover for their unbelief They hide but their tongues the rest even heart and all is bare O the stupendious power of self love the wonderful blindness and stupidity of the ungodly the dreadfulness of the judgement of God in thus dâ—serting the wâ—lful resisters of his grace That ever men in other things of seeming wisdom should be such strangers to themselves and so deceived by themselves as to think they love the thing they hate and to think that their hearts are set upon Heaven when they neither love it nor the way that leadeth to it but are principally bent another way that when they arâ— strangers or enemies to a holy life they can yet make themselves believe that they are holy and that they seek that first which they never seek and make that the drift and business of their lives which was never the serious business of an hour O Hypocrites ask any impartial man of reason that sees your lives and hears your prayers whether you pray and live like men that believe that Heaven or Hell must be their reward Ask your families whether they perceive by your constant prayer and diligent endeavours and holy conversations that your hearts are set on a life to come It was a cutting answer of a late Apostate to one that told him of the unreasonableness of Infidels that denyed the life to come saith he There 's none in the world so unreasonable as you Christians that believe that there is an endless life of joy or misery to come and do no more to obtain the one and escape the other Did I believe such a life as this I would think all too little that I could do or suffer to make it sure Who sees the certainty greatness and eternity of the Crown of Life in the resolvedness fervency and constancy of your holy labour You take up with the picture of Sermons and Prayers and with the name of Christianity and holy obedience A little more Religion you will admit than a Parrot may learn or a Poppet may exercise Compare your care and labour and cost for Heaven and for this world That you believe the flattering deceitful world we see by your daily solicitousness about it You seek it you strive for it you fall out with all that stand in your way you are at it daily and have never done But who can see that you seriously believe another world you talk idly and wantonly and proudly by the hours but you talk of Heaven and holiness but by the minutes You do not turn the glass when you go to your unnecessary recreations or your vain discourse or at least you can stay when the glass is run But in hearing the most necessary truths of God or in praying for everlasting life the hour seems long to you and the tedious Preacher is your weariness and molestation You do not feast and play by the glass but if we do not preach and pray by it exactly but exceed our hour though in speaking of and for eternity we are your burden and put your languid patience to it as if we were doing you some intollerable wrong In worldly matters you are weary of giving but seldom of receiving you grudge at the asker but seldom at the giver But if the gift be spiritual and heavenly you are a weary to hear talk of it and expostulate the case with him that offereth it and he must shew by what authority he would do you good If by serious holy conference he would further your preparations for the life to come or help you to make sure of life eternal he is examined what power he hath to meddle with you and promote your salvation And perhaps he is snappâ—shly told he is a
busie sawcy fellow and you bid him meddle with his own matters and let you speed as you can and keep his compassion and charity for himself you give him no thanks for his undesired help The most laborious faithful servant you like best that will do you the most work with greatest skill and care and diligence But the most laborious faithful instructer and watchman for your souls you most ungratefully vilifie as if he were more busie and precise than needs and were upon some unprofitable work and you love a superficial hypocritical Ministry that teacheth you but to complement with Heaven and leads you such a dance of comical outside hypocritical worship as is agreeable to your own hypocrisie And thus when you are mocking God you think you worship him and merit Heaven by the abuse Should a Mâ—nister or other friend be but half as earnest with you for the life of your immortal souls as you are your selves for your estates or friends or lives in any danger you would take them for Fanaticks and perhaps do by them as his carnal friends did once by Christ Mark 3.21 that went out to lay hold on him and said He is beside himself For trifles you account it wisdom to be serious but for everlasting things you account it folly or to be more busie and soliciâ—ous than needs You can believe an act of pardon and indempnity from man when as you are little solicitous about a pardon from God to whose Justice you have forfeited your souls and if a man be but earnest in begging his pardon and praying to be saved from everlasting misery you scorn him because he does it without book and say he whines or speaks through the nose forgetting that we shall have you one of these daies as earnest in vain as they are that shall prevail for their salvation and that the terrible approach of death and judgement shall teach you also to pray without book and cry Lord Lord open to us when the door is shut and it 's all too late Mat. 25.11 O Sirs had you but a lively serious foreseeing faith that openeth Heaven and Hell as to your sight what a cure would it work of this Hypocrisie 1. Such a sight would quicken you from your sloth and put more life into your thoughts and words and all that you attempt for God 2. Such a sight would soon abate your pride and humble you before the Lord and make you see how short you are of what you should be 3. Such a sight would dull the edge of your covetous desires and shew you that you have greater things to mind and another kind of world than this to seek 4. Such a sight would make you esteem the temptations of mens reports but as the shaking of a leaf and their allurements and threats as impertinent speeches that would cast a feather or a fly into the ballance against a mountain or against the world 5. Such a sight would allay the itch of lust and quench the drunkards insatiable thirst and turn your gulosity into moderation and abstinence and acquaint you with a higher sort of pleasures that are durable and worthy of a man 6. Such a sight would cure your desire of pastime and shew you that you have no time to spare when all is done that necessity and everlasting things require 7. Such a sight would change your relish of Gods Ordinances and esteem of Ministers and teach you to love and savour that which is spiritual and serious rather than hypocritical strains and shews It would teach you better how to judge of Sermons and of Prayers than unexperienced minds will ever do 8. Such a sight would cure your malignity against the waies and diligent servants of the Lord and instead of opposing them it would make you glad to be among them and fast and pray and watch and rejoyce with them and better to understand what it is to believe the communion of Saints In a word did you but see what God reveals and Saints believe and must be seen I would scarce thank you to be all as serious and solicitous for your souls as the holiest man alive and presently to repent and lament the folly of your negligence and delaies and to live as men that know no other work to mind in comparison of that which extendeth to eternity I would scarce thank the proudest of you all to lie down in the dust and in sackcloth and ashes with tears and cryes to beg the pardon of those sins which before you felt no weight in Nor the most sensual wretch that now sticks so close to his ambition covetousness and lust that he saith he cannot leave them to spit them out as loathsome bitterness and be ashamed of them as fruitless things You would then say to the most godly that now seem too precise O why do you not make more haste and lay hold on Heaven with greater violence why do you pray with no more fervency and bear witness against the sins of the world with no more undaunted courage and resolution and why do you not more freely lay out your time and strength and wealth and all that you have on the work of God Is Heaven worth no more ado than this Can you do no more for an endless life and the escaping of the wrath to come Shall worldlings over-do you These would be your thoughts on such a sight CHAP. II. Vse of Exhortation WHat now remains but that you come into the light and beg of God as the Prophet for his servant 2 King 6.17 to open your eyes that you may see the things that would do so much That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give you the spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints Ephes 1.17 18. O set those things continually before your eyes that must forever be before them Look seriously into the infallible word and whatsoever that fore-tells believe it as if it were come to pass The unbelief of Gods threatnings and penal Laws is the perdition of souls as well as the unbelief of Promises God giveth not false fire when he dischargeth the Canons of his terrible comminations If you fall not down you shall find that the lightening is attended with the thunder and execution will be done before you are aware If there were any doubt of the things unseen yet you know it is past all doubt that there 's nothing else that 's durable and worthy of your estimation and regard You must be Knights and Gentlemen but a little while speak but a few words more and you 'l have spoke your last When you have slept a few nights more you must sleep till the Resurrection awake you as to the flesh Then where are your pleasant habitations and contents
your honours and attendance Is a day that is spent or a life that is â—xtinct any thing or nothing Is there any sweetness in a feast that was eaten or drink that was drunk or time that was spent in sports and mirth a year ago Certainly a known vanity should not be preferred before a probable endless joy But when we have certainty as well as excellency and eternity to set against certain transitory vanity what room is left for further deliberation whether we should prefer the Sun before a squib or a flash of lightening that suddenly leaves us in the dark one would think should be an easie question to resolve Up then and work while it is day and let us run and strive with all our might Heaven is at hand as sure as if you saw it You are certain you can be no losers by the choice You part with nothing for all things you escape the tearing of your heart by submitting to the scratching of a bryer You that will bear the opening of a vein for the cure of a Feaver and will not forbear a necessary Journey for the barking of a Dog or the blowing of the wind O leap not into Hell to scape the stinking breath of a scorner Part not with God with Conscience and with Heaven to save your purses or your flesh Chuse not a merry way to misery before a prudent sober preparation for a perfect everlasting joy You would not prefer a merry cup before a Kingdom You would let go a lâ—sser delight or commodity for a greater here Thus a greater sin can forbid the exercise of a less And shall not endless joy weigh down a brutish lust or pleasure If you love pleasure take that which is true and full and durable For all that he calleth you to Repentance and Mortification and necessary strictness there is none that 's more for your pleasure and delight than God or else he would not offer you the rivers of pleasure that are at his right hand nor himself to be your perpetual delight If you come into a room where are variety of pictures and one is gravely reading or meditating and another with a cup or harlot in his hand is profusely laughing with a gaping grining mouth would you take the latter or the former to be the picture of a wise and happy man Do you approve of the state of those in Heaven and do you like the way that brought them thither If not why speak you of them so honourably and why would you keep holy-daies in remembrance of them If you do examine the sacred records and see whether the Apostles and others that are now honoured as glorified Saints did live as you do or rather as those that you think are too precise Did they spend the day in feasting and sports and idle talk Did they swagger it out in pride and wealth hate their brethren that were not in all things of their conceits Did they come to Heaven by a worldly formal hypocritical ceremonious Religion or by faith and love and self-denial and unwearied labouring for their own and other mens salvation while they became the wonder and the scorn of the ungodly and as the off-scouring and refuse of the world Do you like holiness when it is for from you in a dead man that never troubled you with his presence or reproofs or in a Saint in Heaven that comes not near you Why then do you not like it for your selves If it be good the nearer the better Your own health and your own wealth do comfort you more than another mans And so would your own holiness if you had it If you would speed as they that are now beholding the face of God believe and live and wait as they did And as the righteous God did not forget their work and labour of love for his Name so he will remember you with the same reward if you shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end and be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the Promises Heb. 6.10 11 12. O did you but see what they now enjoy and what they see and what they are and what they do you would never sure scorn or persecute a Saint more If you believe you see though not as they with open face If you believe not yet it is not your unbelief that shall make Gods Word of none effect Rom. 3.3 God will be God if you be Atheists Christ will be Christ if you be Infidels Heaven will be Heaven if you by despising it go to Hell Judgement sleepeth not when you sleep I'ts coming as fast when you laugh at it or question it as if your eyes were open to foresee it If you would not believe that you must die do you think that this would delay your death one year or hour If ten or twenty years time more be allotted you it passeth as swiftly and death and judgement come as surely if you spend it in voluptuousness and unbelief as if you watcht and waited for your change We preach not to you Ifs and And 's It is not perhaps there is a Heaven and Hell But as sure as you are here and must anon go hence you must as shortly quit this world and take up your abode in the world that 's now to us invisible And no tongue can express how sensible you will then be of the things that you will not now be made sensible of O then with what a dreadful view will you look before you and behind you Behind you upon Time and say It is gone and never will return and hear conscience ask you How you spent it and what you did with it Before you upon Eternâ—ty and say It is come and to the ungodly will be an Eternity of woe What a peal will conscience then ring in the unbelievers ears Now the day is come that I was forewarned of the day and change which I would not believe whither must I now go what must I now do what shall I say before the Lord for all the sin that I have wilfully committed for all the time of mercy which I lost How shall I answer my contempt of Christ my neglect of means and enmity to a holy serious life What a distracted wretch was I to condemn and dislike them that spent their lives in preparation for this day when now I would give a thousand worlds to be but one of the meanest of them O that the Church doors and the door of grace were open to me now as once they were when I refused to enter Many a time did I hear of this day and would not believe or soberly consider of it Many a time was I intreated to prepare and I thought an hypocritical trifling shew would have been taken for a sufficient prepâ—â—â—tion Now who must be my companions How long must I dwell with woe and horrour God by his Ministers was wont to call to
shall fit or what weather Lunatick influences and aspects shall produce Such a Faith will make you with Abraham to turn your back on all and engage in Pilgrimage for an inheritance after to be received though he knew not whither he went with a distinct particular knowledge Heb. 11.8 As strangers and travellers you will not be troubled to leave towns and fields buildings and â—â—alth and walks behind you as knowing that you were 〈◊〉 â—ass by them desiring and seeking a better that is an heavenly And you shall lose nothing by this passing by all in the world For God will not be ashamed to be called your God and he hath prepared for you a City Heb. 11.13 16. Seriously respect the recompence of reward and it will make you chuse rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the world v. 25 26. Stephen's sight would cause Stephen's patience Hold on as Christians the end is near Let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds Heb. 12.2 3. You may well endure the buffeting and scorn if you foresee the honour You may well endure the Crown of Thorns if you foresee the Crown of Glory You may endure to be forsaken of all if you see him that will never fail you nor forsake you This foretaste of the Rivers of pleasure with the Lord will drown the taste of the Vinegar and Gall. Whine not like worldlings that have lost their portion when you are stript as bare as Job If you are true Believers you have All still for God is All You have lost Nothing for Faith hath made the world as Nothing to you And will you whine and vex your self for Nothing Can you call it Nothing so frequently and easily in your prayers and ordinary speech and do you now recall this or tell us by your serious grief that you speak but in hypocrisie and jeast Frangitur nemo molestiâ adversorum qui non capitur delectatione prosperorum August Had there been less Idolatrous Love there would have been less tormenting grief and care Our life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that we possess He is not happy that hath them but he that neither needeth nor desireth them Cum in his quae homines eripiunt optant custodiunt nihil inveneris non dico quod malis sed quod velis Sen. Superfluity doth but burden and break down The Corn that 's too rank lodgeth and the branches break that are overladen with fruit Omnia quae superfluunt nocent segetem nimia sternit ubâ—â—tas rami onere franguntur ad maturitatem non pervenit faecunditas Idem quoque animis evenit quos immoderata prosperitas rumpit quia non tantum in aliorum injuriam sed etiam in suam utuntur Sen. It 's pleasure and not pain that is the worlds most deadly sting It hath never so much hurt us as when it hath flattered us into delights or hopes Et fera piscis spe aliqua oblectante decipitur Sen. Hope is the bait prosperity and pleasure the net that souls are ordinarily ensnared by Men lose not their souls for poverty but for riches nor for dishonour but for honour nor for sorrow but for delight Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis The luxuriances of prosperity bring us so frequently under the pruning hook The surfeits and summer fruits of fulness and carnal contentments and delights do put us to the trouble of our sicknesses and our Physick How hardly shall rich men enter into Heaven saith he that well knew who should enter Saith Aâ—gustine Difficile immo impossibile est ut praesentibus futuris quis fruatur bonis ut hic ventrem ibi mentem impleaâ— ut à deliciu ad delicias transeat in utroque seculo primus sâ—t ut in terrâ in coelo appareat gloriosus The hope is that with God such humane impossibilities are possible But it 's more terrible than desirable to be put upon so great a difficulty Sweet dishes will have waspâ— and flies but most of them are drowned in their delights Saith Boetius of Prosperity and Adversity Iâ—â—a fallit haec instruit illa mendacium specie bonorum mentes fruentium ligat haec cogitatione fragilis faelicitatis absolvit Itaque illam videas ventrosam fluentem suique semper ignaram hanc sobriam succinctamque ac ipsius adversitatis exercitatione prudentem A full meal seems best in the eating but a light meal is better the next day More thank God in Heaven for adversity than for prosperity And more in Hell cry out of the fruit of prosperity than of adversity Many did never look towards Heaven till affliction cast them on their backs so that they could look no other way It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes saith David Psal 119.71 Before I was afflicted I went astray v. 67. In very faithfulness thou hast afflicted me v. 75. One sight of Heaven by faith will force you to reckon that the sufferings of this present time are unworthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 To suffer for Christ and righteousness sake is but to turn an unavoidable fruitless pain into that which being voluntary is the more easie and hath a great reward in Heaven Matth. 5.11 12. And to part with that for a Crown of Life which else we must part with for nothing Worldly friends and wealth and honour are summer fruit that will quickly fall Hungry fowl know where it's harvest At simul intonuit fugiunt Those that must dwell with you in Heaven are your sure and stedfast friends Caetera fortunae c. Those that are now highest and least acquainted with the tongue of malice the unfaithfulness of friends or rage of enemies shall shortly say Atque haec exempliâ— quondam collecta priorum Nunc mihi sunt propriis cognita vera malis There is but the difference of an Est and an Erit between their mirth and endless sorrows Their honour and their endless shame nor between our sorrow and our endless joy Their final honour is to be embalmed and their dust to be covered with a sumptuous monument and their names extolled by the mouths of men that little know how poor a comfort all this is to the miserable soul In the height of their honour you may foresee the Chyrurgion opening their bowels and shewing the receptacles of the treasure of the Epicure and what remains of the price that he received for his betrayed
increase the flame And Satan hath still the bellows in his hand He knoweth that if he can corrupt or win the Commander he can rout the Army and ruine them with the greatest ease It hath been Satans grand design since the Christian name was known on earth to advance the selfish interest of men against the interest of Christ and to entangle the Rulers of the world in some cause that Christ and his Word and Servants cannot favour and so to make them believe that there is a necessity on them to watch against and subdue the interest of Christ As if it were necessary that the shore be brought to the boat and not the boat to the shore And that the Physician be brought to the Patients mind or else destroyed or used as his enemy I am afraid to speak out the terrible words of God in Scripture that are against such persons lest you should misunderstand me and think I misapply them But Christ feareth no man and hath not spoken his Word in vain and his Messengers must be faithful for he will bear them out and preventive cautions are easier and safer than reprehensive corrasives I will but refer you to the texts that you may peruse them Matth. 21.44 Matth. 18.3.6 Matth. 25.40 45. Luke 18.7 Psal 2. Luke 19.27 Acts 9.4 5. 1 Thess 2.15 16. Read them with fear as the Words of God Blessed are those Rulers and Nations of the Earth that perceive and escape this pernicious snare of the grand deceiver that with all his subtilty and industry endeavoureth to breed quarrels and sow dissentions between them and the universal King The more God giveth to the carnal and unwise the more they think themselves engaged against him because by his commands he seems to take it from them again by crossing the flesh which would use it only to fulfil its lusts Like a Dog that fawneth on you till he have his bone and then snarleth at you lest you take it from him and will fly in your face if you offer to meddle with it Men readily confess that they have their wealth from God because it cannot be denyed and because they would use the name of God as a cover to hide their covetousness and unlawful waies of getting But if you judge by their usage of it and their returns to God you would think that they believed that they had nothing at all from God but some injuries and that all their benefits and good were from themselves The Turkish and Tartarian Emperour will say that all his grandeur and power is from God that by making it most Divine he may procure the more reverence and obedience to himself But when he hath said so for his own interest he useth the same power against God and his interest to the banishing of his Word and holy Worship and the forbidding the preaching of the Gospel of salvation and to the cherishing of tyranny pride and lust As if God had armed them against himself and made his Officers to be his enemies and gave them power that they might powerfully hinder mens salvation and made great to be great oppressors As a believing Pastor is a Priest that standeth between God and the people to mediate under the great Mediatour to receive from God his Word and Ordinances and deliver them to the flocks and to offer up supplications in their names to God So believing Governours of civil Societies or Families receive from God a power to rule the subjects for their good and they use it to make the subjects good that God may be pleased and honoured by all And the obedience which they require is such as may be given to God in them They take power from God to use it for God and are so much more excellent than the greatest of ambitious carnal Princes as the pleasing and honouring of God is a more excellent design and work than the gratifying of fleshly lust and the advancement of a lump of clay The Kingdoms of the world would all be used as the Kingdoms of the Lord if the everlasting Kingdom were well believed The families of men would be sanctified as Churches unto God if the eternal house not made with hands were truly taken for their home and their trade were to lay up a treasure in Heaven In Cities and Countries Brethren would dwell in holy peace and all concur in honouring God if once they were made fellow Citizens with the Saints and their Burgeship and conversation were in Heaven Ephes 2.19 Phil. 3.20 21. 6. Resist Temptations as Believers If you live by Faith then fight against the world and flesh by Faith Faith must be your helmet and the Word of Faith must be your shield Eph. 6.16 And your victory it self must be by Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 If Satan tell the flesh of the preferment riches or the pleasures of lust answer him with a believing foresight of Gods Judgement and the life to come Never look on the baits of sin alone but still look at once on God and on Eternity As a just Judge will hear both parties speak or see their evidences before he will determine So tell the Tempter that as you have heard what fleshly allurements can say you will see also what the Word of God saith and take a view of Heaven and Hell and then you will answer him 7. Rejoyce as Believers Can Faith set open the windows of the soul and no light of heavenly pleasures enter Can it peruse the Map of the Land of Promise or see and taste the bunch of Grapes without any sweetness to the soul That is the truest Belief of Heaven which maketh men likest those that are in Heaven And what is their character work and portion but the Joyes of Heavenly Light and Love Can we believe that we shall live in Heaven for ever Can we believe that very shortly we shall be there and not rejoyce in such believing I know we commonly say that the uncertainty of our proper title is the cause of all our want of joy But if that were all if that were the first and greatest cause and our belief of the promise it self were lively we should at least set our hearts on Heaven as the most delightful and desirable state and Love would work by more eager desires and diligent seekings till it had reacht assurance and cast out the hinderances of our joy How much would a meer Philosopher rejoyce if he could find out natural evidence of so much as we know by Faith You may perceive what their content in finding it would be by their excâ—eding pains in seeking The unwearied studies by day and night which many of them used with the contempt of the riches and greatness of the world do tell us how glad they would have been to have seen but half so far as we may If they could but discover more clearly and certainly the principles and elements and forms of Beings the nature of spirits the causes of motion
it And this is it which we call Sanctification or Holiness to the Lord. And our cohabitation and relation to men will tell us that Justice and Charity are our duty as to them And when a man is fully satisfied that Holiness Justice and Charity are our duty he hath a great advantage for his progress towards the Christian Faith To which let me add that as to our selves also it is undeniably our duty to take more care for our souls than for our bodies and to rule our senses and passions by our Reason and to subject our lower faculties to the higher and so to use all sensible and present things as conduceth to the publick good and to the advancement of our nobler part and to our greatest benefit though it cross our sensual appetites All this being unquestionably our natural duty we see that man was made to live in Holiness Justice Charity Temperance and rational regularity in the world 5. When you have gone thus far consider next how far men are generally from the performance of this duty And how backward humane nature is to it even while they cannot deny it to be their duty And you will soon perceive that God who made it their duty did never put in them this enmity thereto nor ever made them without some aptitude to perform it And if any would infer that their indisposednâ—ss proveth it to be none of their duty the nature of man will fully confute him and the conscience and confession of all the sober part of the world What wretch so blind if he believe a Deity who will not confess that he should love God with all his heart and that Justice Charity and Sobriety are his duty and that his sense should be ruled by his reason c The evidence before given is not to be denyed And therefore something is marr'd in nature Some enemy hath seduced man And some deplorable change hath befallen him 6. Yea if you had no great backwardness to this duty your self consider what it must cost you faithfully to perform it in such a malignant world as we now live in what envy and wrath what malice and persecution what opposition and discouragements on every side we must expect Universal experience is too full a proof of this Besides what it costeth our restrained flesh 7. Proceed then to think further that certainly God hath never appointed us so much duty without convenient Motives to perform it It cannot be that he should make us more noble than the brutes to be more miserable Or that he should make Holiness our duty that it might be our loss or our calamity If there were no other life but this and men had no hopes of future happiness nor any fears of punishment what a Hell would this world be Heart-wickedness would be but little feared nor heart-duty regarded Secret sin against Princes States and all degrees would be boldly committed and go unpunished for the most part The sins of Princes and of all that have power to defeat the Law would have little or no restraint Every mans interest would oblige him rather to offend God who so seldom punisheth here than to offend a Prince or any man in power who seldom lets offences against himself go unrevenged And so man more than God would be the Ruler of the world that is our God Nay actually the hopes and fears of another life among most Heaâ—hens Infidels and Hereticks is the principle of Divine Government by which God keepeth up most of the order and virtue which is in the world Yea think what you should be and do your self as to enemies and as to secret faults and as to sensual vices if you thought there were no life but this And is it possible that the infinitely powerful wise and good Creatour can be put to govern all mankind by meer deceit and a course of lyes as if he wanted better means By how much the better any man is by so much the more regardful is he of the life to come and the hopes and fears of another life are so much the more prevalent with him And is it possible that God should make men good to make them the most deceived and most miserable Hath he commanded all these cares to be our needless torments which brutes and fools and sottish sinners do all scape Is the greatest obedience to God become a sign of the greatest folly or the way to the greatest loss or disappointment We are all sure that this life is short and vain No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us And if this be so reason commandeth us to prefer the pâ—ssibilities of such a life to come before the certain vanities of this life So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer that the preferring of the world to come is our duty And if it be our duty then the thing in it self is true For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature to seek an Vtopia and pursue a shadow and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness than of their sin and of their seeking Heaven than of wallowing in their lusts Nay then these hâ—avenly desires would be themselves our sins as being the following of a lye the aspiring after a state which is above us and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue as being natural to us and a seeking of our most real felicity The common conscience of mankind doth justifie the wisdom and virtue of a temperate holy heavenly person and acknowledgeth that our heavenly desires are of God And doth God give men both natural faculties which shall never come to the perfection which is their End and also gracious desires which shall but deceive us and never be satisfied If God had made us for the enjoyments of brutes he would have given us but the knowledge and desires of brutes Every King and mortal Judge can punish faults against Man with death And hath God no greater or further punishment for sins as committed against himself And are his rewards no greater than a mans These and many more such Evidences may assure you that there is another life of Rewards and punishments and that this life is not our final state but only a â—ime of preparation thereunto Settle this deeply and fixedly in your minds 8. And look up to the heavenly Regions and think Is this world so replenished with inhabitants both Sea and Land and Air it self And can I dream that the vast and glorious Orbs and Regions are all uninhabited Oâ— that they have not more numerous and glorious possessors than this small opacous spot of earth And then think that those higher creatures are intellectual spirits This is
these things and to expound all these Solemnities Laws and Ceremonies to them so that the frame of Church and State and Families was a preservative hereof 5. But to pass by all the rest in the Old Testament the Incarnation of Christ was such a work of Omnipotent Love as caâ—not by us be comprehended That God should be united to humanity in person that humanity should thus be advanced into union with the Deity and Man be set above the Angels that a Virgin should conceive that men from the East should be led thither to worship an Infant by the conduct of a Star which Caesarius thinketh was one of those Angels or Spirits which are called a flame of fire Psal 104.4 That Angels from Heaven should declare his nativity to the Shepherds and celebrate it with their praises that John Baptist should be so called to be his forerunner and Elizabeth Zachary Simeon and Anna should so prophesie of him That the Spirit should be seen descending on him at his Baptism and the voice be heard from Heaven which owned him that he should fast forty daies and nights and that he should be transfigured before his three Disciples on the Mount and Moses and Elias seen with him in that glory and the voice from Heaven again bear witness to him These and many such like were the attestations of Divine Omnipotency to the truth of Christ 6. To these may be next joyned the whole course of miracles performed by Christ in healing the sick and raising the dead and in many other miraculous acts which are most of the substance of the Gospel-history and which I have recited together in my Reasons of the Christian Religion see Heb. 2.2 3 4. 7. And to these may be added the Power which was given over all the creatures to Christ our Mediatour All power in Heaven and Earth was given him Joh. 17.2 13.3 Mat. 28.19 Rom. 14.9 Ephes 1.22 23. He was made Head over all things to the Church and all principalities and powers were put under him And this was not barely asserted by him but demonstrated He shewed his power over the Devils in casting them out and his power over Angels by their attendance and his power of life and death by raising the dead and his power over all diseases by healing them and his power over the winds and waters by appeasing them and his power over our food and natures by turning water into wine and by feeding many thousands miraculously yea and his power over them into whose hands he was resolved to yield himself by restraining them till his hour was come and by making them all fall to the ground at his name and his power over Sun and Heaven and Earth by the darkening of the Sun and the trembling of the Earth and the rending of the Rocks and of the Vail of the Temple Mat. 27.45 51. And his power over the dead by the rising of the bodies of many Mat. 27.52 And his power over the Saints in Heaven by the attendance of Moses and Elias and his power to forgive sins by taking away the penal maladies and his power to change hearts and save souls by causing his Disciples to leave all and follow him at a word and Zacheus to receive him and believe and the thief on the cross to be converted and to enter that day into Paradise 8. And his own Resurrection is an undoubted attestation of Divine Omnipotency If God gave him such a victory over death and raised him to life when men had killed him and rolled a stone upon his Sepulchre and sealed and guarded it there needeth no further evidence of the Power of God impressing and attesting the Christian Religion than that which ascertaineth to us the truth of Christs Resurrection For he was declared to be the Son of God by POWER by resurrection from the dead Rom. 1.4 9. And his bodily appearance to his congregated Disciples when the doors were shut his miracle at their fishing his walking on the Sea his vanishing out of their sight Luke 24. when he had discoursed with the two Disciples his opening their hearts to understand his Word c. do all shew this part of Gods Image on our Religion even his Power 10. And so doth his bodily ascending into Heaven before the face of his Disciples Acts 1. 11. But especially the sending down the Holy Ghost upon his Disciples according as he promised To cause them that were before so low in knowledge to be suddenly inspired with languages and with the full understanding of his own will and with unanimity and concord herein this made his Disciples the living monuments and effects of his own Omnipotency Acts 2. 12. And accordingly all the miracles which they did by this power recorded partly in the Acts of the Apostles or rather the Acts of Paul by Luke who was his companion which you may there read and no doubt but other Apostles in their measures did the like as Paul though they are not recorded for they had all the same Promise and Spirit This is another impression of POWER 13. Whereto must be added the great and wonderful gifts of communicating the same Spirit or doing that upon which God would give it to those converted Believers on whom they laid their hands which Simon Magus would fain have bought with money Acts 8. To enable them to speak with tongues to heal diseases to prophesie c. as they themselves had done which is a great attestation of Omnipotency 14. And the lamentable destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans foretold by Christ was an attestation of Gods POWER in the revenge or punishment of their unbelief and putting Christ to death 15. And so was the great fortitude and constancy of Believers who underwent all persecutions so joyfully as they did for the sake of Christ which was the effect of the corroborating Power of the Almighty 16. And so was the Power which the Apostles had to execute present judgements upon the enemies of the Gospel as Elimas and Simon Magus and on the abusers of Religion as Ananias and Saphyra and on many whom they excommunicated and delivered up to Satan 17. The same evidence is found in Christs Legislation as an universal Soveraign making Laws for heart and life for all the world Taking down the Laws of the Jewish Polity and Ceremonies which God by Moses had for a time set up Commanding his Ministers to proclaim his Laws to all the world and Princes and people to obey them And by these Laws conferring on Believers no less than forgiveness and salvation and binding over the impenitent to everlasting punishment 18. But the great and continued impress of Gods Power is that which together with his Wisdom and Love is made and shewed in the conveâ—sion of mens souls to God by Christ You may here first consider the numbers which were suddenly converted by the preaching of the Apostles at the first And in how little time there were Churches planted
though we must not with Fanatical persons put first our own interpretation upon Gods works and then expound his Word by them but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word and expound his Providences by his Precepts and his Promises and Threats Direct 7. Mark well Gods inward works of Government upon the soul and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us And as he is himself a Spirit so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse in the work of his moral Government in the world 1. There you shall find a Law of duty or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God 2. There you shall find an inward mover striving with you to draw you to perform this duty 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy labouring to draw you away from this duty and to make a godly life seem grievous to you and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth 4. There you shall find an inward conviction that God is your Judge and that he will call you to account for your wilful violations of the Laws of Christ 5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you according as you do good or evil 6. And there you may find the sorest Judgements of God inflicted which any short of Hell endure You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken with troubles and affrightments and some of the feeling of his displeasure And where that is long despised and men sin on still he useth to with hold his gracious motions and leave the sinner dull and senseless so that he can sin with sinful remorse having no heart or life to any thing that is spiritually good And if yet the sinner think not of his condition to repent he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most bruitish lust and to glory impudently in his shame and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ who would recover him till he hath filled up the measure of his sin and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost Ephes 4.18 19. 1 Thes 2.15 16. being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Titus 1.15 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit which Gods own servants find in themselves after some sins or neglects of grace 7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty by many tastes of Gods acceptance and many comforts of his Spirit and by his owning the soul and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit and peace of conscience and entertainment in prayer and all approaches of the soul to God and sweeter forecasts of life eternal In a word if we did but note Gods dreadful Judgements on the souls of the ungodly in this age as well as we have noted our plagues and flames and if Gods servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments and that in particulars as suited to their particular sins and duties you will see that Christ is King indeed and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel kept up in the consciences or souls of men though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day Direct 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects and let them not come too near your hearts Three things I here perswade you carefully to avoid 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world that they grow not too sweet to you nor too great in your esteem 2. That you gratifie not sense it self too much and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts You may ask perhaps what is all this to our faith why the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen And if you live upon the things that are seen and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence and fill your fancies with things of another nature how can you be acquainted with the life of faith Can a bird flye that hath a stone tyed to her foot Can you have a mind full of lust and of God at once Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities be fit to rellish the things that are spiritual And can it be a lover of earth and fleshly pleasures and also a Believer and lover of Heaven Direct 9. Vse your selves much to think and speak of Heaven and the invisible things of Faith Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts and to actuate and preserve them And the often thoughts of Heaven will make the mind familiar there And familiarity will assist and encourage faith For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to As he that converseth much with a learned wise or godly man will easilier believe that he is learned wise or godly than he that is a stranger to him and only now and then seeth him afar off So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of For doubting is the effect of ignorance And he that knoweth most here believeth best Falshood and evil cannot bear the light but the more you think of them and know them the more they are detected and ashamed But truth and goodness love the light and the better you are acquainted with them the more will your belief and love be increased Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of wilful sin For that will many waies hinder your belief 1. It will breed fear and horrour in your minds and make you wish that it were not true that there is a day of Judgement and a Hell for the ungodly and such a God such a Christ and such a life to come as the Gospel doth describe And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say And you will the more easily make your selves believe that the Gospel is not true by how much the more you desire that it should not be true 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe both by your wilfull sin and by your unwillingness to believe For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them who wilfully despise him and abuse it Or that he should make men believe who had rather not believe Indeed he may possibly do both these but these are not the way nor is it a thing which we can expect
cast in the light of Faith extraordinarily which is indeed the life of Faith Nor is it seeming to stir up Faith in a Prayer or Sermon and looking no more after it all the day This is but to give God a salutation and not to dwell and walk with him And to give Heaven a complemental visit sometimes but not to have your conversation there 2 Cor. 5.7 8. Direct 3. Be not too seldom in solitary meditation Though it be a duty which melancholy persons are disabled to perform in any set and long and orderly manner yet it is so needful to those who are able that the greatest works of Faith are to be managed by it How should things unseen be apprehended so as to affect our hearts without any serious exercise of our thoughts How should we search into mysteries of the Gospel or converse with God or walk in Heaven or fetch either joyes or motives thence without any retired studious contemplation If you cannot meditate or think you cannot believe Meditation abstracteth the mind from vanity and lifteth it up above the world and setteth it about the work of Faith which by a mindless thoughtless or worldly soul can never be performed 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. Phil. 3.20 Mat. 6.21 Col. 3.1 3. Direct 4. Let the Image of the Life of Christ and his Martyrs and holiest servants be deeply printed on your minds That you may know what the way is which you have to go and what patterns they be which you have to imitate think how much they were above things sensitive and how light they set by all the pleasures wealth and glory of this world Therefore the Holy Ghost doth set before us that cloud of witnesses and catalogue of Martyrs in Heb. 11. that example may help us and we may see with how good company we go in the life of Faith Paul had well studied the example of Christ when he took pleasure in infirmities and gloryed only in the Cross to be base and afflicted in this world for the hopes of endless glory 2 Cor. 11.30 12.5 9 10. And when he could say I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.8 9 10. No man will well militate in the life of Faith but he that followeth the Captain of his salvation Heb. 2.10 who for the bringing of many Sons to glory even those whom he is not ashamed to call his Brethren was made perfect as to perfection of action or performance by suffering thereby to shew us how little the best of these visible and sensible corporeal things are to be valued in comparison of the things invisible and therefore as the General and the souldiers make up one army and militate in one militia so he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one Heb. 2.10 11 12. Though that which is called the life of Faith in us deserved a higher title in Christ and his faith in his Father and ours do much differ and he had not many of the objects acts and uses of Faith as we have who are sinners yet in this we must follow him as our great example in valuing things invisible and vilifying things visible in comparison of them And therefore Paul saith I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 Direct 5. Remember therefore that God and Heaven the unseen things are the final object of true Faith and that the final object is the noblest and that the principal use of Faith is to carry up the whole heart and life from things visible and temporal to things invisible and eternal and not only to comfort us in the assurance of our own forgiveness and salvation It is an exceeding common and dangerous deceit to overlook both this principal object and principal use of the Christian Faith 1. Many think of no other object of it but the death and righteousness of Christ and the pardon of sin and the promise of that pardon And God and Heaven they look at as the objects of some other common kind of Faith 2. And they think of little other use of it than to comfort them against the guilt of sin with the assurance of their Justification But the great and principal work of Faith is that which is about its final object to carry up the soul to God and Heaven where the world and things sensible are the terminus à quo and God and things invisible the terminus ad quem And thus it is put in contradistinction to living by fight in 2 Cor. 5.6 7. And thus mortification is made one part of this great effect in Rom. 6. throughout and many other places and thus it is that Heb. 11. doth set before us those numerous examples of a life of Faith as it was expressed in valuing things unseen upon the belief of the Word of God and the vilifying of things seen which stand against them And thus Christ tryed the Rich man Luke 18.22 whether he would be his Disciple by calling him to sell all and give to the poâ—r for the hopes of a treasure in Heaven And thus Christ maketh bearing the Cross and denying our selves and forsaking all for him to be necessary in all that are his Disciples And thus Paul describeth the life of Faith 2 Cor. 4.17 18. by the contempt of the world and suffering afflictions for the hopes of Heaven For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Our Faith is our victory over the world even in the very nature of it and not only in the remote effect for its aspect and believing approaches to God and the things unseen and a proportionable recess from the things which are seen is one and the same motion of the soul denominated variously from its various respects to the terminus ad quem and à quo Direct 6. Remember that as God to be believed in is the principal and final object of Faith so the kindling of love to God in the soul is the principal use and effect of Faith And to live by Faith is but to love obey and suffer by Faith Faith working by Love is the description of our Christianity Gal. 5.6 As Christ is the Way to the Father Joh. 14.6 and came into the world to recover Apostate
your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you v. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near Rev. 22.17 Let him that is athirst come and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely 7. Promises of Gods giving us all that we pray for according to his promises and will Mat. 7.7 8 11. Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you for every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Matth. 6.6 Pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly John 14.13 14. 15.16 16.23 John 15.7 If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you 1 John 5.14 15. And this is the confidence which we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us And if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions which we desired of him 1 John 3.22 And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight Prov. 15.8 29. The prayer of the upright is his delight He heareth the prayer of the righteous 1 Pet. 3.12 The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers 8. That God will accept weak prayers and groans which want expressions if they be sincere Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities The Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit Gal. 4.6 Crying Abba Father Psal 77.3 I remembred God and was troubled and my spirit was overwhelmed Psal 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Luke 18.14 God be merciful to me a sinner 9. Promises of all things in general which we want and which are truly for our good Psal 84.11 For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield the Lord will give grace and glory no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly Psal 34.9 10. O fear the Lord ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Rom. 8 28 32 All things work together for good to them that love God He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Matth. 6.33 Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you 2 Pet. 1.3 According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness 1 Tim. 4.8 But godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 10 Promises of a blâ—ssing on them that sincerely hear and read Gods Word and use his Sacraments and other means Isa 55.3 Encline your ear and come unto me hear and your souls shall live Read the Eunuchs conversion in Acts 8. who was reading the Scripture in his Chariot 1 Pet. 2.1 Laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisie and envies and evil speakings as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby Rev. 1.3 Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things that are written therein Psal 1.1 2. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly But his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night Matth. 7.24 25. Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock c. Luke 8.21 Rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God and do it Luke 10.42 Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her Mark 4.23 24. If any man have ears to hear let him hear And unto you that hear shall more be given Acts 11.14 Who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy houshold shall be saved 1 Tim. 4.16 Take heed to thy self and unto the doctrine and continue therein for in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee Psal 89.15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound they shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance in thy Name shall they rejoyce all the day Heb. 4.12 The Word of God is quick and powerful c. 1 Cor. 10.16 The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ Matth. 18.20 For where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Isa 4.5 And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her Assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence 11. Promises to the humble meek and lowly Matth. 5.3 4 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Matth. 11.28 29. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Take my yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoak is easie and my burden is light Psal 34.18 The Lord is nigh to them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Isa 57.15 For thus faith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is holy I dwell in height and holiness or in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Isa 66.2 To this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering
saved 24. Promises to believers in sickness and at death 1 Cor. 11.32 But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world Heb. 12.6 7 8 11. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth If ye endure chastening God dealeth with you as with Sons Shall we not be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live But he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby James 5.14 Is any sick let them send for the Elders of the Church The prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him John 11.3 He whom thou lovest is sick Psal 41.1 2 3. Blessed is the man that considereth the poor the Lord shall deliver him in time of trouble The Lord shall preserve him and keep him alive The Lord will strengthen him upon the bâ—d of languishing Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness 2 Cor. 5.1 c. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in us tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life Now he that hath wrought this for the self same thing is God who also hath given to us the earnest of the Spirit Therefore we are alwaies confident knowing that whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Phil. 1.20 21 23 Now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Luke 23.43 To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Rev. 14.13 I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me write Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Heb. 2.14 Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Psal 68.20 He that is our God is the God of salvation and to God the Lord belong the issues from death 2 Tim. 1.10 Who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel 1 Cor. 15.54 O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 25. Promises to persevering Believers of the Resurrection unto life and of Justification in Judgement and of Glorification 1 Cor. 15. throughout John 5.22 24 28 29. He that heareth my Word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation John 14.19 Because I live ye shall live also Col. 3.1 3 4. If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory 2 Thes 1.10 He shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe Matth. 25 34 46. Come ye blessed c. The righteous into life eternal John 12.26 If any man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my servant be If my man serve me him will my Father honour John 14.1 2 3. Let not your heart be troubled In my Fathers house are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am there ye may be also John· 17.24 Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me John 2.17 GO TO MY BRETHREN and SAY VNTO THEM I ASCEND TO MY FATHER and YOVR FATHER TO MY GOD and TO YOVR GOD. 1 Cor. 6.2 3. Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world Know ye not that we shall judge Angels Acts 3.19 Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ Luke 14.14 Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just Let the Reader here take notice of that most important observation of Dr. Hammond that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Resurrection doth often signifie in general our living in the next world or our next state of life in the Scriptures and not the last Resurrection only unless it be called The Resurrection of the flesh or of the body for distinction or the context have before explained it otherwise By which 1 Cor. 15. and Christs answer to the Sadducees may be the better understood 26. Promises to the godly for their children supposing them to be faithful in dedicating them to God and educating them in his holy waies Exod. 20. Commandment 2d Shewing mercy to thousands in them that love me and keep my Commandments Acts 2.39 For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all that are afar off c. Psal 37.26 His seed is blessed 1 Cor. 7.14 Else were your children unclean but now are they holy Matth. 23.37 O Jerusalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth hee chickens under her wings and ye would not Rom. 11.11 Through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles 16 17 18 c. shew that they were broken off by unbelief and we are graffed in and are holy as they were Matth.
28.19 20. Go and Disciple all Nations baptizing them c. Rom. 4.16 That the promise might be sure to all the seed And 9.8 The children of the Promise are counted for the seed Matth. 19.13 14. Jesus said suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven 27. Promises to the Church of its increase and preservation and perfection Rev. 11.15 The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Luke 1.33 He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end Matth. 13.31 33. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed which a man took and sowed in his field which is indeed the least of all seeds but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air lodge in the branches of it The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was levened John 12.32 And I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me Dan. 2.44 In the daies of these Kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms and it shall stand for ever Matth. 16.18 Upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Ephes 4.12 16. For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that henceforth we may 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 who is the head Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the edifying of it self in Love Ephes 5.25 26 27. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Read Rev. 21 22. Matth. 28.20 Lo I am with you to the end of the world Matth. 24.14 And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all Nations and then shall the end come Matth. 21.44 Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder The obscure Prophetick passages I pass by So much for living by Faith on the Promises of God CHAP. VI. How Faith must be exercised on Gods Threatnings and Judgments THE exercise of Faith upon Gods Threatnings and Judgments must be guided by such rules and helps as these Direct 1. Think not either that Christ hath no Threatning penal Laws or that there are none which are made for the use of Believers If there were no penalties or penal Laws there were no distinguishing Government of the world This Antinomian fancy destroyeth Religion And if there be threats or penal Laws none can be expected to make so much use of them as true Believers 1. Because he that most believeth them must needs be most affected with them 2. Because all things are for them and for their benefit and it is they that must be moved by them to the fear of God and an escaping of the punishment And therefore they that object that Believers are passed already from death to life and there is no condemnation to them and they are already justified and therefore have no use of threats or fears do contradâ—ct themselves For it wâ—ll rather follow Therefore they and they only do and will faithfully use the threatnings in godly fears For 1. Though they are justified and passed from death to life they have ever faith in order of nature before their Justification and he that believeth not Gods threatnings with fear hath no true Faith And 2. They have ever inherent Righteousness or Sanctification with their Justification And this Faith is part of that holiness and of the life of grace which they are passed into For this is life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ John 17.3 And he knoweth not God who knoweth him not to be true And this is part of our knowledge of Christ also to know him as the infallible Author of our Faith that is of the Gospel which saith not only He that believeth and is baptiz'd shall be saved but also He that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 And this is the record which God gave of his Son which he that believeth not maketh him a lyar that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5.12 Yea as he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life so he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.36 And therefore 3. The reason why there is no condemnation to us is because believing not part only but all this Word of Christ we fly from sin and wrath and are in Christ Jesus as giving up our selves to him and walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit being moved so to do both by the promises and threats of God This is plain English and plain and necessary truth the greater is the pitty that many honest well-meaning Antinomians should fight against it on an ignorant conceit of vindicating Free Grace If the plain Word of God were not through partiality over-lookt by them they might see enough to end the controversie in many and full expressions of Scripture I will cite but three more Matth. 10.28 and Luke 12.5 But fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell or when he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him Doth Christ thus iterate that it is he that saith it and saith it to his Disciples and yet shall a Christian say it must not be preached to Disciples as the Word of Christ to them Hâ—b 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 11.7 By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet that is of the deluge
this Trinity also of Relations towards Man 1. Their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their Benefactor The Father also as the first principle of Redemption acquiring a second title besides the first by Creation to all these and towards God Christ continueth the Relation of a heavenly Priest 30. In order to the works of these Relations for the future we must consider of Christs exaltation 1. Of his Justification and Resurrection 2. Of his Ascension and Glorification And 3. Of the delivering of All Power and All Things into his hands 31. The work of Redemption thus fundamentally wrought doth not of it self renew mans nature and therefore putteth no Law of Nature into us of it self as the Creation did And therefore we must next proceed to Christs Administration of this office according to these Relations which is 1. By Legislation or Donation enacting the New Covenant where this last and perfect edition of it is to be explained the Preceptive the Promisory and the Penal parts with its effects and its differences from the former Edition and from the Law of Nature and of Works 32. And 2. By the promulgation or publication of this Covenant or Gospel to the world by calling special Officers for that work and giving them their commission and promising them his Spirit his Protection and their Reward 33. And here we come to the special work of the Holy Ghost who is 1. To be known in his Essence and Person as the third in Trinity and the eternal Love of God 2. And as he is the grand Advocate or Agent of Christ in the world where his works are to be considered 1. Preparatory on and by Christ himself 2. Administratory 1. Extraordinary on the Apostles and their helpers 1. Being in them a spirit of extraordinary Power by gifts and miracles 2. Of extraordinary Wisdom and Infallibility as far as their commission-work required 3. And of extraordinary Love and Holiness 2. By the Apostles 1. Extraordinarily convincing and bringing in the world 2. Settling all Church-Doctrines Officers and Orders which Christ had left unsettled bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had taught and commanded them and guiding them in the rest 3. Recording all this for posterity in the holy Scriptures 2. His Ordinary Agency 1. On Ministers 2. By sanctification on all true Believers is after to be opened 34. And here is to be considered the Nature of Christianity in fieri Faith and Repentance in our three great Relations to our Redeemer as we are his Own his Disciples and Subjects and his Beneficiaries with all the special benefits of these Relations as antecedent to our duty and then all our duty in them as commanded And then the benefits after to be expected as in promise only 35. Next must distinctly be considered the preaching and converting and baptizing part of the ministerial Office 1. As in the Apostles 2. And in their successors to the end with the nature of Baptism and the part of Christ and of the Minister and of the baptized in that Covenant 36. And then the description of the universal Church which the baptized constitute 37. Next is to be described the state of Christians after Baptism 1. Relative 1. In Pardon Reconciliation Justification 2. Adoption 2. Physical in the Spirit of Sanctification 38. Where is to be opened 1. The first sanctifying work of the Spirit 2. It s after-helps and their conditions 3. All the duties of Holiness primitive and medicinal towards God our selves and others 39. Our special duties in secret reading meditation prayer c. 40. Our duties in Family Relations and Callings 41. Our duties in Church Relations where is to be described the nature of particular Churches their work and worship their ministry and their members with the duties of each 42. Our duties in our Civil Relations 43. What temptations are against us as be to be overcome 44. Next is to be considered the state of Christians and Societies in the world How far all these duties are performed and what are their weaknesses and sins 45. And what are the punishments which God useth in this life 46. And what Christians must do for pardon and reparation after falls and to be delivered from those punishments 47. Of Death and the change which it maketh and of our special preparation for it 48. Of the coming of Christ and the Judgement of the great day 49. Of the punishment of the wicked impenitent in Hell 50. And of the blessedness of the Saints in Heaven and the everlasting Kingdom These are the Heads and this is the Method of true Divinity and the order in which it should lye in the understanding of him that will be compleat in knowledge II. And as this is the Intellectual Order of knowledge so the order which all things must lye in at our hearts and wills is much more necessary to be observed 1. That nothing but GOD be loved as the infinite simple good totally with all the heart and finally for himself And that nothing at all be loved with any Love which is not purely subordinate to the Love of God or which causeth us to love him ever the less 2. That the blessed person of our Mediatour as in the Humane Nature glorified be loved above all creatures next to God Because there is most of the Divines Perfections appearing in him 3. That the heavenly Church or Society of Angels and Saints be loved next to Jesus Christ as being next in excellence 4. That the Vniversal Church on earth be loved next to the perfect Church in Heaven 5. That particular Churches and Kingdoms be next loved and where ever there is more of Gods Interest and Image than in our selves that our Love be more there than on our selves 6. That we next love our selves with that peculiar kind of love which God hath made necessary to our duty and our happiness and end with a self-preserving watchful diligent love preferring our souls before our bodies and spiritual mercies before temporal and greater before less 7. That we love our Christian Relations with that double Love which is due to them as Christians and Relations and love all Relations according to their places with that kind of Love which is proper for them as fitting us to all the duties which we must perform to them 8. That we love all good Christians as the sanctified members of Christ with a special Love according to the measure of Gods Image appearing on them 9. That we love every visible Christian that we cannot prove hath unchristened himself by apostacy or ungodliness with the special Love also belonging to true Christians because he appeareth such to us But yet according to the measure of that appearance as being more confident of some and more doubtful of others 10. That we love our intimate suitable friends that are godly with a double Love as godly and as friends 11. That we love Neighbours and civil Relations with a Love which is suitable to
be but to do as the Papists when we have sinned by fallibility to keep off repentance by the conceit of infallibility 9. We are in great danger of sinning in cases where we are ignorant For who can avoid the danger which he seeth not And who can walk safely in the dark Therefore we see that it is the ignor anter sort of Christians and such as Paul calleth Novices that most erre especially when Pride accompanyeth Ignorance for then they fall into the special condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3.6 Study therefore painfully and patiently till you understand the truth 10. But above all we are in danger of those sins which are masked with a pretence of the greatest truths and duties and use to be fathered on God and Scripture and so under the specious titles of Holiness and of Free Grace For here it is the understanding chiefly that resisteth while the very names and pretences secretly steal in and bring them into love and reverence with the Will And the poor honest Christian is afraid of resisting them lest it should prove a resisting God What can be so false that a man will not plead for if he take it to be a necessary truth of God And what can be so bad that a man will not do if he take it once to be of Gods commanding The foresaid instances of the Munster and Germane actions with those of the followers of David George in Holland who took himself to be the Holy Ghost or the immediate Prophet of his Kingdom and Hacket and his Grundletonians and the Familists the Ranters the Seekers the Quakers the Church-dividers and the Kingdom and State-overturners in England have given so great a demonstration of this that it is not lawful to overlook it or forget it The time cometh that they that kill you shall think that they do God service Joh. 16.2 And then who can expect that their consciences should avoid it Why did Paul persecute the Christians and compel them to blaspheme Because he verily thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus Acts 26.9 O it is religious sins which we are in danger of such as come to us as in the Name of God and Christ and the Spirit such as pretend that we cannot be saved without them and such as plead the holy Scriptures such as James 3. is written against when a wisdom from beneath which is earthly sensual and devilish working by envy and strife unto confusion and every evil work pretendeth to be the wisdom from above when Zeal consumeth Love and Vnity under pretence of consuming sin which made Paul and John require us not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they be of God 2 Thes 2.2 1 Thes 5.20 21. 1 Joh. 4.1 2 3. And made Paul say If an Angel from Heaven bring you another Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.7 8. And more plainly 2 Cor. 11.13 14. Such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as the Ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works And Acts 20.30 Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them And what need any Disciple of Christ greater warning than to remember that their Saviour himself was thus assaulted by the Devil in his temptation with It is written Yet let no Papist hence take occasion to vilifie the Scripture because it is made a plea for sin For so he might as well vilifie humane Reason which is pleaded for all the errours in the world and vilifie the Law because Lawyers plead it for ill Causes yea and vilifie God himself because the same and other sinners plead his will and authority for their sins when contrarily it is a great proof of the Scripture Authority and Honour that Satan himself and his subtilest instruments do place their greatest hope of prevailing by perverting and misapplying it which could be of no use to them if its authority were not acknowledged 11. We are in constant danger of those sins which we think we can conceal from men Therefore suppose still that all that you do will be made known and do all as in the open streets It 's written by two in the life of holy Ephrem Syrus that when a Harlot tempted him to uncleanness he desired but that he might chuse the place which she consenting to he chose the open market-place among all the people and when she told him that there they should be shamed for all would see he told her such a lesson of sinning in the sight of God who is every where as was the means of her conversion Conceit of secrecy emboldeneth to sin 12. We are in constant danger of sins of sudden passion and irruption which allow us not season to deliberate and surprize us before our reason can consider 13. We are in danger of sins that come on by insensible degrees and from small beginnings creep upon us and come not by any sudden wakening assaults Thus pride and covetousness and ambition do infect men And thus our zeal and deligence for God doth usually decay 14. Lastly We are in much danger of all sins which require a constant vigorous diligence to resist them and of omitting those duties or that part or mode of duty which must have a constant vigorous diligence to perform it Because feeble souls are hardly kept as is aforesaid to constant vigorous diligence Quest 2. Wherein differeth the sins of a sanctified person from other mens that are unsanctified Answ 1. In a sanctified man the habitual bent of his will is ever more against sin than for it however he be tempted into that particular act 2. And as to the Act also it is ever contrary to the scope and tenour of his life which is for God and sincere obedience 3. He hath no sin which is inconsistent with the true Love of God in the predominant habit It never turneth his heart to another End or Happiness or Master 4. Therefore it is more a sin of passion than of settled interest and choice He is more liable to a hasty passion or word or unruly thoughts than to any prevalent covetousness or ambition or any sin which is a possessing of the heart instead of God 1 John 2.15 James 3.2 Though some remainders of these are in him they prevail not so far as sudden passions 5. There are some sins which are more easily in the power of the will so that a man that is but truly willing may forbear them as a drunkard may pass by the Tavern or Ale-house or forbear to touch the cup and the fornicator to come neer or commit the sin if they be truly willing But there be other sins which a man can hardly forbear though he be willing because
are duties which are also mans felicity And the exercise of these in Praises and Thanksgiving are the proper pleasure of the soul Give up thy self wholly to study the Goodness and Love of God in Jesus Christ till thou feel thy heart enflamed with his Love and spend half thy godly conference in Gods praises and half thy daily prayers in that and in thanksgiving and this will comfort thee not only by the reasoning way of evidence but as a feast pleaseth thy taste and as the fire warmeth thee or as the loving of thy friend delighteth thee or as health it self is the pleasure of thy flesh As the sins themselves of not knowing God not loving him nor delighting in him are the greatest part of the penalty or rather misery of the sinner which hath its peculiar way of remission so the knowledge and love and praise of God and delighting in him is instead of a reward unto it self and a beginning of Heaven to the heavenly Believer Direct 15. Dwell much in Heaven if you would dwell in comfort Comfort your selves and one another with these words that we shall for ever be with the Lord. Heaven is the place or state of our everlasting comfort and all that we have here must come from thence And Faith and Hope and Love must fetch it He that will have carnâ—l joy must go for it to pastime or lusts and pleasure to an Ale-house or a Whore or to a Gameing-house or a Play-house or to his wealâ—h and worldly honours But he that will have heavenly joy must go for it by Faith to Heaven and dwell there every day by Faith where he hopes to dwell for ever Heaven will nor comfort either them that believe it not or them that remember it not but them whose conversation and hearts are there Phil. 3.20 21. Direct 16. Set your selves wholly to do good Resolve that you will be faithful to Christ and do all the good that you can in the world and let him do with you what he will And in this way you shall quickly find that the soundest consolation will come in to your souls before you could expect it Though no works of our own can add any thing to God nor must be trusted to at all in a legal sense and though blind Libertines tell you that all comfort is legal and unsound which came by the thoughts of any thing in your selves or any of your own doings yet God is no such enemy to godliness but he that will hereafter judge you to Heaven or Hell according to your works will now judge you to joy or sorrow of heart usually according to your works Well doing shall afford you peace and ill doing shall disquiet you when all â—s said Direct 17. Lastly Be sure while you want the comforts of assurance to hold fast those comforts which rationally belong to common grace and to them that have the Gospel offers of salvation When the Gospel came to Samaria Acts 8. there was great joy in that City It is glad tidings in it self for guilty souls to have Christ and pardon freely offered to them Can you not say I am sure that I am regenerate justified and adopted For all that if you be not Infidels you can say I am sure that Christ and Pardon and Heaven are freely offered me and Ministers are commissioned to intreat me to accept it and nothing but my wilful and final refusal can deprive me of it and shut me out This is certain take but so much comfort as this much should rationally inferr To which I might add the comforts of your probability when you are in some degree of hope that your faith and repentance are sincere though you are not certain But this I have more largely spoken of and the rest which is needful to be spoken on this subject in the fore-named Treatise long ago The ordinary and long troubles and unsettledness of honest Christians are caused most 1. By unskilful Guides who are most confident where they are most ignorant and revile those Truths and Methods which God hath appointed for the settling of mens peace 2. And by their own lazy and unskilful course who take up most with examining and complaining instead of learning more understanding in Gods Methods and diligent â—â—â—nding what is amiss that the cause of their trouble might be taken away CHAP. XXI How to live by Faith in the Publick Worshipping of God I May not be so tedious nor do that which is done elsewhere as to direct you in the several parts of Worship distinctly but shall only give you some brief Directions about Publick Worship in the general Direct 1. Come not before God with Pharisaical conceits of the worthiness of your selves or Worship as if you offered him something which did oblige him But come as humble receivers that need him and his grace who needeth not you and as learners that hope to be wiser and better by drawing neer to God You know Christs instance of the prayers of the Pharisee and the Publican And remember that many a ones heart saith I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men or as this Publican whose tongue can spend an hour or more in sad confessions yea and that it is those very copious confessions of their badness that puff them up as if they were so good Yea many a one that in opinion is most vehement against all our works in our Justification or looking at any thing in our selves at all to make us acceptable with God as being against free grace in Christ do yet look so much at that which is or is conceited to be in themselves that feâ— Churches on earth are thought worthy of tâ—â—â—r communion Note also that it is sacrificing which is commonly the Hypocrites Worship in the Old Testament and hearing and obeying which he neglecteth and God calls him to As you may see at large in Isa 1. throughout and many other places Psal 40.6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst noâ— require Mine ears hast thou opened c. So Psal 50.8 9 c. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices and burnt offerings to have been continually before me I will take no bullock out of thy house For every beast of the Forest is mine c. If I were hungry I would not tell thee for â—he world is mine and the fulness thereof Offer to God thanksgiving and pay thy vows to the most High And call upon me in the day of trouble But to the wicked saith God What hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee 1 Sam. 15.22 23. Hath the Lord delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of Rams Psal 4.3 4 5. Know that the Lord hath chosen the man that is godly for himself
made universally to mankind in Adam Those after the flood were under the same Covenant renewed universally to mankind in Noah The Israelites were under the same Covenant renewed to them specially in Abraham with special additions and after under that Covenant seconded with the Law which was given to Moses And all Christians after Christs Resurrection are under the perfected Covenant of Grace and have the same word of salvation for their rule even the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth Rom. 1.16 5. They had but the same Promises in this Covenant to believe and to assure them of the salvation which they now possess They had no other charter from God to shew nor any but this universal act of oblivion to trust to for the pardon of all their sins which we have to trust to for the pardon of ours John 3.16.18 Mark 16.16 The promise which was made to the Jews and to their children was made also to them that are afar off and to as many as the Lord shall call Acts 2.39 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith Rom. 4.13 And therefore it was of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed not only to that which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all v. 16. That it might appear that God justified not Abraham for any peculiar carnal priviledge but as a Believer which is a reason common to him with all Believers To whom also their faith shall be imputed for righteousness v. 24. Godliness still is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Yea what difference there is in both these forementioned respects it is to our advantage we have the most perfected Rule and the fullest Promises and we have many Promises fulfilled to us which were not fulfilled to them in their daies Heb. 11. last And we are nearer the final accomplishment of all the promises 6. They had the same Motives to faith and patience and godliness as we have They could have no greater happiness offered them nor any greater punishment threatned to drive them from sin by fear They could have no higher ends than ours nor any nobler reasons to be religious The same reasons and ends did bring them through all temptations and difficulties to everlasting life which we have also to satisfie us and to carry us on 2 Tim. 4.8 7. The same spirit did illuminate sanctifie and quicken them which is illuminating sanctifying and quickening us All the most excellent and heavenly endowments and workings of their souls were wrought by the same operator who is still at work in all the Saints Rom. 8.9 There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.4 We have the same Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 All that are Sons have the same Spirit of the Son even the Spirit of Adoption Gal. 4.6 Rom. 8.16.26 which is the Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 We have the same Almighty Power within us to destroy our sins to raise up our sluggish hearts to God to keep us in his Love to overcome the flesh which did all these excellent works in them We are sealed with the same seal and are known by the same mark 1 John 3.24 and are actuated by the same heavenly principle as they were 8. We are members of the same universal Church which is the body of Christ For there is but one body whatever diversity of the members there be Ephes 4.4 5 6 7 12. 1 Cor. 12. We are members of the same City and Family of God Ephes 2.19 We are in the same Ship which conveyed them to the Haven We are Disciples in the same School where they learnt the way to life eternal We are workmen in the same Vineyard where they procured their reward 9. They had the same work to do as we have the same God to love and serve the same Christ to believe in the same Spirit to obey the same things to believe in the main the same things to desire and pray for the same things to love and the same to hate the same things in the main which are sin to us were sin to them and the same life of holiness temperance and righteousness which is commanded us was commanded them They had the same temptations to resist and the same fleshly mind to overcome and the same senses and appetites and passions to rule the same enemies to overcome and the same or greater sufferings to bear as is said before 10. They had but the same means and helps as we have except some Prophets and Apostles and extraordinary persons in one age And what they received of the Lord they have delivered unto us 1 Cor. 11.23 We have the same Gospel to to teach us the same Sacraments to initiate and confirm us the same Pastors and Teachers for office to instruct us Ephes 4.12 13 14 16. Matth. 28.20 Fasting and Prayer and Thanksgiving and Church-communion and mutual Exhortation which are our helps and means were theirs 11. The same method of Providence which carryed them on is still on foot for all the Saints Psal 145.9 18. 86.5 He broke them and bound them up he cast them down and raised them as he doth us now He made them contrite and then did comfort them He led them through as rude a wilderness and they had as many wild beasts to assault them and as many dangers round about them as we have They had seasons of adversity and seasons of prosperity their stormy and their sunshine daies their troubles which quickened their cryes to God and the gracious answer of those cryes and were led to Heaven in the same course of providence as we are 12. And to conclude the same Heaven is prepared for us and offered yea given to us which they possess It is ours in right though our title be not absolutely perfect till we have finally presevered and overcome We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ having his seal and earnest if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified with him Rom. 15.16.17 The Kingdom is prepared for all them that love him Christ prayed for all that the Father had given him and for all that should believe by his Word John 17.2 20 27. even that they may have eternal life and may be with him where he is to see his glory Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 In all this you may see how like their condition in this world was unto ours and that our way is the same which all those have gone that are now past all these snares and dangers
converse and our comfort Will you converse with none but ignorant selfish worldly sinners Are you more contemptuous of the heavenly inhabitants than the Gentleman in hell torments was Luke 16.26 27. that thought one from the dead though it had been but a beggar would have been reverenced even by his sensual brethren on earth so far as to have perswaded them unto saving Repentance I tell you a dead mans skull is oft-times a more profitable companion than most that you shall converse with in the common world The dust of your departed friends and the clay that corps are turned into is a good medicine for those eyes that are blinded with the dust of worldly vanities Much more should you keep your acquaintance with the soul which may for all the distance be perhaps more useful to you than it was in the flesh Alas how carnally and coldly or seldom do most Professors look at their Brethren and at the Angelical hosts that are above They long for our conversion and mind our great concernments and rejoyce in our felicity and shall we be so swinishly ungrateful as seldom to look up and remember their high and blessed state Many think that they have no more business with their deceased friends than to see them decently interred and to mourn over them as if their removal were their loss or to grieve for our own loss when we perceive their places empty but we scarce look up after them with an eye of faith much less do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven When Christ was taken up his Disciples gazed after him Act. 1.10 Stephen looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7.55 And how seldome how slightly do we look up either to Jesus his Angels or his Saints I tell you Sirs you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flesh They have left you their holy examples They are entered before you into rest You are hastening after them and must be quickly with them if you are true Believers You must see them every day by faith When you look to Christ you must look to them as his beloved friends entertained by him in his family of glory When you look up to Heaven remember that they are there When you think of coming thither remember that you must there meet them You must honour their memories more than you did on earth because they are more honourable being more honoured of God You must love them better than you did when they were on earth because they are better and so more lovely You must rejoyce much more for their felicity than you did whilest they were on earth because they are incomparably more happy than they were Either you believe this or you do not If you do not believe that the dead are blessed that die in the Lord and rest from their labours and are with Christ in Paradise why do you seem Christians If you do believe it why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends than you would have done if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world It is the natural duty of friends to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and if one member be honoured or dishonoured the rest of the body are accordingly affected Do not your sorrows then instead of joyes tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to sorrow and not to joy If not you are very selfish or inconsiderate Direct 10. Lastly Let not your aversation to Popery turn to a factiâ—us partial forsaking of Gods Truth and your own duty and consolation in this point Abundance of Christians have taken up opinions in Religion upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of and being possessed with a just dislike of Popery in the main they suspect and cast away not a few great truths and duties upon a false information that they are parts of Popery It hath grieved 〈…〉 â—han once to hear religious persons come from heariâ—g 〈◊〉 Ministers with disdain and censure saying that they prayed for the dead and all their proof was that Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the spirits of the Just therefore they prayed for them And so have they argued because they have read the 1 Cor. 15. at the grave or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpse was present or because they prayed then for themselves or for the Church Alas for the childish ignorance and pievishness and foolish wranglings of many Christians who think they are better than their neighbours How much is Christs family dishonoured by his silly froward children And they will not be instructed by their friends and therefore they are posted up and openly reproached by their enemies Have Angels or heavenly Saints deserved so ill of God or us that we should be so shy of their communion Are they nothing to us Have we nothing to do with them Have we cause to be ashamed of them Is their honour any dishonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due Can we give so much love respect and honour to Magistrates Ministers and Friends on earth imperfect sinful troublesome mortals and shall we think that all is idolatrous or cast away which is given to them that so far excel us Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or strange to men on earth Or would you perswade the world that the souls of the Saints are not immortal but perish as the bruits Or that there is no Heaven Or that God is there alone without any company Are so many fond of the opinion of a Personal Reign on Earth for Christ with his holy ones and yet is it Popery so much as to speak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven My Brethren these things declare you yet to be too dark too factious and too carnal and to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to parties sides and persons Christ taketh not his Saints as strangers to him He that judgeth men as they love and use him in the least of his Brethren upon Earth will not so soon censure and quarrel with us as the Sectary will do for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory John 12.26 17.24 And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints who shall judge the world and Angels and to be admired in all them that do now believe 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. CHAP. XXVII How to receive the Sentence of Death and how to die by Faith HAving said so much of this elsewhere in my Books called A Believers last work The last Enemy My Christian Directory Treatise of Self-denyal c. I shall be here but